Qur’anic Root J R D
Removing a covering and exposing a surface: from bare land to locusts and their dispersal
Qur’anic and lexical forms
جَرَاد / الْجَرَادَ / جَرَادٌ
(jarād / al-jarāda / jarādun)
Generic collective noun; two Qur’anic occurrences
جَرَادَة
(jarādah)
One locust; not Qur’anic
جَرَدَ
(jarada)
Form I verb; stripping a covering; not Qur’anic
جَرْد
(jard)
Verbal noun of stripping; lexical form
جَرِدَ
(jarida)
Becoming hairless or bare; not Qur’anic
جَرَّدَ
(jarrada)
Form II; removing a covering; not Qur’anic
تَجَرَّدَ
(tajarrada)
Becoming bare; lexical form
اِنْجَرَدَ
(injarada)
Becoming bare or worn, according to usage
أَجْرَد / جَرْدَاء
(ajrad / jardāʾ)
Describing a bare surface; not Qur’anic
جَرِيد / جَرِيدَة
(jarīd / jarīdah)
Palm fronds and other usages; not Qur’anic
مَجْرُود
(majrūd)
Something stripped of covering; not Qur’anic
جَارُود
(jārūd)
Lexical form in the stripping field; not Qur’anic
Arabic jarada (جَرَدَ) concerns stripping or removing something from another surface: removing hair from hide, uncovering a body, or losing vegetation covering the ground. Related forms include ajrad (أَجْرَد), something lacking its usual covering; jardāʾ (جَرْدَاء), bare land; and jarīdah (جَرِيدَة), a palm frond in specified usages.
Jarād (جَرَاد) names locusts, insects that under particular conditions can travel in large groups and strip green vegetation through feeding.
Only the noun jarād from this family occurs in the Qur’an. In Al-Aʿrāf 7:133, locusts are among the signs sent upon Pharaoh and his people. In Al-Qamar 54:7, people emerging from graves are compared to scattered locusts.
Both refer to the same animal, but its role differs. In Pharaoh’s story, locusts belong to events confronting people; in the resurrection scene, their visible movement and dispersal provide the comparison.
1. Forms and central meaning
Arabic J R D has numerous derivatives, including jarada (جَرَدَ), jard (جَرْد), jarida (جَرِدَ), jarrada (جَرَّدَ), tajarrada (تَجَرَّدَ), injarada (اِنْجَرَدَ), ajrad, jardāʾ, jarīd (جَرِيد), jarīdah, majrūd (مَجْرُود), jārūd (جَارُود), jarād, and jarādah (جَرَادَة).
The Qur’an uses the noun jarād twice: al-jarāda in Al-Aʿrāf 7:133 and jarādun in Al-Qamar 54:7. Definiteness and grammatical case differ, rather than the meanings of two independent derivatives.
No verb such as jarada or jarrada, or descriptive form such as ajrad or jardāʾ, occurs in the Qur’an.
Quranic Arabic Corpus: two occurrences of one noun
The semantic core
In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris identifies one principle for the family:
«بُدُوُّ ظَاهِرِ الشَّيْءِ حَيْثُ لَا يَسْتُرُهُ سَاتِرٌ»
buduwwu ẓāhiri al-shayʾi ḥaythu lā yasturuhu sātirun
That is: “The surface of something becoming apparent where no covering conceals it.”
This account fits several attested usages.
Removing a body’s covering exposes its surface. Losing vegetation exposes the ground. Removing hair from hide or leaflets from a palm frond leaves the previously covered part visible.
Much of the family therefore concerns two related aspects: removing or losing a covering, and the exposure of what it had concealed.
They do not always appear identically. A verb may describe stripping something, while an adjective describes what lacks a covering, whether originally or subsequently.
This distinction matters for the root’s different forms. Brief root meaning: Removing or lacking a covering and exposing a surface; jarād names locusts.
2. Physical imagery in early Arabic
Removing a covering
Lisān al-ʿArab explains jarada al-shayʾa through stripping or peeling something.
Jarada al-jilda (جَرَدَ الْجِلْدَ), for example, means removing hair from hide.
Something on a surface is removed from it.
Tajarrada min thiyābihi (تَجَرَّدَ مِنْ ثِيَابِهِ) also means taking off one’s clothes and becoming unclothed.
The body does not change its nature; its covering is removed.
One attested meaning of tajarrud is consequently becoming bare or setting aside a covering.
This illustrates Ibn Fāris’s account of an uncovered surface becoming apparent.
Not every tajarrud involves harm or destruction. Removing clothes need not injure someone, whereas losing vegetation in drought may seriously damage land.
The root alone does not determine an action’s value or consequences.
Bare land and a cloudless sky
Kitāb al-ʿAyn records al-jarad for open space without vegetation.
Arḍun jardāʾu (أَرْضٌ جَرْدَاءُ) is land without vegetation; makānun ajradu (مَكَانٌ أَجْرَدُ) likewise denotes a bare place.
The ground is exposed rather than covered by plants.
Drought, heavy grazing, or other factors may produce this condition, but jardāʾ alone does not identify the cause.
The modern dictionary Al-Muʿjam al-Wasīṭ also records samāʾun jardāʾu (سَمَاءٌ جَرْدَاءُ) for a cloudless sky. Without evidence, this should not be attributed to the earlier sources just discussed.
Al-Muʿjam al-Wasīṭ under J R D: a cloudless sky
The sky need not have had a covering stripped away. The adjective describes its cloudless condition.
Exposure and the absence of covering thus extend beyond the act of peeling or stripping.
A witness from Abū Dhuʾayb al-Hudhalī
Describing a wild ass going to water at night and returning to higher ground by day, Abū Dhuʾayb says:
«يَقْضِي لُبَانَتَهُ بِاللَّيْلِ ثُمَّ إِذَا
أَضْحَى تَيَمَّمَ حَزْمًا حَوْلَهُ جَرَدُ»
yaqḍī lubānatahu bi-al-layli thumma idhā / aḍḥā tayammama ḥazman ḥawlahu jaradu
That is: “It meets its need by night; then, when daylight comes, it heads for elevated ground surrounded by bare land.”
Jarad here names open space or bare land. Describing the land’s condition does not classify the word morphologically as an adjective.
The poet describes terrain with little or no vegetation, rather than an act of stripping its covering.
The witness records jarad as a description of natural terrain in early literary Arabic.
Abū Dhuʾayb lived across the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. This verse’s precise date is not established here, so it should not be presented as certainly pre-Qur’anic.
Tāj and Al-Ṣiḥāḥ: Abū Dhuʾayb’s bare-land witness
A smooth, bare rock
Another verse by Abū Dhuʾayb reads:
«تَدَلَّى عَلَيْهَا بَيْنَ سِبٍّ وَخَيْطَةٍ
بِجَرْدَاءَ مِثْلِ الْوَكْفِ يَكْبُو غُرَابُهَا»
tadallā ʿalayhā bayna sibbin wa-khayṭatin / bi-jardāʾa mithli al-wakfi yakbū ghurābuhā
That is: “To reach the honey, he hung down by a rope secured to a peg, against smooth rock like a spread leather sheet, where even a crow finds no foothold.” Explanations of sibb and khayṭah identify the equipment used to reach the bees’ honey.
Dīwān al-Hudhaliyyīn: rope, peg, honey, and smooth rock
Jardāʾ here describes smooth, bare rock.
The crow image emphasizes the difficulty of finding purchase on the smooth surface. Lisān al-ʿArab under W K F also explains ghurāb al-faʾs as an implement’s point or edge, but with a different first hemistich, wa-midʿasin fīhi al-anīḍu ikhtafaytuhu. The two transmissions should not silently be conflated.
Lisān under W K F: distinguishing two witness transmissions
This overlaps with bare land without being identical. Jardāʾ land emphasizes absent vegetation; jardāʾ rock emphasizes an exposed, smooth surface.
The root’s range thus extends beyond vegetation to other exposed surfaces.
3. Skin, hair, clothing, and palm fronds
A person or animal with little hair
Rajulun ajradu (رَجُلٌ أَجْرَدُ) describes a man with no body hair or little of it.
Farasun ajradu (فَرَسٌ أَجْرَدُ) describes a horse with short, fine hair.
In descriptions of horses this can be a commendation of beauty or good breeding.
It does not necessarily imply that someone removed the animal’s hair; a short coat may be natural.
Ajrad describes a bare or lightly covered surface, whereas jarada can describe removing a covering.
Worn clothing
Early sources record thawbun jardun (ثَوْبٌ جَرْدٌ) for a garment worn smooth through losing its surface nap.
It may remain usable, but its texture and appearance differ from new cloth.
The person is not necessarily unclothed: the garment itself has lost its surface covering or nap.
Jard can thus describe the covering of a covering.
Jarīdah: the palm frond
Jarīd and jarīdah concern palm fronds and their stalks.
Kitāb al-ʿAyn describes a jarīdah as a palm frond stripped of its leaflets.
Ibn Fāris also transmits this derivational explanation.
The frond’s long central portion is exposed after the leaflets are removed.
Lexicographers differ over the word’s range in dialects: some restrict it to stripped fronds, while others record a broader palm-frond meaning.
A universal claim that an unstripped palm frond could never be called jarīdah in any Arabic dialect would therefore be unwarranted.
Al-Ṣiḥāḥ, Lisān, and Tāj: the range of jarīdah
Jarīdah as a detached group
Jarīdatun min al-khayl (جَرِيدَةٌ مِنَ الْخَيْلِ) also describes a group of horses or mounted riders.
Some explanations describe a detachment selected for a task; others describe cavalry without foot soldiers.
The usage relates to separating a group from a larger body.
It does not make a military unit the word’s original meaning. It is an attested extension in Arab social and military life.
Later administrative and written usages developed further meanings. These must remain distinct from earlier usage and Qur’anic jarād.
4. Jarād: locusts and their name
The Arabic name of the animal
Jarād names the familiar locust.
Jarādah is its individual form. Lexical sources describe jarād as a generic collective, and jarādah can denote one locust, male or female.
Its tāʾ therefore does not by itself establish a female locust.
Arabic similarly distinguishes collective and individual forms in other animal or natural-kind names.
Al-jarād in Al-Aʿrāf 7:133 denotes locusts collectively, and jarādun in Al-Qamar 54:7 likewise occurs in a collective comparison.
Why are locusts called jarād?
Jarada al-jarādu al-arḍa (جَرَدَ الْجَرَادُ الْأَرْضَ) means that locusts ate the land’s plants and stripped its vegetation.
Arḍun majrūdatun (أَرْضٌ مَجْرُودَةٌ) also describes land whose vegetation locusts have consumed.
This fits the attested stripping sense.
A large group settling on plants may consume leaves and green parts, leaving the ground sparsely covered or bare.
Some lexicographers consequently explain the name jarād through that behavior.
Ibn Fāris transmits this explanation from earlier language authorities; Al-Rāghib considers two possible directions of derivation.
One derives jarād from jarada and the animal’s stripping of vegetation.
The other treats the animal’s established name as the basis from which jarada al-arḍa developed or extended to describe its effects.
Both are semantically intelligible.
The locust’s feeding and the stripping verb do not by themselves establish which historically came first.
Lexicographers recognize a connection between the name and land becoming bare, but the precise direction of development remains uncertain.
Al-Rāghib, Al-Mufradāt: two possible derivational directions for jarād
Does every locust always strip land bare?
Locusts do not behave identically in every setting or population density.
They may occur separately or, under suitable conditions, form large migratory populations.
Dense populations may severely damage vegetation. Jarād does not imply that every individual locust always destroys all the plants in an area.
FAO: solitary and gregarious locusts and vegetation damage
The animal’s role also differs between the two Qur’anic occurrences.
Al-Aʿrāf places locusts among events sent upon a group; Al-Qamar draws on movement and dispersal in a comparison.
Recognizing the animal’s name and identifying the feature used by a verse are separate tasks.
5. Qur’anic usage in Pharaoh’s story
Al-Aʿrāf, verse 133
فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمُ الطُّوفَانَ وَالْجَرَادَ وَالْقُمَّلَ وَالضَّفَادِعَ وَالدَّمَ آيَاتٍ مُفَصَّلَاتٍ فَاسْتَكْبَرُوا وَكَانُوا قَوْمًا مُجْرِمِينَ
fa-arsalnā ʿalayhimu al-ṭūfāna wa-al-jarāda wa-al-qummala wa-al-ḍafādiʿa wa-al-dama āyātin mufaṣṣalātin fa-istakbarū wa-kānū qawman mujrimīna
“We sent upon them the flood, locusts, lice, frogs, and blood as distinct signs. They were arrogant and were a guilty people.”
The verse continues Mūsā’s confrontation with Pharaoh and his people.
In Al-Aʿrāf 7:132, they say that whatever sign Mūsā brings, they will not believe him.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:133 then describes several events and phenomena being sent upon them.
Al-jarāda accompanies the flood, qummal, frogs, and blood.
Jarād here names locusts; the sentence describes their being sent upon the people mentioned.
Al-jarāda in the construction
Al-jarāda is definite and accusative, coordinated with al-ṭūfāna by wa-.
All these nouns relate to fa-arsalnā, “We sent.”
The verse thus describes several things being sent.
Jarād itself does not mean punishment, affliction, or crop destruction. Those may describe effects in context, but the noun names the animal.
Āyātin mufaṣṣalātin identifies the events as distinct signs.
The phrase alone does not date each event or specify its duration or the intervals between them.
Does the verse explicitly describe destroyed crops?
Locusts can damage crops and vegetation, as both their known behavior and Arabic usage support.
Their being sent can therefore be explained in relation to agricultural and subsistence hardship.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:133 itself does not quantify crop loss, identify plant species, or define the geographical extent.
It names locusts, while the narrative presents the event as difficult and admonitory for its addressees.
Vegetation damage is an intelligible natural explanation, but its details should not all be placed within the word jarād.
Al-Ṭabarī: locusts among the signs confronting Pharaoh’s people
Pharaoh’s group and their response
The verse ends:
«فَاسْتَكْبَرُوا وَكَانُوا قَوْمًا مُجْرِمِينَ»
fa-istakbarū wa-kānū qawman mujrimīna
The phrase describes their arrogance and wrongful conduct.
The verse does more than list natural phenomena: the events are signs confronting people who opposed Mūsā’s message.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:134 describes their asking Mūsā to call upon his Lord to remove the affliction and promising faith and release of the Children of Israel.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:135 reports their breaking the pledge after relief.
This continuity shows that the story concerns both the sent events and human responses to them.
It does not establish that every locust outbreak in every time and place is certainly divine punishment for the local population’s sins.
The Qur’an reports a particular event and people. Applying the same judgment to present events requires independent evidence.
6. Qur’anic usage in the resurrection scene
Al-Qamar, verse 7
خُشَّعًا أَبْصَارُهُمْ يَخْرُجُونَ مِنَ الْأَجْدَاثِ كَأَنَّهُمْ جَرَادٌ مُنْتَشِرٌ
khushshaʿan abṣāruhum yakhrujūna mina al-ajdāthi ka-annahum jarādun muntashirun
“they will emerge from the graves with downcast eyes, as though they were scattered locusts,”
Jarād is no longer an event sent upon a people.
People emerge from graves and are compared to scattered locusts.
The animal remains the same, but the image emphasizes a different feature from Al-Aʿrāf.
Jarādun muntashirun
Jarādun is a collective noun referring to locusts.
Muntashirun (مُنْتَشِرٌ), from N SH R, concerns spreading and dispersing.
Study of N SH R (Not yet published)
It qualifies jarādun in the sentence.
Dispersal is therefore expressed by the separate modifier, rather than the animal’s name alone.
The animal can be observed in different conditions; the verse selects scattered, spreading locusts.
A singular modifier is compatible with jarād’s collective meaning because it is a generic collective noun in Arabic.
It does not describe one locust dividing into pieces, but locusts in a state of dispersal.
Why compare people to locusts?
People are emerging from graves.
Scattered locusts can picture numerous creatures appearing from different places and moving across an expanse.
The similarity suits the depiction of a multitude and its emergence.
The comparison does not establish that people acquire locust bodies or wings at resurrection.
A comparison ordinarily rests on selected shared features, rather than making every attribute identical.
Muntashirun specifically directs attention to dispersal.
Numerousness may also contribute to the image, but neither an exact count nor the movement’s geometry follows from it.
Al-Ṭabarī: emergence from graves and scattered locusts
Ajdāth and jarād
Al-ajdāth names graves, while jarādun names locusts.
Yakhrujūna mina al-ajdāth describes emerging from the graves.
Ka-annahum jarādun muntashirun then pictures those emerging.
The two independent roots have different roles.
J D TH names the place of emergence; J R D names the animal used to illustrate the people’s dispersal.
Similar spelling or proximity in the sentence does not establish a shared derivation.
The following verse
Al-Qamar 54:8 continues:
مُهْطِعِينَ إِلَى الدَّاعِ يَقُولُ الْكَافِرُونَ هَٰذَا يَوْمٌ عَسِرٌ
muhṭiʿīna ilā al-dāʿi yaqūlu al-kāfirūna hādhā yawmun ʿasirun
“hurrying toward the caller. The disbelievers will say, “This is a difficult day.””
This adds information to the preceding scene.
Al-Qamar 54:7 describes emergence from graves and scattered locusts; Al-Qamar 54:8 emphasizes movement toward the caller.
The images can coexist: people emerge from many places and move toward the caller.
Movement toward that caller does not become jarād’s lexical meaning.
Scattered locusts is consequently more accurate for Al-Qamar 54:7 than renderings inserting a definite formation, single direction, or particular speed into the animal’s name without evidence.
Locusts in two Qur’anic settings
Al-Aʿrāf 7:133 describes locusts within an event confronting people in worldly life.
Al-Qamar 54:7 uses them to picture resurrection.
Both name the familiar animal but draw on different features.
One occurs in the setting of signs and affliction; the other compares people emerging from graves.
The connection with affliction in Al-Aʿrāf does not make jarād a fixed symbol of punishment or sin everywhere in the Qur’an.
In Al-Qamar, locusts picture the visible emergence. Judgment about conduct and consequences is expressed elsewhere in the verses.
8. Translation proposals for Forqan
The Persian equivalent of locusts is clear and natural in both Qur’anic occurrences.
Al-jarāda in Al-Aʿrāf 7:133 appears among other phenomena, and Forqan’s installed translation uses locusts. It need not become crop-destroying locusts or invading locusts in the base translation.
Jarādun muntashirun in Al-Qamar 54:7 can be rendered as scattered locusts: locusts translates jarād and scattered translates muntashir.
The root’s lexical meaning should not absorb the separate modifier of dispersal.
A brief root explanation can read:
“J R D: removing or lacking a covering and exposing a surface; jarād names locusts.”
The specific meaning of al-jarāda in Al-Aʿrāf can be explained as:
“Locusts; one of the signs sent upon Pharaoh and his people in this verse.”
And jarādun in Al-Qamar as:
“Locusts; here, the animals whose dispersal and collective movement illustrate people emerging from graves.”
The full root study can explain the lexical association with consuming vegetation, without substituting that account for the noun’s direct meaning in verse translation.
Conclusion
Arabic J R D concerns removing a covering and exposing a surface.
Attested usages include becoming unclothed, sparse body hair, bare land, smooth rock, worn clothing, and palm fronds stripped of their leaflets.
Ibn Fāris organizes the family around an exposed, uncovered surface. This fits numerous witnesses, but not every usage describes an act of stripping. Some describe an uncovered condition alone.
Jarād names locusts. Lexical accounts connect their consumption of vegetation with jard, but the historical direction is uncertain. Al-Rāghib considers both deriving the animal’s name from its behavior and deriving the land-stripping expression from the animal’s name and behavior.
The Qur’an uses only the noun jarād, appearing as al-jarāda and jarādun; these are not two independent words. Al-Aʿrāf 7:133 places locusts among signs sent upon Pharaoh’s group, while Al-Qamar 54:7 compares people emerging from graves to scattered locusts.
A familiar animal thus appears in two settings: an event concerning Pharaoh’s people and an image of a multitude dispersing at resurrection.
Jarād directly means locusts in the Qur’an; a major semantic core of Arabic J R D is removing or lacking a covering and exposing a surface.
The link with stripping land of vegetation is defensible as a lexical explanation, without becoming a certain historical derivation. Crop destruction, speed, and dispersal are not fixed meanings of jarād itself; they follow, where relevant, from the animal’s behavior, separate words, or the verse’s context.