Qur’anic Root J TH M
Remaining on the ground, crouching, and becoming motionless: from animals resting to human beings lying fallen
Qur’anic and lexical forms
جَاثِمِينَ
(jāthimīna)
Plural active participle; sole Qur’anic form, five occurrences
جَثَمَ / يَجْثِمُ / يَجْثُمُ
(jathama / yajthimu / yajthumu)
Form I verb and two imperfect vocalizations; not Qur’anic
جَثْم / جُثُوم
(jathm / juthūm)
Verbal nouns; settling and remaining
جَاثِم / جَاثِمَة
(jāthim / jāthimah)
Singular active participles; base of the Qur’anic plural
مَجْثَم / مَجْثِم
(majtham / majthim)
Resting place; kasrah on thāʾ in the commentary on Zuhayr
جُثْمَان
(juthmān)
Body or form; not necessarily a corpse
جَثَّامَة
(jaththāmah)
Lexical form with descriptive uses; not Qur’anic
جَاثُوم
(jāthūm)
Name for nightmare or pressure in sleep; not Qur’anic
مُجَثَّمَة
(mujaththamah)
Animal confined to be shot at; not Qur’anic
Arabic جَثَمَ (jathama) describes a person or animal settling in a place, keeping close to the ground, and remaining there. It is especially used for birds and animals holding their bodies near the ground without leaving their position.
جَاثِم (jāthim) describes someone or something in this condition. مَجْثَم (majtham) is a resting or settling place, while جُثْمَان (juthmān) denotes a person’s body or physical form.
The Qur’an uses this root in describing the fate of two peoples: Thamūd, to whom Ṣāliḥ was sent, and the people of Midian, whom Shuʿayb called toward truth. In both accounts, those overtaken by punishment are described as jāthimīna in their land or homes.
Juthūm does not necessarily mean death in Arabic. A bird resting on the ground can also be jāthim. In these verses, however, the condition follows a devastating event and concerns people lying fallen and motionless after perishing.
The lexical sense of settling and remaining on the ground must therefore be distinguished from the meaning supplied by the context of punishment and destruction.
1. Forms and the semantic core
Arabic records forms including جَثَمَ (jathama), يَجْثِمُ (yajthimu), يَجْثُمُ (yajthumu), جَثْم (jathm), جُثُوم (juthūm), جَاثِم (jāthim), جَاثِمَة (jāthimah), مَجْثَم (majtham), جُثْمَان (juthmān), جَثَّامَة (jaththāmah), جَاثُوم (jāthūm), and مُجَثَّمَة (mujaththamah).
These forms concern a body occupying a place, staying there, crouching, motionlessness, physical form, and in some uses heaviness or pressure.
Only جَاثِمِينَ (jāthimīna) occurs in the Qur’an: the sound masculine plural of the active participle jāthim. It appears five times, in Al-Aʿrāf 7:78, Al-Aʿrāf 7:91, Hūd 11:67, Hūd 11:94, and Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:37.
Quranic Arabic Corpus: five active-participle occurrences
All five occurrences accompany fa-aṣbaḥū and describe people’s condition after punishment overtakes them.
Ibn Fāris identifies one root principle in Maqāyīs al-Lughah: تَجَمُّعُ الشَّيْءِ (tajammuʿu al-shayʾi), gathering or coming together.
This fits juthmān, the body, and the body’s gathering into itself when crouching. The verb jathama is nevertheless chiefly known in witnesses for staying in place and keeping close to the ground.
Kitāb al-ʿAyn explains this through لَزِمَ مَكَانًا لَا يَبْرَحُ (lazima makānan lā yabraḥu): remaining in a place without leaving it.
This definition matters for Qur’anic use. Jāthim concerns more than bodily geometry: remaining in that position without moving away is also prominent.
A defensible core for living beings is therefore settling or placing the body somewhere, keeping close to the ground and remaining in that position. Brief root meaning: settling down, keeping close to the ground, and remaining in the same place; of humans and animals.
This can be temporary and natural, as when an animal rests, or follow a deadly event, as in the Qur’anic uses.
2. The physical image and early Arabic usage
A bird or animal resting
One clear use of jathama concerns a bird sitting with its body upon the ground.
Kitāb al-ʿAyn compares a bird’s juthūm to a sheep’s rubūḍ, its resting and remaining in place.
Kitāb al-ʿAyn: staying in place and birds resting
A resting bird settles on its legs and lower body and stops moving about. Sources also record related uses for hares, gazelles, ostriches, and other animals.
The animal is not necessarily ill, incapacitated, or dead. It may be resting, taking shelter, or staying at a particular spot.
Juthūm therefore cannot be restricted from the outset to falling down through death.
Nor is it identical with ordinary walking or movement. What stands out is the cessation of movement and the body settling somewhere.
A witness from Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā’s Muʿallaqah
The pre-Islamic poet Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā describes a place visited by wild animals after its inhabitants have departed:
«بِهَا الْعِينُ وَالْآرَامُ يَمْشِينَ خِلْفَةً
وَأَطْلَاؤُهَا يَنْهَضْنَ مِنْ كُلِّ مَجْثِمِ»
bihā al-ʿīnu wa-al-ārāmu yamshīna khilfatan / wa-aṭlāʾuhā yanhaḍna min kulli majthimi
That is: “Wide-eyed wild cattle and gazelles walk there, herds succeeding one another, and their young rise from every resting place.”
The line occurs in Zuhayr’s familiar Muʿallaqah.
Aṭlāʾ denotes young gazelles and certain other animals; majtham is their resting place. Al-Zawzanī’s commentary explains the place noun here with kasrah on thāʾ, مَجْثِم (majthim). The form مَجْثَم (majtham) is also recorded for a resting place in lexical sources.
Al-Zawzanī, Sharḥ al-Muʿallaqāt: khilfah, aṭlāʾ, and majthim
The important association is the resting place alongside yanhaḍna, “they rise.”
The young animals have rested somewhere and then get up. The place is therefore for staying and resting, not necessarily dying or falling through incapacity.
This witness shows ordinary animal behavior within the family’s pre-Qur’anic literary range.
When the Qur’an applies the family to people overtaken by punishment, the physical sense of settling and remaining is retained, while context clarifies their deadly condition.
Human juthūm and bodily posture
Arabic also uses jathama for a human being.
Lisān al-ʿArab discusses settling on the ground, remaining there, and sometimes crouching upon the breast or knees.
An early rajaz witness reads as follows. Lisān al-ʿArab identifies its speaker only as “the rajaz poet”; this transmission alone establishes neither name nor date.
«إِذَا الْكُمَاةُ جَثَمُوا عَلَى الرُّكَبْ»
idhā al-kumātu jathamū ʿalā al-rukab
That is: “When the warriors crouched upon their knees.”
The accompanying phrase ʿalā al-rukab specifies the knees. The posture follows from the verb together with its accompanying expression.
Jathama therefore should not be confined in every use to one fixed posture, such as kneeling, lying on the breast, or falling face down.
Lisān al-ʿArab: the knees rajaz and forms of juthūm
The body may approach the ground differently according to the creature and circumstances.
Their common feature is settling and remaining in a position close to the ground.
Juthmān: body and physical form
Juthmān is an important form in this family.
Lexical sources use it for a person’s body, physical form, or bodily presence. Some compare it to جُسْمَان (jusmān).
Modern Arabic often uses juthmān for a dead person’s body. That familiar use should not be projected onto every early witness.
In early language, juthmān did not necessarily mean a corpse. It could denote a person’s visible form or another entity with a distinct physical appearance.
The closeness of juthmān and jusmān does not make J TH M identical with J S M. Both concern the body, but their root structures differ.
Al-Miṣbāḥ and Lisān: juthmān and jusmān
Study of J S M (Not yet published)
Juthmān helps explain Ibn Fāris’s gathering account: a body is a physical whole with a distinct form.
The noun’s existence nevertheless does not make Qur’anic jāthimīna directly mean “corpses.” It describes people’s condition, with death understood from context.
Heaviness, pressure, and remaining in place
The family has other recorded Arabic uses.
جَثَمَ الطَّعَامُ عَلَى الْمَعِدَةِ (jathama al-ṭaʿāmu ʿalā al-maʿidati) describes food weighing upon the stomach, suggesting pressure or heaviness with food remaining there.
Jāthūm names an experience of heaviness or inability to move during sleep. In modern usage it is associated with nightmares and some experiences of sleep paralysis.
The lexical label does not itself explain a medical cause. It describes the feeling of pressure rather than proving that an external being actually sits upon a person’s chest.
Sleep paralysis: temporary inability to move and feelings of pressure
Arabic also records جَثَمَة (jathamah) and جَثُوم (jathūm) for certain elevations of ground. The transitive jathama is also used for gathering earth and similar material. Juthūm with initial ḍammah is additionally recorded as a mountain or watering-place name and as the plural of jāthim; these vocalizations and uses should not be conflated.
Tāj al-ʿArūs: jathūm, jathamah, and other vocalizations
These witnesses illuminate gathering in some forms, but not every use can simply be reduced to heaviness or collection.
Qur’anic jāthimīna concerns fallen people, rather than nightmares, heaviness of food, or a heap of earth.
Confining an animal
Some Arabic uses apply mujaththamah to an animal held in place and prevented from moving. In the common explanation of this term, the animal is confined to be shot at and killed; mere animal keeping does not express the whole sense.
Lexical explanations particularly mention birds, hares, and similar animals that naturally settle upon the ground.
When an animal settles itself, it exhibits juthūm. When someone else confines or makes it assume that state, a causative or passive construction is involved.
The morphological distinction matters.
The Qur’an uses the active participle jāthimīna, rather than mujaththamīna for those made by another to assume the posture.
The participle alone therefore cannot establish that someone positioned or tied their bodies to the ground. Its active form also does not establish that their falling was voluntary.
3. Qur’anic use in the account of Ṣāliḥ and Thamūd
Al-Aʿrāf 7:78
فَأَخَذَتْهُمُ الرَّجْفَةُ فَأَصْبَحُوا فِي دَارِهِمْ جَاثِمِينَ
fa-akhadhat-humu al-rajfatu fa-aṣbaḥū fī dārihim jāthimīna
“The earthquake seized them, and they lay fallen in their dwelling.”
This continues the account of Ṣāliḥ and Thamūd.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:77 describes hamstringing the she-camel, defying their Lord’s command, and demanding the punishment.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:78 then describes the shaking and the condition of those overtaken.
Al-rajfah belongs to R J F and concerns shaking or violent trembling.
Study of R J F (Not yet published)
Jāthimīna instead describes the people’s condition after the event.
The words have different roles: rajfah concerns the shaking event, while jāthimīna describes those left upon the ground afterward.
Fī dārihim also indicates that this happened in their own dwelling place or land.
Here jāthimīna is associated with falling, remaining motionless, and perishing.
The word itself nevertheless determines neither manner of death nor precise posture. The verse does not say that everyone fell at the same angle, remained on their knees, or lay on their breast.
What is clear is that punishment overtook them and left them fallen where they lived.
Al-Ṭabarī: jāthimīna in the context of destruction
Al-Aʿrāf 7:91
فَأَخَذَتْهُمُ الرَّجْفَةُ فَأَصْبَحُوا فِي دَارِهِمْ جَاثِمِينَ
fa-akhadhat-humu al-rajfatu fa-aṣbaḥū fī dārihim jāthimīna
“The earthquake seized them, and they lay fallen in their dwelling.”
The wording matches Al-Aʿrāf 7:78, but concerns a different group.
The first concerns Thamūd’s opposition to Ṣāliḥ; the second describes the fate of Shuʿayb’s opponents.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:85 presents Shuʿayb’s call to fairness in measuring and weighing, avoiding depriving people of their property, and refraining from corruption. Al-Aʿrāf 7:88 and Al-Aʿrāf 7:90 describe opposition and threats from some leaders.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:91 depicts their fate through the same construction used earlier for Thamūd.
The shared expression shows jāthimīna conveying a similar condition of lying fallen and motionless in both settings.
It does not establish that every detail of the two peoples’ experiences was necessarily identical.
The Qur’an uses a common expression for two groups’ fate; each account retains its own setting and audience.
4. Qur’anic use in Hūd and Al-ʿAnkabūt
Hūd 11:67: the blast and Thamūd lying fallen
وَأَخَذَ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا الصَّيْحَةُ فَأَصْبَحُوا فِي دِيَارِهِمْ جَاثِمِينَ
wa-akhadha alladhīna ẓalamū al-ṣayḥatu fa-aṣbaḥū fī diyārihim jāthimīna
“The blast seized those who did wrong, and they lay fallen in their homes—”
This again concerns Ṣāliḥ’s people.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:78 names al-rajfah; here the term is al-ṣayḥah.
Ṣayḥah concerns a cry or intense sound, while rajfah concerns shaking.
Study of Ṣ Y Ḥ (Not yet published)
The difference does not necessarily make the reports contradictory. An event could involve both sound and shaking, but its precise mechanism cannot be determined through J TH M.
The important point for this study is the same described result: fa-aṣbaḥū ... jāthimīna.
In both surahs, juthūm describes the condition after punishment, rather than naming the type of punishment.
Another difference is fī dārihim in Al-Aʿrāf and fī diyārihim in Hūd.
Singular dār can denote a community’s dwelling place or territory. Plural diyār can denote their homes or places of residence.
This singular–plural distinction does not change jāthimīna’s meaning.
Alladhīna ẓalamū also matters: those punished are identified by wrongdoing. Without respecting that qualification, one should not assume that every person associated with a people, regardless of conduct or position, receives the same judgment.
Hūd 11:94: the fate of Shuʿayb’s opponents
وَلَمَّا جَاءَ أَمْرُنَا نَجَّيْنَا شُعَيْبًا وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَعَهُ بِرَحْمَةٍ مِنَّا وَأَخَذَتِ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا الصَّيْحَةُ فَأَصْبَحُوا فِي دِيَارِهِمْ جَاثِمِينَ
wa-lammā jāʾa amrunā najjaynā shuʿayban wa-alladhīna āmanū maʿahu bi-raḥmatin minnā wa-akhadhati alladhīna ẓalamū al-ṣayḥatu fa-aṣbaḥū fī diyārihim jāthimīna
“When Our command came, We saved Shuayb and those who believed with him by mercy from Us. The blast seized those who did wrong, and they lay fallen in their homes—”
Two outcomes stand alongside one another.
Shuʿayb and those who believed with him were saved, while the wrongdoers were overtaken by the blast and lay fallen in their homes.
Jāthimīna thus describes the group overtaken by punishment, rather than everyone living there.
The result is clarified by Hūd 11:95: they became as though they had never lived there.
This conveys their destruction and the disappearance of their presence.
Here jāthimīna therefore does not merely mean sitting peacefully or remaining temporarily at home. These people did not return to ordinary life after punishment.
Death nevertheless follows from the whole account and its indications, rather than being the root’s only lexical meaning.
Al-Ṭabarī: Shuʿayb’s deliverance and the wrongdoers’ fate
Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:37: Shuʿayb’s opponents again
فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَأَخَذَتْهُمُ الرَّجْفَةُ فَأَصْبَحُوا فِي دَارِهِمْ جَاثِمِينَ
fa-kadhdhabūhu fa-akhadhat-humu al-rajfatu fa-aṣbaḥū fī dārihim jāthimīna
“They denied him, and the quake seized them, leaving them fallen in their dwelling.”
This also belongs to Shuʿayb’s account.
Here the term is al-rajfah, whereas Hūd 11:94 named al-ṣayḥah.
Despite that difference, the result is expressed by the same jāthimīna.
The repetition shows that J TH M itself does not name shaking, a blast, or any particular punishment. It describes the people’s resulting condition.
Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:38 then mentions traces of ʿĀd’s and Thamūd’s dwellings. The connection draws attention from earlier peoples’ accounts to the consequences of conduct and the remains of their lives.
Jāthimīna is therefore more than a bodily picture within the narrative: it marks the end of the life and power of communities formerly living in their homes and lands.
This conclusion comes from the story, rather than the isolated word jāthim.
5. The meaning of jāthimīna and its limits
Does jāthim inherently mean dead?
No.
Zuhayr’s young animals rising from their resting places show juthūm as natural, temporary rest.
Jathama al-ṭāʾiru likewise does not necessarily mean that a bird died.
Jāthim primarily describes settling and remaining in a position.
In the five Qur’anic uses, however, it follows a deadly event. The picture concerns the fallen, motionless bodies of those who perished.
Lexical meaning must therefore be distinguished from the contextual outcome.
Being jāthim does not by itself establish death. In these five verses, punishment and the continuing account identify jāthimīna as people left fallen and dead.
Do the verses specify exact bodily posture?
Some lexicographers explain juthūm through kneeling, others through keeping to the ground or resting on the breast.
This variation shows that usage was not confined to one fixed, exclusive posture.
Fa-aṣbaḥū ... jāthimīna does not establish that every person sat precisely on their knees or fell face down.
The verses describe the final condition without detailing each individual body’s posture.
The Persian rendering az pā oftādand, “were felled,” appropriately conveys the combined sense and context. “They all died on their knees” would exceed what the expression establishes.
The role of fa-aṣbaḥū
All five verses place jāthimīna after fa-aṣbaḥū.
Aṣbaḥa can concern entering the morning, but also commonly means becoming or entering a state.
Jāthimīna is the predicate of aṣbaḥū here and describes the resulting condition.
The verb alone therefore does not conclusively establish that punishment occurred at sunrise.
The principal point is their changed condition: after the event, they were jāthimīna.
Fa- also conveys sequence between the event and result: punishment overtakes them, followed by their fallen condition.
Why do dār and diyār matter?
Three verses have fī dārihim; two have fī diyārihim.
Both concern people’s dwelling places.
Home and land are where people live, work, have families, and plan their future.
In these verses, that same place of life becomes the place of their falling and death.
The contrast matters narratively but does not make jāthimīna itself mean the destruction of homes or buildings.
Jāthimīna describes people; dār and diyār locate the event.
Does jāthimīna mean becoming worthless or humiliated?
Some exegetical explanations can see the peoples’ falling after defiance as the collapse of their power and pride.
This is understandable contextually: those who formerly saw themselves as strong can no longer move or continue living.
Jāthim nevertheless does not itself mean lowly, sinful, or humiliated.
A bird peacefully settled on the ground is jāthim without humiliation or punishment.
The verses’ ethical warning therefore comes from the stories and conduct, rather than inherent negativity in the root.
7. Translation proposals for Forqan
A suitable rendering of jāthimīna should respect settling and remaining motionless while fitting the context of punishment and death.
“They were sitting” partly conveys ordinary juthūm but may obscure the deadly condition in these five verses.
“They had fallen on their knees” foregrounds one possible posture but specifies the body too narrowly.
“They were dead” conveys the contextual result but removes juthūm’s physical image.
“They lay fallen and motionless on the ground” conveys both falling and remaining in that condition more fully.
Forqan’s current Persian translations use az pā oftādand, “were felled,” for all five occurrences.
This is concise and natural in Persian and fits the outcome in context without forcing a particular posture such as kneeling or lying on the breast.
A brief root explanation may read:
“J TH M: settling down, keeping close to the ground, and remaining in the same place; of humans and animals.”
For the word’s contextual meaning in these verses:
“Jāthimīna: lying fallen and motionless upon the ground; describing those who perished in their dwelling places after punishment.”
Perishing here is the verses’ contextual outcome, rather than the root’s independent, constant meaning.
Conclusion
Arabic J TH M concerns settling, positioning near the ground, and remaining in a place.
Jathama applies to people and animals; jāthim describes someone or something in that condition. Majtham denotes a resting place and juthmān a body or physical form. Other recorded uses include heaviness upon the stomach, jāthūm in sleep, and physical gathering.
Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā’s pre-Islamic witness shows juthūm as natural animal rest. The root therefore does not inherently signify death, punishment, or human humiliation.
The Qur’an uses only jāthimīna. Five verses describe groups from Thamūd and Shuʿayb’s opponents after they are overtaken by shaking or a blast.
In each, it expresses their final condition: lying fallen and motionless where they lived.
A defensible primary meaning is settling and remaining in place. In the five Qur’anic contexts, this describes the fallen bodies of people who have perished.
The distinction preserves the actual lexical meaning without extending death to every use or assigning precise posture, type of punishment, and other narrative details to the root itself.