The Root J W W
Interior and open space, the expanse between earth and sky, and space encompassed by its surroundings
Qur’anic and lexical forms
جَوّ
(jaww)
Singular noun; one Qur’anic occurrence in Al-Naḥl 16:79
جِواء
(jiwāʾ)
Plural or place-name; not Qur’anic
أَجْواء
(ajwāʾ)
Plural of jaww; not Qur’anic
جَوَّة
(jawwah)
Interior space or depression; not Qur’anic
جَوّانِيّ
(jawwānī)
Interior; not Qur’anic
جَوِّيّ
(jawwī)
Relational adjective; not Qur’anic
The Arabic root ج و و concerns a space or expanse situated within the bounds and surroundings of something. Its best-known word is جَوّ (jaww), used for the space between earth and sky. In other uses, the same word denotes the broad space of a valley, the interior of a house, or the space amid something’s surrounding parts.
This root occurs only once in the Qur’an: جَوِّ (jawwi) in Al-Naḥl 16:79, in the expression فِي جَوِّ السَّمَاءِ (fī jawwi al-samāʾ). The verse speaks of birds in the space of the sky and draws human attention to their being held there.
Quranic Arabic Corpus: one noun in Al-Naḥl 16:79
Here, jaww is neither the name of the bird, the action of flying, nor a technical term for a particular layer of Earth’s atmosphere in modern science. It denotes the space in which the birds are situated. Understanding it requires distinguishing the lexical meaning of space, the air within that space, and the Qur’anic portrayal of the sky.
1. Forms of the Root and Its Semantic Core
Important forms
J W W is a doubled Arabic root: its last two consonants are identical. In جَوّ (jaww), the two wāws are merged and written as one wāw with a shaddah.
Important forms in this family include:
- جَوّ (jaww): the space between earth and sky; also the open or middle space of something.
- جِواء (jiwāʾ): one plural of jaww; in other uses, a place-name or an expression with a distinct meaning.
- أَجْواء (ajwāʾ): a plural of jaww, denoting spaces and aerial expanses.
- جَوَّة (jawwah): a depressed, interior, or middle space; in some uses, a depression in the ground.
- جَوّانِيّ (jawwānī): inward or interior, opposite barrānī, outward or exterior.
- جَوِّيّ (jawwī): pertaining to jaww; in modern language, relating to aerial space or its conditions.
Lexical sources record other limited uses in this family, but they are not all equally common, and the historical attribution of some requires independent investigation.
Only the singular noun jaww occurs in the Qur’an, in the genitive form جَوِّ (jawwi). No verb or other derivative of this root is recorded in the Qur’anic text.
Semantic core: space amid its surroundings
In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris explains jaww through the image of something encompassing something else from its sides. He gives جَوُّ السَّمَاءِ (jaww al-samāʾ) and جَوُّ الْبَيْتِ (jaww al-bayt) as examples.
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs: encompassing from the sides
In this account, the two uses share the idea of a space understood in relation to its surroundings.
A house’s interior lies within its walls and boundaries. From the human viewpoint on earth, the space of the sky is an expanse extending above the earth and encompassing the surrounding scene.
These examples do not necessarily imply a completely closed container. An open valley can also have a jaww, since its space lies amid the surrounding land or elevations.
The basic meaning can therefore be explained as the interior or middle space of an expanse, understood in relation to its surrounding parts and bounds.
This definition shows the relationship between important uses of the word. It should not become a categorical claim that early Arabic speakers derived every use from one geometric image.
2. Uses in Early Arabic
Jaww: the space between earth and sky
Lisān al-ʿArab explains jaww through هَوَاء (hawāʾ) and the space between earth and sky.
Al-Ṣiḥāḥ likewise records jaww as the space between sky and earth.
In this sense, jaww denotes the expanse above the earth’s surface through which birds fly.
This use relates to direct human experience of the surrounding world: people see the ground beneath their feet, the sky above their heads, and birds in the space between them.
Jaww does not necessarily specify that space’s ultimate physical boundary. It can identify a space experienced visually as open and extensive.
In early Arabic, jaww and hawāʾ overlap in this setting. Their lexical overlap does not mean that all their properties, as understood in modern natural science, are identical.
Al-Muḥkam and Tāj al-ʿArūs: aerial and terrestrial spaces
A poetic witness from near the Qur’anic period
Dhū al-Rummah, an Umayyad poet, says in a description involving the sun and the space of the sky:
وَالشَّمْسُ حَيْرَى لَهَا فِي الْجَوِّ تَدْوِيمُ
wa-al-shamsu ḥayrā lahā fī al-jawwi tadwīmu
Meaning: “The sun seems bewildered, as though circling in place in the sky and making no headway.”
Here, فِي الْجَوِّ (fī al-jaww) concerns the broad space of the sky.
The poet uses imagery to describe the sun in the expanse seen above the earth. Lexical explanations of تَدْوِيم (tadwīm), from the separate root D W M, convey the impression of circling in place or scarcely advancing; this is a poetic appearance, not a scientific description of the sun’s motion.
Lisān al-ʿArab, D W M: Dhū al-Rummah and the explanation of tadwīm
This witness shows that jaww was established in classical Arabic for the space of the sky.
Dhū al-Rummah lived after the beginning of Islam. His poetry is therefore evidence from classical Arabic relatively close to the Qur’anic period, rather than an independent pre-Islamic witness.
A witness attributed to Ṭarafah ibn al-ʿAbd
The collected poems of Ṭarafah ibn al-ʿAbd, a pre-Islamic poet, contain the following:
يَا لَكِ مِنْ قُبَّرَةٍ بِمَعْمَرِ
خَلَا لَكِ الْجَوُّ فَبِيضِي وَاصْفِرِي
yā laki min qubbaratin bi-maʿmari / khalā laki al-jawwu fa-bīḍī wa-iṣfirī
Meaning: “O lark at Maʿmar, the open space is clear for you; lay your eggs and whistle.”
These words occur in a set of verses about a bird no longer facing the former obstacle after the hunter’s trap has been removed. Muʿjam al-Buldān reports two explanations of مَعْمَر (maʿmar): a particular place-name, or a dwelling where one stays. The rendering here follows the place-name reading without treating it as certain.
Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-Buldān: two explanations of Maʿmar
In explaining this witness, Abū ʿUbayd relates jaww to the open, broad space of a valley.
This matters because, although the speaker addresses a bird, jaww need not mean the high space of the sky in this particular line. It can denote an open environment in which the bird has freedom to move.
The witness thus illustrates the breadth of jaww: a space that may be conceived at ground level or in relation to the sky.
The line is recorded in Ṭarafah’s collected poems. As with other poetry attributed to the pre-Islamic period, however, attribution and exact textual transmission should be distinguished from a securely established date of composition.
Dīwān of Ṭarafah: the lark and the removed trap
Jaww and jawwah: broad or low-lying ground
Another early use of jaww is for a broad stretch of land lower than its surroundings.
Lisān al-ʿArab, transmitting Al-Azharī, describes jaww as land that is extensive and lies low amid its surrounding parts.
جَوَّة (jawwah) can likewise denote low-lying ground, a hollow, or a space between elevations.
In this use, jaww is no longer the air overhead; it names a terrestrial expanse or setting.
Its connection with the space of the sky can be understood through the idea of space amid boundaries. Sometimes that space is above the earth; sometimes it lies amid the surrounding land.
This does not establish that every broad valley or every depression was called jaww in Arabic. The word had particular uses, and its selection depended on linguistic convention and the place’s characteristics.
Jaww al-bayt: the interior of a house
Lexical sources record جَوُّ الْبَيْتِ (jaww al-bayt) for a house’s interior, particularly in reports of regional Arabic usage, including that of Syria.
Here, the emphasis is on the interior itself, rather than necessarily on the air circulating through it.
Speaking of a house’s jaww can therefore mean the interior space occupied by people and objects.
Within this semantic field, جَوّانِيّ (jawwānī) means inward or interior, opposite بَرّانِيّ (barrānī), outward or exterior.
Lexical sources: the house interior and jawwānī versus barrānī
This use shows that jaww does not merely name the material substance of air. It can denote space itself or the interior of a bounded area.
The family’s spatial meaning is therefore broader than a definition restricted in every case to the chemical composition of air.
Ajwāʾ and geographical names
أَجْواء (ajwāʾ) is one plural of jaww.
Lexical and geographical sources record several places named Jaww, including locations in Al-Yamāmah and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula.
Some of these names have been connected with geographical features such as breadth and relative depression of the land.
Not every place-name can be explained solely through the root’s general meaning. A name may survive even when the original reason for naming is no longer clear.
جِواء (jiwāʾ) is also a place-name in some poems. Its occurrence should not automatically be interpreted as the plural of jaww without investigation.
3. The Qur’anic Use
Al-Naḥl 16:79: birds in the space of the sky
Arabic verse:
أَلَمْ يَرَوْا إِلَى الطَّيْرِ مُسَخَّرَاتٍ فِي جَوِّ السَّمَاءِ مَا يُمْسِكُهُنَّ إِلَّا اللَّهُ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُونَ
a-lam yaraw ilā al-ṭayri musakhkharātin fī jawwi al-samāʾi mā yumsikuhunna illā Allāhu inna fī dhālika la-āyātin li-qawmin yuʾminūna
Proposed Persian translation, rendered here in English:
“Have they not looked at the birds, subjected in the space of the sky? None holds them there except The God. Indeed, in this are signs for a people who believe.”
Here, جَوِّ (jawwi) is a singular noun in the genitive, following the preposition فِي (fī).
السَّمَاءِ (al-samāʾ) is its genitive complement. Jaww al-samāʾ is thus a genitive construction identifying the space belonging to the sky.
Fī indicates the place in which the birds are situated.
The direct meaning of فِي جَوِّ السَّمَاءِ (fī jawwi al-samāʾ) is therefore in the space of the sky.
This expression describes neither the birds themselves nor the act of holding them. Jaww names the space in which they are situated.
The difference between jaww and samāʾ in this verse
Rather than simply saying فِي السَّمَاءِ (fī al-samāʾ), the Qur’an uses فِي جَوِّ السَّمَاءِ (fī jawwi al-samāʾ).
This difference in wording matters for understanding the verse.
سَمَاء (samāʾ) relates in Arabic to what is above or to the upper expanse. Jaww, in this construction, specifies the space within that expanse or the space associated with it.
Al-samāʾ identifies the overhead region, while jaww emphasizes its space.
The bird is seen in the space of the sky; it need not be imagined as sitting on a hard surface or material roof.
This does not mean that samāʾ is a solid roof in every Qur’anic use, or that jaww always names a space between two definite walls. Each word must be understood in context.
Here, jaww al-samāʾ presents the space in which the birds fly.
Musakhkharāt: a description of the birds, not the meaning of jaww
مُسَخَّرَاتٍ (musakhkharātin) is a feminine plural passive participle from S KH R.
It expresses the birds’ state in the verse.
In Arabic grammar, musakhkharātin is analyzed as a circumstantial expression qualifying الطَّيْرِ (al-ṭayr): the birds are described in a state of being subjected.
That meaning does not come from jaww itself.
Jaww identifies the space; musakhkharāt describes the birds’ condition.
Obedience, subjection, biological order, and natural law should therefore not be inserted into the lexical definition of J W W.
Such topics arise from other words in the verse and from considering it as a whole.
Mā yumsikuhunna illā Allāh: the birds being held
After introducing the birds in the space of the sky, the verse says:
“مَا يُمْسِكُهُنَّ إِلَّا اللَّهُ” (mā yumsikuhunna illā Allāh).
This sentence concerns the birds being held there.
يُمْسِكُ (yumsiku) comes from M S K and means holding. It is not formed from J W W.
Jaww itself therefore does not mean holding or suspending.
In the verse’s ordinary language, the birds are in the space of the sky, and their being held there is attributed to God.
This attribution does not define, within the word jaww, a particular physical mechanism such as wing shape, air pressure, wind flow, or lift.
Bird flight can now be studied through biology and physics, including wing shape, muscle movement, and the behavior of air around a bird’s body.
This empirical knowledge should not be imposed on jaww as its lexical meaning. Equally, knowledge of the natural mechanisms of flight does not by itself negate the relationship the verse establishes between the world’s order and God.
For a root study, the secure conclusion is that jaww specifies the space occupied by the birds. Explaining their subjection and how they are held belongs to study of the entire verse.
Al-Ṭabarī: the sky’s space and the birds being held
Connection with Al-Mulk 67:19
Al-Mulk 67:19 likewise draws attention to birds overhead, spreading and folding their wings, and being held there.
The word jaww, however, does not occur in that verse.
The two verses are connected in subject and imagery, but only Al-Naḥl 16:79 is an occurrence of J W W.
Their comparison shows that the Qur’an can use different expressions to identify the birds’ position. In Al-Naḥl, fī jawwi al-samāʾ emphasizes the sky’s space; in Al-Mulk, فَوْقَهُمْ (fawqahum) places the birds in relation to the people looking up from below.
These expressions can be related without constructing a new definition in which jaww always means exactly the same as fawq, “above.”
The role of jaww in the verse’s overall scene
Al-Naḥl 16:79 opens with a question about seeing.
Birds are something people observe in their everyday surroundings. The verse directs attention to their presence in the space of the sky and their being held there.
Jaww al-samāʾ is thus part of the verse’s natural scene: an open expanse in which birds are seen.
The verse then identifies this observation as signs for a people who believe.
Jaww helps establish the scene; it does not carry the verse’s entire theological message by itself.
5. Interpretive Challenges and Semantic Development
Does Qur’anic jaww mean Earth’s atmospheric envelope?
In modern science, an atmosphere is the envelope of gaseous layers surrounding a celestial body.
This term is used in scientific accounts of Earth, planets, and some other celestial bodies.
Modern Arabic also uses jaww in this scientific sense.
In Al-Naḥl 16:79, however, jaww al-samāʾ does not identify an atmospheric layer, its upper boundary, or its chemical and physical properties.
The verse speaks of birds in the space of the sky, a space visible to the human observer.
Rendering jaww al-samāʾ as “Earth’s atmospheric envelope” therefore adds more than the word and sentence structure express.
This does not mean that the space in which birds fly is unrelated to Earth’s natural atmosphere. Birds do fly in an environment whose physical properties matter for flight.
The distinction is that a phenomenon’s scientific referent should not be equated with the lexical definition of the Qur’anic word.
Does jaww mean completely empty space?
No. Jaww does not entail that the space concerned is completely devoid of matter.
Arabic can call an open or extensive space jaww even when air, birds, or other things are present within it.
A house’s interior may likewise contain people and furnishings while remaining its interior space.
Jaww is therefore not inherently equivalent to a physical vacuum.
Al-Naḥl 16:79 explicitly places birds within this space. Absolute emptiness neither follows from the root nor is needed to understand the verse.
Jaww as air, weather, and social atmosphere
Jaww has several uses in modern Arabic and Persian.
Saying “the jaww is hot today” refers to weather conditions.
Speaking of a political jaww, social jaww, or a meeting’s jaww refers to the prevailing condition and psychological or social atmosphere of that setting.
These uses can be understood semantically through the idea of environment and surrounding space.
This does not establish that all these modern senses existed in the Qur’anic period in their present conventional form.
In Al-Naḥl 16:79, jaww has a spatial, natural meaning. There is no indication that it denotes social conditions or the day’s weather.
Does Qur’anic jaww include the entire cosmos?
Jaww al-samāʾ does not itself determine the precise upper and lower limits of the space it names.
The verse’s context, however, concerns birds flying in the sky visible to people.
“The entire space of the cosmos” or “the space between stars and galaxies” is therefore unsuitable without contextual evidence.
Nor can this verse alone establish a categorical account of every Qur’anic use of samāʾ. The sky and its levels or expanses belong to an independent study of S M W and the relevant verses.
For this root, it is enough to state that jaww in Al-Naḥl 16:79 denotes the space of the sky in which birds are seen.
6. Translation Proposals for Forqan
The most suitable Persian rendering of jaww al-samāʾ in Al-Naḥl 16:79 is fażā-ye āsmān, “the space of the sky.”
This accords with the lexical use of jaww for the space between earth and sky and avoids imposing modern scientific terminology.
Pahneh-ye āsmān, “the expanse of the sky,” is also fluent Persian, though it emphasizes breadth and makes the interior relation in fī jawwi al-samāʾ less explicit.
Havā-ye āsmān, “the air of the sky,” is defensible on lexical grounds, but modern scientific usage may restrict the reader’s understanding to the substance of air.
“The middle of the sky” appears in some lexical and exegetical explanations. If understood as a definite altitude or geometric point, however, it limits the verse’s meaning too narrowly.
“Atmosphere” or “atmospheric envelope” are unsuitable as direct Persian renderings here because they are technical terms introducing a particular scientific delimitation.
“In the space of the sky” is therefore preferred in the direct rendering. The lexical explanation can clarify that early Arabic jaww denotes the space between earth and sky as well as other open or interior spaces.
For Forqan’s brief root meaning, “space amid its surroundings; open or interior space” is suitable. Brief root meaning: Space amid its surroundings; open or interior space.
For the meaning specific to this verse, “the space of the sky in which the birds are situated” is sufficient.
These explanations should remain separate: the first introduces the root’s semantic range, while the second identifies its particular use in Al-Naḥl 16:79.
7. Conclusion
The Arabic root J W W concerns a space or expanse understood in relation to its surroundings.
In its familiar use, jaww denotes the space between earth and sky. Elsewhere, it can denote the broad space of a valley, low-lying ground, or a house’s interior.
These uses show that jaww does not merely name the substance of air or one physical layer around Earth; it can identify space or an expanse itself.
In the Qur’an, this root occurs only in Al-Naḥl 16:79, in fī jawwi al-samāʾ.
The verse describes birds in the space of the sky and attributes their being held there to God.
Jaww identifies the space occupied by the birds; musakhkharāt expresses their condition; and yumsikuhunna concerns their being held. These meanings come from different words and should not be merged into the definition of one root.
The clear meaning of jaww al-samāʾ in the Qur’an is “the space of the sky”: the expanse in which birds are seen.
This rendering preserves the Arabic meaning and expresses the Qur’anic phrase in natural Persian without adding scientific theories or unestablished images.