The Qur’anic Root L Ḥ M (laḥm)

1. Introducing the root and its Qur’anic forms

Laḥm denotes flesh in Arabic: the soft, fleshy part of a human or animal body, distinguishable from bone and other tissues. In a context of eating, the same word denotes meat as food. Its meaning is not restricted to food, however: flesh can belong to a living body without eating being in view.

L Ḥ M occurs twelve times in twelve verses across ten surahs. Every occurrence belongs to the noun laḥm; no independent verb from this root occurs in the Qur’an. Eleven instances are singular and one is the plural luḥūm.

The forms examined include لَحْم (laḥm), لَحْمًا (laḥman), لَحْمَ (laḥma), لَحْمُ (laḥmu), لَحْمٍ (laḥmin), لَحْمِ (laḥmi) and لُحُومُهَا (luḥūmuhā). Final case vowels, definiteness or indefiniteness, an attached conjunction or a pronoun do not in themselves create a new root or basic meaning.

The word appears in five principal settings: meat as food and provision; flesh in bodily formation; dietary rules; sacrificial flesh in relation to taqwā; and human flesh in a shocking image condemning backbiting.

2. The semantic core and earlier Arabic

Flesh, tissue and interconnection

The familiar meaning of laḥm is bodily flesh. Earlier Arabic used it both for meat as food and for the fleshy tissue of the body. The lexicons record plurals including لُحُوم (luḥūm), لِحَام (liḥām) and لُحْمَان (luḥmān). لَحِيم (laḥīm) can describe a fleshy, well-built person or creature, while لَاحِم (lāḥim) can in some uses describe someone possessing meat.

In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris proposes a semantic connection for this root: parts interpenetrating or joining together. He treats flesh as something whose parts are interconnected and uses that relationship to explain other branches of the family.

This analysis fits uses involving woven cloth and people engaging in battle. Yet two matters must be distinguished: the actual meanings of laḥm in Arabic, and a lexicographer’s account of how the root’s branches are connected. Membership in one word family does not itself prove that an abstract notion of “interconnection” historically preceded the concrete meaning “flesh.”

From bodily flesh to woven cloth

Arabic uses لُحْمَة (luḥmah), with لَحْمَة (laḥmah) in some vocalizations, for the weft: transverse threads passing between the longitudinal warp threads to form cloth.

Warp and weft play different roles in weaving. The longitudinal threads provide the framework, while the transverse threads pass through them. Their interconnection makes the cloth an integrated whole.

Lexicographers have related this weave to the interconnection of flesh. That explanation helps in understanding the root’s extended meanings, but “the weft of cloth” does not occur in the Qur’an and must not be presented as the direct meaning of laḥm in its verses.

Kinship and social connection

Luḥmah is also recorded for kinship. Just as threads join in cloth, relatives are recognized as members of a whole through descent and family belonging.

Here luḥmah concerns people’s connections and relationships rather than edible meat. This is an established branch of Arabic usage; it does not establish a hidden meaning of kinship whenever the Qur’an mentions laḥm.

In Al-Ḥujurāt 49:12, the pairing of “flesh” with “brother” creates a distinctive image. Kinship in that passage also comes from akhīhi, “his brother,” and the whole comparison; laḥm alone does not mean brotherhood.

Malḥamah and engagement in battle

مَلْحَمَة (malḥamah) denotes a fierce battle in Arabic. Ibn Fāris records two explanations: combatants becoming entangled in battle, and the abundance of the slain, as though bodies and flesh lay cast upon the ground.

These explanations are compatible: one emphasizes the close engagement of combatants and the other the battle’s bloody outcome. Neither makes war, slaughter or violence an inherent meaning of laḥm. Malḥamah is an extended use within a particular setting.

The Qur’an itself uses neither malḥamah nor luḥmah nor iltiḥām nor other verbs from this family. Every Qur’anic occurrence is the noun for flesh or meat.

A pre-Islamic poetic witness

In the Muʿallaqah attributed to Imruʾ al-Qays, the description of hunting and preparing food includes:

فَظَلَّ طُهَاةُ اللَّحْمِ مِنْ بَيْنِ مُنْضِجٍ

fa-ẓalla ṭuhātu al-laḥmi min bayni munḍijin

صَفِيفَ شِوَاءٍ أَوْ قَدِيرٍ مُعَجَّلِ

ṣafīfa shiwāʾin aw qadīrin muʿajjali

Translation: “The meat cooks set to work: some roasting thin slices over the fire, others hastening meat cooked in a pot.”

Al-laḥm here is the actual flesh of the hunted animal. The subject is real food, its preparation and methods of cooking, rather than abstract interconnection or kinship. Ṣafīf in this witness refers to sliced meat arranged for roasting, while qadīr denotes meat cooked in a pot.

This witness, attributed to a pre-Islamic poet, illustrates the established use of the word in hunting and food preparation. For all its literary and lexical value, the line cannot establish which semantic branch was historically earliest.

3. Bodily flesh and the formation of physical life

Flesh as a covering for bones

Al-Muʾminūn 23:14

ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرَ ۚ فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَالِقِينَ

thumma khalaqnā al-nuṭfata ʿalaqatan fa-khalaqnā al-ʿalaqata muḍghatan fa-khalaqnā al-muḍghata ʿiẓāman fa-kasawnā al-ʿiẓāma laḥman thumma anshaʾnāhu khalqan ākhara fa-tabāraka llāhu aḥsanu al-khāliqīna

Translation: “Then We created the drop as an ʿalaqah, then created the ʿalaqah as a muḍghah, then created the muḍghah as bones, then clothed the bones with flesh; then We brought him forth as another creation. Blessed, then, is The God, the best of creators.”

Laḥman here is neither food nor something about to be eaten. It denotes the fleshy tissue of the human body during its formation.

فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ لَحْمًا (fa-kasawnā al-ʿiẓāma laḥman) has particular linguistic importance. Kasawnā belongs to K S W, “to clothe or cover.” The bones are what is clothed, and flesh supplies the covering. The image of bones being clothed comes from kasā, rather than from laḥm itself meaning “to cover.”

Grammatically, al-ʿiẓām is the first object and laḥman the second object of kasawnā. The construction identifies flesh as the material with which the bones are clothed.

The relationship between bone and flesh creates a clear image of bodily composition. The wording does not, however, require the conclusion that bones remained entirely without any fleshy tissue for a specified period. Relating this image to precise stages of embryonic biology requires a separate inquiry and cannot be established from the root L Ḥ M.

Flesh in bodily restoration and a sign of resurrection

Al-Baqarah 2:259

This passage describes someone passing a ruined settlement and asking how it could be brought to life after death. The narrative then includes his experience of death and revival and his observation of food, drink, a donkey and bones.

In describing the bones, kasā again occurs with laḥm. The setting concerns the demonstration of The God’s power to raise and reclothe bones, rather than the initial formation of a body.

Al-Baqarah 2:259 and Al-Muʾminūn 23:14 are linguistically close: both relate flesh to bones through the verb for clothing. Their settings differ, one concerning human creation and the other the power to revive after death.

The similar construction does not mean that both describe precisely the same biological process. Their shared meaning is flesh as a constituent of bodily structure and the clothing of bones with it.

These two verses show that Qur’anic laḥm is not merely the name of a food. In its direct sense it can denote the flesh of a human or animal body.

4. Meat as food and provision

Fresh meat from water

Al-Naḥl 16:14

وَهُوَ الَّذِي سَخَّرَ الْبَحْرَ لِتَأْكُلُوا مِنْهُ لَحْمًا طَرِيًّا وَتَسْتَخْرِجُوا مِنْهُ حِلْيَةً تَلْبَسُونَهَا وَتَرَى الْفُلْكَ مَوَاخِرَ فِيهِ وَلِتَبْتَغُوا مِنْ فَضْلِهِ وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ

wa-huwa alladhī sakhkhara al-baḥra li-taʾkulū minhu laḥman ṭariyyan wa-tastakhrijū minhu ḥilyatan talbasūnahā wa-tarā al-fulka mawākhira fīhi wa-li-tabtaghū min faḍlihi wa-laʿallakum tashkurūna

Translation: “And He is the One who subjected the sea, so that you may eat fresh meat from it and bring out ornaments that you wear. And you see the ships cleaving through it, and so that you may seek of His bounty, and perhaps you may give thanks.”

لَحْمًا طَرِيًّا (laḥman ṭariyyan) clearly denotes meat as food. Ṭariyyan describes its freshness and tenderness, qualities not supplied by laḥm alone.

The Qur’an also calls flesh obtained from the sea laḥm. Its meaning therefore cannot be restricted to the meat of land livestock.

A related use occurs in Fāṭir 35:12: after distinguishing sweet, pleasant water from salty, bitter water, the passage says that fresh meat is eaten from both.

مِنْ كُلٍّ (min kullin) in Fāṭir 35:12 shows that salt water alone is not intended. Edible flesh can be obtained from both kinds of aquatic environment.

In these verses, meat is associated with provision, benefiting from nature and gratitude, rather than prohibition. Nor should ṭariyy be turned into a rule that only fresh meat is lawful: the passage describes a blessing rather than imposing such a condition on every food.

Meat among the blessings of the hereafter

Al-Ṭūr 52:22

وَأَمْدَدْنَاهُمْ بِفَاكِهَةٍ وَلَحْمٍ مِمَّا يَشْتَهُونَ

wa-amdadnāhum bi-fākihatin wa-laḥmin mimmā yashtahūna

Translation: “And We supply them with fruit and meat of whatever they desire.”

Al-Wāqiʿah 56:21

وَلَحْمِ طَيْرٍ مِمَّا يَشْتَهُونَ

wa-laḥmi ṭayrin mimmā yashtahūna

Translation: “And the meat of birds, of whatever they desire.”

The first verse places meat beside fruit; the second specifies its kind through the noun ṭayr, “birds.”

This shows that laḥm is a general word for flesh or meat. When a particular kind is intended, the Qur’an can relate it to an animal’s name, as in laḥmi ṭayr.

These verses emphasize the relationship between meat and human desire. Mimmā yashtahūn points to its being food and being desired, but laḥm itself does not mean desire, pleasure or reward. Those concepts arise from the complete construction.

Nor should meat among the blessings of the hereafter immediately become a definitive theory about animals’ biology, the preparation of food or digestion in that world. The Qur’anic image of meat as food remains, while its mode of existence exceeds what these two verses specify.

5. Laḥma al-khinzīr and dietary prohibition

Four verses relate laḥm to swine:

• Al-Baqarah 2:173: لَحْمَ الْخِنْزِيرِ (laḥma al-khinzīri)
• Al-Māʾidah 5:3: لَحْمُ الْخِنْزِيرِ (laḥmu al-khinzīri)
• Al-Anʿām 6:145: لَحْمَ خِنْزِيرٍ (laḥma khinzīrin)
• Al-Naḥl 16:115: لَحْمَ الْخِنْزِيرِ (laḥma al-khinzīri)

All four concern dietary rules. Their different case endings follow the word’s grammatical position rather than any difference in root meaning.

Al-Baqarah 2:173

إِنَّمَا حَرَّمَ عَلَيْكُمُ الْمَيْتَةَ وَالدَّمَ وَلَحْمَ الْخِنْزِيرِ وَمَا أُهِلَّ بِهِ لِغَيْرِ اللَّهِ ۖ فَمَنِ اضْطُرَّ غَيْرَ بَاغٍ وَلَا عَادٍ فَلَا إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ

innamā ḥarrama ʿalaykumu al-maytata wa-l-dama wa-laḥma al-khinzīri wa-mā uhilla bihi li-ghayri llāhi fa-mani uḍṭurra ghayra bāghin wa-lā ʿādin fa-lā ithma ʿalayhi inna llāha ghafūrun raḥīmun

Translation: “He has forbidden you only carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, and that over which a name other than The God’s has been invoked. But whoever is compelled, neither seeking transgression nor exceeding the limit, incurs no sin. Surely The God is forgiving, merciful.”

Laḥma al-khinzīr is a genitive construction: laḥm names the flesh, and al-khinzīr identifies the animal to which it belongs.

Linguistically, laḥm has the same meaning here as in other food passages. The different ruling comes from the animal specified and the expression’s placement within a prohibition, rather than from the root for meat.

An essential distinction here separates the phrase’s direct meaning from the scope of the dietary rule.

Laḥma al-khinzīr directly means “the flesh of swine.” How mentioning an animal’s flesh relates to fat, other organs or all its edible parts is a broader question in the language of dietary rules. A prominent part can in some constructions stand for food obtained from an animal; the possibility alone does not prove that every part falls within a particular ruling.

Thus neither the prohibition of every part nor the definite permissibility of every other part can be established from the word laḥm alone, without independent reasoning.

In Al-Anʿām 6:145, the expression stands beside daman masfūḥan. Masfūḥ describes the blood, not the flesh. Fa-innahu rijsun also belongs to the complete ruling; the pronoun’s referent and scope require analysis within that passage. Rijs must not be made part of laḥm’s lexical meaning.

This distinction fits the positive uses of meat elsewhere. In Al-Naḥl 16:14 and Fāṭir 35:12 it is a provision, and in Al-Ṭūr 52:22 and Al-Wāqiʿah 56:21 it is among the hereafter’s blessings. L Ḥ M itself therefore means neither forbidden nor unclean.

A detailed account of what is lawful or forbidden requires comparing the relevant food passages, necessity, exceptions and legal contexts. A root study should clarify the word and its grammar, rather than replace a separate inquiry into dietary rules.

6. Sacrificial flesh and human taqwā

Al-Ḥajj 22:37

لَنْ يَنَالَ اللَّهَ لُحُومُهَا وَلَا دِمَاؤُهَا وَلَٰكِنْ يَنَالُهُ التَّقْوَىٰ مِنْكُمْ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ سَخَّرَهَا لَكُمْ لِتُكَبِّرُوا اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ مَا هَدَاكُمْ ۗ وَبَشِّرِ الْمُحْسِنِينَ

lan yanāla llāha luḥūmuhā wa-lā dimāʾuhā wa-lākin yanāluhu al-taqwā minkum kadhālika sakhkharahā lakum li-tukabbirū llāha ʿalā mā hadākum wa-bashshiri al-muḥsinīna

Translation: “Neither their flesh nor their blood will reach The God; rather, your taqwā reaches Him. Thus He has subjected them to you, so that you may proclaim The God’s greatness for the guidance He has given you; and give good news to those who do good.”

Luḥūmuhā is the root’s only Qur’anic plural. Its attached hā refers to the animals discussed in the sacrificial context.

Flesh and blood are two actual constituents of the animal. The Qur’an names them together but explicitly says that neither reaches The God. What reaches Him is human taqwā.

This does not deny the value of sacrifice or the reality of flesh and blood. The preceding verse, Al-Ḥajj 22:36, speaks of eating the sacrificial meat and feeding those in need. The concrete act and its human benefits remain, while its ultimate value does not depend upon bodily material reaching The God.

Yanāluhu al-taqwā does not describe taqwā moving physically through space. The passage uses familiar human language to distinguish the material of sacrifice from the purpose of devotion.

Laḥm can thus appear within a religious observance without itself acquiring the meaning of worship or taqwā. The act’s value is understood from the command, intention, conduct and setting together.

7. Laḥma akhīhi maytan: flesh in an ethical comparison

Al-Ḥujurāt 49:12

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اجْتَنِبُوا كَثِيرًا مِنَ الظَّنِّ إِنَّ بَعْضَ الظَّنِّ إِثْمٌ ۖ وَلَا تَجَسَّسُوا وَلَا يَغْتَبْ بَعْضُكُمْ بَعْضًا ۚ أَيُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَنْ يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ تَوَّابٌ رَحِيمٌ

yā ayyuhā alladhīna āmanū ijtanibū kathīran mina al-ẓanni inna baʿḍa al-ẓanni ithmun wa-lā tajassasū wa-lā yaghtab baʿḍukum baʿḍan a-yuḥibbu aḥadukum an yaʾkula laḥma akhīhi maytan fa-karihtumūhu wa-ttaqū llāha inna llāha tawwābun raḥīmun

Translation: “O you who have believed, avoid much suspicion: some suspicion is sin. Do not spy, and let none of you backbite another. Would any of you love to eat his dead brother’s flesh? You would detest it. And be mindful of The God; surely The God accepts repentance and is merciful.”

This is among the Qur’an’s most striking figurative uses of laḥm.

The opening addresses three social behaviours: wrongful suspicion, spying and backbiting. To condemn backbiting, it then presents the shocking scene of a person eating his dead brother’s flesh.

Lexically, laḥma retains the familiar bodily meaning. That concrete sense serves the condemnation of an ethical wrong. Replacing “flesh” with “reputation” in the translation would lose the tangible image and the comparison’s force.

In laḥma akhīhi, flesh stands in a genitive relationship to the brother. Akh introduces closeness and brotherhood, while maytan adds the state of death. Grammatically, maytan is an accusative circumstantial expression; analyses have related it to either the brother or his flesh. The familiar reading foregrounds the brother’s being dead.

The image’s force lies in this combination: the backbiter attacks someone absent and unable to defend himself at that moment. The Qur’an compares this ugliness to eating a dead brother’s flesh, an act the listener recoils from even imagining.

Several boundaries nevertheless matter when analysing the comparison.

First, laḥm does not mean backbiting. Backbiting is expressed by yaghtab; flesh belongs to the image illustrating its ugliness.

Second, akhīhi must not restrict the condemnation to backbiting a biological brother. The verse addresses believers and their conduct toward one another.

Third, although Arabic luḥmah can denote kinship, one should not claim that this particular lexical sense must be operating in the verse. “A brother’s flesh” already suffices to create the image of brotherhood and an attack upon another person.

The root retains its concrete meaning while serving an ethical comparison. Distinguishing lexical meaning from figurative function is essential to accurate translation.

8. Distinctions from neighbouring words

L Ḥ M (laḥm) and ʿ Ẓ M (ʿaẓm): flesh and bone

Study of ʿ Ẓ M

The words occur together in Al-Baqarah 2:259 and Al-Muʾminūn 23:14.

ʿAẓm denotes bone; laḥm denotes fleshy tissue. Both verses present bones as being clothed with flesh.

This does not make the two constituents wholly separate in bodily structure. It shows that Arabic uses different words for different parts of a body.

L Ḥ M (laḥm) and D M W (dam): flesh and blood

Study of D M W

Laḥm is flesh and dam is blood. They appear together in Al-Ḥajj 22:37 while retaining their individual forms and meanings.

Dietary passages also name blood and flesh separately, as in Al-Baqarah 2:173 and Al-Anʿām 6:145. This shows that the words are not synonyms. The separate lexical labels do not, however, independently establish the ruling for every mixture of blood and meat.

L Ḥ M (laḥm) and Sh Ḥ M (shaḥm): flesh and fat

Study of Sh Ḥ M (Not yet published)

This distinction matters especially in discussions of food. Laḥm names flesh, whereas shaḥm denotes fat.

In Al-Anʿām 6:146, the Qur’an uses shuḥūmahumā for the fat of cattle and sheep, reporting a particular ruling concerning those who became Jews. It thus has a separate word for fat.

The lexical distinction alone does not determine that flesh and fat must always have completely independent, nonoverlapping rulings in every food expression. In ordinary speech, meat may include fat, and a ruling may name a broader category or a prominent constituent.

The distinction therefore matters to the scope of laḥma al-khinzīr, while any legal conclusion requires the full evidence.

L Ḥ M (laḥm) and J S M (jism): flesh and body

Study of J S M (Not yet published)

Qur’anic jism refers to a physical body, as in Al-Baqarah 2:247 and Al-Munāfiqūn 63:4. Flesh can form part of a living body, but the words are not synonyms.

Laḥm is a particular bodily constituent; jism denotes the body as a physical whole. In the bone-and-flesh passages, laḥman should therefore not become “a complete body.”

L Ḥ M (laḥm) and A K L (akl): flesh and eating

Study of A K L

Flesh names something that can be eaten; eating comes from another root.

The verb for eating is explicit in Al-Naḥl 16:14 and Fāṭir 35:12. Eating also belongs to the comparison in Al-Ḥujurāt 49:12. But Al-Muʾminūn 23:14 and Al-Baqarah 2:259 assign flesh no dietary role.

“Meat as food” therefore fits only where the context supplies that role. The general root meaning must not be restricted to food.

9. Translation proposals for Forqan

The principal English equivalents of laḥm are “flesh” and “meat.” “Flesh” is natural for bodily tissue, while “meat” commonly denotes it as food; the context determines the choice.

In creation and bodily restoration passages, laḥman is best rendered “flesh.” The clothing of bones comes from kasawnā; the verb’s meaning need not be incorporated into the noun itself.

In Al-Naḥl 16:14 and Fāṭir 35:12, laḥman ṭariyyan can be “fresh meat” or “fresh flesh.” Its aquatic source follows from the sea and the fresh- and salt-water settings, rather than from laḥm alone.

In Al-Ṭūr 52:22, laḥmin is “meat”; in Al-Wāqiʿah 56:21, laḥmi ṭayr clearly means “the meat of birds.”

Both laḥma al-khinzīr and laḥma khinzīr can be translated “the flesh of swine” or “pork.” The rule’s scope and its relationship to other animal parts belong to commentary and the study of dietary rules, rather than additions to the basic translation.

In Al-Ḥajj 22:37, luḥūmuhā is naturally “their flesh” or “their meat.” English normally uses these as mass nouns, while a morphological study should still record the Arabic plural.

In Al-Ḥujurāt 49:12, preserve the tangible image: “eat his dead brother’s flesh” is more faithful than substituting “reputation” or “honour.” The ethical meaning of backbiting belongs in the analysis without erasing the Qur’an’s imagery from the translation.

10. Conclusion

L Ḥ M occurs in the Qur’an only through the noun laḥm and its plural luḥūm. Its direct meaning is flesh: both the flesh of human and animal bodies and meat eaten as food.

Earlier Arabic gives the family other branches: woven cloth, kinship and combatants becoming entangled in battle. These usages relate semantically to interconnection, but do not establish a definitive historical derivation or make every Qur’anic laḥm mean connection and interpenetration.

The Qur’anic uses show that flesh is not inherently forbidden food, solely a dietary blessing, a sign of violence or an ethical action. It is bodily tissue in one passage, fresh food from water in another, the subject of a prohibition elsewhere, a constituent of sacrifice in another, and the substance of the backbiting comparison in Al-Ḥujurāt 49:12.

Throughout, the word retains its main meaning. The differences follow from the animal specified, accompanying verb, adjective, grammatical construction and context.

An appropriate final definition for Forqan is therefore:

L Ḥ M is the family of flesh and fleshy tissue, with extended Arabic uses for interconnection and interpenetration. In the Qur’an it occurs only as the noun for flesh or meat; its dietary, bodily, ritual or figurative role follows from each verse’s context.

This definition preserves the actual Qur’anic range while preventing legal rulings, ethical imagery or historical explanations from replacing the word’s lexical meaning.