Qur’anic Root L M Z (ل م ز)
Lamz: faultfinding, contemptuous criticism, and injury to others’ dignity
Qur’anic forms
1. Introduction and Qur’anic forms
The Arabic root ل م ز (l m z) concerns finding fault with, disparaging, and taunting other people. This can occur through direct speech, insinuation, eye gestures, movements of the head or lips, or other contemptuous means. Some lexical usages also record pressure, pushing, and striking within this family.
The root occurs in four Qur’anic verses: twice concerning faultfinding over charitable contributions; once in a general command to those who have faith to refrain from finding fault with one another; and once alongside ه م ز (h m z), describing a habitual faultfinder.
The Qur’anic forms are:
- يَلْمِزُكَ (yalmizuka): he finds fault with or taunts you; Al-Tawbah 9:58.
- يَلْمِزُونَ (yalmizūna): they find fault or taunt; Al-Tawbah 9:79.
- تَلْمِزُوا (talmizū): you find fault or taunt; within the prohibition وَلَا تَلْمِزُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ (wa-lā talmizū anfusakum), in Al-Ḥujurāt 49:11.
- لُمَزَة (lumazah): a habitual faultfinder and taunter; Al-Humazah 104:1.
The first three forms belong to the basic triliteral verb لَمَزَ (lamaza). The fourth, lumazah, is a description highlighting prominent and repeated faultfinding.
Arabic also records لَمْز (lamz), faultfinding; لَامِز (lāmiz), a faultfinder; and لَمَّاز (lammāz), a habitual faultfinder. These particular forms do not occur in the Qur’an.
All four Qur’anic occurrences concern human conduct toward other people. The Qur’an does not use the root to describe The God, name a place, or express a concept of the hereafter.
2. The semantic centre and earlier Arabic usage
Finding fault and taunting
A clear and common Arabic meaning of lamz is finding fault with another person and diminishing their standing through words or gestures.
Older lexical explanations record لَمَزَهُ (lamazahu) as finding fault with someone, taunting them, or targeting them with a contemptuous gesture. Sometimes this involves concealed or indirect speech, and sometimes movements of the eyes, head, or lips.
Lamz should therefore not be restricted to explicit insults. Someone can belittle another person publicly through insinuation or gestures without using an offensive word.
For example, while someone is speaking, another person might look toward a third person and mock the speaker through movements of the eyes or lips. That is consistent with the lexical usage of lamz: the aim is to demean the person and direct others’ attention to a fault or weakness.
Faultfinding can also occur through direct speech. When such speech serves as taunting, belittling, or unjustified disparagement, it too can fall within the semantic field of lamz.
Concealment, gestures, or speech alone therefore do not fully define lamz. They are different ways of carrying it out.
Pressure, pushing, and striking
Arabic lexicons also record لَمَزَ الرَّجُلَ (lamaza al-rajula) for pushing or striking a person.
This matters because it shows that the family l m z has not been confined to verbal faultfinding.
A semantic resemblance can be seen between a bodily blow and a taunt: both concern a kind of injury or pressure directed at another person. One affects the body; the other targets the person through words or gestures.
That resemblance does not establish that faultfinding necessarily developed historically from a physical blow.
For example, Ibn Fāris identifies finding fault directly as the root’s primary meaning. Lisān al-ʿArab also records pushing and striking for lamz. These different reports clarify the range of usage while showing the need for caution in determining the meanings’ historical origin.
Both usages can therefore be recognized as recorded meanings of the family, without making one the certain origin of the other in the absence of historical evidence.
Lexical witnesses and the limits of historical dating
Arabic lexical tradition recognizes lamz as a word for faultfinding and belittling. Explanations discuss eye and lip gestures, finding fault in someone’s presence, and speaking ill of them in their absence.
Recording a meaning in older sources is nevertheless different from establishing it in a particular pre-Islamic poem. The word’s presence in later lexicons should not be treated as certain evidence of pre-Islamic poetry.
In Al-Zāhir fī maʿānī kalimāt al-nās, Ibn al-Anbārī quotes a verse in the following wording without naming the poet in his main text:
تدلي بودي إذا لاقيتني كذبا
وإن تغيبت كنت الهامز اللمزة
“Whenever you meet me, you falsely profess affection; when I am absent, you are the taunter and faultfinder.”
Here al-hāmiz and al-lumazah together describe someone who professes friendship in person and finds fault when the other person is absent. Absence belongs to this particular poetic situation; it does not establish that every use of lamz necessarily concerns someone’s absence.
The verse is also attributed to Ziyād al-Aʿjam, and its transmitted wording varies. This lexical quotation alone establishes neither a precise date of composition nor that the verse predates the Qur’an. Its value here is to illustrate social usage and the combination of the two descriptions.
The Qur’anic occurrences themselves are also important linguistic evidence. They show that in the language of revelation, lamz could concern both how someone was treated and disparagement of that person’s conduct.
The two occurrences in Al-Tawbah are particularly clear. In one, Muhammad is the target of faultfinding about the distribution of charitable contributions; in the other, people who have faith and give contributions are targeted. Lamz is therefore not confined to people’s appearance or bodily defects. Their actions and decisions can also become subjects of taunting and disparagement.
Is every criticism or disclosure of a fault lamz?
Lamz concerns finding fault in Arabic, but its condemnatory Qur’anic usage is not identical with every examination of an error or reasoned criticism.
Someone may identify a real error with evidence in order to correct it. The words being unwelcome does not alone make this lamz.
Conversely, someone may exploit a real matter to belittle another person, or disparage their conduct without evidence. The issue is then more than whether a sentence is true or false: the manner, context, and purpose also matter.
This distinction becomes clearer in Al-Tawbah, where the verses continue by showing the faultfinders’ motivation and conduct.
An intention to correct or belittle cannot, however, always be extracted from the word lamz alone. Context and evidence of the person’s behaviour clarify that distinction.
3. Lamz in Al-Tawbah: faultfinding over charitable contributions
The two verbal occurrences in Al-Tawbah both concern charitable contributions, but their targets differ.
Finding fault with Muhammad over the distribution of contributions
Al-Tawbah 9:58
وَمِنْهُمْ مَنْ يَلْمِزُكَ فِي الصَّدَقَاتِ فَإِنْ أُعْطُوا مِنْهَا رَضُوا وَإِنْ لَمْ يُعْطَوْا مِنْهَا إِذَا هُمْ يَسْخَطُونَ
“Among them are those who find fault with you concerning charitable contributions. If they are given some of them, they are pleased; but if they are given none, they suddenly become angry.”
In يَلْمِزُكَ (yalmizuka), the pronoun كَ (ka) is the verb’s object and addresses Muhammad; it is not the subject doing the faultfinding. The subject relates to مَنْ (man) earlier in the sentence. The verb is singular in agreement with the wording of man, while subsequent plural pronouns describe the group in view.
The setting is فِي الصَّدَقَاتِ (fī al-ṣadaqāt), “concerning charitable contributions.” The issue is faultfinding about those contributions, rather than every aspect of Muhammad’s life.
This construction shows that lamz can be accompanied by the matter over which someone is criticized. Here it concerns charitable contributions and access to them.
The continuation is decisive for understanding the faultfinders’ behaviour: they are pleased if given a share, and angry if they receive nothing.
The Qur’an therefore does more than report that some people criticized the distribution. It shows their conduct: satisfaction and anger depend on whether they receive a share.
In this context, that dependence makes their faultfinding a matter of self-interest. Their standard of judgment appears to be their own share, rather than the distribution’s fairness or unfairness.
The verse does not thereby make every question or criticism about distributing public resources, charitable contributions, or an official’s decision an instance of condemned lamz.
Someone who identifies injustice or a real error with clear evidence does not join the people condemned here merely by criticizing. The verse exposes the disparagement of a group whose reactions depend on personal benefit.
The verse also does not quote their exact words. A particular statement should therefore not be attributed to them and presented as part of the Qur’anic text.
Here “they find fault with you” or “they disparage you concerning charitable contributions” is appropriate. “They criticize” alone is broader and more neutral than the verse’s condemnatory context.
Finding fault with those who contribute
Al-Tawbah 9:79
الَّذِينَ يَلْمِزُونَ الْمُطَّوِّعِينَ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فِي الصَّدَقَاتِ وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَجِدُونَ إِلَّا جُهْدَهُمْ فَيَسْخَرُونَ مِنْهُمْ ۙ سَخِرَ اللَّهُ مِنْهُمْ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
“Those who find fault with the voluntary contributors among those who have faith concerning charitable contributions, and with those who find nothing beyond their own capacity, and then ridicule them: The God has ridiculed them, and they will have a painful punishment.”
Here Muhammad is no longer the target. The targets are people who contribute from their property or what they can manage.
الْمُطَّوِّعِينَ (al-muṭṭawwiʿīn) denotes those who participate voluntarily. Its underlying morphological form is الْمُتَطَوِّعِينَ (al-mutaṭawwiʿīn), from Form V and the root ط و ع (ṭ w ʿ); the tāʾ has assimilated into the ṭāʾ. Here the participation concerns charitable contributions.
وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَجِدُونَ إِلَّا جُهْدَهُمْ (wa-alladhīna lā yajidūna illā juhdahum) also emphasizes those who find nothing beyond their capacity and the fruits of their effort. Coordinating this expression does not necessarily exclude them from the general category of voluntary contributors; it draws special attention to their limited resources.
The expression highlights their limited means. Despite that limitation, they contribute within their capacity.
The Qur’an describes faultfinding directed at these people and their being ridiculed.
يَلْمِزُونَ (yalmizūna) denotes disparagement and faultfinding here, while فَيَسْخَرُونَ مِنْهُمْ (fa-yaskharūna minhum) adds ridicule.
The combination places lamz and mockery within one behavioural field without making them entirely synonymous. Faultfinding can accompany ridicule, but lamaza does not itself necessarily mean laughing at or ridiculing someone.
The verse concerns people who make others’ contributions targets of contempt. Someone who contributes from greater resources can be disparaged, while someone with nothing beyond their own limited capacity is also not spared.
The text does not state the exact amounts given, the donors’ names, or the faultfinders’ words. Such details should not be imported from external reports into the verse’s direct meaning.
Capacity and the size of a contribution
إِلَّا جُهْدَهُمْ (illā juhdahum) matters because it shows that the size of a contribution should be understood in relation to the contributor’s capacity.
Someone may give a small amount that nonetheless represents the fruits of their effort and limited means. Belittling them simply because the gift is small conflicts with the verse’s context.
This does not make “belittling the poor” the particular lexical meaning of lamz. People with any amount of property can be targeted. Poverty or limited means characterize some targets in this verse, rather than defining the root.
The verse also answers the faultfinders with سَخِرَ اللَّهُ مِنْهُمْ (sakhira Allāhu minhum), “The God has ridiculed them.” This forms part of the expression of divine recompense for their mockery. It does not establish that The God behaves like humans through contemptuous bodily gestures or physical laughter.
The two verses thus clarify the field of lamz: one connects disparagement over the distribution of contributions with self-interest; the other describes faultfinding and ridicule aimed at other people’s giving.
Injurious faultfinding is common to both. Self-interest, the amount given, and ridicule belong to the verses’ particular contexts, rather than the root’s permanent meaning.
4. Wa-lā talmizū anfusakum: do not find fault with one another
Al-Ḥujurāt 49:11
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَسْخَرْ قَوْمٌ مِنْ قَوْمٍ عَسَىٰ أَنْ يَكُونُوا خَيْرًا مِنْهُمْ وَلَا نِسَاءٌ مِنْ نِسَاءٍ عَسَىٰ أَنْ يَكُنَّ خَيْرًا مِنْهُنَّ ۖ وَلَا تَلْمِزُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ وَلَا تَنَابَزُوا بِالْأَلْقَابِ ۖ بِئْسَ الِاسْمُ الْفُسُوقُ بَعْدَ الْإِيمَانِ ۚ وَمَنْ لَمْ يَتُبْ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الظَّالِمُونَ
“You who have faith, let no group ridicule another; they may be better than them. Nor let women ridicule other women; they may be better than them. Do not find fault with one another or call one another by offensive nicknames. How evil is the name of wickedness after faith! Those who do not repent are the wrongdoers.”
This is an important occurrence because lamz appears as a direct prohibition addressed to those who have faith.
The difference from the occurrences in Al-Tawbah
Al-Tawbah 9:58 and Al-Tawbah 9:79 report the conduct of groups engaged in faultfinding. In Al-Ḥujurāt 49:11, the command addresses those who have faith themselves.
وَلَا تَلْمِزُوا (wa-lā talmizū) prohibits engaging in lamz.
The prohibition shows that faultfinding is not restricted to opponents or people with another religious identity. Those who have faith can also engage in it and need to refrain from it.
Here lamz stands alongside two other behaviours: mocking people and calling them offensive nicknames.
All three can target human dignity and standing, but their forms differ. Mockery may involve imitation or laughter, lamz may concern disparagement and taunting, and offensive naming may degrade someone through a particular designation.
Their combination prohibits several ways of demeaning other people.
Why does the Qur’an say anfusakum?
The Arabic places أَنْفُسَكُمْ (anfusakum) as the object of تَلْمِزُوا (talmizū). A literal rendering is “do not find fault with yourselves.”
Given the plural address and the context of social relationships, its natural meaning is to prohibit finding fault with one another. This reciprocal meaning emerges from the plural address, anfusakum, and the context. The verb talmizū itself is Form I, rather than the reciprocal Form VI.
The addressees are presented as so closely connected that injuring another member of the group is expressed as injuring themselves.
This can be compared with other uses of anfusakum for relations within a community. For example, Al-Nūr 24:61 contains فَسَلِّمُوا عَلَىٰ أَنْفُسِكُمْ (fa-sallimū ʿalā anfusikum) in the context of giving greetings. The plural pronoun can express relationships among members of the group in such a setting.
“Do not find fault with one another” is therefore a suitable translation.
This does not make “damaging communal unity” the lexical meaning of lamz. That implication can emerge from the collective construction and social context, while the verb itself continues to express faultfinding and taunting.
Nor should the verse be restricted to finding fault with one’s own person. The preceding and following verses concern how people treat one another, clarifying the prohibition’s social reference.
Does the verse forbid every disclosure of another person’s error?
Al-Ḥujurāt places faultfinding beside mockery and contemptuous nicknames. This helps identify the behaviour being prohibited.
Elsewhere, the Qur’an also commands reform, justice, truthful testimony, and restraining wrongdoing. Not every identification of an error or reasoned objection can therefore be treated as prohibited lamz merely because it is unwelcome.
For example, a reasoned objection to someone’s unfair distribution of public resources is not identical with belittling their person. Examining a false claim without insulting its speaker is also not necessarily condemned faultfinding.
Conversely, even a true statement can be used to injure someone’s dignity, demean them publicly, or invite others to mock them.
Identifying the prohibited behaviour therefore requires distinguishing criticism of an action or claim from contempt for a person.
That distinction should not become an excuse to dismiss unwelcome criticism. Just as faultfinding can appear under the guise of criticism, someone may also reject sound criticism by labelling it lamz.
The Qur’anic context prohibits contempt and injury to others’ dignity, rather than examination of truth and correction of error.
Repentance at the end of the verse
The verse ends by warning those who do not repent of these behaviours.
That ending presents mockery, lamz, and contemptuous naming as conduct that can be corrected. Those who persist, however, fall among the wrongdoers.
Here too, wrongdoing and repentance are not the lexical meaning of lamz. They express the ethical judgment and consequence within the full verse.
5. Lumazah: faultfinding as a recognized personal trait
Al-Humazah 104:1
وَيْلٌ لِكُلِّ هُمَزَةٍ لُمَزَةٍ
“Woe to every faultfinder and taunter.”
The root appears here as لُمَزَة (lumazah). Unlike the verb يَلْمِزُ (yalmizu), it characterizes a person through a behavioural trait rather than reporting an action.
The morphology of lumazah
Lumazah follows فُعَلَة (fuʿalah), a pattern that can describe someone known for frequently engaging in a behaviour.
It therefore does not merely denote someone who once found fault with another person. In this construction, faultfinding becomes a prominent personal description.
The final tāʾ is not simply a feminine marker here. The form can describe a man or woman; the tāʾ contributes to the intensive description.
The morphology alone does not quantify repetition. It does not establish that the person finds fault in every situation or does so as a formal occupation.
Lumazah and humazah
Lumazah stands beside هُمَزَة (humazah) in the same verse.
They belong to different roots but are notably close in social usage.
Older lexical explanations propose several distinctions. Hamz is sometimes taken as faultfinding in a person’s absence and lamz as faultfinding in their presence. Alternatively, one is associated more with gestures and the other with speech.
Not all lexicographers accept such a boundary. Some use both terms for someone who finds fault with and demeans others, without a fixed distinction between presence and absence or speech and gesture.
We therefore cannot insist that humazah necessarily means someone who speaks ill of people behind their backs and lumazah necessarily someone who finds fault to their faces, or the reverse.
Their combination nevertheless matters. It condemns a person for whom taunting and faultfinding are recognized traits.
“A faultfinder and taunter” is consequently a suitable rendering of the combined expression, provided independent examination of each root preserves lexical distinctions and the limits of the evidence.
Faultfinding and accumulating wealth
Al-Humazah 104:2 and Al-Humazah 104:3 also describe the condemned person through gathering and counting wealth and imagining immortality through his property.
This connection portrays a person who relies on property and demeans others.
Accumulating wealth or being rich is not the lexical meaning of lumazah. A faultfinder may be rich or poor, while possessing property does not itself establish that someone engages in lamz.
The chapter combines these traits to form the portrait under condemnation.
لِكُلِّ (li-kulli), “to every,” also matters. The warning is not restricted to one named person. Everyone with this trait falls within its scope.
Identifying a possible historical example should therefore not erase the verse’s general meaning.
7. Translation proposals for Forqan
For لَمَزَ (lamaza), “find fault” or “disparage” is an appropriate basic equivalent. Where the context emphasizes contempt, “taunt” can clarify the meaning.
In Al-Tawbah 9:58, يَلْمِزُكَ فِي الصَّدَقَاتِ (yalmizuka fī al-ṣadaqāt) can be translated “he finds fault with you concerning charitable contributions.” “He disparages you over the contributions” is also natural, while the contextual explanation should make the people’s self-interest clear.
In Al-Tawbah 9:79, يَلْمِزُونَ الْمُطَّوِّعِينَ (yalmizūna al-muṭṭawwiʿīna) can be rendered “they find fault with the voluntary contributors.” “They ridicule them” is best retained for فَيَسْخَرُونَ مِنْهُمْ (fa-yaskharūna minhum), preserving the distinction between the two verbs.
In Al-Ḥujurāt 49:11, “and do not find fault with one another” is the most suitable fluent rendering of وَلَا تَلْمِزُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ (wa-lā talmizū anfusakum). It preserves the relationship among people understood from the verse’s collective construction.
In Al-Humazah 104:1, lumazah can be rendered “a habitual faultfinder” or “a faultfinder and taunter.” For the combined هُمَزَةٍ لُمَزَةٍ (humazatin lumazatin), “a faultfinder and taunter” or “a contemptuous faultfinder” is appropriate. The translation should not depend on an absolute distinction between conduct behind someone’s back and to their face.
The word-by-word boxes can use shorter explanations:
- يَلْمِزُكَ (yalmizuka): he finds fault with you; in the context of charitable contributions.
- يَلْمِزُونَ (yalmizūna): they find fault; concerning people who have faith and give contributions.
- تَلْمِزُوا (talmizū): you find fault; within the prohibition against finding fault with one another.
- لُمَزَة (lumazah): a habitual faultfinder and taunter; someone known for this behaviour.
Throughout these usages, translation should not restrict lamz to backbiting, insulting, mocking, or criticizing alone. It belongs to a broader field of injurious disparagement and faultfinding.
Nor should lexical meaning be confused with the verses’ ethical and social implications. Self-interest in Al-Tawbah 9:58, belittling contributors in Al-Tawbah 9:79, and injury to relations among those who have faith in Al-Ḥujurāt 49:11 are contextual features, rather than fixed components of the root’s definition.
8. Conclusion
The Arabic root l m z concerns finding fault, disparaging, and taunting. This can occur through explicit speech, insinuation, eye or lip gestures, and other contemptuous means. Physical pressure and striking are also recorded, but the historical sequence in which these meanings arose is uncertain.
The root occurs four times in the Qur’an. The two occurrences in Al-Tawbah concern faultfinding over charitable contributions: one concerns access to the contributions, and the other people voluntarily giving from their property or capacity.
In Al-Ḥujurāt, faultfinding is prohibited alongside mockery and contemptuous naming. Through a reciprocal construction, wa-lā talmizū anfusakum restrains those who have faith from finding fault with one another.
In Al-Humazah, lumazah describes someone for whom faultfinding and taunting are prominent traits. Its combination with humazah clarifies the condemnation without establishing an absolute boundary between faultfinding face to face and behind someone’s back.
The chief caution is not to equate lamz with every criticism or disclosure of an error. The Qur’an itself speaks of justice, reform, and expressing truth. The condemnatory usages highlight disparagement and taunting that target someone or their conduct for contempt and injury.
For Forqan, the following definition can serve as a basis: Lamz is injurious faultfinding and disparagement directed at a person or their conduct, carried out through speech, insinuation, or gesture, and commonly accompanied by taunting and contempt in Qur’anic usage.
This preserves the four Qur’anic occurrences’ shared meaning without prohibiting all criticism or erasing the distinctions between lamz, hamz, ghamz, mockery, and ghībah.