Qur’anic Root SH R R (ش ر ر)
Sharr: evil, harm, and an unfavorable outcome, in contrast with good; and sharar, flying embers of fire
Qur’anic forms
1. The root and its Qur’anic forms
The Arabic root SH R R has several semantic branches. The best known is شَرّ (sharr) in contrast with خَيْر (khayr). Sharr may concern the wrongness of conduct, harm or affliction, an undesirable condition, or an unfavorable outcome. The same family supplies descriptions of evildoers and expressions of being worse.
Another branch is شَرَر (sharar): embers and glowing fragments that break away from a fire and leap outward. Early Arabic also uses verbs from this family for spreading things such as meat or cloth out to dry.
These meanings belong to one linguistic family, but we should not assume that all developed from a single original image. In particular, the resemblance between sharr and sharar alone does not establish that moral evil originally meant fire or sparks.
SH R R occurs 31 times in 30 Qur’anic verses: 29 times as شَرّ, once as the plural الْأَشْرَار, and once as شَرَر, in Al-Mursalāt 77:32. Thirty occurrences thus concern the family of evil and evaluative judgment, and one concerns embers. This count includes comparative uses of sharr.
The family’s important forms include:
- شَرّ (sharr): evil, harm, something undesirable, or an unfavorable outcome, depending on context; also “worse” or “worst” in comparative constructions.
- الْأَشْرَار (al-ashrār): a plural of sharīr or sharr when describing evildoers; Ṣād 38:62.
- شَرَر (sharar): glowing, leaping fragments of fire; Al-Mursalāt 77:32.
- شَرِير / شِرِّير (sharīr / shirrīr): an evildoer or someone much given to wrongdoing; known Arabic forms that do not occur in the Qur’an.
- شُرُور (shurūr): a plural of sharr, “evils”; this form does not occur in the Qur’an.
- شَرَارَة / شَرَرَة (sharārah / shararah): a single glowing fragment or spark; these singular forms do not occur in the Qur’an.
- شَرَّ / أَشَرَّ (sharra / asharra): used for spreading something out to dry, with other uses concerning evil or attributing evil; these verbal forms do not occur in the Qur’an.
- مُشَارَّة (mushārrah): mutual hostility or conflict; an Arabic use not attested in the Qur’an.
The distinction between sharr, sharar, and sharīr matters. Sharr can denote evil or harm itself; sharīr describes someone known for wrongdoing; Qur’anic sharar denotes fragments of fire.
Sharr also does not always occur in one grammatical construction. It may name evil, stand opposite good, or express “worse” or “worst” comparatively.
2. Uses in early Arabic
Sharr in contrast with khayr
Arabic lexical sources explain الشَّرّ through السُّوء and its opposition to الْخَيْر.
Here sharr concerns something considered bad, harmful, corrupt, or undesirable.
That general definition does not determine every detail of usage. Conduct may be sharr because it is unjust or corrupt; an event may be called sharr because of the suffering or harm it causes; something may also be judged worse than something else.
Illness, oppression, and lying, for example, may all be called sharr in some contexts, but not in the same respect. Illness is a harmful condition, while oppression and lying can be actions for which people bear responsibility and face moral judgment.
The general meaning should therefore be preserved, while the particular kind of evil or harm is identified through the sentence’s subject matter and context.
Sharīr and ashrār: wrongdoing as a personal description
Arabic uses شَرِير and شِرِّير for someone whose conduct prominently involves evil or wrongdoing.
Plurals such as أَشْرَار (ashrār) and شِرَار (shirār) describe evildoers in Arabic. Shirār, with an initial i-vowel, should be distinguished from شَرَار (sharār), with an initial a-vowel, meaning embers.
These descriptions do not merely mean having an unpleasant experience. Someone suffering illness or poverty is not called sharīr simply because they are afflicted.
In moral usage, sharīr is someone to whose conduct or recognized character evil is attributed.
Sharr as affliction consequently differs from ashrār as evildoers.
Sharr as a comparative
Arabic sharr can mean “worse” or “worst.”
Morphological explanations connect it with the elative family. The usual pattern is أَفْعَل (afʿal), but the initial hamzah is omitted in the common usage of very frequent words such as khayr and sharr.
In هُوَ شَرٌّ مِنْكَ, for example, sharr does not merely mean “evil”: the sentence means “he is worse than you.”
The comparative form alone does not establish that both sides are bad in every respect and differ only in degree. It may locate two things relative to one another within a judgment.
Qur’anic شَرٌّ مَكَانًا and شَرُّ الْبَرِيَّةِ likewise belong to this comparative and evaluative field.
Sharar: embers breaking away from fire
Arabic sharar denotes glowing fragments that break away from fire and leap outward. Everyday examples are often small, but smallness should not become an invariant condition of the word’s meaning: the Qur’anic comparison with qaṣr emphasizes their great size.
Its singular is شَرَرَة (shararah). شَرَار (sharār) and its singular شَرَارَة (sharārah) are also known in Arabic.
A poetic witness transmitted in lexical sources without a secure attribution reads:
أَوْ كَشَرَارِ الْعَلَاةِ يَضْرِبُهَا الْقَيْنُ عَلَى كُلِّ وِجْهَةٍ تَثِبُ
“Or like sparks from an anvil struck by the smith, leaping in every direction.”
Sharār here denotes glowing particles scattered by the smith’s blows.
The use supplies a concrete image from everyday life and craftwork in Arabic. It concerns particles of fire rather than moral evil.
Since the witness’s attribution and date of composition are not independently established, it should not be presented as certainly pre-Islamic poetry.
Spreading things out to dry
Early Arabic records شَرَّ الثَّوْبَ and شَرَّ اللَّحْمَ for spreading cloth or meat out to dry.
إِشْرَارَة (ishrārah) can also denote something on which meat, dried curd, or other materials are spread for drying.
This usage belongs to ordinary Arab life. Drying meat and certain dairy products was an established method of food preservation.
The idea of spreading or opening something out is clear here.
In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris places this sense, the scattering of embers, and even moral evil within one family, proposing spreading and dispersal as their common principle.
Recording meanings must nevertheless remain distinct from explaining their historical relationship.
Scattering embers and spreading cloth share a recognizable image. That similarity alone does not establish that moral evil necessarily developed from the same conception.
Distinguishing sharr and sharar
Arabic has both sharr, “evil,” and sharar, “embers of fire.”
One may say poetically that evil resembles a spreading spark that harms others. That comparison is not the lexical definition of sharr.
An act of oppression can be sharr even when no fire is involved.
A fragment of fire is likewise called sharar without any judgment about its moral value.
A definition such as “the spread of destructive energy” or “the dispersal of evil” should therefore not be imposed on every Qur’anic occurrence. It is vague and erases the distinction between moral and material meanings.
3. Sharr and khayr: evil, harm, and the limits of human judgment
The root’s principal Qur’anic opposition is that between sharr and khayr.
That opposition does not always operate at one level. Good and evil may concern the outcome of something for a person, life’s events, or the value of actions and conduct.
Something a person loves may be harmful to them
Al-Baqarah 2:216
كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الْقِتَالُ وَهُوَ كُرْهٌ لَكُمْ ۖ وَعَسَىٰ أَنْ تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ ۖ وَعَسَىٰ أَنْ تُحِبُّوا شَيْئًا وَهُوَ شَرٌّ لَكُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنْتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
“Fighting has been prescribed for you, though it is hateful to you. You may dislike something while it is good for you, and you may love something while it is harmful to you. The God knows, and you do not know.”
Sharr stands opposite khayr in this verse.
The subject is not solely identifying a morally good or bad act. The verse distinguishes human preferences and aversions from what is actually good or harmful for a person.
Someone may dislike a difficult action that, under particular circumstances, has a beneficial result. They may also find something pleasant that harms them.
Liking and disliking are not presented as conclusive standards of good and evil.
It does not follow that everything unpleasant must be good or everything pleasurable must be evil.
عَسَىٰ expresses the possibility of a difference between human preference and the reality of the matter, rather than an exceptionless rule reversing every preference.
The verse’s context also concerns fighting. It should not be detached from that subject and made into permission to impose any kind of suffering or violence on people.
شَرٌّ لَكُمْ here concerns something bringing harm and an unfavorable outcome to those addressed. The combination with لَكُمْ and the verse’s context establish that sense.
Harm a person fails to recognize
Āl ʿImrān 3:180
وَلَا يَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ يَبْخَلُونَ بِمَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ هُوَ خَيْرًا لَهُمْ ۖ بَلْ هُوَ شَرٌّ لَهُمْ ۖ سَيُطَوَّقُونَ مَا بَخِلُوا بِهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ ۗ وَلِلَّهِ مِيرَاثُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ
“Those who are miserly with what The God has given them of His bounty must not think it is good for them; rather, it is bad for them. What they withheld will be fastened around their necks on the Day of Resurrection. To The God belongs the inheritance of the heavens and the earth, and The God is fully aware of what you do.”
Good and evil again stand opposite one another, but the subject here is miserliness.
Someone may suppose that retaining wealth and refusing to give it is always in their interest. The Qur’an rejects that view in this context.
The harmfulness of miserliness is thus connected with human conduct and its outcome.
The lexical meaning of sharr is not thereby miserliness or hoarding wealth. Miserliness is one action called sharr in this verse.
These two verses show that good and evil can concern people’s judgments about the benefit or harm of their conduct. Such judgments are not guaranteed to be correct.
Testing people through sharr and khayr
Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:35
كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَائِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ ۗ وَنَبْلُوكُمْ بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً ۖ وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ
“Every soul will taste death. We test you with evil and good as a trial, and to Us you will be returned.”
Both sharr and khayr appear here in relation to testing people.
This matters lexically because sharr need not mean a sin or a bad action the person has committed.
A person may encounter illness, shortage, loss, danger, or an unpleasant event. Such conditions can belong to sharr as suffering or affliction.
Abundant blessings, ability, and prosperity can also be subjects of testing.
The verse consequently does not restrict testing to pain and hardship.
Sharr must nevertheless remain distinct from testing itself. Here it may denote something harmful or unpleasant; نَبْلُوكُمْ expresses testing, and فِتْنَةً identifies its character as a trial.
Sharr should therefore not be lexically defined as “a divine test.” Testing is the role that sharr and khayr have in this verse.
Nor does the verse establish that human oppression and sin fall outside moral responsibility because they occur in a world of testing.
The evil of an action and people’s being tested in their response to it are related but different matters.
Good and evil in one event
Al-Nūr 24:11
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ جَاءُوا بِالْإِفْكِ عُصْبَةٌ مِنْكُمْ ۚ لَا تَحْسَبُوهُ شَرًّا لَكُمْ ۖ بَلْ هُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ ۚ لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مِنْهُمْ مَا اكْتَسَبَ مِنَ الْإِثْمِ ۚ وَالَّذِي تَوَلَّىٰ كِبْرَهُ مِنْهُمْ لَهُ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
“Those who brought the great falsehood are a group from among you. Do not consider it bad for you; rather, it is good for you. Each of them bears what he earned of sin, and the one who took on its greatest share will have a tremendous punishment.”
Good and evil here concern an event involving falsehood and accusation.
The Qur’an tells those addressed not to consider it bad for themselves: it is good for them.
It immediately states, however, the responsibility of those who produced or spread the falsehood.
This conjunction matters greatly. An event’s beneficial outcome for some people does not make the conduct of those who caused the harm good.
The verse itself mentions الْإِثْم, “sin,” and punishment for those involved.
It should therefore not be read as saying that falsehood and accusation are intrinsically good, or that a good result removes the perpetrators’ responsibility.
This usage shows that judging good and evil may depend on an event’s relationship with particular people and its results.
That dependence does not eliminate moral standards. The Qur’an can call conduct sinful while also identifying a good that subsequently emerges for those harmed.
4. Sharr as affliction, harm, and an unfavorable outcome
In several verses, sharr is something that reaches a person or that they fear encountering.
This use should not be understood as that person’s wrongdoing.
A person’s hasty request for harm
Al-Isrāʾ 17:11
وَيَدْعُ الْإِنْسَانُ بِالشَّرِّ دُعَاءَهُ بِالْخَيْرِ ۖ وَكَانَ الْإِنْسَانُ عَجُولًا
“The human being calls for evil as he calls for good, and the human being is hasty.”
Sharr and khayr can both be objects of a person’s request here.
The construction shows that, through haste, anger, or ignorance, someone may ask for something harmful to themselves or another.
The verb for calling or praying does not establish that people always knowingly desire their own harm.
Someone may suppose something is good when its result is harmful, or say something in anger that they would not want if they properly understood its consequences.
Hastiness is stated in وَكَانَ الْإِنْسَانُ عَجُولًا. It should not become part of sharr’s lexical meaning.
Yūnus 10:11 also compares hastening harm with people’s eagerness for good. If The God hastened harm for them as they seek good in haste, their term would end. The idea of their asking for the harm belongs to a contextual explanation: the verse does not explicitly qualify sharr as “requested.”
These uses show that sharr may concern something harmful a person seeks through haste or mistaken judgment.
When sharr reaches a person
Fuṣṣilat 41:49
لَا يَسْأَمُ الْإِنْسَانُ مِنْ دُعَاءِ الْخَيْرِ وَإِنْ مَسَّهُ الشَّرُّ فَيَئُوسٌ قَنُوطٌ
“The human being never tires of asking for good; but if harm touches him, he becomes utterly despairing and despondent.”
Sharr is something a person experiences in this verse.
The verse does not say that the person committed evil; it says that harm touched him.
This is a real grammatical distinction. Sharr is the subject of مَسَّ, while the person experiences its effect.
In Al-Isrāʾ 17:83, Fuṣṣilat 41:51, and Al-Maʿārij 70:20, encountering sharr likewise accompanies responses such as despair, abundant supplication, or distress.
Qur’anic sharr is therefore not solely the name of wrongful conduct or sin. It can be an affliction or unpleasant condition that befalls someone.
Despair and distress are not the meaning of sharr itself. They are responses attributed to certain people in those verses.
The verses also do not establish that every person necessarily responds this way to hardship. Al-Maʿārij 70:22 excepts those who pray from the general description, and subsequent verses explain their characteristics.
Harm manifest on the Day of Resurrection
Al-Insān 76:7
يُوفُونَ بِالنَّذْرِ وَيَخَافُونَ يَوْمًا كَانَ شَرُّهُ مُسْتَطِيرًا
“They fulfill their vows and fear a day whose evil is widespread.”
Sharr is attributed to a day here.
شَرُّهُ denotes that day’s evil, while مُسْتَطِيرًا conveys its spreading and pervasiveness.
Spreading therefore cannot be extracted solely from the root SH R R in this verse. Mustaṭīr has an independent contribution.
In Al-Insān 76:11, The God also protects the righteous from the evil of that day.
“The day’s evil” here concerns a danger and fearful outcome that people dread.
It does not make time or the day itself a morally wicked being. The attribution concerns that day’s events and conditions.
Sharr in the accounting of deeds
Al-Zalzalah 99:8
وَمَنْ يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ شَرًّا يَرَهُ
“And whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.”
Sharr is directly connected with human action here.
Unlike verses about harm reaching a person, this verse makes the person the doer of evil.
Al-Zalzalah 99:7 uses the same construction for doing good.
Good and evil can thus evaluate human conduct even when the action’s amount is very small.
Sharr alone does not mean a major sin. The reference to an atom’s weight shows that smallness does not take an action outside observation and accountability.
The verse does not fully explain the procedure of accounting, degrees of responsibility under different conditions, or the nature of recompense. Those questions require study of other verses.
Sharr here means an evil action, rather than merely an unpleasant event that happens without a person’s choosing it.
5. Sharr in descriptions of people and their standing
Several verses use sharr comparatively, judging people or their position.
Sharr al-dawābb: a judgment concerning human conduct
Al-Anfāl 8:22
إِنَّ شَرَّ الدَّوَابِّ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ الصُّمُّ الْبُكْمُ الَّذِينَ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ
“The worst of moving creatures in the sight of The God are the deaf and mute who do not use reason.”
شَرّ is comparative here, while الدَّوَابّ denotes the category of moving creatures.
The verse’s point should not be turned into an insult to people with hearing or speech disabilities.
The context censures those who turn away from understanding and reasoning in response to the call and message. الَّذِينَ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ is important in determining the subject of the judgment.
عِنْدَ اللَّهِ also identifies it as divine judgment.
Sharr al-dawābb consequently conveys the censured standing of conduct and a group in the verse’s judgment. Sharr itself does not mean deafness or speech disability.
Al-Anfāl 8:55 uses the same expression for those who disbelieve and do not believe.
The occurrences share a construction, but their following descriptions must be examined separately.
Sharr makānan: being worse in position
Al-Māʾidah 5:60, Yūsuf 12:77, Maryam 19:75, and Al-Furqān 25:34 contain شَرٌّ مَكَانًا or a closely related construction.
Sharr has a comparative meaning in these uses.
In Yūsuf 12:77, for example, after his brothers’ words Joseph keeps the judgment أَنْتُمْ شَرٌّ مَكَانًا within himself and does not disclose it to them. The same speech states The God’s greater knowledge of their description. The sentence should not become, without explanation, an answer Joseph speaks openly to his brothers.
Sharr makānan there judges their standing in the context of the speech. Makān alone does not establish a particular geographical location.
In verses concerning the hereafter, the same expression may concern a person’s final outcome and standing there.
The comparative construction should therefore be preserved, with the kind of position identified through context.
Al-Ḥajj 22:72 also uses بِشَرٍّ مِنْ ذَٰلِكُمُ in a comparison subsequently explained through النَّارُ, “the Fire.” In Al-Māʾidah 5:60 the root occurs twice: بِشَرٍّ مِنْ ذَٰلِكَ and شَرٌّ مَكَانًا. The count of occurrences therefore differs from the count of verses, and these examples require the comparative construction to be preserved.
Sharr al-bariyyah: the worst of creatures
Al-Bayyinah 98:6
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ وَالْمُشْرِكِينَ فِي نَارِ جَهَنَّمَ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ هُمْ شَرُّ الْبَرِيَّةِ
“Those among the People of the Book and the polytheists who disbelieved will be in the fire of Hell, remaining there. They are the worst of creatures.”
شَرُّ الْبَرِيَّةِ stands opposite خَيْرُ الْبَرِيَّةِ in Al-Bayyinah 98:7.
The contrast expresses an evaluative judgment of the groups described.
الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا must not be removed and the judgment extended without justification to every person who bears a particular religious label at any time.
The verse concerns people described through disbelief. Understanding that disbelief, their knowledge, and their responsibility requires a separate study of the relevant verses.
Sharr al-bariyyah means “the worst of creatures,” but who falls within that judgment follows from the whole sentence, rather than sharr alone.
Ashrār: those once considered evildoers
Ṣād 38:62
وَقَالُوا مَا لَنَا لَا نَرَىٰ رِجَالًا كُنَّا نَعُدُّهُمْ مِنَ الْأَشْرَارِ
“They say: Why do we not see men whom we used to count among the evildoers?”
This is an especially significant occurrence of ashrār.
The speakers had judged others and counted them among evildoers.
The Qur’an reports that judgment as those speakers’ own words.
The presence of ashrār therefore does not establish that the Qur’an itself endorses the absent men’s being evil.
On the contrary, the speakers’ questioning and surprise at not seeing them suggest that their previous assessment should be read cautiously.
This distinction matters for lexical research: ashrār describes evildoers, but a verse may quote that description from speakers whose judgment is wrong.
The attribution of the words to their speakers must be preserved in translation.
Sharr al-maʾāb: an evil outcome
Ṣād 38:55 uses شَرَّ مَآبٍ for the outcome of those who transgress.
Maʾāb concerns returning or a place of return. Sharr in this construction conveys that outcome’s badness.
Sharr itself should not thereby be defined as returning or a place in the hereafter.
Here it concerns an unfavorable outcome and recompense, whereas Al-Zalzalah 99:8 connects it with the evil action itself.
Sharr can thus describe both conduct and its result or final outcome.
6. Sharr and seeking refuge in The God
Sharr occurs four times in Sūrat Al-Falaq and once in Sūrat Al-Nās.
These uses have particular semantic importance: sharr is something from which a person seeks refuge in The God.
The evil of what has been created
Al-Falaq 113:1
قُلْ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ الْفَلَقِ
“Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak.”
Al-Falaq 113:2
مِنْ شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ
“From the evil of what He has created.”
مِنْ شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ concerns harm or evil that may arise from created beings or in connection with them.
It does not mean that everything The God created is intrinsically evil.
This follows from أَعُوذُ مِنْ شَرِّ and the attachment of شَرّ to مَا خَلَقَ: refuge is sought from the evil of created things, without judging their entire existence evil. مِنْ alone does not prove a partitive meaning here. The distinction should therefore not be attributed solely to that preposition.
Fire, for example, may be beneficial and may also cause harm under certain conditions. Humans too may act well or badly.
A created being’s existence must remain distinct from the evil that may arise from it.
The verse itself does not offer a complete philosophical theory of evil’s origin, human choice, and the relationship of all events to divine will. Its direct subject is seeking refuge in The God from evil.
The harm of darkness and dangerous situations
Al-Falaq 113:3
وَمِنْ شَرِّ غَاسِقٍ إِذَا وَقَبَ
“And from the evil of gathering darkness when it envelops.”
Sharr is joined here with ghāsiq and the qualification إِذَا وَقَبَ.
Arabic explanations differ over the referent of ghāsiq, including the dark night and other phenomena.
Sharr in the construction continues to mean evil or harm.
The verse does not establish that darkness itself is always moral evil. Darkness may provide conditions for danger, but other Qur’anic verses also present night as part of creation’s order and a source of rest.
Harm and danger in one context should not be made into a denial of every benefit of the same phenomenon.
The evil of those who blow into knots
Al-Falaq 113:4
وَمِنْ شَرِّ النَّفَّاثَاتِ فِي الْعُقَدِ
“And from the evil of those who blow into knots.”
Sharr is attributed to an activity or agents identified through nafth and ʿuqad.
A precise understanding requires separate study of N F TH (ن ف ث), ʿ Q D (ع ق د), and their related uses.
Sharr itself does not establish that every act of blowing, tying a knot, or doing something connected with them is intrinsically bad.
Censure concerns the combination and context expressed in the verse.
The lexical definition should also not absorb, without evidence, every detail of accounts about sorcery or its particular methods.
The evil of envy when it is exercised
Al-Falaq 113:5
وَمِنْ شَرِّ حَاسِدٍ إِذَا حَسَدَ
“And from the evil of an envier when he envies.”
Sharr appears alongside the envier and the verb for envying.
إِذَا حَسَدَ matters because it foregrounds the conduct of envying in the sentence.
Sharr should therefore not be equated simply with envy itself. Here it is the harm or evil associated with envying.
This bears on understanding Ḥ S D (ح س د), although a full discussion of envy belongs to that root’s own study.
The verse alone also identifies no specific physical method by which an envier causes harm. The expression cannot establish a definite theory of an invisible power of the eye or the transmission of injury.
The whisperer’s evil
Al-Nās 114:4
مِنْ شَرِّ الْوَسْوَاسِ الْخَنَّاسِ
“From the evil of the retreating whisperer.”
Sharr here concerns the whisperer identified through waswās and khannās.
Sharr itself does not mean whispering. Waswās concerns hidden suggestion; khannās concerns retreat and concealment.
Sharr names the harm or evil from which refuge is sought in The God.
Al-Nās 114:5 describes whispering in people’s breasts, while Al-Nās 114:6 gives مِنَ الْجِنَّةِ وَالنَّاسِ.
The surah’s verses must therefore be read together to identify the evil in question.
Across Al-Falaq and Al-Nās, sharr is not just one particular kind of evil. It may concern danger and harm, people’s conduct, or incitement and whispering.
What connects them is something harmful or blameworthy from which a person seeks refuge in The God.
7. Sharar: fragments of fire in Sūrat Al-Mursalāt
Al-Mursalāt 77:32
إِنَّهَا تَرْمِي بِشَرَرٍ كَالْقَصْرِ
“It casts forth glowing fragments as great as lofty buildings.”
This is the sole Qur’anic occurrence of sharar.
Sharar in its material sense
Sharar denotes glowing fragments that break away from a fire and leap outward.
This use does not require the moral meaning of sharr to be incorporated into the word.
Fragments of fire can cause harm, but their name lexically concerns fire and its detached embers.
تَرْمِي expresses casting or throwing, while بِشَرَرٍ identifies what is cast.
Sharar itself should therefore not be translated as “throwing.”
كَالْقَصْرِ: the size of the embers
The verse compares sharar with qaṣr.
Early explanations differ over qaṣr’s referent. One reading understands a large, lofty building; another understands large pieces of wood or tree trunks.
Both emphasize the great size of what is compared with the embers.
Modern units of measurement or the dimensions of a particular building should not be imposed on the verse to determine their precise size.
Al-Mursalāt 77:33 also compares these fragments of fire to جِمَالَتٌ صُفْرٌ, whose referent and color have received differing lexical explanations.
The images convey the fragments’ great size and terrifying character without specifying every physical detail of the hereafter.
Is sharar identical to moral evil?
The difference between the root’s two branches is especially clear here.
شَرًّا in Al-Zalzalah 99:8 concerns an evil action; شَرَرٍ in Al-Mursalāt 77:32 concerns fragments of fire.
They cannot be replaced with a single equivalent in translation.
In Al-Mursalāt, sharar is neither a name for human conduct nor a moral description of fire, and does not by itself mean Hell. The verse concerns a fire casting forth embers.
Nor should a connection be manufactured by claiming that moral evil necessarily spreads like a spark. Such a comparison may belong in a literary or moral essay, but it is not the root’s fixed lexical meaning.
9. Translation proposals for Forqan
For شَرّ, “evil” or “badness” provides a basic equivalent. Where context concerns injury or an unfavorable result, “harm,” “affliction,” or “something harmful” may be more natural.
In Al-Baqarah 2:216, “bad for you” or “harmful to you” is appropriate. The point is the comparison between human preference and actual good or harm.
In Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:35, “We test you with evil and good” stays close to the wording. “Through hardship and good fortune” can also express part of the contextual meaning, but sharr and khayr should not be restricted to feelings of pain and pleasure.
For Al-Nūr 24:11, “Do not consider it bad for you” is appropriate. An explanation should make clear that the event’s beneficial outcome neither endorses nor excuses the perpetrators’ sin.
For Al-Isrāʾ 17:11, “The human being calls for evil as he calls for good” is proposed. “Calls for misery” could restrict the verse to one particular kind of harm.
In Fuṣṣilat 41:49 and comparable occurrences, “if affliction or harm touches him” may be more natural than “if sin touches him.”
In Al-Zalzalah 99:8, “whoever does an atom’s weight of evil” is appropriate, since يَعْمَلْ connects the subject with human action.
For comparative expressions such as شَرٌّ مَكَانًا, “worse in position” or “having a worse standing” is appropriate. The comparative should not be confused with the simple noun naming evil.
For شَرُّ الْبَرِيَّةِ in Al-Bayyinah 98:6, “the worst of creatures” is appropriate. The whole sentence must determine the people it describes.
For الْأَشْرَار in Ṣād 38:62, “evildoers” or “wicked people” is proposed. The verse quotes speakers judging others, so their ownership of the judgment must remain clear.
In Al-Falaq 113:2, Al-Falaq 113:3, Al-Falaq 113:4, Al-Falaq 113:5, and Al-Nās 114:4, “evil” or “evil and harm” is appropriate. It should not always be reduced to sorcery, envy, or whispering: these are subjects to which the evil is attributed.
For شَرَر in Al-Mursalāt 77:32, “flying embers” or “glowing fragments of fire” is appropriate. “Sparks” is familiar English, but may suggest very small particles, whereas the comparison with qaṣr emphasizes their great size.
The proposed rendering of the Al-Mursalāt expression is therefore:
“It casts forth glowing fragments as great as lofty buildings.”
Sharar here should not be rendered as “wickedness,” “scattered evils,” or “destructive energy.”
Reading أَشَرٌّ carefully
Al-Jinn 72:10 says:
وَأَنَّا لَا نَدْرِي أَشَرٌّ أُرِيدَ بِمَنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ أَمْ أَرَادَ بِهِمْ رَبُّهُمْ رَشَدًا
“We do not know whether evil has been intended for those on earth, or whether their Lord has intended right guidance for them.”
The initial hamzah of أَشَرٌّ is interrogative. The clause consequently asks “Has evil been intended?” rather than necessarily “Has something worse been intended?”
أُرِيدَ in the first part is passive; أَرَادَ بِهِمْ رَبُّهُمْ in the second explicitly identifies the agent.
This is a real grammatical distinction and must be preserved in translation.
Without examining other verses, the distinction should not be made into a conclusive theory of the origin of all evil. The verse reports a group of jinn speaking about their uncertainty concerning what outcome is intended for earth’s inhabitants.
10. Conclusion
Arabic SH R R has several semantic branches. The principal ones concern sharr as evil or harm, descriptions of evildoers, comparative expressions of being worse, and sharar as scattered embers of fire.
Lexical sources also include spreading things out to dry. Sharing a root does not establish that every meaning arose from one fixed historical image.
Qur’anic sharr is not confined to one sense.
It can concern an evil deed, as in Al-Zalzalah 99:8; harm or affliction someone experiences, as in Fuṣṣilat 41:49; or something people suppose harmful to themselves, or whose benefit and harm they must reconsider, as in Al-Baqarah 2:216 and Al-Nūr 24:11.
Some verses use sharr comparatively to judge people’s standing or conduct. Ṣād 38:62 quotes ashrār from speakers who had considered others evildoers. The presence of a description in quoted speech does not endorse the judgment’s correctness.
In Al-Falaq and Al-Nās, sharr is something from which refuge is sought in The God. These uses encompass different dangers and harms without establishing that all created things are intrinsically evil or that all evils have the same source and manner of influence.
Sharar in Al-Mursalāt 77:32 denotes glowing fragments of fire. This use must be distinguished from moral sharr.
The verses together show that Qur’anic sharr is not always sin, not always suffering or illness, and not necessarily everything someone dislikes. It has a broad field of evil, harm, and unfavorable outcomes, whose precise sense follows from agent, object, construction, and context.
In the opposition between good and evil, human judgment also does not always coincide with reality. Someone may suppose something beneficial that harms them, or a difficult event may ultimately bring them good. That possibility does not make all harmful conduct good or remove evildoers’ responsibility.
For Forqan, the basic definition is: sharr is evil or harm attributable to conduct, a condition, an event, or something’s outcome; comparatively, it expresses being worse. In the material branch, sharar denotes glowing fragments that leap from fire.
This definition accommodates the different Qur’anic uses without equating moral evil with unwanted suffering, comparative judgment with the name of an action, or sharr with the embers of a fire.