Root TH J J in the Qur’an

1. The semantic core and Arabic usage

“Pouring and flowing” expresses the family’s basic meaning. Many uses, however, concern abundance or intensity as well as the occurrence of flow.

In Jamharat al-Lughah, Ibn Durayd records thajja for pouring water abundantly. Ibn Fāris likewise identifies pouring something as the root’s central meaning in Maqāyīs al-Lughah.

Maqāyīs al-Lughah: pouring something

The meaning appears in two verbal constructions:

Thajja al-māʾa describes someone pouring or causing water to flow. The verb is transitive, with water as its object.

By contrast, thajja al-māʾu can mean that water itself flows or pours down. The verb is intransitive, with the flowing water as its subject.

This distinction matters for Qur’anic thajjāj: the root can describe the flowing itself, rather than only the act of someone pouring something.

Lexicons record maṭarun thajjājun for heavy rain and ʿaynun thajūjun for a spring with abundant water.

The root is not confined to water. It also describes abundant flows of blood and milk. The liquid changes while pouring and flowing remain.

Rain is therefore one clear instance, rather than the root’s entire semantic field.

The physical image

The tangible image is liquid flowing abundantly from its location: water pouring from a vessel, heavy rain, or plentiful flow from a spring.

Water’s mere presence or a large stored quantity is insufficient. Pouring or flowing matters: a full vessel, before its water flows, does not clearly exemplify thajja merely by being full.

This image explains attested uses; without evidence it should not be presented as the root’s certain historical origin.

2. A poetic witness and early uses

A familiar witness is a verse by Abū Dhuʾayb al-Hudhalī transmitted in Dīwān al-Hudhaliyyīn. This version’s sūd is retained; lexical sources also transmit suḥm and muzn in its place:

Dīwān al-Hudhaliyyīn: Abū Dhuʾayb’s witness with sūd

سَقَى أُمَّ عَمْرٍو كُلَّ آخِرِ لَيْلَةٍ
حَنَاتِمُ سُودٌ مَاؤُهُنَّ ثَجِيجُ

saqā Umma ʿAmrin kulla ākhiri laylatin / ḥanātimu sūdun māʾuhunna thajīju

Translation:

“May dark clouds, whose waters pour abundantly, forever water Umm ʿAmr.” Lexical commentary explains kulla ākhiri laylatin through abadan, “forever.”

Lisān al-ʿArab: suḥm variant and the sense forever

Ḥanātim here denotes dark clouds. The term is also associated with water vessels: clouds are compared to vessels containing water.

Lisān al-ʿArab: clouds and full water vessels

Thajīj describes the clouds’ water as flowing and pouring.

This demonstrates that the root’s use for water pouring from clouds is attested in Arabic poetry as well as in the Qur’an.

Abū Dhuʾayb lived across the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. His verse is valuable evidence of early Arabic, but cannot certainly establish usage before revelation unless its date is determined.

Flow and the sound of pouring

Lisān al-ʿArab records the sound of water pouring as well as its flow for thajīj al-māʾ.

Lexical sources: flow, sound, and figurative speech

The word can thus involve the sound produced by pouring. This does not make sound the root’s principal core.

Flowing and pouring suffice for the poetic witness. The Qur’anic verse likewise concerns water sent down, without evidence for translating thajjājan as the sound of rain.

Blood and speech

Arabic thajj also describes flowing blood, including reports concerning sacrificial animals. This extends the liquid-flow sense; sacrifice and ritual are not components of the root’s basic meaning.

Figuratively, someone speaking fluently and abundantly can be called mithajj. Abundant, flowing speech is compared to flowing water.

This illustrates an image connecting liquid flow and fluent speech, but does not establish an independent rhetorical meaning from the root’s origin.

Attested literal uses concern flowing liquids, while figurative expressions evoke abundance and fluency in other things. This does not by itself establish the historical sequence in which meanings arose.

3. Qur’anic usage: thajjāj water

Al-Nabaʾ 78:14

وَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ الْمُعْصِرَاتِ مَاءً ثَجَّاجًا

wa-anzalnā mina al-muʿṣirāti māʾan thajjājan

Translation:

“We sent down from the rain-bearing clouds water pouring abundantly.”

Thajjājan is the adjective of māʾan, and both are accusative. It directly describes the water, rather than the clouds.

Thajjāj follows the faʿʿāl pattern. Here it conveys intensity and accords with lexical evidence for abundant pouring.

The water pours plentifully and forcefully. The description concerns its descent and flow as well as its quantity.

“Abundant water” conveys part of the meaning but obscures pouring; “flowing water” alone can understate intensity and abundance.

Does thajjāj mean pouring or poured?

Early linguists differed over the word’s morphology.

Ibn Durayd explains thajjāj as active in form but potentially passive in meaning: the cloud pours the water, and the water is what is poured.

Ibn Sīdah instead relies on the verb’s intransitive use: when the water itself thajja, it pours down. Thajjāj can therefore be an intensive active description of water without assuming a passive sense.

Ibn Sīdah’s Al-Muḥkam: active and passive analyses

Both analyses concern water pouring plentifully and forcefully.

Since both transitive and intransitive uses are attested, understanding thajjāj as describing water that pours intensely is linguistically defensible without necessarily turning an active construction into a passive meaning.

Its role in the surah’s context

Al-Nabaʾ’s opening passages recall creation and human life: earth, mountains, creation in pairs, sleep, night, day, the sky, and a blazing lamp.

Water’s descent follows. Al-Nabaʾ 78:15 describes bringing forth grain and vegetation through it, and Al-Nabaʾ 78:16 mentions dense gardens.

Thajjāj water here is therefore more than a weather phenomenon; it participates in the nourishment and growth of earthly life.

The connection with growth comes from the following verses, rather than the lexical meaning of thajjāj itself. The word alone does not mean fertility, plant growth, or mercy, although the context associates falling water with these results.

Al-muʿṣirāt also has differing lexical and exegetical interpretations: some understand clouds ready to rain, others winds. The translation above follows the rain-bearing-cloud reading. This belongs to the independent study of ʿ Ṣ R and does not change thajjājan’s meaning.

Al-Ṭabarī: interpretations of al-muʿṣirāt

Study of ʿ Ṣ R

4. Related roots

TH J J (thajj) and Ṣ B B (ṣabb)

Study of Ṣ B B (Not yet published)

The Qur’an also uses Ṣ B B for pouring water.

ʿAbasa 80:25

أَنَّا صَبَبْنَا الْمَاءَ صَبًّا

annā ṣababnā al-māʾa ṣabban

Translation:

“That We poured down the water in abundance.”

Both roots concern pouring water, but their expression differs.

In ʿAbasa 80:25, ṣababnā is a verb and ṣabban its emphatic verbal noun. The sentence emphasises the act of pouring.

In Al-Nabaʾ 78:14, thajjājan is an adjective of water, describing its manner of pouring.

The difference therefore involves sentence construction as well as roots. Ṣabb does not always mean ordinary pouring while thajj always means intense pouring: appropriate constructions and context can also make ṣabb convey intensity or abundance.

TH J J (thajj) and H M R (hamr)

Study of H M R (Not yet published)

H M R occurs in another description of descending water.

Al-Qamar 54:11

فَفَتَحْنَا أَبْوَابَ السَّمَاءِ بِمَاءٍ مُّنْهَمِرٍ

fa-fataḥnā abwāba al-samāʾi bi-māʾin munhamirin

Translation:

“We opened the gates of the sky with water pouring fiercely.”

Munhamir likewise denotes water pouring down and is close to thajjāj in that respect.

The contexts differ: in Al-Qamar, the water belongs to the flood narrative of Noah’s people; in Al-Nabaʾ, it is associated with grain, vegetation, and gardens.

Neither root is therefore intrinsically restricted to mercy or punishment. The roots describe the pouring; context determines its role in the event.

Related words can thus overlap in some uses without losing all their lexical and structural differences.

5. Proposed equivalents for Forqan

A Persian equivalent should preserve pouring and flowing, while conveying abundance or intensity where the evidence supports it.

Depending on the construction, thajja can be rendered “poured down,” “caused to flow abundantly,” or “flowed forcefully.”

For water-related thajīj, “pouring water,” “an abundant flow of water,” or, where sound is meant, “the sound of pouring water” is appropriate.

For thajjāj in Al-Nabaʾ, “with abundant pouring,” “pouring forcefully,” and “pouring profusely” express different aspects. “Water pouring abundantly” corresponds naturally to the preferred Persian wording and preserves quantity and pouring.

The short word box for thajjājan can distinguish the two meanings:

Brief root meaning: Pouring and flowing abundantly.

Meaning in this verse: Water pouring abundantly and forcefully.

6. Conclusion

Arabic TH J J denotes pouring and flowing, with abundance and intensity prominent in its established uses. It applies to water, rain, blood, and other liquids, and figuratively to abundant, fluent speech.

Its sole Qur’anic form, thajjājan, describes water descending from al-muʿṣirāt. “Abundant pouring” is more precise than quantity alone, preserving movement, flow, and intensity.

The Qur’an associates this water with grain, vegetation, and dense gardens. This clarifies its contextual role without adding fertility, mercy, or life to the root’s lexical definition.