The Qur’anic root TH Q L

1. Semantic core and early Arabic usage

Ibn Fāris writes in Maqāyīs al-Lughah:

«الثَّاءُ وَالْقَافُ وَاللَّامُ أَصْلٌ وَاحِدٌ يَتَفَرَّعُ مِنْهُ كَلِمَاتٌ مُتَقَارِبَةٌ، وَهُوَ ضِدُّ الْخِفَّةِ»

al-thāʾu wa-al-qāfu wa-al-lāmu aṣlun wāḥidun yatafarraʿu minhu kalimātun mutaqāribatun wa-huwa ḍiddu al-khiffati

The letters thāʾ, qāf, and lām have one semantic foundation from which closely related words branch: the opposite of lightness.

Maqāyīs al-Lughah and Lisān al-ʿArab: semantic core

Lisān al-ʿArab likewise defines the basic meaning as al-thiqalu naqīḍu al-khiffah, “heaviness is the opposite of lightness.”

This is a useful starting point. Everyday experience associates heaviness and lightness with weight and the effort needed to carry or move things.

Under comparable conditions, lifting or moving a heavier object requires more force. This tangible experience can inform descriptions of difficulty, slow movement, or a matter’s importance.

This connection does not prove a single historical origin for every nonmaterial meaning. What can be established is a semantic family centered on heaviness.

Thaqula, thiqal, and thaqīl

Thaqula means to be or become heavy. Thiqal names the condition of heaviness, and thaqīl describes something heavy.

Thiqāl is a plural of thaqīl. It can describe multiple objects or beings characterized by heaviness.

Arabic also uses thiql for a heavy load; its plural is athqāl.

The distinction between heaviness as a condition and a heavy load matters. One use names the quality; the other names something possessing it or imposed upon someone.

For example, thaqula al-ḥimlu means “the load became heavy,” whereas athqāl may denote the loads carried by a person or animal.

Athqala and muthqal

Athqala is Form IV and can mean making something heavy or becoming burdened with weight.

In athqalahu al-ḥimlu, the load weighs someone down and weakens them.

In athqalati al-marʾatu, however, the woman herself becomes heavily burdened through pregnancy. Form IV does not necessarily mean that she makes something else heavy.

Each morphological pattern must therefore be understood through actual usage.

Muthqal is the passive participle of Form IV. It describes someone weighed down by a load, whether material or, in another context, the responsibility or consequences of an action.

Tathāqala and iththāqala

Form VI tathāqala can express slowness, ponderous behavior, or reluctance to rise or move.

The Qur’anic iththāqaltum is morphologically related to tathāqaltum. Sound changes produce an initial connecting hamzah and a doubled thāʾ.

In the verse concerning mobilization, it conveys acting heavily and remaining in place. The discussion of Al-Tawbah will clarify the context.

2. Loads, possessions, and precious things in early Arabic

Arabic does not express heaviness only as a numerical weight. A person’s baggage, equipment worth safeguarding, or precious possessions may also be described through this family.

Some early uses of thaqal denote travel effects. A caravan’s loads could include food, water, household equipment, and other possessions.

Lexicons record al-thaqal for a caravan’s goods and accompanying dependants. Irtaḥala al-qawmu bi-thaqalatihim describes people departing with their effects and loads.

Athqāl need not designate things of exceptional weight; it may denote a collection of portable loads.

A poetic witness attributed to Thaʿlabah ibn Ṣuʿayr

A poem attributed to Thaʿlabah ibn Ṣuʿayr al-Māzinī, an early pre-Islamic poet, contains the following:

فَتَذَكَّرَا ثَقَلًا رَثِيدًا بَعْدَمَا
أَلْقَتْ ذُكَاءُ يَمِينَهَا فِي كَافِرِ

fa-tadhakkarā thaqalan rathīdan baʿdamā / alqat dhukāʾu yamīnahā fī kāfiri

Translation:

“The two remembered a precious, closely gathered treasure, after the sun had cast its right hand into darkness.”

Thaqalan rathīdan here refers to ostrich eggs laid together and precious to the birds.

This usage is explained in an editorial note in the printed edition of Ibn Qutaybah’s Al-Shiʿr wa-al-Shuʿarāʾ, as well as in lexical discussions of thaqal.

Al-Shiʿr wa-al-Shuʿarāʾ: the ostrich-egg witness

Thaqal here does not simply mean a physically heavy object: it denotes something important to safeguard.

The witness supports the connection of preciousness and importance with this lexical family.

It does not follow that every occurrence of TH Q L should be translated as valuable property. That meaning belongs to a particular usage and context.

A poetic witness from Al-Khansāʾ

Maqāyīs al-Lughah and Lisān al-ʿArab quote a verse by Al-Khansāʾ:

أَبَعْدَ ابْنِ عَمْرٍو مِنْ آلِ الشَّرِيدِ
حَلَّتْ بِهِ الْأَرْضُ أَثْقَالَهَا

a-baʿda ibni ʿamrin min āli al-sharīdi / ḥallat bihi al-arḍu athqālahā

Translation:

“After Ibn ʿAmr of the house of Al-Sharīd, has the earth adorned its dead with him?”

Ibn Fāris explains that the earth adorned its dead with this man. On this reading, ḥallat concerns adornment, and athqālahā denotes the dead within the earth. The deceased man’s distinction makes him their ornament.

In that explanation, athqāl should not simply be understood as valuable people living on the earth’s surface. Lisān al-ʿArab also transmits another explanation involving the removal of a valiant man’s burden from the earth through his death.

Al-Khansāʾ was a mukhadram poet who lived across the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. The date of this particular verse is not firmly established, so it should not be called certainly pre-Qur’anic without qualification.

In Ibn Fāris’s explanation, adornment expresses the deceased man’s distinction, while athqāl denotes the dead. The ostrich-egg witness and explicit lexical definitions provide clearer evidence for thaqal meaning a precious thing.

Lexical sources: the earth adorning its dead in Al-Khansāʾ’s witness

Preciousness should nevertheless not be transferred automatically to every Qur’anic occurrence of athqāl.

3. Material heaviness in Qur’anic usage

Travel loads and carrying them

Al-Naḥl 16:7

وَتَحْمِلُ أَثْقَالَكُمْ إِلَىٰ بَلَدٍ لَمْ تَكُونُوا بَالِغِيهِ إِلَّا بِشِقِّ الْأَنْفُسِ ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكُمْ لَرَءُوفٌ رَحِيمٌ

wa-taḥmilu athqālakum ilā baladin lam takūnū bālighīhi illā bi-shiqqi al-anfusi inna rabbakum la-raʾūfun raḥīmun

Translation:

“They carry your loads to a land you could reach only with great personal hardship. Your Lord is indeed tenderly caring and merciful.”

Athqālakum denotes the loads people take on journeys and have livestock carry.

The preceding context concerns livestock and their benefits. The loads therefore belong to actual transportation.

Heaviness is connected with difficult travel. Illā bi-shiqqi al-anfusi indicates the great hardship of reaching the destination with these loads without the animals’ help.

Athqāl here means portable loads and effects. Although some lexicons include accompanying dependants within the broader usage, the verse strongly supports the baggage sense.

Heavy clouds

Al-Aʿrāf 7:57

وَهُوَ الَّذِي يُرْسِلُ الرِّيَاحَ بُشْرًا بَيْنَ يَدَيْ رَحْمَتِهِ ۖ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا أَقَلَّتْ سَحَابًا ثِقَالًا سُقْنَاهُ لِبَلَدٍ مَيِّتٍ فَأَنْزَلْنَا بِهِ الْمَاءَ فَأَخْرَجْنَا بِهِ مِنْ كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نُخْرِجُ الْمَوْتَىٰ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ

wa-huwa alladhī yursilu al-riyāḥa bushran bayna yaday raḥmatihi ḥattā idhā aqallat saḥāban thiqālan suqnāhu li-baladin mayyitin fa-anzalnā bihi al-māʾa fa-akhrajnā bihi min kulli al-thamarāti kadhālika nukhriju al-mawtā laʿallakum tadhakkarūna

Translation:

“He sends the winds as glad tidings before His mercy. When they lift heavy clouds, We drive them toward dead land, send down water through them, and bring forth every kind of fruit. Thus We bring forth the dead, so that you may remember.”

Thiqālan qualifies saḥāban, “clouds.”

Their heaviness is connected with rainfall: the continuation describes water descending and fruit growing.

Al-Raʿd 13:12 also speaks of al-saḥāba al-thiqāla, “heavy clouds.” Heaviness describes the clouds in both passages.

This can be understood in relation to rain and water-bearing clouds, without extracting a fixed water quantity, a particular cloud type, or a specific scientific law from the word itself.

Thiqāl means heavy here; the context connects that heaviness with rain.

The heaviness of pregnancy

Al-Aʿrāf 7:189

هُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُمْ مِنْ نَفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ وَجَعَلَ مِنْهَا زَوْجَهَا لِيَسْكُنَ إِلَيْهَا ۖ فَلَمَّا تَغَشَّاهَا حَمَلَتْ حَمْلًا خَفِيفًا فَمَرَّتْ بِهِ ۖ فَلَمَّا أَثْقَلَتْ دَعَوَا اللَّهَ رَبَّهُمَا لَئِنْ آتَيْتَنَا صَالِحًا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الشَّاكِرِينَ

huwa alladhī khalaqakum min nafsin wāḥidatin wa-jaʿala minhā zawjahā li-yaskuna ilayhā fa-lammā taghashshāhā ḥamalat ḥamlan khafīfan fa-marrat bihi fa-lammā athqalat daʿawā Allāha rabbahumā la-in ātaytanā ṣāliḥan la-nakūnanna mina al-shākirīna

Translation:

“He created you from one self and made its mate from it, that he might find rest with her. When he joined with her, she bore a light burden and continued with it. When she became heavily burdened, the two called upon The God, their Lord: ‘If You grant us a sound child, we shall surely be grateful.’”

The verse contrasts ḥamlan khafīfan, “a light burden,” with athqalat.

Pregnancy is initially described as light. Athqalat then describes the burden becoming heavier and more perceptible.

This illustrates Form IV: athqalat does not mean making something else heavy, but the woman becoming burdened with weight.

Lightness and heaviness can thus describe relative stages of a process. An initially light load later becomes heavy.

The expression establishes no precise date or medical stage of pregnancy. It distinguishes two conditions rather than supplying a fetal-development timetable.

4. The weight of responsibility, deeds, and their consequences

An important Qur’anic use extends the image of a material load into human responsibility and the consequences of deeds.

Burdens of deeds and responsibility for misleading others

Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:13

وَلَيَحْمِلُنَّ أَثْقَالَهُمْ وَأَثْقَالًا مَعَ أَثْقَالِهِمْ ۖ وَلَيُسْأَلُنَّ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ عَمَّا كَانُوا يَفْتَرُونَ

wa-la-yaḥmilunna athqālahum wa-athqālan maʿa athqālihim wa-la-yusʾalunna yawma al-qiyāmati ʿammā kānū yaftarūna

Translation:

“They will surely carry their own burdens and other burdens alongside their own, and on the Resurrection Day they will certainly be questioned about what they fabricated.”

Athqāl does not denote travel baggage or property here. The preceding verses concern people inviting others to follow their way and promising to bear their wrongdoing.

Athqālahum therefore concerns their deeds’ consequences and their responsibility.

The repetition matters: first their own burdens, then additional burdens alongside them.

Someone’s responsibility can increase through their conduct toward others. This does not mean that others’ wrongdoing is removed from them without responsibility and simply transferred to someone else.

Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:12 reports the claim of those promising to carry others’ sins and rejects that claim.

The additional burdens in verse 13 should therefore be understood through the misleaders’ own responsibility, rather than as a simple transfer of one person’s account to another.

A burdened person whose responsibility others cannot carry

Fāṭir 35:18

وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ أُخْرَىٰ ۚ وَإِنْ تَدْعُ مُثْقَلَةٌ إِلَىٰ حِمْلِهَا لَا يُحْمَلْ مِنْهُ شَيْءٌ وَلَوْ كَانَ ذَا قُرْبَىٰ ۗ إِنَّمَا تُنْذِرُ الَّذِينَ يَخْشَوْنَ رَبَّهُمْ بِالْغَيْبِ وَأَقَامُوا الصَّلَاةَ ۚ وَمَنْ تَزَكَّىٰ فَإِنَّمَا يَتَزَكَّىٰ لِنَفْسِهِ ۚ وَإِلَى اللَّهِ الْمَصِيرُ

wa-lā taziru wāziratun wizra ukhrā wa-in tadʿu muthqalatun ilā ḥimli-hā lā yuḥmal minhu shayʾun wa-law kāna dhā qurbā innamā tundhiru alladhīna yakhshawna rabbahum bi-al-ghaybi wa-aqāmū al-ṣalāta wa-man tazakkā fa-innamā yatazakkā li-nafsihi wa-ilā Allāhi al-maṣīru

Translation:

“No bearer bears another’s burden. If someone heavily burdened calls another to carry it, none of it will be carried, even by a close relative. You warn only those who fear their Lord unseen and establish ṣalāh. Whoever purifies themselves does so for themselves; and to The God is the return.”

Muthqalatun describes someone heavily burdened.

The context concerns individual responsibility. The opening says that no bearer bears another’s burden.

Even close kinship does not transfer that responsibility to another person.

Heaviness thus results from a burden of responsibility, rather than a person’s bodily characteristics.

The roots must also be distinguished: muthqalah belongs to TH Q L, wizr and wāzirah to W Z R, and ḥiml to Ḥ M L.

The three families share the image of a burden but have different roles. Muthqalah describes the burdened condition; wizr here denotes responsibility’s burden; and ḥiml names the load whose carrying is discussed.

Muthqalah should precisely be understood as “heavily burdened,” with its connection to wrongdoing and responsibility supplied by the context.

Acting heavily when called to move

Al-Tawbah 9:38

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَا لَكُمْ إِذَا قِيلَ لَكُمُ انْفِرُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ اثَّاقَلْتُمْ إِلَى الْأَرْضِ ۚ أَرَضِيتُمْ بِالْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا مِنَ الْآخِرَةِ ۚ فَمَا مَتَاعُ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا فِي الْآخِرَةِ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ

yā ayyuhā alladhīna āmanū mā lakum idhā qīla lakumu unfirū fī sabīli Allāhi iththāqaltum ilā al-arḍi a-raḍītum bi-al-ḥayāti al-dunyā mina al-ākhirati fa-mā matāʿu al-ḥayāti al-dunyā fī al-ākhirati illā qalīlun

Translation:

“You who believe, what is the matter with you that, when told to move forth in The God’s way, you cling heavily to the earth? Are you content with worldly life in place of the Hereafter? Worldly enjoyment is little compared with the Hereafter.”

Iththāqaltum ilā al-arḍi vividly depicts acting heavily and remaining in place.

The subject is not bodily weight, but people called to move who incline toward the earth instead of rising.

The preposition ilā matters. This is not simply “you became heavy”; the heaviness is directed toward the earth.

Lexical sources explain this construction through slow movement, a preference for remaining, and settling in place.

Lisān al-ʿArab: iththāqaltum, inclining and remaining

The verse connects that behavior with preferring worldly life.

Acting heavily toward the earth thus expresses reluctance to answer the call to move. This should not be generalized to every root occurrence: heavy clouds or loads need not have any negative moral quality.

Al-Tawbah 9:41 uses khifāfan wa-thiqālan, “light and heavy.” The contrast can encompass different conditions of readiness and difficulty in moving. The two adjectives alone do not establish an exclusive contrast of young and old, rich and poor, or mounted and walking.

5. Weight, scales, and mithqāl in the Qur’an

Mithqāl: an amount of weight, not a fixed object’s name

Mithqāl is an important derivative. Its basic meaning concerns an amount of weight or something equal to another thing in weight.

Lexicons explain mithqālu al-shayʾi through the weight of that thing.

In later periods, mithqāl has also denoted a particular weight unit, especially for gold and other valuable commodities.

Its Qur’anic use should not be confined to a monetary unit or a later fixed weight standard.

Mithqāla dharratin concerns the weight of a tiny particle; mithqāla ḥabbatin min khardalin concerns the weight of a mustard seed.

The two expressions do not specify one identical conventional weight. The item following mithqāl determines the amount in each case.

Lisān al-ʿArab and Al-Nihāyah: mithqāl as an amount of weight

A tiny particle and a minute quantity

Al-Nisāʾ 4:40

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَظْلِمُ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ ۖ وَإِنْ تَكُ حَسَنَةً يُضَاعِفْهَا وَيُؤْتِ مِنْ لَدُنْهُ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا

inna Allāha lā yaẓlimu mithqāla dharratin wa-in taku ḥasanatan yuḍāʿifhā wa-yuʾti min ladunhu ajran ʿaẓīman

Translation:

“The God does not wrong even the weight of a tiny particle. If there is a good deed, He multiplies it and gives a great reward from Himself.”

Mithqāla dharratin expresses a very small amount.

Lisān al-ʿArab explains dharrah through very small creatures or particles. The modern technical meaning of an atom should therefore not be directly imposed on Qur’anic Arabic.

An atom has a particular structure and definition in modern science. Qur’anic dharrah does not carry that specialized definition.

The expression communicates justice’s precision and comprehensiveness: even something minute is not overlooked.

Similar expressions in Yūnus 10:61, Sabaʾ 34:3, and Sabaʾ 34:22 belong to the same linguistic field, although the passages concern different matters.

Yūnus 10:61 and Sabaʾ 34:3 concern the comprehensiveness of divine knowledge. Sabaʾ 34:22 denies independent ownership to those invoked apart from The God.

A weight expression can thus indicate the slightest amount in different contexts while retaining mithqāl’s basic meaning.

The weight of a mustard seed

Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:47

وَنَضَعُ الْمَوَازِينَ الْقِسْطَ لِيَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ فَلَا تُظْلَمُ نَفْسٌ شَيْئًا ۖ وَإِنْ كَانَ مِثْقَالَ حَبَّةٍ مِنْ خَرْدَلٍ أَتَيْنَا بِهَا ۗ وَكَفَىٰ بِنَا حَاسِبِينَ

wa-naḍaʿu al-mawāzīna al-qisṭa li-yawmi al-qiyāmati fa-lā tuẓlamu nafsun shayʾan wa-in kāna mithqāla ḥabbatin min khardalin ataynā bihā wa-kafā binā ḥāsibīna

Translation:

“We shall set up the just scales for the Resurrection Day, and no self will be wronged at all. Even the weight of a mustard seed We shall bring forth; We suffice as reckoners.”

Mithqāl is accompanied by ḥabbatin min khardalin, “a mustard seed.”

The small seed illustrates precision in assessment.

Luqmān 31:16 uses the same expression in Luqmān’s counsel to his son. Even within a rock, in the heavens, or in the earth, that minute amount does not escape divine knowledge and attention.

Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:47 connects mawāzīna al-qisṭ with justice and the absence of wrongdoing. Assessment should not be separated from justice.

The verse describes scales being set up, without specifying their physical structure, material, or how human deeds become measurable quantities.

Conversely, lack of knowledge about the mechanism does not justify turning the assessment into an unreal metaphor. The text affirms assessment and reckoning; their precise manner remains unspecified.

Scales becoming heavy

Al-Aʿrāf 7:8

وَالْوَزْنُ يَوْمَئِذٍ الْحَقُّ ۚ فَمَنْ ثَقُلَتْ مَوَازِينُهُ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ

wa-al-waznu yawmaʾidhin al-ḥaqqu fa-man thaqulat mawāzīnuhu fa-ulāʾika humu al-mufliḥūna

Translation:

“The weighing that day is true; those whose scales become heavy are the successful.”

Thaqulat is a Form I verb, with mawāzīnuhu as its subject.

The scales becoming heavy is connected with success: heaviness here has a favorable outcome, unlike in some other uses.

Al-Muʾminūn 23:102 and Al-Qāriʿah 101:6 contain the same expression.

Al-Aʿrāf 7:9, Al-Muʾminūn 23:103, and Al-Qāriʿah 101:8 describe the opposite: scales becoming light.

Heaviness and lightness therefore relate directly to the assessment’s outcome.

The root alone does not establish that good deeds are physically heavier than bad ones or that every deed has material mass.

Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:47 identifies justice as central to assessment. Deeds’ weight can thus be discussed through value and accountability without claiming certainty about the physical mechanism.

6. Weighty speech, a heavy day, and the two thaqal groups

Qawlan thaqīlan: weighty speech

Al-Muzzammil 73:5

إِنَّا سَنُلْقِي عَلَيْكَ قَوْلًا ثَقِيلًا

innā sa-nulqī ʿalayka qawlan thaqīlan

Translation:

“We shall indeed convey to you a weighty utterance.”

Thaqīlan qualifies qawlan, “an utterance.”

The verse itself does not restrict the heaviness to bodily weight. It can concern importance, seriousness, responsibility, and the difficulty of receiving the speech and acting upon it.

Lexical sources explain qawl thaqīl through precious, sound speech, speech carrying responsibility, or speech demanding difficult action.

Lisān al-ʿArab: importance, soundness, and obligation in weighty speech

The surrounding passage concerns night prayer and measured Qur’anic recitation; the following verse concerns the night vigil’s effect and firmness of speech.

Weighty speech here is therefore consequential, rather than ordinary or trivial.

The adjective alone does not establish an exclusive meaning of bodily heaviness during revelation, difficult commands, or the speech’s exalted standing.

These may be different explanations, but none should become the root’s exclusive definition without contextual consideration.

“Weighty speech” preserves this range, leaving the nature of the weight to contextual reflection.

Yawman thaqīlan: a heavy day

Al-Insān 76:27

إِنَّ هَٰؤُلَاءِ يُحِبُّونَ الْعَاجِلَةَ وَيَذَرُونَ وَرَاءَهُمْ يَوْمًا ثَقِيلًا

inna hāʾulāʾi yuḥibbūna al-ʿājilata wa-yadharūna warāʾahum yawman thaqīlan

Translation:

“They love the immediate life and leave behind them a heavy day.”

Heaviness describes a day.

This cannot lexically concern a day’s physical weight. The passage concerns preferring transient life and disregarding a day with grave significance and consequences.

A heavy day may therefore be difficult, fearful, or momentous.

The more precise character of its heaviness comes from the context and Resurrection passages; thaqīl does not always mean punishment or hardship.

Al-Aʿrāf 7:187 also says of the Hour: thaqulat fī al-samāwāti wa-al-arḍi.

That passage concerns when the Hour occurs and the concealment of that knowledge. Some lexicographers and commentators connect the heaviness with the difficulty of knowing its time, others with the event’s enormity and terror.

Thaqulat alone does not establish that the Resurrection has material mass exerting physical pressure on heaven and earth.

Al-thaqalān: two groups associated with thaqal

Al-Raḥmān 55:31

سَنَفْرُغُ لَكُمْ أَيُّهَ الثَّقَلَانِ

sa-nafrughu lakum ayyuha al-thaqalāni

English rendering of Forqan’s current Persian translation:

“We shall soon attend to you, O two burdened groups.”

Al-thaqalāni is the dual of thaqal. Arabic recognizes it as a designation for jinn and humankind.

The surah clarifies the referents: Al-Raḥmān 55:33 addresses maʿshara al-jinni wa-al-insi, “company of jinn and humankind.”

These are therefore the two groups addressed here.

Why are the two called thaqalān?

Lexical and exegetical sources offer different explanations: their presence and numbers on earth, their standing and importance, or the burden of responsibility and obligation.

Ibn Fāris mentions their large numbers. Other sources include the standing and value of the referents among thaqal’s semantic associations.

Maqāyīs al-Lughah and Lisān al-ʿArab: al-thaqalān and explanations of the name

None of these explanations should become the word’s certain, exclusive meaning.

For example, the Qur’anic responsibility of jinn and humans does not alone prove that al-thaqalān means exactly “two sinful groups.” Nor does Arabic usage for preciousness prove that it means only “two groups superior to all creation.”

Forqan’s Persian “two burdened groups” retains one semantic possibility, but the explanation should clarify that this is an established designation for jinn and humankind, without declaring every member sinful.

7. The earth’s athqāl and its concealed burdens

Al-Zalzalah 99:2

وَأَخْرَجَتِ الْأَرْضُ أَثْقَالَهَا

wa-akhrajati al-arḍu athqālahā

Translation:

“And the earth brings forth its burdens.”

Unlike Al-Naḥl 16:7, this athqāl passage does not concern loads people carry on a journey.

The earth is the subject of akhrajat, “brings forth,” and athqālahā names what is brought out.

Lexical and exegetical sources give two principal referents: the dead, and treasures or possessions concealed within the earth.

Ibn Fāris reports both interpretations; Al-Farrāʾ likewise mentions the dead and treasures coming forth.

Maqāyīs al-Lughah and the Al-Farrāʾ report: the dead and treasures

Athqāl is not exclusively a lexical name for dead bodies or treasures. It denotes the earth’s burdens, with their precise referents assessed contextually.

The first verse describes the earth’s violent shaking, the second its bringing forth burdens. Human reaction and the earth’s reporting follow; the closing verses concern seeing good and bad deeds in the smallest amounts.

The contents coming forth are thus connected with a great event and human accountability.

The dead fit the resurrection setting clearly. The root’s meaning alone, however, does not exclude other things concealed within the earth.

“Its burdens” preserves the direct wording; identifying those burdens belongs to contextual analysis.

8. Comparison with related roots

TH Q L (thiqal) and KH F F (khiffah): heaviness and lightness

Study of KH F F

These roots stand opposite one another in Arabic.

Heaviness can impede carrying or movement, whereas lightness can facilitate it. In ethical and Qur’anic contexts, however, heaviness is not always negative or lightness always positive.

In Al-Aʿrāf 7:8, heavy scales indicate success. In Al-Qāriʿah 101:8, light scales have an unfavorable outcome.

Al-Tawbah 9:38 criticizes inclining heavily toward the earth. Al-Aʿrāf 7:189 describes light and heavy stages of pregnancy without an inherent moral judgment.

The root alone determines neither positive nor negative value; the context establishes each outcome.

TH Q L (thiqal) and W Z N (wazn): heaviness and weighing

Study of W Z N

TH Q L concerns heaviness or a heavy thing, whereas W Z N concerns weighing and assessment by a scale or measure.

The families converge in the scales passages without being synonymous.

In thaqulat mawāzīnuhu, the verb comes from TH Q L, while the instrument or criterion of assessment belongs to W Z N.

One expresses heaviness; the other concerns assessment and its measure.

Mithqāl likewise denotes an amount of weight rather than the act of weighing.

TH Q L (thiqal) and Ḥ M L (ḥaml): a burden and carrying it

Study of Ḥ M L (Not yet published)

Ḥ M L concerns lifting, carrying, and bearing a load. TH Q L concerns its heaviness or the heavy load itself.

Al-Naḥl 16:7 combines both: livestock taḥmilu, “carry,” your athqāl, “loads.”

The loads are carried; the verb expresses their transportation.

Fāṭir 35:18 similarly describes someone as muthqalah and speaks of that person’s ḥiml.

The connection between a burden and carrying does not make the roots identical. Something may be heavy without being carried, or carried without being especially heavy.

TH Q L (thiqal) and W Z R (wizr): burden and responsibility

Study of W Z R (Not yet published)

Qur’anic wizr can denote a burden of wrongdoing and responsibility.

Thiql has a broader heaviness sense, also used for material loads, weighty speech, and the weight of things.

Fāṭir 35:18 uses W Z R for individual responsibility and TH Q L to describe a heavily burdened person.

Not every Qur’anic thiql means sin, and not every heavy load is moral.

Where wrongdoing and responsibility form the context, however, a heavy load aptly depicts human deeds’ consequences.

9. Translation proposals for Forqan

No single Persian equivalent covers every Qur’anic use. Translations should nevertheless preserve a connection with heaviness where possible.

Thaqulat in the scales passages: “became heavy.” In Al-Aʿrāf 7:187, contextual choices may include “became heavy and difficult” or “was momentous.”

Athqalat in Al-Aʿrāf 7:189: “became heavily burdened,” concerning pregnancy.

Iththāqaltum in Al-Tawbah 9:38: “acted heavily” or “inclined ponderously toward the earth.” Forqan’s current Persian phrase retains the Arabic image of acting heavily toward the earth.

Thiqālan and al-thiqāl, describing clouds: “heavy” or “heavy clouds,” with the rain connection explained contextually.

Athqāl in Al-Naḥl 16:7: “loads” or “travel loads.” In Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:13: “burdens of responsibility” in contextual analysis, but “burdens” in direct translation. In Al-Zalzalah 99:2: “the earth’s burdens,” without making the referent exclusive in translation.

Mithqāl: “the weight of,” “equal in weight to,” or “a weight amount.” Mithqāla dharratin can naturally be “the weight of a tiny particle,” without imposing the specialized meaning of an atom.

Muthqalah and muthqalūn: “heavily burdened” or “weighed down.” Al-Ṭūr 52:40 and Al-Qalam 68:46 concern a demanded financial charge, whereas Fāṭir 35:18 concerns individual responsibility.

Thaqīlan in Al-Muzzammil 73:5: “weighty,” allowing importance and responsibility. In Al-Insān 76:27: “heavy” or, with contextual emphasis, “difficult and grave.”

Al-thaqalāni in Al-Raḥmān 55:31: a designation for jinn and humankind, associated with heaviness and importance. Forqan’s existing Persian says “two burdened groups”; it should not be changed without a separate translation decision.

10. Conclusion

TH Q L denotes heaviness as opposed to lightness, applied in several Qur’anic semantic fields.

Material uses concern heavy clouds, travel loads, and pregnancy. Human conduct brings burdens of responsibility, wrongdoing’s consequences, and reluctance to move. Resurrection passages connect weight and heaviness with assessment, justice, and reckoning. Qawlan thaqīlan and yawman thaqīlan extend beyond bodily weight to importance, seriousness, or difficulty.

Mithqāl denotes an amount of weight; with a tiny particle or mustard seed it expresses very small amounts. It should not be confined to later conventional weight units or the scientific atom.

Al-thaqalāni is an established designation for jinn and humankind. The different lexical explanations of its naming should not become certain definitions without sufficient evidence.

Qur’anic heaviness may be favorable or unfavorable. Heavy scales indicate success, while acting heavily when called to move may be criticized. Heaviness is therefore not inherently virtuous, nor lightness inherently deficient.

Heaviness unites the family, but what is heavy, why it is heavy, and its outcome require separate consideration in each verse.

Faithful Qur’anic translation should therefore preserve each derivative’s direct meaning, introducing ethical, philosophical, or scientific explanations only where the text and context clearly support them.