وَمَثَلُ كَلِمَةٍ خَبِيثَةٍ كَشَجَرَةٍ خَبِيثَةٍ ٱجْتُثَّتْ مِن فَوْقِ ٱلْأَرْضِ مَا لَهَا مِن قَرَارٍ
Wa mathalu kalimatin khabīthatin ka-shajaratin khabīthatin ijtuththat min fawqi'l-arḍi mā lahā min qarār
"And the likeness of an evil word is this: it is like an evil tree, torn up from the face of the earth, having no place to stand."
The concrete sense of the root ج-ث-ث: to pull a thing up by the root, to tear it from its place together with its trunk.
- جُثَّة (jussa) — the body, the trunk of a thing. The Turkish word cüsse (a person's bulk or build) is this word.
- جَثِيث — according to what the lexicographers record, a date-palm shoot torn from its root and planted elsewhere.
- ٱجْتَثَّ — Form VIII: he tore it up by the root, he wrenched it out with its trunk.
I record this as an observation about the word order: for the root of the good tree an adjective was given, not a verb (thābit — it is firm, a state). For the evil tree a verb is given, and a passive verb at that. The two descriptions are in different grammatical categories: the one a condition, the other something that has happened to it.
The construct is worth recording and the lexicographers dwell on it. Not "from below the ground" but "from above the ground" it was torn.
| Explanation | Sense |
|---|---|
| 1 | The tree's root had never entered the soil; it was resting on the surface, and came away at a slight pull |
| 2 | The construct min fawqi'l-arḍ means "from the face of the earth"; the tree has been lifted clean out of its place |
But the first explanation accords well with the opposition of the parable, and I record this as an indication: the root of the good tree was thābit — that is, it had taken hold deep down. Its opposite is not having taken hold at all.
The root ق-ر-ر: to stay in a place, to settle, to remain fixed. From the same root come qarār (the place where one settles), mustaqarr (the place of settling), and qurra (the eye's coming to rest on something and not sliding away — recorded for qurrata aʿyun at al-Furqān 25/74).
The word occurs twice in the sūra: here and in the twenty-ninth verse (jahannama yaṣlawnahā wa biʾsa'l-qarār).
| Verse | Expression | Who / what |
|---|---|---|
| 26 | Mā lahā min qarār | The evil tree — it has no place to stand |
| 29 | Wa biʾsa'l-qarār | Hell — there is a place to stand, but an evil one |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the meeting of the two occurrences: the evil word has no place to stand in this world; in the hereafter, however, there is a place, and that place has been named. The sūra sets "having no standing" and "an evil standing" side by side three verses apart.
The verse does not say what "the good word" and "the evil word" are. Various equivalents are transmitted in the classical commentaries — the word of tawḥīd, faith, a righteous word; and on the other side the word of associating partners, denial. I transmit these equivalents, but since the wording of the verse gives no definition I do not present any one of them as the text's own word.
What the text gives is not a definition but a criterion, and I record this as my own reading: the parable measures the goodness of a word not by its content but by four properties — a root it holds to, a trunk reaching upward, a fruit that is not cut off, and the fruit's not belonging to itself. These four criteria can be applied to any word whatever.