وَمِنْ ءَايَٰتِهِ ٱلْجَوَارِ فِى ٱلْبَحْرِ كَٱلْأَعْلَٰمِ
Al-jawār is the plural of jāriya; root ج-ر-ي: to flow, to run. And the use of this word for a ship is striking: a ship is named not "that which floats" but "that which flows".
The word, that is, brings forward not the ship's own movement but its going along with the water. The next verse will supply the counterpart of this choice: when the wind stops, the ships stop.
In the muṣḥaf the word is written as al-jawār, with the final yāʾ dropped — a known feature of the spelling of nouns on the jār pattern in Arabic. I record it; I draw no meaning from it.
Aʿlām is the plural of ʿalam. And ʿalam in Arabic means this: a sign that makes a place known — a waymark, a boundary stone, and a mountain.
| Derivative | Meaning |
|---|---|
| عِلْم (ʿilm) | Knowledge |
| عَلَم (ʿalam) | A sign; a mountain; a flag; a banner |
| عَلَامَة (ʿalāma) | A mark |
| مَعْلَم (maʿlam) | A landmark by which a place is recognised |
The shared core: what makes a thing known. A mountain is the most reliable sign for finding one's way in the desert; hence it is called an ʿalam.
And the work of the comparison is worth recording: ships are compared to mountains. The comparison points two ways, and the exegetes record both:
| Aspect | What it says |
|---|---|
| Size | A ship stands on the sea like a mountain |
| Visibility | A ship is like a mark picked out from afar |
The second aspect rests on the sense in the root of the word, and I record it. An ʿalam is first a "sign", and then a "mountain".