Glossary: S
A B D F G H I J K L M N Q R S T U W Y Z
sābiqūn
The Foremost Ones are those foremost in good works, who are therefore foremost in receiving God's forgiveness and mercy (). → Read at 56:10
ṣabr
- () Here unqualified, so it covers all its forms: patience in hardship, in performing good deeds, and against sins; but it is limited by being "for the sake of their Lord's pleasure". → Read
- () Al-Rāghib: ṣabr means restraint in straitness, that is, restraining oneself from what both reason and religious law dictate one should restrain oneself from. → Read
- () The original meaning of patience (ṣabr) is restraint, and the original meaning of gratitude (shukr) is to display the blessing of the one who bestowed it through word or deed. → Read
- () Patience is unqualified here, so it includes patience in obeying God, in avoiding disobedience, and in the face of afflictions that befall by God’s decree. → Read
ṣabr jamīl
"Graceful patience" is patience free of any fretting, complaint, or agitation. → Read at 70:5
safah
Al-Rāghib: safah means “frivolity of the soul” due to imprudence and foolishness. → Read at 72:4
ṣaff
Al-Rāghib: to set things such as people and trees in a straight, uniform line; a verbal noun in the sense of an active participle describing the fighters in battle lines. → Read at 61:4
ṣafḥ
Al-Rāghib: the surface or side of something; it also means leaving grievances behind, and is more expressive than ʿafw (forgiveness), since one may forgive but not overlook. → Read at 15:85
ṣaghw
To incline; here inclining toward falsehood, away from rectitude. → Read at 66:4
sāhūn
Sāhūn is synonymous with ghāfilūn (heedless): those who give little importance to their prayers and do not care if they miss them or pray after their time. → Read at 107:5
sakhriyyah
Ridicule is deriding someone by mentioning things that belittle them, through word, gesture, or deed, imitating them so that others laugh; qawm originally referred only to men, who undertook (qiyām) important matters. → Read at 49:11
sakīnah
- () A state of the heart that grants tranquility of the soul and steadfastness of heart; in the Qur'an it goes hand in hand with an increase of faith and the "word of Godwariness" (). What God means by it is more than the composure of any brave warrior on the battlefield. → Read
- () Composure is apparently a calm, steady tranquility of the soul toward what it has believed in; elsewhere he identifies it with the spirit of faith (). → Read
sakrat al-mawt
The "drunkenness" of death is what a person experiences as his soul is wrenched away, wholly focused on himself and cut off from others, like one intoxicated who does not know what is said. → Read at 50:19
ṣalāḥ
According to al-Rāghib, ṣalāḥ is the opposite of fasād, which is a change from what a thing's original nature requires; so ṣalāḥ is when something remains according to the requirements of its original nature, giving rise to the good results expected from it. → Read at 26:83
salām
- () Al-Rāghib: its original meaning is to be free from both external and internal sources of harm, a meaning found in all its derivatives. The ʿAllāmah: salām (peace) refers to safety in and of itself, while salāma (security) refers to safety in relation to what one is safe from. → Read
- () Salām (peace) means almost the same as amn (safety); the difference is that amn means the locus is free of what a person hates and fears, whereas salām means that everything a person finds in it suits him without his disliking or fearing it. → Read
- () Al-Mufradāt: salām and salāmah mean being free from defects and afflictions, outer or inner; so the night is peaceful in that God’s grace spreads upon His worshipers and the gates of new punishment are closed. → Read
ṣalāt
Yuṣallī comes from ṣalāt and overall has the meaning of inʿiṭāf (inclining towards someone); here the verse explains that ṣalāt from God is His mercy, a specific mercy towards the faithful that brings them eternal happiness. → Read at 33:43
ṣaly
Ṣaly means “being perpetually bound and attached” to the fire, amounting to eternal burning; so the verse restricts only eternal torment to the most wretched disbelievers. → Read at 92:15
samʿ
God's "hearing" the woman's speech is a metonymy for responding to her plea and fulfilling her need, while "God hears the arguments of you both" uses hearing in its common sense. → Read at 58:1
ṣamad
The root meaning of ṣamad is “seeking” or “seeking and relying upon”; unqualified, it means the One Who is sought out for all needs, the ultimate end of every search. → Read at 112:2
sarīrah
Sarīrah (secret, intention) is what one hides in one’s heart; balāʾ means examining and making known, so on that day whatever is hidden in souls, including beliefs and the consequences of deeds, will be revealed and sifted. → Read at 86:9
ṣarṣar
saʿy
- () Al-Rāghib: to strive literally means to walk swiftly, short of running, and is also used for earnestness in any act, good or evil; the latter is figurative. → Read
- () To walk quickly, to hasten; "leave off trading" prohibits any activity that keeps one from the Friday prayer, trade being named as its most apparent instance. → Read
self-blaming soul
The self-blaming soul may be the believer’s soul that blames the person for sins and laxity in obedience, the disbeliever’s soul blaming them on the Day of Resurrection, or the human soul in general, which will blame everyone on that day; all three meanings are acceptable. → Read at 75:2
shahādah
- () The witnessing of this ummah (and of the Messenger) is a Qur'anic reality: the witnesses see and observe in this world the realities of people's deeds (felicity and infelicity, acceptance and rejection), which ordinary senses cannot perceive, and will testify for or against them on the Day of Judgment. → Read
- () Shahādah here, in both shāhid and mashhūd, means “being present in a scene,” not testifying in a court; the Witness can be matched with the Prophet, who observes the deeds of his nation and will testify to them. → Read
shahīq
Al-Rāghib: prolonged zafīr (drawing breath back into the chest); per Majmaʿ al-Bayān, fawarān is an increase in boiling; tamayyuz is bursting and ghayẓ heightened rage: Hell draws them in like an inhalation. → Read at 67:7
shahwah
Shahwa originally means for the soul to be drawn towards something by one of its faculties in order to obtain enjoyment from it, such as the desire for food, drink and sexual intercourse. → Read at 41:31
shākilah
Al-Rāghib (al-Mufradāt): it is derived from shakl, tying an animal; shākilah refers to one's manner and character in the sense that it ties and restrains the person to follow what it dictates. → Read at 17:84
shaʾn
"Some work" is indefinite to stress variety: at every moment God is engaged in work unlike any before or after, acting without prior example, which is called ibdāʿ (origination). → Read at 55:29
shaqāwah
Shaqāwah (unsuccessfulness) is the opposite of saʿādah (happiness). Al-Rāghib: shaqāwah is classified exactly like saʿādah, of the hereafter and of this world, the latter being spiritual, physical and external. → Read at 20:2
sharʿ
Al-Rāghib: al-sharʿ is a clear, open path, also pronounced shirʿ and sharīʿah, then used for the divine path; some say the sharīʿah was named after a drinking place. The ʿAllāmah suggests it is probably the reverse: the watering place was the original meaning, then borrowed for the law. → Read at 5:48
sharḥ
Al-Rāghib: the root meaning of sharḥ is to open meat, and sharḥ al-ṣadr is when one’s breast opens up with divine light and tranquility; for the Prophet it means giving him the capacity to encompass revelation and the travails of spreading the message. → Read at 94:1
sharḥ al-ṣadr
- () Sharḥ is synonymous with basṭ, to expand or open (al-Rāghib: originally used for cutting meat open), and ṣadr here is the receptacle of knowledge and intuition; expansion of the breast is a condition in which a person absorbs correct teachings and does not reject the word of truth when confronted with it, and it is how God guides a servant. → Read
- () To open someone's breast means to expand it so that it can encompass the words it receives; one whose breast is opened to Islam accepts the truth when presented to him, not without understanding, but because he sees that it is the truth. → Read
sharīʿah
A clear course (sharīʿah) means a path leading down to water; here it is the specific path in the matter of the divine religion, the path of Islam bestowed upon the Prophet and his community. → Read at 45:18
shayṭān
shīʿah
A shīʿah is a group of people who follow someone other than themselves, footstep by footstep; anyone who accepts to follow another's path is one of his shīʿah, whether he lived before or after him. → Read at 37:83
shuḥḥ
Al-Rāghib: miserliness combined with an intense yearning, typically in habitual matters; yuqā ("saved") is from protection, suggesting divine protection. → Read at 59:9
shukr
- () Giving thanks means using a blessing in a way that bespeaks the Source of the blessing, through verbal praise that mentions His act of blessing and, ultimately, by worshiping Him. → Read
- () Thanksgiving is remembering God and His blessings beautifully by making a show of servanthood in word and deed. → Read
- () One is grateful for a bounty if one uses it in a way that demonstrates whom it is from, and ungrateful if one uses it while denying and concealing its source; the reality of gratefulness is sincere servitude toward God. → Read
shūrā
Al-Rāghib: to take counsel means to bring out an opinion by referring to one another, the root sh-w-r literally meaning to bring honey out of its place; a shūrā is the matter on which counsel is sought. → Read at 42:38
shuʿūb
Majmaʿ al-Bayān: plural of shiʿb, a great community such as the Rabīʿah and Muḍar confederations, while a qabīlah (tribe) is a lesser unit, such as Tamīm within Muḍar. → Read at 49:13
shuwāẓ
Al-Rāghib: a flame without smoke; Majmaʿ al-Bayān: a green flame separated from fire. → Read at 55:35
ṣiddīq
It is likely that ṣiddīq is the hyperbolic form meaning someone exceptionally truthful, who says what he does and does what he says without any contradiction between his words and his deeds. → Read at 19:41
ṣidq
At its most basic, a statement's correspondence with external reality. Since beliefs and decisions can be conceived as statements, a person is also called truthful when his deeds match his beliefs or he accomplishes what he resolves to do. → Read at 9:119
sifr
Al-Rāghib: safr is removing a cover or veil, while sifr (plural asfār) is a book that uncovers realities and brings the truth to light. → Read at 62:5
sijjīn
Sijjīn is the antonym of ʿIlliyyūn and is best interpreted as a hyperbolic form of sijn (prison): a place that confines whoever enters it forever; the record (kitāb, meaning maktūb) of the vicious is the retribution God has decreed for them. → Read at 83:7
silm
Al-Rāghib: silm and salāmah mean being free and exempt from outward and inward defects. → Read at 26:89
al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm
Al-ṣirāṭ means a clear path, from saraṭtu (I swallowed it completely), as it swallows its walkers without letting them out; al-mustaqīm literally means one who stands on his legs in full control, not subject to change; so the straight path is the path that never fails to lead its walker to his destination. → Read at 1:6
soul at peace
The soul at peace finds peace with its Lord, is satisfied with what God is satisfied with, sees itself a servant in charge of no good or harm, and sees everything in this life as a divine test, so it is firmly established in servitude. → Read at 89:27
sūʾ
Here, evil (sūʾ) is the desire for her and inclination towards her, while indecency (faḥshāʾ) is the immoral act itself, adultery; Joseph neither committed it nor was on the verge of it. → Read at 12:24
suʾāl
Here a demand and appeal, because the verb is made transitive with the letter bāʾ, a usage also seen in (); on every view of the bāʾ, the request was out of disbelief and defiance. → Read at 70:1
sudá
Sudá means muhmal (neglected, abandoned, left aimless); man would be left so only if there were no resurrection, obligations to account for, or retribution. → Read at 75:36
suḥt
Al-Rāghib: from the root meaning to destroy, a forbidden thing that brings shame on its user as though it destroys his religion and honor; bribery is called suḥt. So every property obtained unlawfully is suḥt, and in this verse it refers to bribery. → Read at 5:42
sujūd
The prostration of herb and tree is, more precisely, their reaching out with roots beneath the ground for what sustains them, a manifestation of their innate need for God who nurtures them, and thus a prostration to Him. → Read at 55:6
sukr
Its apparent original meaning is the loss of good sense or consciousness through substances that induce it; the other meanings derive from this by metaphor and extension. → Read at 16:67
sulṭān
sūrah
- () A sūrah is a collection of statements that pursue a common purpose; it is a specific term established by the Qur'an, used both for the verses revealed with a common theme and for a receptacle that includes such verses as its parts. → Read
- () Ṣūrah (form, shape) is the pattern that distinguishes one object from another; God composed each person in the form He willed, His will being governed by His wisdom. → Read