اكل
Attested forms : كُلُوا۟ 27 · تَأْكُلُونَ 12 · يَأْكُلُونَ 8 · تَأْكُلُوا۟ 5 · تَأْكُلُ 5 · يَأْكُلُ 4 · تَأْكُلُوٓا۟ 3 · أُكُلَهَا 3
Core meaning
To take a food into oneself until it disappears: to eat what is given, or to devour what belongs to another.
Uses
أَكَلَ, يَأْكُلُ, كُلُوا → "to eat" : to feed on what God has provided; the command often goes with gratitude.
أَكَلَ + another's goods → "to devour" : to absorb what is not one's own: the goods of orphans, usury, inheritance; said also of the beast that devours.
أَكْل → "consumption" : the act of consuming, named as a conduct.
- «وَأَكْلِهِمُ ٱلسُّحْتَ» — "and the consumption of illicit gain" (5:62)
أُكُل → "fare" : what a tree or a garden gives to eat.
Evidence from the text
Eating is the mark of the human condition. Issa and his mother "both of them ate food" (5:75); the envoys "surely ate food and walked in the marketplaces" (25:20); and Ibrahim confounds the fabricated deities with this single question: "Do you not eat?" (37:91).
When the object is a good that belongs to another, the same verb becomes "to devour": others' goods "through falsehood" (2:188, 4:29), usury (2:275, 3:130), the goods of orphans (4:10), inheritance (89:19). The text then turns the image round, with the same verb twice: those who devour the goods of orphans "are only devouring fire in their bellies" (4:10). What is absorbed disappears for its rightful owner.
The noun أُكُل shifts the act towards what makes it possible: the fare of a garden or a tree (2:265, 13:35, 14:25, 18:33), and, for the punished gardens of Saba, a "bitter fare" (34:16).
Distinctions
- طعم — food and the act of feeding another, whereas أكل is the act of eating oneself
- ثمر — fruit as the produce of the tree, whereas أُكُل is what it gives to eat
See also
شرب (to drink) · رزق (to provide)