تجر

Core meaning

To trade: to exchange in order to gain. The text weighs with the same scale of gain and loss the exchanges of the market and the choice of the human being before God.

Uses

1. تِجَٰرَة (the market) → "trade" : the ordinary exchange of goods, which the text regulates and whose place it measures.

   • «إِلَّآ أَن تَكُونَ تِجَٰرَةً حَاضِرَةًۭ تُدِيرُونَهَا بَيْنَكُمْ» — "except if it is an immediate trade that you conduct among yourselves" (2:282)
   • «لَّا تُلْهِيهِمْ تِجَٰرَةٌۭ وَلَا بَيْعٌ عَن ذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ» — "whom neither trade nor selling distracts from the remembrance of God" (24:37)

2. تِجَٰرَة (the choice) → "trade" : the commitment of the human being, weighed as an exchange that gains or loses.

   • «فَمَا رَبِحَت تِّجَٰرَتُهُمْ» — "their trade did not, then, prove lucrative" (2:16)
   • «يَرْجُونَ تِجَٰرَةًۭ لَّن تَبُورَ» — "hope for a trade that will never perish" (35:29)
   • «هَلْ أَدُلُّكُمْ عَلَىٰ تِجَٰرَةٍۢ تُنجِيكُم مِّنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍۢ» — "Shall I point you to a trade that will save you from a painful punishment?" (61:10)

Evidence from the text

Ordinary trade is regulated (2:282, 4:29) and measured: it must not distract from the remembrance of God (24:37), nor be dearer than God, His messenger and striving in His way (9:24); in 62:11 it is what people disperse toward, leaving the messenger standing, and the answer comes at once: "What is with God is better than distraction and than trade" (62:11).

The same word names the choice of the human being, with the same reckoning. Those who bought error at the price of guidance make a trade without profit (2:16); those who recite the Scripture, maintain the Contact and spend hope for a trade that will never perish (35:29); and God Himself points to the trade that saves: to believe, and to strive with one's goods and one's Selves (61:10).

Distinctions

• بيع — selling: one act of exchange, whereas trade is an ongoing activity; 24:37 names them together

See also

ربح (profit) · لهو (distraction)