جذذ

Core meaning

To cut clean, to reduce to pieces: what is made into debris, or, under negation, what nothing comes to interrupt.

Uses

1. جُذَٰذًا → "debris" : what remains of a thing broken into pieces.

   • «فَجَعَلَهُمْ جُذَٰذًا إِلَّا كَبِيرًۭا لَّهُمْ» — "So he made them into debris, except a great one of theirs" (21:58)

2. غَيْرَ مَجْذُوذٍۢ → "never interrupted" : under negation: an endowment that nothing comes to cut short.

   • «عَطَآءً غَيْرَ مَجْذُوذٍۢ» — "an endowment that will never be interrupted" (11:108)

Evidence from the text

The two uses answer each other. In 21:58, Ibrahim breaks the idols to pieces and leaves only one whole, to which they might return: the word says the object cut to pieces. In 11:108, the same gesture is denied for the endowment conferred on those in the Garden: nothing cuts it. The root thus serves for what is broken and for what never will be.

Distinctions

• قطع — to cut, to sever one part from another, whereas جذذ says the thing cut until only debris remains