ذات
Attested forms : بِذَاتِ 12 · ذَاتِ 10 · ذَاتَ 7 · ذَاتُ 1
Core meaning
What a thing bears as its own: the content it holds, or the quality it is endowed with. The word never stands alone: it takes its value from the noun that follows it.
Uses
بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ → "what the chests contain" : what the chests hold; the formula closes a statement of God's knowledge.
ذَات + noun → "endowed with", "of …", "containing …" : the thing named by what it bears: a height, a sky, a fire.
ذَاتَ ٱلْيَمِينِ, ذَاتَ ٱلشِّمَالِ → "to the right", "to the left" : the side one takes, on one part or the other.
- «وَنُقَلِّبُهُمْ ذَاتَ ٱلْيَمِينِ وَذَاتَ ٱلشِّمَالِ» — "We turned them to the right and to the left" (18:18)
ذَاتَ بَيْنِكُمْ → "what is between you" : what the bond between persons bears.
- «وَأَصْلِحُوا۟ ذَاتَ بَيْنِكُمْ» — "and make sound what is between you" (8:1)
Evidence from the text
Across its thirty uses, ذَات is always followed by the noun that says what it bears. Twelve times it is the chests, in the formula of God's knowledge (3:119, 11:5, 67:13). Elsewhere, a height "endowed with stability and spring water" (23:50), "the palm with its enclosed spathes" (55:11), "the sky of interwoven paths" (51:7), "every pregnant one" (22:2), and, through negation, the group "without arms" (8:7).
What the chests contain is not an abstract essence, but what is kept hidden there. In 11:5, the formula answers a gesture: "they indeed fold their chests to hide from Him" (11:5), and the verse concludes: "He is All-Knowing of what the chests contain" (11:5).
See also
صدر (the chest) · ذوى (the masculine of the same word: possessor of)