بنى

Core meaning

To build: to raise a structure that holds. The text applies it to the sky, to the works of men and to a rank of fighters.

Uses

1. بَنَىٰ, بَنَيْنَا, ٱبْنُوا۟, مَبْنِيَّة → "to build", "built" : the gesture of raising: God builds the sky, men build on the earth.

   • «وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بَنَيْنَٰهَا بِأَيْي۟دٍۢ» — "And the sky, We built it with might" (51:47)
   • «أَتَبْنُونَ بِكُلِّ رِيعٍ ءَايَةًۭ تَعْبَثُونَ» — "Do you build on every hill a sign, in play" (26:128)

2. بِنَآء → "structure" : the sky set above the earth like a building.

   • «وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بِنَآءًۭ» — "and the sky a structure" (2:22)

3. بُنْيَٰن → "structure" : what is built, judged by what it was founded on.

   • «ٱبْنُوا۟ عَلَيْهِم بُنْيَٰنًۭا» — "Build over them a structure" (18:21)
   • «كَأَنَّهُم بُنْيَٰنٌۭ مَّرْصُوصٌۭ» — "as if they were a compact structure" (61:4)

Evidence from the text

To build is to raise what holds. The sky is built without flaw: "how We built it and adorned it, without a single crack in it?" (50:6); God built it "with might" (51:47) and raised its vault (79:27-28). Facing it, the works of men: signs built on every hill "in play" (26:128), a structure raised to cast Ibrahim into the Blaze (37:97).

What is built is worth what it is founded on: the structure founded on guardedness toward God, and the one founded on the edge of a ravine about to cave in (9:109); the structure of the plotters, to which God came by the foundations (16:26). The close rank of the fighters is called "a compact structure" (61:4): held together like the stones of a single building.

Distinctions

• شيد — to raise an edifice high (مَشِيد), whereas بنى states the very act of building

See also

اسس (to found) · سمو (the sky)