حزن

Core meaning

Grief: the pain that weighs on one who has lost, or who sees loss coming.

Uses

1. حَزِنَ, يَحْزَنُ, لَا تَحْزَنْ → "to grieve" : to feel the pain; almost always negated or forbidden.

   • «لَا تَحْزَنْ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَنَا» — "Do not grieve, God is indeed with us" (9:40)
   • «وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ» — "no fear upon them, and they will not grieve" (2:277)

2. يَحْزُنُ (transitive) → "to grieve (someone)" : to cause someone pain.

   • «فَلَا يَحْزُنكَ قَوْلُهُمْ» — "So let their saying not grieve you" (36:76)

3. ٱلْحُزْن, ٱلْحَزَن → "grief" : the pain itself, carried or kept within.

   • «وَٱبْيَضَّتْ عَيْنَاهُ مِنَ ٱلْحُزْنِ» — "And his eyes turned white from grief" (12:84)

Evidence from the text

The formula "no fear upon them, and they will not grieve" recurs from one end of the text to the other (2:38, 2:62, 2:277, 6:48, 46:13…): fear looks at what is coming, grief at what is lost, and both are lifted together. In the Garden, God is praised for having removed grief (35:34).

Grief follows loss: Ya'qub, deprived of Youssof, whose eyes "turned white from grief" (12:84); Moussa's mother, to whom God returns him "that her gaze might find rest and she not grieve" (20:40); those with no means to go out, who leave "grieved that they could not find anything to spend" (9:92). To the messenger the text repeats "do not grieve over them" (15:88, 16:127, 27:70); it is the Diverter who seeks, through secret talk, to grieve those who believe (58:10).

Distinctions

• اسف — bitterness: regret mixed with indignation, whereas حزن is the pain itself
• خوف — fear: what one dreads from the future, whereas grief bears on loss

See also

كظم (to hold one's sorrow within (12:84))