سلك

Core meaning

To make pass through a passage, or to pass through it oneself: to insert a thing into what receives it, to follow a way or to open it.

Uses

1. سَلَكَ + object + فِى → "to insert" : to make a thing pass into a place that receives it: a core, a vessel, a neckline, a chain.

   • «كَذَٰلِكَ سَلَكْنَٰهُ فِى قُلُوبِ ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ» — "Thus We have inserted it into the cores of the severed" (26:200)
   • «ٱسْلُكْ يَدَكَ فِى جَيْبِكَ» — "Insert your hand into your neckline" (28:32)

2. سَلَكَ + سُبُل → "to follow ways", "to clear ways" : to take the ways, or to open them for others.

   • «فَٱسْلُكِى سُبُلَ رَبِّكِ ذُلُلًۭا» — "follow the ways of your Guardian, made docile" (16:69)
   • «لِّتَسْلُكُوا۟ مِنْهَا سُبُلًۭا فِجَاجًۭا» — "that you may follow therein ways, wide passes" (71:20)

3. سَلَكَ (to lead) → "to lead", "to make go" : to lead someone into a place, or to make lookouts go ahead.

   • «مَا سَلَكَكُمْ فِى سَقَرَ» — "What has led you into Saqar?" (74:42)

Evidence from the text

The complement always carries a passage. In one direction, something is made to pass into it: the message into the cores of the severed, who do not believe in it (15:12, 26:200), the pairs into the vessel (23:27), the hand into the neckline (28:32), the one seized into the chain (69:32), the water as springs into the earth (39:21). In the other, one takes the ways oneself: the bee those of its Guardian (16:69), people the wide passages of the earth (71:20), God having first cleared them (20:53).

The question of the people of the Garden, "What has led you into Saqar?" (74:42), turns the verb around: it is the deeds themselves that made the severed pass that far, and their answer lists them.

Distinctions

• دخل — to enter: to cross a threshold, whereas سلك makes pass through a passage
• ولج — to penetrate: one thing sinking into another, the night into the day

See also

سبل (the way)