رجم

Core meaning

To fling: to throw far from oneself. To fling someone out of the group is to banish him; what one flings are missiles; and one also flings, without ground, toward what escapes the senses.

Uses

1. رَجِيم, ٱلْمَرْجُومِين → "banished" : the one who has been flung out; the epithet of the Diverter.

   • «فَٱسْتَعِذْ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ» — "seek refuge with God from the banished Diverter" (16:98)
   • «فَإِنَّكَ رَجِيمٌۭ» — "for you are now banished" (15:34)

2. رَجَمَ, يَرْجُمُ → "to banish" : the threat of flinging someone out of the community.

   • «وَلَوْلَا رَهْطُكَ لَرَجَمْنَٰكَ» — "we would have banished you" (11:91)
   • «لَئِن لَّمْ تَنتَهِ لَأَرْجُمَنَّكَ» — "If you do not desist, I will banish you" (19:46)

3. رُجُوم → "missiles" : what one flings.

   • «وَجَعَلْنَٰهَا رُجُومًۭا لِّلشَّيَٰطِينِ» — "made them missiles against the Diverters" (67:5)

4. رَجْمًۢا بِٱلْغَيْبِ → "to fling" : to fling what escapes the senses: to put forward blindly what one cannot see.

   • «رَجْمًۢا بِٱلْغَيْبِ» (18:22)

Evidence from the text

The gesture is the same everywhere: to fling far. The lamps of the sky become missiles against the Diverters (67:5), and the sky is preserved from "every banished Diverter", pursued by a shaft of fire (15:17). Applied to a person, flinging becomes banishing: Shu'ayb's people spare him only out of regard for his kindred (11:91); Ibrahim's father, Nuh's people and the city threaten the same (19:46, 26:116, 36:18); the companions of the Cave fear being banished or forced back into the doctrine (18:20). Nowhere does the text name a stone or a punishment: the threat is exclusion.

In 18:22, those who count the companions fling what escapes the senses: they throw numbers toward the unknown, with nothing to ground them. The Diverter, for his part, bears the word as a name: "banished" (3:36, 16:98, 81:25), flung out of the presence he refused (15:34, 38:77).

Distinctions

• طرد — to drive someone from one's presence, without the gesture of flinging

See also

شهب (the shaft of fire) · غيب (what escapes the senses)