شغل

Core meaning

To occupy: to take up the attention or the strength to the point of standing in for everything else.

Uses

1. شُغُل → "occupied" : the happy occupation of the Garden, which leaves room for nothing else.

   • «فِى شُغُلٍۢ فَٰكِهُونَ» — "occupied in delight" (36:55)

2. شَغَلَ → "to keep occupied" : occupation pleaded as an excuse by those who stayed behind.

   • «شَغَلَتْنَآ أَمْوَٰلُنَا وَأَهْلُونَا» — "Our goods and our families kept us occupied" (48:11)

Evidence from the text

The two occurrences name the same absorption, with opposite value. In the Garden it is the good itself: nothing calls elsewhere those who are there (36:55). In 48:11 it is the pretext of those who stayed behind, and the text belies it at once: "They say with their tongues what is not in their cores" (48:11).

Distinctions

• لهو — distraction: what amuses and turns from the essential, whereas شغل names the occupation that absorbs

See also

فكه (delight)