عجل

Core meaning

To want at once what has its term: to hasten, and to bring before its hour; ٱلْعَاجِلَة, the immediate life, is what one has without waiting. Under the same root, عِجْل names the calf, the young beast the people of Moussa took as a deity.

Uses

1. عَجِلَ, تَعَجَّلَ, تَعْجَلْ → "to hasten", "to be hasty" : to go faster than what is set.

   • «وَعَجِلْتُ إِلَيْكَ رَبِّ لِتَرْضَىٰ» — "and I hastened to You, my Guardian, that You might be pleased" (20:84)
   • «وَلَا تَعْجَلْ بِٱلْقُرْءَانِ» — "And do not hasten with the Recitation" (20:114)

2. عَجَّلَ, يُعَجِّلُ → "to hasten" : to bring a thing before its term; said of God, who hastens or holds back.

   • «لَوْ يُؤَاخِذُهُم بِمَا كَسَبُوا۟ لَعَجَّلَ لَهُمُ ٱلْعَذَابَ» — "were He to seize them for what they have earned, He would have hastened the punishment for them" (18:58)

3. ٱسْتَعْجَلَ, يَسْتَعْجِلُ → "to seek to hasten", "to ask to hasten" : to demand before the hour, almost always the punishment or the Hour, in defiance; "to ask to hasten" when the verb takes a person as object (ـكَ, ـنِي), "to seek to hasten" elsewhere.

   • «أَفَبِعَذَابِنَا يَسْتَعْجِلُونَ» — "Is it then Our punishment that they seek to hasten?" (26:204)
   • «أَتَىٰٓ أَمْرُ ٱللَّهِ فَلَا تَسْتَعْجِلُوهُ» — "The command of God has come: so do not seek to hasten it" (16:1)
   • «وَيَسْتَعْجِلُونَكَ بِٱلْعَذَابِ» — "And they ask you to hasten the punishment" (22:47)
   • «فَلَا تَسْتَعْجِلُونِ» — "so do not ask Me to hasten them" (21:37)

4. عَجَل, عَجُول → "haste", "hasty" : haste as a trait of the human being.

   • «خُلِقَ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ مِنْ عَجَلٍۢ» — "The human being was created out of haste" (21:37)

5. ٱلْعَاجِلَة → "the immediate life" : what is given at once, set against the last life.

   • «كَلَّا بَلْ تُحِبُّونَ ٱلْعَاجِلَةَ وَتَذَرُونَ ٱلْءَاخِرَةَ» — "By no means! But they love the immediate life, and forsake the last life" (75:20-21)

6. عِجْل → "the calf" : the young beast: roasted and offered to Ibrahim's guests, or made of ornaments and taken as a deity.

   • «ثُمَّ ٱتَّخَذْتُمُ ٱلْعِجْلَ مِنۢ بَعْدِهِۦ» — "then you took the calf, after him" (2:51)
   • «فَجَآءَ بِعِجْلٍۢ سَمِينٍۢ» — "then brought a fat calf" (51:26)

Evidence from the text

Haste is always measured against a term. Those who demand the punishment run up against an "appointed term" (29:53), and God says in 10:11 that, were He to hasten ill for people as they seek to hasten good, "their term would already have been decided for them". The verse keeps the two gestures apart: God hastens, they seek to hasten. The immediate life is the other face of the same gesture: to have at once, instead of waiting for the last life (75:20, 76:27).

The calf has, in the text, no link with haste. It is the animal offered by Ibrahim (11:69, 51:26) and the fabricated object the people of Moussa took as a deity, "a body that lowed" (7:148, 20:88).

Distinctions

• سرع — speed toward what one aims at, without the idea of a term run ahead of

See also

بقر (the cow)