What does "al-Furqan" mean in the Quran?
All seven places the word occurs - the Quran, the Torah, something granted to the God-fearing, and the name of a day - read in al-Muyassar, as-Safi and al-Mizan, who disagree about where the name itself comes from.
Everyone knows al-Furqan as a name for the Quran and as the title of its twenty-fifth surah. What surprises readers is that the Quran uses the word more widely: for what Moses and Aaron were given, for something granted to a person who fears God, and for one particular day. It occurs seven times, and this article collects all seven — and the argument about where the name comes from, which the three commentaries do not settle the same way.
This site serves three commentaries. The Sunni reading below is al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, from the King Fahd Complex. The Shia reading is Tafsir as-Safi by al-Fayd al-Kashani and Tafsir al-Mizan by al-Tabataba'i. All three are Arabic; the renderings into English are mine.
The word itself
Furqan is from the root f-r-q, to separate: that by which two things are told apart. Al-Mizan quotes ar-Raghib's Mufradat for the precision of it: furqan is stronger than farq, because it is used specifically of separating truth from falsehood — and it is a noun, not a verbal noun, while farq is used of that and of other things besides.
That is why al-Muyassar glosses the word in almost the same phrase every time it appears: that which distinguishes truth from falsehood.
Where the name comes from — and the one disagreement
Here the commentaries part, and it is a question about the word rather than about any verse.
As-Safi reports, in al-Ilal, a tradition from the Prophet that gives a quite different derivation: the Quran was called furqan because its verses and surahs came down scattered — sent down other than on tablets and other than in pages, whereas the Torah, the Gospel and the Psalms each came down all at once, on tablets and on parchment. On that account the name is about the manner of revelation, not about telling truth from falsehood at all.
Al-Mizan sets both derivations out and then decides between them. Al-furqan is separation, he says; the Quran was named by it either because its verses came down scattered, or because it distinguishes truth from falsehood — and what supports the second is that God's own speech applies al-furqan to the Torah as well, even though the Torah came down all at once.
That is a clean textual argument, and it is aimed squarely at the first derivation: whatever is true of how the Quran arrived cannot explain a name the Quran also gives to a book that did not arrive that way. The two Shia works are in tension here, and al-Mizan is the one who notices.
First: as a name for the Quran
Its most familiar place is the opening of Surah Al-Furqan:
Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion upon His Servant that he may be to the worlds a warner -
Al-Muyassar reads tabaraka as God's blessings and good being great and His attributes complete — the One who sent down the Quran, which separates truth from falsehood, upon His servant Muhammad, so that he might be a warner to mankind and jinn. Al-Mizan takes the same word back to its image: baraka is good settling in a thing the way water settles in a pool, from a camel putting its chest to the ground and staying there — so tabaraka is abundant good that is fixed, not passing. As-Safi says the same in a phrase, that His good is manifold, and adds a grammatical note the others pass over: the one who is to be a warner may be the servant, or the Furqan itself.
In Aal Imran:
Before, as guidance for the people. And He revealed the Qur'an. Indeed, those who disbelieve in the verses of Allah will have a severe punishment, and Allah is exalted in Might, the Owner of Retribution.
Al-Muyassar names it directly: and He sent down what distinguishes between truth and falsehood.
As-Safi gives this verse the fullest treatment of the seven, and carries three further senses on Shia chains, all of them narrowing the word rather than widening it. From Imam as-Sadiq in al-Kafi: the Quran is the whole of the Book, and the Furqan is what is unambiguous and must be acted upon. In al-Jawami, from him: the Furqan is every unambiguous verse in the Book. And in al-Qummi and al-Ayyashi, from him: the Furqan is every unambiguous matter, while the Book is the whole of the Quran.
Read together, those three make furqan a description of part of revelation — the decisive part — rather than another title for all of it. That is a reading al-Muyassar does not offer anywhere.
And in the fasting verse, guidance and furqan come paired:
The month of Ramadhan [is that] in which was revealed the Qur'an, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and criterion. So whoever sights [the new moon of] the month, let him fast it; and whoever is ill or on a journey - then an equal number of other days. Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship and [wants] for you to complete the period and to glorify Allah for that [to] which He has guided you; and perhaps you will be grateful.
Al-Muyassar reads that as the Quran containing the clearest evidence of God's guidance, and of what separates truth from falsehood. The name is not an honorific sitting on the outside of the book; it describes what the book does to the person reading it.
Second: as a name for what Moses and Aaron were given
This is the place that corrects the assumption that the word belongs to the Quran alone:
And [recall] when We gave Moses the Scripture and criterion that perhaps you would be guided.
Al-Muyassar glosses it plainly: We gave Moses the Book that separates truth from falsehood — that is, the Torah — so that you might be guided out of error.
As-Safi reads the two words as two separate gifts: the Book is the Torah, and the Furqan is something given besides it — that which separated truth from falsehood, and separated the one in the right from the one in the wrong. It then records a long narration making al-furqan a light on the face of whoever accepted a particular covenant; and at the end it carries a second, plainer reading, which is the one to notice: that the Book is the Torah and the Furqan is the miracles — what separated the one with a true claim from the one with a false one. On that reading furqan is not a text at all.
And in Surah Al-Anbiya:
And We had already given Moses and Aaron the criterion and a light and a reminder for the righteous
Al-Muyassar reads al-furqan there as a proof and a victory over their enemy, and a Book — the Torah — by which truth was separated from falsehood, and a light the God-fearing are guided by. As-Safi reads it as the comprehensive Book, so called because it separates truth from falsehood, with the light being what one sees by in the darknesses of confusion and ignorance, and the reminder what the God-fearing take heed from.
Third: a furqan granted to the God-fearing
Here the word is not the name of a book at all. It is something promised to a person:
O you who have believed, if you fear Allah, He will grant you a criterion and will remove from you your misdeeds and forgive you. And Allah is the possessor of great bounty.
Al-Muyassar reads it as God making for them a separation between truth and falsehood, and covering over and forgiving what they have already done wrong.
As-Safi puts it inside the person: a furqan is guidance in your hearts, by which you separate truth from falsehood — and from al-Qummi, it is the knowledge by which you tell the two apart.
Al-Mizan is the one who works out what that would actually consist of, and it is the best passage on the word anywhere in the three. A furqan is what one thing is separated from another by; here, given the context and the fact that the whole thing is built on godwariness, it is the separation of truth from falsehood in three domains at once:
- in belief — telling faith from unbelief, and every guidance from every misguidance;
- in action — telling obedience from disobedience, and whatever pleases God from whatever angers Him;
- in opinion and judgement — telling what is correct from what is mistaken.
All of that, he says, is fruit of the tree of godwariness. And he notices something about the wording: the verse leaves furqan unrestricted, with no qualifier — because the verses just before it had listed good and evil of every kind, and all of it needs a furqan.
He then gives the verse a parallel in meaning, and it is one this site has its own article on: and whoever fears Allah, He will make for him a way out, and will provide for him from where he does not expect. Same shape — one condition, and what is granted in answer to it.
Fourth: the Day of Furqan
The seventh place applies the word to a day:
And know that anything you obtain of war booty - then indeed, for Allah is one fifth of it and for the Messenger and for [his] near relatives and the orphans, the needy, and the [stranded] traveler, if you have believed in Allah and in that which We sent down to Our Servant on the day of criterion - the day when the two armies met. And Allah, over all things, is competent.
Al-Muyassar identifies it as the day on which truth was separated from falsehood at Badr, the day the gathering of the believers and the gathering of the idolaters met. The name comes straight from the verb: a day on which a separation was made. Nothing is contested here; all three read it the same way.
Where the three agree
- The root sense is separation — telling one thing from another — and the specific pair separated is truth and falsehood.
- The word is not reserved for the Quran. The Quran itself applies it to what Moses and Aaron were given, and to a day.
- In 8:29 it is something granted, conditional on godwariness, and tied in the same breath to the effacing of sins and to forgiveness.
- The Day of Furqan is the day the two gatherings met, and is named for the separation made on it.
Where each goes its own way
- Al-Muyassar gives one gloss and applies it consistently to all seven places, which is its strength here: the reader can see the single sense moving across four different referents.
- As-Safi narrows the word in the Quran's case — furqan as the decisive part of revelation, on three separate chains — reads 2:53 as two gifts rather than one, carries the reading that makes it the miracles, and relays the derivation from scattered revelation.
- Al-Mizan defines the term from the lexicon, settles the derivation against the scattered-revelation account by pointing at the Torah, and breaks the granted furqan of 8:29 into belief, action and judgement.
Counted on the site's own text
- The word occurs in seven verses: Al-Baqarah 53 and 185, Aal Imran 4, Al-Anfal 29 and 41, Al-Anbiya 48, and Al-Furqan 1.
- Four different things are called by it: the Quran (25:1, 3:4, 2:185), the Torah (2:53, 21:48), what God grants the God-fearing (8:29), and the day of Badr (8:41).
- Only once is it indefinite — furqanan, in 8:29. Everywhere else it carries the definite article, which fits the difference: six times a known thing is being named, once something is being given.
What the word claims, and what it does not
- It states a function, not a title. Wherever it is used, something is being separated from something else.
- It does not belong to the Quran exclusively, and reading it that way makes 2:53 and 21:48 unintelligible.
- It does not settle, by itself, whether the Quran is called that for how it came down or for what it does. That is the one live argument, and al-Mizan's answer rests on a verse rather than on a preference.
- In 8:29 it is not a book being handed over. It is a capacity, and the verse makes it conditional.
- The above are commentators' positions, presented as they stand rather than adjudicated. Their full texts are on each verse's own page.
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