Quran glossary · draft

لَمْحُ ٱلْبَصَرِ

glance

A fleeting act of sight serving as an image of near-instantaneous speed.

Lexical scope

Scope: curated segment set · Occurrences: 2

Roots: لمح

Lemmas: لمح

Forms: لَمْحِ · لَمْحٍۭ

Occurrence examples (2 of 2)

Scoped occurrences shown in Quran order: 2.

16:77

وَلِلَّهِ غَيْبُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَآ أَمْرُ ٱلسَّاعَةِ إِلَّا كَلَمْحِ ٱلْبَصَرِ أَوْ هُوَ أَقْرَبُ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

54:50

وَمَآ أَمْرُنَآ إِلَّا وَٰحِدَةٌ كَلَمْحٍۭ بِٱلْبَصَرِ

Why this meaning was chosen

Quran-internal review covered both occurrences of the verbal noun لَمْح, each in a comparison with sight. In 16:77 the Hour's command is like a glance of sight or nearer; in 54:50 God's command is one act like a glance with sight. The repeated comparison and explicit emphasis on immediacy establish a momentary visual action used as a speed measure. Definiteness variation does not change the core. The aligned-reading field supplies no variant requiring a separate rule; no protected meaning was edited and no exact lexical collision was found.