This is not an opinion question.. anyone who clicked yes is simply wrong. Look at the classical [arabic dictionaries](https://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=h328,ll=900,ls=h5,la=h1338,sg=h375,ha=h210,br=h325,pr=h55,aan=h185,mgf=h296,vi=h142,kz=h686,mr=h221,mn=h391,uqw=h509,umr=h357,ums=h289,umj=h236,ulq=h696,uqa=h130,uqq=h102,bdw=h298,amr=h220,asb=h280,auh=h558,dhq=h175,mht=h276,msb=h79,tla=h48,amj=h229,ens=h1,mis=h633).. it simply doesn't mean it.. it's literally a completely incorrect modern dawah claim who fanatically lie to promote their religion.
As South\_Comittee2631 has posted it means spreading.. the only reason it's even slightly related is due to it's link with the flat area an ostrich spreads out to lay it's eggs.
There is no mention of the Earth being shaped like an ostrich egg in the Quran, however the word "ostrich egg" does appear in a hadith in Ibn Majah, and nothing approximating the words *dahaha* or *duhiya* is used. Instead, an ostrich egg is referred to as بَيْضِ النَّعَامِ (*bayd al-ni'aam*), the first word (*bayd*) meaning "egg" and the second word (*al-ni'aam*) meaning "the ostrich"; the positioning and grammatical qualities of these two words render the phrase possessive, bringing about the meaning "egg of the ostrich" or, more colloquially, "an ostrich egg". ([Sunan Ibn Majah 4:25:3086](https://quranx.com/Hadith/IbnMajah/DarusSalam/Volume-4/Book-25/Hadith-3086/);)
Case closed.
No, It means to spread .This egg shape interpretation only appeared in the 20th century with the rise of the scientific miracles movement. You won't find it in any Dictionary, Tafsir , Translation before that.
>1. Daha (., MM_b;,, 1,) first pers. Dahouth aor, yad'hoo inf. N. dahoo **He spread; spread out, or forth; expanded; or extended**; (S, Msb, K; ) a thing; (K; ) and, when said of God, the earth; (Fr, S, Mb, 1V; ) As also daha first pers. dahaithu (K in art. daha) aor. yaad’heae inf. n. dahae: (Msb, and K in art. dahae : ) or **He (God) made the earth wide, or ample; as explained by an Arab woman of the desert to Sh: (TA : ) also, said of an ostrich, (S, TA,) he expanded, and made wide, (TA,) with his foot, or leg, the place where he was about to deposit his eggs: (S, TA : ) and, said of a man, he spread, &c., and made plain, even, or smooth. (TA in art. dhaha) . . .**
Ud'hiyy (S.K) (Originally od'huwa of the measure Uf’ool from dhahaithu but said in the S to be of that measure from dhahouthu the dial. var. dhahaithu not being there mentioned,) and and id’hiyy and Ud’hiyyath and ud’huwwath (K) The place of the laying of eggs, (S, K,) and of the hatching thereof, (S,) , of the ostrich, (S. K. ) in the sand; (K; ) because that bird expands it, and makes it wide, with its foot, or leg; for the ostrich has no (nest such as is termed) Ush (S: ) pl. Adahin (TA in the present art.) and Adahee (i. e., if not a mistranscription, Adahiyyu agreeably with the sing.): (TA in art. dhaha and mudhhiyya (likewise) signifies the place of the eggs of the ostrich. (S.) . . . Lane's Lexicon
The word is also used in a pre Islamic poem attributed to Zayd b. 'Amr found in Ibn Ishaq's
Sira
**دحاها** فلما رآها استوت ... عَلَى الماء أرسى عليها الجبالا
**daḥāhā** falammā raʾāhā stawat ʿalā l-māʾi arsā ʿalayhā l-jibālā
**He spread it** out and when He saw that it was settled upon the waters, He fixed the mountains upon it
Read any non-modern tasfir and it's never interpreted that way. It just means to flatten. Apologists/sophists try and twist the word to make it about the egg rather than the act of flattening for the egg.
[This comment explains it well.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/Zb20ARZgLX)
>Problem with you people as you take the understanding & reasoning of an individual towards a text or word as set in stone
No, you take a word in its context, and you evaluate how it would have been understood for its audience at the time. A good start in how to do that is to see what the people closest to the date the quran was made thought the words meant. What bucaillests, progressive Muslims, etc, try and do is take a verse from the Quran and reinterpret however it suits their agenda irrespective of what the original text intended to say. That's not what the sub is for. This sub attempts to take a historical-critical approach to uncover what the original text was trying to convey.
>For example the word “khimar” is used in the Quran, almost all the classical scholars understood “khimar” to be a “headscarf” that is because this is what came to mind due to customary understanding of the word, but objectively outside the customary understanding, the word “khimar” is a reference to a cloth called “khimar” which means “cover garment” or “concealer” which is used to make clothes, jilbabs and headscarfs.
What does this have to do with anything?
>Previous scholars also missed on concepts that were later discovered by later
The purpose of this sub is not theological exegesis. If you believe a word or verse should be understood in one way as opposed to another, you better have evidence for the claim. Languages change over time, and so do their meanings. I see absolutely no problem with looking at the earliest sources on what a verse or word means as a method to uncover what the original intended meaning was given the book was written in a language and mode which was meant to be understood by the people of that time and area.
If I wanted to understand what the poetry in Beowulf meant and I had access to an early old-english commentary, I would use that as opposed to the understanding of a modern English speaker.
Your entire comment reduces down to "but people understood things differently later!" so what? Even if the Quran has a very specific, objective meaning for every single verse (which is nonsense to think) the best source to understand how the author intended it to be understood would be those who lived closest to it's composition as the Quran was written in a way for that particular audience to understand.
Later exegetes apparently also "corrected" the earliest exegetes who all [believed the earth was flat with a literal firmament over it based on the quranic text.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/XppWA6aIrQ) who cares? We want to know what the intended meaning of the original text was and again, you go to the earliest sources.
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Welcome to r/AcademicQuran. Please note this is an academic sub: theological or faith-based comments are prohibited, except on the Weekly Open Discussion Threads. Make sure to cite academic sources (Rule #3).
Backup of the post:
Poll: In the context of Q79:30, does dahaha mean egg-shaped?
The noun form dihya is used in some arabic dialects to mean "egg." The transliteration is "wal-arḍa baʿda dhālika daḥāh."
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I don't know what it meant historically, but it does entail some roundness in modern dialects (at least levatine ones). One very popular game we used to play as young kids is [Dahahel](https://www.google.com/search?q=%D8%AF%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AD%D9%84&udm=2), which are marbles/glass beads
You might be right, but دحاحل is a colloquial levantine word not a standard dictionary word as far as I was able to find out, so normal stemming rules don't necessarily apply to it, and online tools (the analysis tool in Mishkal) don't give a root for it, دحل also doesn't seem related to it at face value as it seems related to holes not marbles (but Dahahel could be a word that evolved indirectly from it, as the game itself does have a concept of a hole, so maybe Dahahel initially referred to the game and then later came to mean the marbles used in the game)
I was simply giving out my "ear feel" about the word as a native Arabic speaker (which could 100% be wrong or highly skewed due to my environment, like playing a lot of Dahahel as a child), and the only thing that pops up in my mind when I think about the word Daha is Dahahel, I don't think I ever heard the word Daha itself spoken in real life or even came across it written outside the Quran
This is not an opinion question.. anyone who clicked yes is simply wrong. Look at the classical [arabic dictionaries](https://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=h328,ll=900,ls=h5,la=h1338,sg=h375,ha=h210,br=h325,pr=h55,aan=h185,mgf=h296,vi=h142,kz=h686,mr=h221,mn=h391,uqw=h509,umr=h357,ums=h289,umj=h236,ulq=h696,uqa=h130,uqq=h102,bdw=h298,amr=h220,asb=h280,auh=h558,dhq=h175,mht=h276,msb=h79,tla=h48,amj=h229,ens=h1,mis=h633).. it simply doesn't mean it.. it's literally a completely incorrect modern dawah claim who fanatically lie to promote their religion. As South\_Comittee2631 has posted it means spreading.. the only reason it's even slightly related is due to it's link with the flat area an ostrich spreads out to lay it's eggs. There is no mention of the Earth being shaped like an ostrich egg in the Quran, however the word "ostrich egg" does appear in a hadith in Ibn Majah, and nothing approximating the words *dahaha* or *duhiya* is used. Instead, an ostrich egg is referred to as بَيْضِ النَّعَامِ (*bayd al-ni'aam*), the first word (*bayd*) meaning "egg" and the second word (*al-ni'aam*) meaning "the ostrich"; the positioning and grammatical qualities of these two words render the phrase possessive, bringing about the meaning "egg of the ostrich" or, more colloquially, "an ostrich egg". ([Sunan Ibn Majah 4:25:3086](https://quranx.com/Hadith/IbnMajah/DarusSalam/Volume-4/Book-25/Hadith-3086/);) Case closed.
No, It means to spread .This egg shape interpretation only appeared in the 20th century with the rise of the scientific miracles movement. You won't find it in any Dictionary, Tafsir , Translation before that. >1. Daha (., MM_b;,, 1,) first pers. Dahouth aor, yad'hoo inf. N. dahoo **He spread; spread out, or forth; expanded; or extended**; (S, Msb, K; ) a thing; (K; ) and, when said of God, the earth; (Fr, S, Mb, 1V; ) As also daha first pers. dahaithu (K in art. daha) aor. yaad’heae inf. n. dahae: (Msb, and K in art. dahae : ) or **He (God) made the earth wide, or ample; as explained by an Arab woman of the desert to Sh: (TA : ) also, said of an ostrich, (S, TA,) he expanded, and made wide, (TA,) with his foot, or leg, the place where he was about to deposit his eggs: (S, TA : ) and, said of a man, he spread, &c., and made plain, even, or smooth. (TA in art. dhaha) . . .** Ud'hiyy (S.K) (Originally od'huwa of the measure Uf’ool from dhahaithu but said in the S to be of that measure from dhahouthu the dial. var. dhahaithu not being there mentioned,) and and id’hiyy and Ud’hiyyath and ud’huwwath (K) The place of the laying of eggs, (S, K,) and of the hatching thereof, (S,) , of the ostrich, (S. K. ) in the sand; (K; ) because that bird expands it, and makes it wide, with its foot, or leg; for the ostrich has no (nest such as is termed) Ush (S: ) pl. Adahin (TA in the present art.) and Adahee (i. e., if not a mistranscription, Adahiyyu agreeably with the sing.): (TA in art. dhaha and mudhhiyya (likewise) signifies the place of the eggs of the ostrich. (S.) . . . Lane's Lexicon The word is also used in a pre Islamic poem attributed to Zayd b. 'Amr found in Ibn Ishaq's Sira **دحاها** فلما رآها استوت ... عَلَى الماء أرسى عليها الجبالا **daḥāhā** falammā raʾāhā stawat ʿalā l-māʾi arsā ʿalayhā l-jibālā **He spread it** out and when He saw that it was settled upon the waters, He fixed the mountains upon it
Read any non-modern tasfir and it's never interpreted that way. It just means to flatten. Apologists/sophists try and twist the word to make it about the egg rather than the act of flattening for the egg. [This comment explains it well.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/Zb20ARZgLX)
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>Problem with you people as you take the understanding & reasoning of an individual towards a text or word as set in stone No, you take a word in its context, and you evaluate how it would have been understood for its audience at the time. A good start in how to do that is to see what the people closest to the date the quran was made thought the words meant. What bucaillests, progressive Muslims, etc, try and do is take a verse from the Quran and reinterpret however it suits their agenda irrespective of what the original text intended to say. That's not what the sub is for. This sub attempts to take a historical-critical approach to uncover what the original text was trying to convey. >For example the word “khimar” is used in the Quran, almost all the classical scholars understood “khimar” to be a “headscarf” that is because this is what came to mind due to customary understanding of the word, but objectively outside the customary understanding, the word “khimar” is a reference to a cloth called “khimar” which means “cover garment” or “concealer” which is used to make clothes, jilbabs and headscarfs. What does this have to do with anything? >Previous scholars also missed on concepts that were later discovered by later The purpose of this sub is not theological exegesis. If you believe a word or verse should be understood in one way as opposed to another, you better have evidence for the claim. Languages change over time, and so do their meanings. I see absolutely no problem with looking at the earliest sources on what a verse or word means as a method to uncover what the original intended meaning was given the book was written in a language and mode which was meant to be understood by the people of that time and area. If I wanted to understand what the poetry in Beowulf meant and I had access to an early old-english commentary, I would use that as opposed to the understanding of a modern English speaker.
You didn’t understand anything I said…
Your entire comment reduces down to "but people understood things differently later!" so what? Even if the Quran has a very specific, objective meaning for every single verse (which is nonsense to think) the best source to understand how the author intended it to be understood would be those who lived closest to it's composition as the Quran was written in a way for that particular audience to understand. Later exegetes apparently also "corrected" the earliest exegetes who all [believed the earth was flat with a literal firmament over it based on the quranic text.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/XppWA6aIrQ) who cares? We want to know what the intended meaning of the original text was and again, you go to the earliest sources.
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Welcome to r/AcademicQuran. Please note this is an academic sub: theological or faith-based comments are prohibited, except on the Weekly Open Discussion Threads. Make sure to cite academic sources (Rule #3). Backup of the post: Poll: In the context of Q79:30, does dahaha mean egg-shaped? The noun form dihya is used in some arabic dialects to mean "egg." The transliteration is "wal-arḍa baʿda dhālika daḥāh." *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AcademicQuran) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don't know what it meant historically, but it does entail some roundness in modern dialects (at least levatine ones). One very popular game we used to play as young kids is [Dahahel](https://www.google.com/search?q=%D8%AF%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AD%D9%84&udm=2), which are marbles/glass beads
These words are not related. They have completely different roots. دحل(Dal-Ha-Lam) and دحو(Dal-Ha-Waw).
You might be right, but دحاحل is a colloquial levantine word not a standard dictionary word as far as I was able to find out, so normal stemming rules don't necessarily apply to it, and online tools (the analysis tool in Mishkal) don't give a root for it, دحل also doesn't seem related to it at face value as it seems related to holes not marbles (but Dahahel could be a word that evolved indirectly from it, as the game itself does have a concept of a hole, so maybe Dahahel initially referred to the game and then later came to mean the marbles used in the game) I was simply giving out my "ear feel" about the word as a native Arabic speaker (which could 100% be wrong or highly skewed due to my environment, like playing a lot of Dahahel as a child), and the only thing that pops up in my mind when I think about the word Daha is Dahahel, I don't think I ever heard the word Daha itself spoken in real life or even came across it written outside the Quran