“In his absence, the people of Moses made from their ornaments a calf—a bodily form that lowed,” has relied on a weak argument.
Al-Jawharī and others have indeed said that jasad means “body,” with the derived verb tajassada (“to take bodily form”), just as tajassama is derived from jism (“body”). Jasad also means saffron and similar dyes, as well as blood, as al-Nābigha said:
And the blood poured out upon the idols.
Yet neither of these meanings is intended by jasad in the Quran. The description of the calf does not mean that it had a body like a human body, nor a body like those of cattle, for the calf was not like that. The Arabs say jasida bihi al-damu (“blood adhered to him”), with the forms yajsadu and jasadan; such blood is called jāsid or jasid. A poet said:
A forearm thickly stained with blood,
Some flowing, some dried.
Jasad also means “red” and denotes cloth saturated with dye, because of how thoroughly the dye adheres to it. The word thus conveys a sense of density and cohesion. Hence jurists speak of impurity with physical substance and impurity without it. In the Quran, it denotes a solid, cohesive, compact body, or one devoid of life. Allah Most High has used the word jasad in four places.
He Most High said:
“We did not make them bodies that ate no food.”
And He Most High said: