10. Sūrat Yūnus

109 verses. It is widely reported that it was revealed in the Meccan period; a disagreement about some of its verses is transmitted, and no definite ruling is issued on this question in this commentary. It takes its name from the people of Jonah (Yūnus) named in verse 98: illā qawma Yūnus — "except the people of Jonah."

And the naming itself is worth recording. The sūra does not tell the story of the prophet Jonah. The fish, the ship, the drawing of lots, the gourd plant — none of them is here; they were treated at al-Ṣāffāt 37/139-148, al-Anbiyāʾ 21/87-88 and al-Qalam 68/48-50. What is named in this sūra is not what befell the prophet but the end his people came to. The sūra carries a prophet's name, but it takes that name from a decision made by a community.

The backbone of the sūra is a single word: ٱلْحَقّ. The word occurs in close to twenty places in the sūra, and in the thirty-second verse it turns into a ruling: fa-mādhā baʿda'l-ḥaqqi illā'ḍ-ḍalāl — "what is there after the truth but straying?" That is, the sūra recognises no third position. And the rest of the sūra shows how people try to build that third position: conjecture (36, 66), intermediaries (18), postponement (11, 49), faith whose time has passed (51, 91).

And one root holds the two ends: ح-ك-م. The sūra opens with al-kitābi'l-ḥakīm (1), asks in its middle fa-mā lakum kayfa taḥkumūn (35), and closes with wa huwa khayru'l-ḥākimīn (109). This is a weave that can be counted within the sūra.

Alif-lām-rā · Tilka āyātu'l-kitābi'l-ḥakīm · A-kāna li'n-nāsi ʿajaban an awḥaynā ilā rajulin minhum an andhiri'n-nāsa wa bashshiri'lladhīna āmanū anna lahum qadama ṣidqin ʿinda rabbihim, qāla'l-kāfirūna inna hādhā la-sāḥirun mubīn

"Alif-lām-rā. These are the verses of the wise Book. Was it a thing of astonishment to people that We revealed to a man from among them: 'Warn people, and give those who believe the good news that with their Lord they have a footing of truthfulness'? Those who deny said: 'This is a plain sorcerer.'"

The note on the disconnected letters (ḥurūf muqaṭṭaʿa) has been entered many times in the index (al-Baqara, Qāf, al-Jāthiya): there is no certain knowledge of their meaning, and no calculation of letters and numbers is entered into. I do not repeat it.

What belongs here is a datum of the muṣḥaf that can be counted, and it was tabulated at al-Shūrā 42/1: in some sūras the letters are counted as a verse on their own (alif-lām-mīm — al-Baqara 2/1), in others they form a single verse together with the sentence that follows. Yūnus belongs to the second group: alif-lām-rā and tilka āyātu'l-kitābi'l-ḥakīm together are the first verse.

تِلْكَ ءَايَٰتُ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ ٱلْحَكِيمِ — the opening sentence was tabulated at al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/2 and Yūsuf 12/1. I rely on that treatment: the same pattern recurs in several sūras, and the only thing that changes is the final adjective (al-ḥakīm / al-mubīn).

The question is an istifhām inkārī: it is asked in order to state that there is nothing here to be astonished at.

The root ع-ج-ب was treated at Qāf 50/2 (bal ʿajibū an jāʾahum mundhirun minhum) and at al-Raʿd 13/5 (wa in taʿjab fa-ʿajabun qawluhum). I rely on that treatment, and the core recorded there holds here as well: the objection begins not from a proof but from a measure of familiarity.

And the difference between the three places is worth recording:

The word common to all three is minhum / minkum: one from among them. The ground of the objection is that the messenger is a human being and a familiar one. This objection and the answer to it were treated in detail at al-Furqān 25/20 and al-Anbiyāʾ 21/7-8; I rely on that treatment.

The construct is striking, and it occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

The root ق-د-م: to go before, to advance. Qadam — foot; and from this a step, a firm place, precedence.

The classical commentaries differ over what the construct answers to:

All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. The point common to them is that the word states a firmness of place.

And the use of the word ṣidq as a qualifier will come back once more within the sūra: in the ninety-third verse the Children of Israel will be given mubawwaʾa ṣidqin (an abode of truthfulness). Both constructs are on the same pattern: noun + ṣidq.

I record this as an observation about the wording: the sūra qualifies both an individual standing and a communal settlement with the same word.

This sentence will come back almost word for word in the seventy-sixth verse of the sūra — but in another mouth:

The difference is a single letter: sāḥir (sorcerer) and siḥr (sorcery). The one qualifies the person, the other what he brought.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sameness of pattern in the two sentences: the sūra does not place the narrative of Moses in its middle as an example — it shows the sentence of the second verse as it was once spoken in history. The narrative thus stands as the record that the objection is not new. And the thirty-ninth verse will say this outright: kadhālika kadhdhaba'lladhīna min qablihim.

Inna rabbakumu'llāhu'lladhī khalaqa's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa fī sittati ayyāmin thumma'stawā ʿala'l-ʿarshi yudabbiru'l-amr, mā min shafīʿin illā min baʿdi idhnih, dhālikumu'llāhu rabbukum fa'ʿbudūh, a-fa-lā tadhakkarūn

"Your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then established Himself upon the Throne. He directs the affair. There is no intercessor except after His leave. That is God, your Lord; so serve Him. Will you still not take heed?"

The construct was analysed in detail at al-Sajda 32/5 and I rely on that treatment; I do not repeat it. The core of what was recorded there was this: the concrete sense of the root د-ب-ر is "the back" (dubur); tadbīr is to order a matter by looking to its back — that is, to its end. And the difference of pattern between Form II (tadbīr, ascribed to God) and Form V (tadabbur, commanded of man) was tabulated there.

And there the two senses of the word al-amr (command / matter-and-event) were tabulated, and no preference was imposed. I keep the same limit.

What belongs here is the following, and it is a datum of word order:

That is, the same verb occurs twice within the sūra (3 and 31) and the second time it is placed inside a question: "who directs the affair?" What is stated in the third verse is made to be said by the one addressed in the thirty-first. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading.

On this question I keep exactly the limit set in the index, and I rely on two places.

What was recorded at al-Baqara 2/255 (man dha'lladhī yashfaʿu ʿindahū illā bi-idhnih) was this: there is no intercession that stands of itself, by right, that a person may count on as a guarantee; intercession bound to leave is a separate matter. And there al-Baqara 2/48 and this verse were set side by side, and no side was taken.

What was recorded at al-Zumar 39/43-44 (qul lillāhi'sh-shafāʿatu jamīʿā) was this: intercession is not denied — its owner is stated.

The three verses together give a table:

And the word Yūnus adds must be recorded: min baʿdi — "after". In al-Baqara the particle was bi- (by His leave); here the order in time is stated plainly: first the leave, then the intercession.

I record this as an observation about the word order. I do not enter the debate over intercession in the history of theology and I take no side; I confine myself to setting the three verses side by side.

And in the section on al-Nāziʿāt 79/5 this verse was named on the occasion of tadbīr — there the ascription of the directing to God and of the carrying out to the angels was discussed. I rely on that treatment.

These two expressions were treated in more than one place in the index, and the limit drawn there holds here unchanged.

The summary recorded at Qāf 50/38 and grounded on the discussion of al-Ḥadīd 57/4 was this: the word yawm in Arabic does not mean only "a day of twenty-four hours"; the root sense is a stretch of time, a period. How long the six "days" lasted is not stated and is not known.

At Fuṣṣilat 41/9-12 the same limit was drawn once more: the "days" are not equated with geological ages, and no model of the universe is drawn out of the word dukhān. What the text says is this: creation is related as ordered and measured.

I keep the same limit. I do not go hunting for scientific miracles, and I draw no conclusion here about modern cosmology.

ثُمَّ ٱسْتَوَىٰ عَلَى ٱلْعَرْشِ — the construct was treated at al-Sajda 32/4, where the two classical positions (tafwīḍ / taʾwīl) were tabulated and no preference was imposed. I enter the same note and do not reopen the debate. The principle common to them is al-Shūrā 42/11: "There is nothing like Him."

At Ṭāhā 20/5 the seven occurrences of this construct in the Qurʾān were counted (al-Aʿrāf 7/54, Yūnus 10/3, al-Raʿd 13/2, Ṭāhā 20/5, al-Furqān 25/59, al-Sajda 32/4, al-Ḥadīd 57/4). I rely on that treatment.

And the observation about word order recorded in al-Sajda works here too, and more sharply: there yudabbiru'l-amr came as a separate verse after the sentence thumma'stawā ʿala'l-ʿarsh; in Yūnus the two stand inside the same verse, one straight after the other. That is, the sentence continues not with a halt but with a directing.

Ilayhi marjiʿukum jamīʿā, waʿda'llāhi ḥaqqā, innahū yabdaʾu'l-khalqa thumma yuʿīduhū li-yajziya'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti bi'l-qisṭ

"To Him is the return of you all. This is God's promise in truth. He begins creation, then repeats it — in order to reward those who believe and do righteous deeds with equity."

مَرْجِع — root ر-ج-ع: to return. The word occurs four times in the sūra and is a repetition that can be counted:

And in the fourth verse the one addressed is "you", in the forty-sixth and seventieth "they". I record this as an observation about the word order: the sūra gives the same ruling first in direct address, then in the third person.

يَبْدَؤُا۟ ٱلْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُ — beginning and repeating. The same pair will turn into a question in the thirty-fourth verse: hal min shurakāʾikum man yabdaʾu'l-khalqa thumma yuʿīduh. That is, what is stated in the fourth verse comes back in the thirty-fourth as a testing question. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

بِٱلْقِسْطِ — root ق-س-ط: a share, a portion; and from this to give what is due. The word will occur twice more in the sūra, in the forty-seventh and fifty-fourth verses — and in all three places in the context of judgment.

وَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَهُمْ شَرَابٌ مِّنْ حَمِيمٍ — ḥamīm: scalding water. The root was treated in al-Wāqiʿa and al-Dukhān; I do not repeat it.

Huwa'lladhī jaʿala'sh-shamsa ḍiyāʾan wa'l-qamara nūran wa qaddarahū manāzila li-taʿlamū ʿadada's-sinīna wa'l-ḥisāb, mā khalaqa'llāhu dhālika illā bi'l-ḥaqq, yufaṣṣilu'l-āyāti li-qawmin yaʿlamūn

"It is He who made the sun a ḍiyāʾ and the moon a nūr, and measured out stages for it so that you might know the number of the years and the reckoning. God did not create this except in truth. He sets out the signs in detail for a people who know."

This distinction has been named in many places in the index (Nūḥ 71/16, al-Taghābun, al-Shams, al-Nabaʾ, al-Anbiyāʾ 21/33) and reference was made each time to this verse. This is the word's own place; so I record the distinction here in one piece.

The root ض-و-أ: ḍawʾ — light, brightness. Aḍāʾa — it lit up, it shone. The core the lexicographers give: a spreading, strong, dazzling brightness.

The root ن-و-ر: nūr — illumination. The core the lexicographers give: illumination that makes a place visible.

The distinction the lexicographers draw between these two words is transmitted thus:

Some lexicographers put the distinction more sharply and separate ḍiyāʾ as "from itself" from nūr as "taken from another / reflected". This distinction was transmitted at al-Anbiyāʾ 21/33, and there too it was given with the note that it is "a transmitted distinction".

Per the method (Method) I draw a plain limit here: I draw no conclusion about modern astronomy from this distinction. That the moon's light is reflected is something known today; but to say that the verse states this would be to turn a stylistic distinction of the lexicographers into a proposition of physics. The distinction of the classical lexicographers rests on a difference of intensity and softness in the words — not on a difference of source. The second reading is transmitted and can be related; but the sentence "the Qurʾān announced the reflected light of the moon" is not built in this commentary. It is a way of looking, and it is left at that.

And this note is needed too: the Qurʾān uses the word ḍiyāʾ of things other than the sun — at al-Anbiyāʾ 21/48 the book given to Moses and Aaron (Hārūn) is called ḍiyāʾ. That is, the word is not a technical term meaning "a heavenly body that gives out light of its own". This is a datum that must be recorded so that the distinction is not turned into a proposition of physics.

And this finding recorded in al-Shams belongs here: nowhere does the Qurʾān call the moon sirāj (a lamp); sirāj is for the sun (Nūḥ 71/16, al-Furqān 25/61). The choice of word is consistent, and this is a datum that can be counted.

The pronoun is singular: qaddarahū — "He measured it out". The lexicographers record that the pronoun goes back to the moon; manāzil (stages, halting places) has to do with the phases of the moon.

The root م-ن-ز-ل / ن-ز-ل: manzil — a place where one halts, a stage where one comes down. The concrete picture in the word is travel: the stage where the traveller halts each night.

And the verse's own stated purpose must be recorded, because it is the verse itself that draws the limit here: li-taʿlamū ʿadada's-sinīna wa'l-ḥisāb — "so that you might know the number of the years and the reckoning."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this sentence: the verse names the heavenly bodies as a calendar. As was recorded in al-Shams: in the Qurʾān's description of nature the sun is first of all a clock. That is, the benefit the verse gives is not the physics of light but the measurability of time.

مَا خَلَقَ ٱللَّهُ ذَٰلِكَ إِلَّا بِٱلْحَقِّ — and the backbone word of the sūra occurs here for the first time, as the quality of the creating.

إِنَّ فِى ٱخْتِلَٰفِ ٱلَّيْلِ وَٱلنَّهَارِ (6) — the root خ-ل-ف: to come after. Ikhtilāf here is not "disagreement" but the following of one upon the other, the taking of turns.

And the closings of the two verses can be compared — this is a datum of word order:

Four distinct qualities, on the same pattern. I record this as an observation: the sūra does not tie the proof to a single capacity — knowing, guarding oneself, reflecting and hearing are counted separately.

Inna'lladhīna lā yarjūna liqāʾanā wa raḍū bi'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā wa'ṭmaʾannū bihā wa'lladhīna hum ʿan āyātinā ghāfilūn · Ulāʾika maʾwāhumu'n-nāru bimā kānū yaksibūn · Inna'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti yahdīhim rabbuhum bi-īmānihim, tajrī min taḥtihimu'l-anhāru fī jannāti'n-naʿīm · Daʿwāhum fīhā subḥānaka'llāhumma wa taḥiyyatuhum fīhā salām, wa ākhiru daʿwāhum ani'l-ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi'l-ʿālamīn

"Those who do not look for the meeting with Us, who are content with the life of this world and have settled into it, and those who are heedless of Our signs — their dwelling is the Fire, for what they were earning. · But those who believe and do righteous deeds, their Lord guides them by their faith; rivers flow beneath them in the gardens of bliss. · Their prayer there is 'subḥānaka'llāhumma', their greeting to one another there is 'salām', and the end of their prayer is 'praise be to God, the Lord of all the worlds'."

This is one of the strongest linguistic data in the sūra, and it must be compared.

The root ط-م-ن was analysed at al-Baqara 2/260 (li-yaṭmaʾinna qalbī): to settle, to grow calm, to come to rest in place; and there the concrete picture recorded by the lexicographers was given: a thing settling into a hollow and becoming fixed. And there the difference between faith and iṭmiʾnān was recorded: the one is acceptance, the other a settling inward.

At al-Raʿd 13/28 the same root was treated in a positive context: alladhīna āmanū wa taṭmaʾinnu qulūbuhum bi-dhikri'llāh, a-lā bi-dhikri'llāhi taṭmaʾinnu'l-qulūb. And it was tabulated there that the sentence is said twice and that bi-dhikri'llāh, by being placed first, states restriction.

Now the two uses can be set side by side, and the difference lies in the object of the particle:

The same root, the same pattern, the opposite ruling. And the difference lies not in the verb itself — but in where the particle bi- carries it.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the word order of the two verses: iṭmiʾnān by itself is neither praised nor blamed in the Qurʾān. The word describes a state: settling inward, coming to rest, the halting of the search. What determines its value is what one settles upon.

And there is a datum within the sūra that supports this reading: in the seventh verse raḍū (they were content) comes immediately before iṭmiʾnān. The order, that is, is this: to be content → to settle → heedlessness. The halting of the search begins with a decision that something is enough.

And the definition recorded at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/64 works here: the life of this world is named with the word ḥayāt, but real life (al-ḥayawān) is given to another word. What Yūnus does is to say that one can settle upon that word.

The construct occurs in three places in the sūra and is a repetition that can be counted:

In three verses the same group is named with three different verbs: they were content, they were left, they demanded. I record this as an observation: the sūra defines the group not by an article of belief but by an absence of expectation.

The root ر-ج-و: to hope, to look for. The negating of this word is different from "they do not believe": not to hope is to have no reckoning with regard to what is coming.

The verse describes the speech of those in the Garden and counts three sentences. This is a choice worth recording: what is related is not the bounty but the word.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the addressees of the three sentences: vertical (to God), horizontal (to one another), then vertical again. And the salām in the middle is from the same root as dāru's-salām (the abode of peace) in the twenty-fifth verse. That is, the name of the abode comes from the language spoken inside it. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.

At al-Zumar 39/73 the keepers of the Garden saying salāmun ʿalaykum ṭibtum was treated; at al-Wāqiʿa 56/25-26 the giving of salām as an answer was tabulated. I rely on that treatment.

The sentence is word for word the same as the first verse of al-Fātiḥa.

This sentence was analysed in detail at al-Fātiḥa 1/1: the choice of a nominal sentence (not a verbal one), that is, praise not being tied to the servant's act; the name Rabb stating a nurture that goes on. I do not repeat it.

And this verse was already named there: "The Qurʾān opens with this sentence, but it also closes with this sentence. The same sentence again is given as the last word of the people of the Garden (Yūnus 10/10). The starting point and the point of arrival are the same sentence."

At al-Zumar 39/75 the same sentence was the close of the sūra, and it was recorded there: the verb is in the passive (wa qīla — "it was said"), and the speaker is not named.

The three places can be set side by side:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the context of the three places: the same sentence stands at the beginning like a command, at the end like an outcome. And the word in Yūnus says this outright: ākhiru — "the end of". The prayer begins with a request and ends with praise.

And a detail of word order: ani'l-ḥamdu — the an here is explicative (the an that states an explanation). That is, the sentence is not related as "they say such and such"; what is said is given itself.

Wa law yuʿajjilu'llāhu li'n-nāsi'sh-sharra'stiʿjālahum bi'l-khayri la-quḍiya ilayhim ajaluhum, fa-nadharu'lladhīna lā yarjūna liqāʾanā fī ṭughyānihim yaʿmahūn

"If God were to hasten evil to people as they seek to hasten what is good, their term would long since have been finished for them. But We leave those who do not look for the meeting with Us to wander blindly in their transgression."

The sentence is built on a comparison, and the parts of the comparison can be separated out:

Istiʿjālahum is a cognate accusative (mafʿūl muṭlaq): "as they seek to hasten". The measure, that is, is man's own haste.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this cognate accusative: the verse does not merely name man's haste as a fault — it takes that haste as a scale and says "if the answer had come at the same speed". And the result is the ending of the term.

This deferral was treated in the index and I rely on two places.

At Fāṭir 35/45 (wa law yuʾākhidhu'llāhu'n-nāsa bimā kasabū mā taraka ʿalā ẓahrihā min dābba): the scope was all living things, and it was recorded there — "the verse is saying that man's reckoning concerns other living creatures as well."

At al-Kahf 18/58 (law yuʾākhidhuhum bimā kasabū la-ʿajjala lahumu'l-ʿadhāb): there lahum mawʿid — an appointed time — was stated.

The three verses can be set side by side:

And what Yūnus adds must be recorded: in the other two verses the condition was the deeds earned (bimā kasabū); here the condition is the speed of man's own asking for haste. The measure, that is, is taken not from outside but from the conduct of the one addressed.

And at al-Raʿd 13/6 the seeking to hasten the punishment (wa yastaʿjilūnaka bi's-sayyiʾati qabla'l-ḥasana) was treated; the same demand had occurred at Sabaʾ 34/29 and al-ʿAnkabūt 29/53 as well. Yūnus is the most fully built form of the answer given to that demand.

فِى طُغْيَٰنِهِمْ يَعْمَهُونَ — the construct was tabulated in the section on al-Muʾminūn 23, and its regular occurrences in the Qurʾān were counted there (al-Baqara 2/15, al-Anʿām 6/110, al-Aʿrāf 7/186, Yūnus 10/11). I rely on that treatment.

The root ع-م-ه: to walk without seeing, to flounder, to wander about without finding one's direction. The lexicographers compare this with ʿamā (blindness): ʿamā is transmitted as the blindness of the eye, ʿamah as the blindness of the mind. I relate this distinction as it is transmitted.

Wa idhā massa'l-insāna'ḍ-ḍurru daʿānā li-janbihī aw qāʿidan aw qāʾimā, fa-lammā kashafnā ʿanhu ḍurrahū marra ka-an lam yadʿunā ilā ḍurrin massah, kadhālika zuyyina li'l-musrifīna mā kānū yaʿmalūn

"When affliction touches man he calls upon Us — lying on his side, sitting, or standing. But when We lift his affliction from him he passes on, as though he had never called upon Us over an affliction that touched him. Thus was what they were doing made to seem fair to those who go to excess."

This portrait was treated and tabulated in two places in the index.

At al-Zumar 39/8 and 39/49 the same pattern occurred twice, and it was recorded there: in the first, forgetting; in the second, claiming ownership — "first to forget the source, then to claim to be the source oneself."

At Fuṣṣilat 41/49-51 the portrait occurred once more: naʾā bi-jānibih (turning aside) and duʿāʾin ʿarīḍ (prayer spread wide). And there the difference between ṭūl and ʿarḍ was recorded: the prayer does not deepen, it spreads.

Yūnus is the fourth link, and the table can be completed:

And Yūnus adds two things. Both must be recorded.

Li-janbihī — upon his side, lying down. Qāʿidan — sitting. Qāʾiman — standing.

This is a detail not found in the other three occurrences of the portrait.

And there is a subtlety in the word order, which I record: the first is li-janbihī — with a prepositional phrase; the second and third are qāʿidan, qāʾiman — with a circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl). The grammarians record this shift and say that the first renders better the motionlessness of the one lying down. I relate this explanation as it is transmitted.

And the order is worth recording: lying → sitting → standing. That is, from the most helpless to the strongest.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order itself: the verse does not tie the prayer to one condition. Lying, sitting or standing, the same thing is done — the prayer, that is, is bound to the affliction itself, independently of the state of the body. And this makes the passing on in the second half heavier: what was done in every condition is abandoned in a single condition — in ease.

And at al-Sajda 32/16 tatajāfā junūbuhum ʿani'l-maḍājiʿ (their sides part from their beds) occurred as a quality of the believers. The word janb (side) is in both verses; in the one it is a man praying in affliction, in the other a man rising in ease. I record this as an observation about the wording; I make no claim that the two verses refer to one another.

The root م-ر-ر: to pass, to go past.

And the choice of verb must be recorded: in al-Zumar it was nasiya (he forgot), in Fuṣṣilat aʿraḍa (he turned away). Here it is marra — "he passed".

I record this as my own reading: forgetting is an act of the mind, turning away is a stance; passing on requires neither. Marra is to keep going on one's way as though nothing had happened. And the rest of the verse confirms this: ka-an lam yadʿunā — "as though he had never called upon Us".

The root occurs in three places in the sūra, and this is a fact that can be counted:

The concrete sense of the root ك-ش-ف: to lift a covering, to uncover.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the three verses: the sūra uses the same verb first of one person (12), then of a people (98), and finally as a rule (107). And the man in the twelfth verse passes on after the affliction is lifted; the people in the ninety-eighth do not. That the sūra takes its name from that people has to do with this difference.

زُيِّنَ لِلْمُسْرِفِينَ — tazyīn (being made to seem fair) was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/25 and in al-Zukhruf. I do not repeat it.

The root س-ر-ف: to overstep the bound, to lose the measure. The word will occur once more in the sūra, in the eighty-third verse — and there it will be used of Pharaoh: wa innahū la-mina'l-musrifīn. The same epithet, once for a general type and once for a ruler.

"We destroyed the generations before you when they did wrong; their messengers had come to them with clear proofs, but they were not going to believe… · Then, after them, We made you successors in the earth — to see how you would act."

قُرُون — root ق-ر-ن: to be together, to be joined. Qarn — a generation living at the same time; and from this a stretch of time. The core of the word is "being together": those who are present in one and the same age.

خَلَٰٓئِف — the root خ-ل-ف: to come after. The plural of khalīfa. The word is from the same root as ikhtilāfu'l-layli wa'n-nahār in the sixth verse — the succession of night and day and the succession of the generations are related with the same word.

I record this as an observation about the wording, and its ground is the shared root.

And the word will occur once more in the sūra, in the seventy-third verse: of those saved with Noah, wa jaʿalnāhum khalāʾif. The two occurrences can be compared:

لِنَنظُرَ كَيْفَ تَعْمَلُونَ — "to see how you would act."

The sentence states a purpose, and the purpose is seeing. I record this as my own reading: the succession is given not as a privilege but as a subject of observation. To take the place, that is, is itself the test.

And what is asked is not how much but how: kayfa taʿmalūn. Not quantity but manner.

وَمَا كَانُوا۟ لِيُؤْمِنُوا۟ — "they were not going to believe". The same construction will return in the seventy-fourth verse: fa-mā kānū li-yuʾminū bimā kadhdhabū bihī min qabl. It is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

Wa idhā tutlā ʿalayhim āyātunā bayyinātin qāla'lladhīna lā yarjūna liqāʾana'ti bi-qurʾānin ghayri hādhā aw baddilh, qul mā yakūnu lī an ubaddilahū min tilqāʾi nafsī, in attabiʿu illā mā yūḥā ilayy, innī akhāfu in ʿaṣaytu rabbī ʿadhāba yawmin ʿaẓīm

"When Our signs are recited to them as clear proofs, those who do not look for the meeting with Us say: 'Bring a Qurʾān other than this, or change it.' Say: 'It is not for me to change it of my own accord. I follow only what is revealed to me. If I disobey my Lord I fear the punishment of a mighty day.'"

The sentence asks for two things, and the two are different:

I record this as an observation: the second demand is heavier than the first, because it aims not at the source of the text but at authority over it. The first says "bring something else"; the second carries the assumption "you can dispose of this as you wish".

And the first word of the answer meets exactly this: mā yakūnu lī — "it is not a thing that is for me", that is, "this is not within my authority".

This sentence occurred word for word at al-Aḥqāf 46/9 and was treated there. I rely on that treatment. The frame recorded there was this: it comes after the sentence mā kuntu bidʿan mina'r-rusul (I am no innovation among the messengers) and states that the knowledge is not from himself.

The difference between the two places must be recorded:

What is limited in al-Aḥqāf is knowledge, in Yūnus authority. I record this as an observation: the same sentence is used as the ground of two distinct limits.

And the pattern of the sentence is worth recording: in attabiʿu illā mā yūḥā ilayy — the pattern of restriction (qaṣr). In here is the negative particle, and illā brings the exception. It is not, that is, "I follow this and that as well": the one thing followed is stated.

This sentence will come back in the hundred and ninth verse as a command:

The same construct, one as a first-person statement, the other as a second-person command. And the sūra closes by commanding in the hundred and ninth verse what was said in the fifteenth. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading.

The root occurs in three places in the sūra:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the repetition of the root: the changing asked for in the fifteenth verse is declared impossible in the sixty-fourth. The sūra, that is, answers the demand first with a lack of authority (15), then with an impossibility (64). The two answers are on distinct planes: the one concerns the person, the other the word.

"I stayed among you a lifetime before this. Will you still not use your reason?"

The proof is brought from the memory of the one addressed: someone they have known for long years.

I record this as an observation, and it links back to the second verse: there the ground of the objection was that the messenger was familiar (rajulin minhum). Here that same familiarity is given back as a proof. The same fact serves in the one place as material for the objection and in the other as material for the answer.

فَمَنْ أَظْلَمُ مِمَّنِ ٱفْتَرَىٰ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ كَذِبًا (17) — and the word iftirāʾ begins here as one of the key words of the sūra.

The root ف-ر-ي: to cut and shape a thing, to split it; to cut and fashion a hide. And iftirāʾ is explained by the lexicographers from this picture: to invent a word by cutting and shaping it.

The root occurs in seven places in the sūra (17, 30, 37, 38, 59, 60, 69) and this is one of the countable backbones of the sūra. I will give the table in one piece in the closing section.

"They serve, apart from God, what can neither harm them nor benefit them, and they say: 'These are our intercessors with God.' Say: 'Are you informing God of something He does not know in the heavens or on the earth?' He is far above and beyond what they associate with Him."

The answer goes not to the content of the claim but to its source of knowledge.

The logic of the sentence must be recorded: if such an authority to intercede existed, God would know it. Do you suppose you are informing Him of something He does not know? The claim, that is, makes itself impossible.

I record this as an observation, and the same structure will recur in the sūra: the answer given in the sixty-eighth verse to the claim "God has taken a child" is on the same pattern — in ʿindakum min sulṭānin bi-hādhā, a-taqūlūna ʿala'llāhi mā lā taʿlamūn. In both places only one thing is asked: where is the proof?

And this overlaps with the backbone of the sūra: in the thirty-sixth verse it will be said inna'ẓ-ẓanna lā yughnī mina'l-ḥaqqi shayʾā. The claim of mediation is an application of the sūra's conjecture–truth axis.

The third verse had bound intercession to leave. The eighteenth verse shows what happens where that leave is absent.

And the words of the claim must be recorded: ʿinda'llāh — "with God". Those who make the claim, that is, do not reject God; they describe a standing with Him. At al-Zumar 39/3 (mā naʿbuduhum illā li-yuqarribūnā ila'llāhi zulfā) the same ground was treated, and it was recorded there: the objection is not to God but to being without an intermediary. I rely on that treatment.

مَا لَا يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلَا يَنفَعُهُمْ — and this pair will come back at the end of the sūra in the Prophet's mouth: wa lā tadʿu min dūni'llāhi mā lā yanfaʿuka wa lā yaḍurruk (106). The same two verbs, with their order changed.

I record this as an observation about the word order. The grammarians explain such changes of order by context; here the first place names the object of worship, the second the object of prayer — and what is expected of prayer is first of all benefit. I give this explanation as my own reading; it is not binding.

"People were no more than a single community; then they fell into disagreement. Had a word not gone forth beforehand from your Lord, judgment would long since have been given between them over what they disagreed about. · They say: 'Should a sign not have been sent down to him from his Lord?' Say: 'The unseen belongs to God alone. So wait; I am with you among those who wait.'"

أُمَّةً وَٰحِدَةً — the construct occurs in more than one place in the Qurʾān and was treated from another side at al-Zukhruf 43/33 (wa lawlā an yakūna'n-nāsu ummatan wāḥidatan). I rely on that treatment.

And the word order here must be recorded: mā kāna … illā — the pattern of restriction. The information "people were at the beginning a single community" is given, that is, with a restriction: they were nothing else.

كَلِمَةٌ سَبَقَتْ مِن رَّبِّكَ — "a word that had gone forth beforehand from your Lord". The construct will come back in the thirty-third and ninety-sixth verses of the sūra in the form ḥaqqat kalimatu rabbik.

Four occurrences, one root. I record this as an observation: the sūra ties the deferral, the coming true and the unalterability all to the same word.

This demand was treated in many places in the index: at al-Raʿd 13/7 the same sentence (law lā unzila ʿalayhi āyatun min rabbih) occurred and came back there twice more; the same line was treated at al-Furqān 25/21 (law lā unzila ʿalayna'l-malāʾika) and at al-Kahf 18/57. I rely on that treatment.

And the answer Yūnus gives must be recorded, because it differs from the others: innama'l-ghaybu lillāh.

Yūnus ties the demand to a question of knowledge. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the answer: what is asked for is a sign that would come from an unseen field; and by stating whose that field is, the one who demands it is left standing outside the door.

This sentence will be repeated word for word in the hundred and second verse of the sūra:

Verse 20: fa'ntaẓirū innī maʿakum mina'l-muntaẓirīn Verse 102: qul fa'ntaẓirū innī maʿakum mina'l-muntaẓirīn

The difference is a single word: in the hundred and second verse qul (say) stands at the head.

This is a repetition that can be counted and verified within the sūra. And the contexts of the two places differ: in the twentieth verse it answers the demand for a sign, in the hundred and second the awaiting of what befell the earlier peoples.

I record this as my own reading: the same sentence stands like a parenthesis set at the two ends of the sūra. And what the sentence does is worth recording: the waiting of the other side is accepted, but the speaker steps into the same rank — innī maʿakum. The waiting, that is, is not refused; it is shared.

"When We let people taste a mercy after an affliction has touched them, at once they have a scheme against Our signs. Say: 'God is swifter in scheming.' Our messengers are writing down the schemes you devise."

The verse is the communal counterpart of the portrait in the twelfth verse.

The two verses carry the same structure nine verses apart (massa / massathum, then deliverance, then the response) and in the second the conduct passes from passivity to activity. I record this as my own reading; its ground is the shared pattern of the two verses.

The root م-ك-ر: to lay a plan in secret, to take a measure without letting it be sensed. The lexicographers also give the root sense as "to turn a thing from its proper direction".

وَٱللَّهُ أَسْرَعُ مَكْرًا — and the ascription of the word to God must be recorded.

In the classical commentaries this usage is explained as mushākala: to answer with the very word the other side has used. It does not mean "God too deceives", but "He is the one who answers their scheme". I relate this explanation as it is transmitted.

And the epithet chosen is asraʿ — "swifter". I record this as an observation: the comparison is set up not in power but in speed. What is stated is not the quality of the scheme but that it comes first.

إِنَّ رُسُلَنَا يَكْتُبُونَ مَا تَمْكُرُونَ — rusul here means the angels; the lexicographers record that the sense "those sent" makes this possible. At al-Raʿd 13/11 the same field was treated on the occasion of muʿaqqibāt; I rely on that treatment.

Huwa'lladhī yusayyirukum fi'l-barri wa'l-baḥr, ḥattā idhā kuntum fi'l-fulki wa jarayna bihim bi-rīḥin ṭayyibatin wa fariḥū bihā jāʾathā rīḥun ʿāṣifun wa jāʾahumu'l-mawju min kulli makānin wa ẓannū annahum uḥīṭa bihim, daʿawu'llāha mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīna la-in anjaytanā min hādhihī la-nakūnanna mina'sh-shākirīn · Fa-lammā anjāhum idhā hum yabghūna fi'l-arḍi bi-ghayri'l-ḥaqq

"It is He who makes you travel over land and sea. So that when you are in the ships, and they run with them on a fair wind and they rejoice in it — a violent wind comes upon them, waves come at them from every side, and they know that they are encompassed. Then they call upon God, making their religion sincerely His: 'If You deliver us from this we shall certainly be among the thankful.' · But when He delivers them, at once they are overreaching on the earth without right."

This scene was treated and tabulated twice in the index.

At Luqmān 31/32 (wa idhā ghashiyahum mawjun ka'ẓ-ẓulal daʿawu'llāha mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīn) and at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/65 (fa-idhā rakibū fi'l-fulki daʿawu'llāha mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīn) the same scene had occurred in almost the same words. And in the section on al-ʿAnkabūt it was tabulated that the two sūras end with different outcomes: in Luqmān fa-minhum muqtaṣid (some of them keep to the middle way), in al-ʿAnkabūt idhā hum yushrikūn (they associate others with God).

Yūnus is the third link, and the table can be completed:

And Yūnus has two differences. Both must be recorded.

In the other two sūras there is a prayer but no undertaking. In Yūnus the prayer continues into a sentence of oath:

La-in anjaytanā min hādhihī la-nakūnanna mina'sh-shākirīn — "if You deliver us from this we shall certainly be among the thankful."

How the sentence is built must be recorded: it opens with la-in (the lām of oath plus the particle of condition), and the answer comes with la- plus the nūn of emphasis (la-nakūnanna). In Arabic this is the most strongly reinforced form a word can take.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this pattern: the other two sūras showed a contradiction of conduct (sincerity at sea, association on land). Yūnus lays a pledge on top of this — and what is broken is not merely an attitude but an undertaking that was given.

And the content of the broken pledge must be recorded: mina'sh-shākirīn — to be among the thankful. What is promised, that is, is not an act but a belonging. At al-Ṣāffāt 37/143 (kāna mina'l-musabbiḥīn) the point of this pattern was treated: "what delivers is not an act at that moment but a belonging." In Yūnus the same pattern stands on the side of what is promised — and it is not fulfilled.

Luqmān said "keeping to the middle way", al-ʿAnkabūt "associating others with God". Yūnus says baghy.

The root ب-غ-ي: to want, to seek; and from this to overstep the bound, to overreach. The lexicographers explain the second sense as an extension of the first: to seek more than one's share.

And the verse gives the word with a qualification: bi-ghayri'l-ḥaqq — "without right". That is, baghy here is not the seeking itself but a seeking that spills past the truth.

And what follows must be recorded: yā ayyuha'n-nāsu innamā baghyukum ʿalā anfusikum — "your overreaching is against yourselves."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the word order of the sentence: ʿalā anfusikum — the harm is written not to the account of the target of the overreaching but to that of the one who commits it. And this coincides exactly with the forty-fourth verse: wa lākinna'n-nāsa anfusahum yaẓlimūn — "but people wrong themselves." The two verses give the same ruling with two different words: baghy and ẓulm.

مَّتَٰعَ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا — and the sentence ends with a note about a term. The construct will come back in the seventieth verse: matāʿun fi'd-dunyā.

This is the most striking linguistic event in the verse, and it must be recorded.

The sentence begins in the second person, shifts in the middle to the third, and then continues in the third:

The rhetoricians call this shift iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address). And this verse is one of the most frequently named examples of iltifāt in the classical books of rhetoric.

The explanations the grammarians and rhetoricians give for this shift. I give them in a table and impose no preference:

All four explanations are transmitted in the classical sources.

And the datum of the text that must be recorded is this: the shift falls exactly on the word wa jarayna bihim — that is, at the moment the ship moves. I record this as an observation about the word order: "you" on the shore, "they" at sea.

And the twenty-third verse turns back again to the second person once the scene is over: yā ayyuha'n-nāsu innamā baghyukum ʿalā anfusikum. The circle closes, that is: second person → third person → second person. The scene is set at a distance, and then the ruling is given directly to the one addressed. This is an observation about word order that I record as my own reading, and its ground is the chain of persons in the verses themselves.

رِيحٌ عَاصِفٌ — the root ع-ص-ف was treated in al-Mursalāt (al-ʿāṣifāt) and in al-Fīl; and it was recorded there: ʿāṣif is used in Arabic of almost nothing but the wind. I rely on that treatment.

And that it comes together with its opposite must be recorded: rīḥin ṭayyibatin (a fair wind) and rīḥun ʿāṣif (a violent wind). The same word, two epithets. What carries the ship along and what will sink it are both the wind.

وَظَنُّوٓا۟ أَنَّهُمْ أُحِيطَ بِهِم — the word ẓann here means "firm conviction". The lexicographers record that the root carries both the sense of "to suppose" and that of "to know for certain", and leave the distinction to context. This is the same root as the ẓann in the thirty-sixth verse of the sūra, in a different use, and I shall take it up in that section.

أُحِيطَ بِهِم — passive: "they were encompassed". The root ح-و-ط: to surround on every side. The verb's coming in the passive does not name the one who encompasses.

Innamā mathalu'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā ka-māʾin anzalnāhu mina's-samāʾi fa'khtalaṭa bihī nabātu'l-arḍi mimmā yaʾkulu'n-nāsu wa'l-anʿām, ḥattā idhā akhadhati'l-arḍu zukhrufahā wa'zzayyanat wa ẓanna ahluhā annahum qādirūna ʿalayhā atāhā amrunā laylan aw nahāran fa-jaʿalnāhā ḥaṣīdan ka-an lam taghna bi'l-ams, kadhālika nufaṣṣilu'l-āyāti li-qawmin yatafakkarūn

"The likeness of the life of this world is this: like water We send down from the sky. With it the plants of the earth, from which people and cattle eat, mingle together. Until, when the earth has taken on its ornament and decked itself out, and its owners suppose they have power over it — Our command comes to it by night or by day, and We make it a mown field, as though it had never flourished the day before. Thus do We set out the signs in detail for a people who reflect."

This likeness was treated twice in the index.

At al-Kahf 18/45 (ka-māʾin anzalnāhu mina's-samāʾi fa'khtalaṭa bihī nabātu'l-arḍi fa-aṣbaḥa hashīman tadhrūhu'r-riyāḥ) and at al-Zumar 39/21 (a single sentence in five stages: He sent down → He made it run → He brought forth → it turned yellow → He made it chaff). And it was recorded there, together with al-Wāqiʿa 56/65, that three words (hashīm, ḥuṭām, ḥaṣīd) relate the same end.

The three likenesses can be compared:

And Yūnus adds two things, and they appear in exactly these two rows.

The root ز-خ-ر-ف was analysed in al-Zukhruf on the occasion of the sūra's name, and it was recorded there: zukhruf — gold; and from this ornament, adornment, gilding. It was also related there that the lexicographers connect the word with the verb zahara (to swell, to brim over): ornament is a thing's swelling, its appearing fuller than it is. That relation of derivation was given there "as the lexicographers record it"; I keep the same note.

And in the section on al-Zukhruf this very verse was named: "أَخَذَتِ الأَرْضُ زُخْرُفَهَا — the earth took on its ornament; the Qurʾān uses this at Yūnus 10/24… and there too the mowing away of everything is related immediately afterwards." This is that usage's own place.

And the verb must be recorded: akhadhat — "it took, it put on". The earth takes its ornament upon itself like a garment.

وَٱزَّيَّنَتْ — the root ز-ي-ن, Form V in its assimilated shape (tazayyanat → izzayyanat). Reflexive: "it decked itself out".

I record this as an observation about the word order: both verbs are ascribed to the earth — the taking and the adorning. Yet it was "We" who sent down the water (anzalnāhu). In the likeness, that is, there is a choice of words that separates the side which is adorned by what is given from the side that gives.

This is the real thing Yūnus adds to the likeness, and it must be compared with al-Kahf.

At al-Kahf 18/35-36 the sentence of the owner of the garden was treated: mā aẓunnu an tabīda hādhihī abadā · wa mā aẓunnu's-sāʿata qāʾimah — "I do not think this will ever perish; nor do I think the Hour will come." And it was recorded there: two acts of ẓann one after the other, the first about what is in hand, the second about what is to come; and the second is given as the natural extension of the first.

Now the two verses can be set side by side:

The two verses use the same root (ظ-ن-ن), but the direction of the ẓann differs.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the objects of the two sentences: in al-Kahf the error is about the garden — "it will not perish". In Yūnus the error is about themselves — "we have power over it". The one, that is, is mistaken about the lifespan of the thing, the other about the authority of the owner.

And the word qādirūn must be recorded: the root ق-د-ر. The same root had been used of God in the fifth verse: wa qaddarahū manāzil — "He measured out stages for it". Within the sūra the same root serves once for a real power and once for a supposed one. I record this as an observation about the wording.

And there is one more datum supporting the link between al-Kahf and Yūnus: immediately after the likeness at al-Kahf 18/45 came al-mālu wa'l-banūna zīnatu'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā — the word for ornament is there too. In Yūnus zīna is given to the earth, in al-Kahf to wealth and children.

The time is given as a pair: by night or by day.

I record this as an observation: the expression does not state a time — it states the unfixedness of the time. And the same pair will be repeated in the fiftieth verse of the sūra: in atākum ʿadhābuhū bayātan aw nahārā — "if His punishment comes to you by night or by day". It is a repetition that can be counted between the two verses.

حَصِيد — root ح-ص-د: to mow, to cut the crop with a sickle. Ḥaṣīd — mown. The word states a remainder: the field is still there, what stood on it is gone.

كَأَن لَّمْ تَغْنَ بِٱلْأَمْسِ — "as though it had never flourished the day before."

The root غ-ن-ي: to settle and remain in a place, to be present there. Ghaniya bi'l-makān — he dwelt there. From the same root come ghinā (wealth) and al-Ghaniyy; the link is "to be able to stand without needing another".

And the construct is on the same pattern as ka-an lam yadʿunā in the twelfth verse:

The same pattern (ka-an lam + verb), two distinct erasures. I record this as my own reading: in the twelfth verse man erases the past, in the twenty-fourth the past erases itself. The sūra gives forgetting first as an attitude and then as a fact.

Where the likeness lands is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the disaster comes not after neglect but after the peak. The field is mown when it is at its most splendid. And the verse names the owners' error not as "behaving badly" but as qādirūna ʿalayhā — "supposing they have power over it".

What the verse points to, that is, is not ownership but the sense of control. The note recorded in al-Mulk holds here too: the verse takes as its subject not the taking of measures but the illusion that the taking of measures produces.

"God calls to the abode of peace, and He guides whom He wills to a straight path."

دَارِ ٱلسَّلَٰم — the construct occurs in two places in the Qurʾān: here and al-Anʿām 6/127.

The root س-ل-م: to be whole, sound, without defect; and from this peace, safety, submission. The core of the root is "a thing's keeping its wholeness".

And the construct sets up a link within the sūra: in the tenth verse the greeting of those in the Garden was salām. The name of the abode and the word spoken inside it, that is, are from the same root.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root.

And the word order of the verse must be recorded: there is a difference of scope between the two verbs.

The call is unqualified, the guiding qualified. I record this as an observation about the word order and do not enter into a preference; what the verse does is to give the two verbs with different scopes. And the ninety-ninth verse will complete this distinction within the sūra: to will and to compel are two different things.

"For those who do good there is the best, and more. Neither a darkening nor a humiliation covers their faces. · But those who earn evil deeds — the recompense of an evil deed is its like; and humiliation covers them. They have no one to protect them from God; their faces are as though covered with patches of the darkened night."

This construct has been named in many places in the index: al-Qiyāma, ʿAbasa, al-Layl, al-Jinn, al-Muddaththir.

Al-ḥusnā — treated in al-Layl: the Qurʾān uses the word for the reward.

وَزِيَادَة — "and more." The classical commentaries differ over what the word means:

In al-Qiyāma the first reading was related "as it is transmitted" and was not presented as a ruling. I keep the same note and impose no preference.

And this datum of word order must be recorded: the word comes indefinite (nakira) — ziyādatun. The indefiniteness leaves the scope open. I record this as an observation.

The twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses are built as opposites of one another and can be compared word for word:

And the single place where the symmetry is broken is the measure of the recompense — and this is deliberate:

The recompense of good is al-ḥusnā wa ziyāda (the best and more), the recompense of evil bi-mithlihā (its like).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two words of measure: the verse does not keep the recompense equal in the two directions. On the side of good there is a surplus; on the side of evil there is none. And this is stated openly elsewhere in the Qurʾān (al-Anʿām 6/160). Here the sūra shows it by breaking a symmetry.

قَتَر — root ق-ت-ر: smoke, soot; and from this the darkening that settles on a face. The word was treated at ʿAbasa 80/40-41 and it was recorded there: "The same word (qatar), the same family of verbs (yarhaqu), with the opposite ruling. The last two verses of ʿAbasa are the negative of Yūnus 10/26." I rely on that treatment.

The root ر-ه-ق: to cover a thing, to overspread it, to overtake and envelop it. The lexicographers record the picture of "catching up from behind and taking hold". And the verb is used in both verses: negated in one, affirmed in the other.

كَأَنَّمَآ أُغْشِيَتْ وُجُوهُهُمْ قِطَعًا مِّنَ ٱلَّيْلِ مُظْلِمًا — "their faces as though covered with patches of the darkened night."

The material of the comparison is worth recording: what is chosen as the covering is patches of the night. I record this as an observation: darkness is related not as an absence but as a substance that can be cut and laid over. The word qiṭaʿ (patches) carries this.

"On the day We gather them all together, then say to those who associated others with God: 'Stay where you are, you and your partners' — We part them from one another. Their partners say: 'It was not us you were serving. God suffices as a witness between us and you; we were indeed unaware of your serving us.' · There every soul will test out what it sent on ahead. They are brought back to God, their true Master, and what they invented is lost to them."

مَكَانَكُمْ — a noun functioning as a verb (ism fiʿl) in the imperative: "stay where you are, stand still." I record this as an observation about the word order: the scene is set up like a courtroom, and the first command is to halt.

فَزَيَّلْنَا بَيْنَهُمْ — root ز-ي-ل: to separate, to open a space between. The verb is in Form II and states repetition or intensity: We parted them thoroughly.

And this parting will come back once more in the sūra, with another word: in the twenty-eighth verse the partners speak, and in the thirtieth wa ḍalla ʿanhum mā kānū yaftarūn — "what they invented was lost to them".

مَّا كُنتُمْ إِيَّانَا تَعْبُدُونَ — the word order must be recorded: iyyānā is brought forward.

In Arabic the fronting of the object states specification. The sentence, that is, is not "you were not serving us" but, more exactly: "it was not us you were serving" — you were serving someone else.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this fronting: the partners' defence is not that there was no serving but that it was not directed to them. And the same scene was treated in Sabaʾ and at Maryam 19/81-82: the side supposed to have been turned to does not acknowledge the turning.

تَبْلُوا۟ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّآ أَسْلَفَتْ — the root ب-ل-و: to try, to wear out by testing. The root was analysed at al-Baqara 2/49 (balāʾun min rabbikum ʿaẓīm) and it was recorded there: the word covers testing by good as well. I rely on that treatment.

And the subject of the verb must be recorded: tablū kullu nafsin — the one who tests is the soul itself. And what is tested is what it itself sent on ahead.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the subject of the verb: in this scene no one tests anyone else — each searches through his own past. And this completes the parting in the preceding sentence: once the partners are gone, nothing remains but one's own deed.

أَسْلَفَت — root س-ل-ف: to go before, to send on ahead. Salaf — those who went before. In commercial usage the word also carries the sense of "paid in advance": the salam contract. And this picture fits the verse: what was sent on beforehand and whose return will be taken later.

مَوْلَىٰهُمُ ٱلْحَقِّ — and the backbone word of the sūra occurs here as a qualifier: "their true Master". What stands opposite it is said at once: wa ḍalla ʿanhum mā kānū yaftarūn — what they invented. That is, ḥaqq and iftirāʾ stand face to face in the same sentence.

"Say: 'Who provides for you from the sky and the earth? Or who owns hearing and sight? Who brings the living out of the dead and the dead out of the living? Who directs the affair?' They will say: 'God'. Say: 'Will you not then guard yourselves?' · That is God, your true Lord. What is there after the truth but straying? How then are you turned away!"

Four questions are set out, and all four rest on things the other side accepts:

And the fourth is the verb of the third verse. At Fāṭir 35/3 the same pattern of question (hal min khāliqin ghayru'llāhi yarzuqukum) was treated, and it was recorded there: the question does not open an abstract debate about creatorship — it asks by whom an ongoing work is being carried on. I rely on that treatment.

What belongs here is the difference: in Fāṭir the question is single, in Yūnus fourfold. And the fourth question turns what was stated in the third verse into a question. It is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.

فَسَيَقُولُونَ ٱللَّهُ — "They will say: 'God'."

The verb is in the future, and this must be recorded: the answer is stated by the text before it is given. The question, that is, is not a search for information but the bringing to light of something already accepted.

I record this as an observation about the word order: saying the answer in advance moves the argument from the plane of knowledge to the plane of consistency. And indeed the sentence that follows adds no information but asks for a conclusion: a-fa-lā tattaqūn.

This sentence is the plainest expression of the sūra's backbone.

How it is built must be recorded: a question plus an exception. Mādhā … illā — "what is there other than this?" The sentence, that is, does not count two options and choose one; it says that there are no more than two.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the particle illā: the verse recognises no middle ground between truth and straying. And the rest of the sūra shows one by one the attempts people make to build that middle ground: intermediaries (18), conjecture (36, 66), faith deferred (51, 91), the inventing of what is lawful and forbidden (59).

The root ض-ل-ل: to lose the way, to be lost. It was recorded at al-Raʿd 13/14: when ḍalāl is used of a prayer it means "the prayer is not annihilated — it loses its way". The core of the root is not to cease to exist but to fail to find one's place.

فَأَنَّىٰ تُصْرَفُونَ — "how are you turned away?" The verb is passive: the one who turns them is not named. The same pattern will come back in the thirty-fourth verse as fa-annā tuʾfakūn.

كَذَٰلِكَ حَقَّتْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ فَسَقُوٓا۟ (33) — and the kalima of the nineteenth verse comes back, this time as having come true.

"Say: 'Is there among your partners one who begins creation and then repeats it?' Say: 'God begins creation and then repeats it. How then are you turned about!' · Say: 'Is there among your partners one who guides to the truth?' Say: 'It is God who guides to the truth. Is the one who guides to the truth more worthy to be followed, or the one who cannot find the way unless he is guided? What is the matter with you? How do you judge!' · Most of them follow nothing but conjecture. And conjecture avails nothing against the truth."

The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth verses are built on the same pattern (qul hal min shurakāʾikum man … / quli'llāhu …) and they test two distinct fields:

And the first is the fourth verse turned into a test, the second the twenty-fifth. The sūra turns what it has stated into questions afterwards. This is a method that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading.

The sentence describes a closed circle: one who himself needs to be guided in order to find the way.

Lā yahiddī — Form VIII in its assimilated shape (yahtadī → yahiddī). The imams of the variant readings have read this word differently (yahiddī, yahaddī, yahdī and the like). The variant readings do not change the meaning here; in all of them the verb concerned is "to find the way". For that reason I do not go into the detail.

And the logic must be recorded: the verse does not say the partners are bad; it says they are insufficient. The measure is not moral but functional.

فَمَا لَكُمْ كَيْفَ تَحْكُمُونَ — "what is the matter with you, how do you judge?"

And this is the middle link of the sūra's ح-ك-م line: in the first verse al-kitābi'l-ḥakīm, here kayfa taḥkumūn, in the hundred and ninth verse yaḥkumu'llāhu wa huwa khayru'l-ḥākimīn. Three occurrences, one root.

This sentence occurs once more in the Qurʾān, word for word: al-Najm 53/28.

It was treated in detail in the section on al-Najm, and it was recorded there: the sentence comes in the context of giving the angels female names, and the first half of the same sentence (in yattabiʿūna illā'ẓ-ẓann) is repeated twice in that sūra, five verses apart; the second time, this ruling is added. I rely on that treatment.

And it was tabulated there that this word is the whole axis of al-Jāthiya (45/24 in hum illā yaẓunnūn, 45/32 in naẓunnu illā ẓannā); at Fuṣṣilat 41/23 the naming of conjecture as a cause of ruin was treated; at al-Dhāriyāt 51/10 kharrāṣūn (those who guess) was analysed, and Yūnus 10/66 was named there.

Now four places can be set side by side:

And the place it holds in Yūnus must be recorded: here the sentence comes immediately after the thirty-second verse. The order, that is, is this: after the truth there is nothing but straying (32) → most of them follow conjecture (36) → conjecture does not take the place of the truth.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses: in al-Najm the sentence closed a question of naming; in Yūnus it closes a question of position. After saying "there is no third place", the sūra names what people hold in that place: conjecture.

The root ي-غ-ن-ي (غ-ن-ي): to suffice, to leave one in no need of another. The literal sense of the sentence, that is: conjecture fills no part of the place of the truth. And the root had occurred in the twenty-fourth verse: ka-an lam taghna bi'l-ams. The same root, once in the sense of "to suffice" and once in the sense of "to stand in place".

"This Qurʾān could not have been invented by anyone other than God; rather it confirms what came before it and sets out the Book in detail — a Book from the Lord of all the worlds, in which there is no doubt. · Do they say 'He invented it'? Say: 'Then bring a sūra like it, and call on whoever you can besides God — if you are truthful.' · No: they denied what they could not encompass in knowledge and whose taʾwīl had not yet come to them. Those before them denied in the same way. Look, then, at how the wrongdoers ended."

This challenge was treated in the index at al-Baqara 2/23 and al-Ṭūr 52/34, and the three scales of it in the Qurʾān were tabulated there: a single discourse (al-Ṭūr 52/34), ten sūras (Hūd 11/13), one sūra (al-Baqara 2/23; Yūnus 10/38).

And the note entered there holds here too, and I repeat it: "since the order of revelation of these sūras is not known with certainty, the chronological construction 'much was asked first and then it was reduced' is a supposition."

At al-Nūr 24/1 the use of the word sūra in the Qurʾān was treated; I rely on that treatment.

What belongs here is this addition: wa'dʿū mani'staṭaʿtum min dūni'llāh — "and call on whoever you can besides God". The challenge, that is, is opened not to one person but to a whole company.

This sentence is the sharpest expression of the sūra's axis of knowledge.

How it is built must be recorded: the act of denying is tied to a deficiency of knowledge.

Lam yuḥīṭū bi-ʿilmihī — "they could not encompass its knowledge". The root ح-و-ط had occurred in the twenty-second verse: uḥīṭa bihim — they were encompassed. The same root, once for a man's being encompassed at sea and once for man's failure to encompass knowledge. I record this as an observation about the wording.

And at al-Baqara 2/255 wa lā yuḥīṭūna bi-shayʾin min ʿilmihī had been treated — there too the same root was used for the limit of knowledge. I rely on that treatment.

وَلَمَّا يَأْتِهِمْ تَأْوِيلُهُ — "while its taʾwīl had not yet come to them."

The root أ-و-ل: the origin to which a thing returns, the place it arrives at. Taʾwīl — the real counterpart at which a thing arrives in the end. The classical commentaries differ over what the word means here:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. The root of the word ("the place arrived at") suits both.

And the particle lammā must be recorded: unlike lam, it states "it has not happened yet, but it is expected". The sentence, that is, implies that the taʾwīl will come.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this particle: the denial is a verdict given before the term of waiting is out. And the sūra will show this in a scene in the fiftieth and fifty-first verses: when the taʾwīl comes there is belief, but the time has passed.

وَمِنْهُم مَّن يُؤْمِنُ بِهِۦ وَمِنْهُم مَّن لَّا يُؤْمِنُ بِهِ (40) — a note per the method (Method): the verse does not bind those addressed to a wholesale ruling; it distinguishes. The same care was treated at al-Raʿd 13/36 and al-ʿAnkabūt 29/47; I rely on that treatment.

"If they deny you, say: 'My work is mine and your work is yours. You are quit of what I do, and I am quit of what you do.' · There are those among them who listen to you. But can you make the deaf hear — when they do not use their reason? · There are those among them who look at you. But can you guide the blind — when they do not see? · God does no wrong to people in any way; but people wrong themselves."

A sentence of parting. It occurred in many places in the index (al-Kāfirūn, al-Zumar 39/15 and 39/39 in iʿmalū … innī ʿāmil, al-Qaṣaṣ 28/55). I rely on that treatment.

What belongs here is the second half of the sentence: antum barīʾūna mimmā aʿmalu wa ana barīʾun mimmā taʿmalūn.

The root ب-ر-أ: to be free of a thing, to be separated from it, to keep clear of it. Barāʾa — having no connection.

And the symmetry must be recorded: the sentence is built with the same word in both directions. The parting, that is, is not a one-sided rejection but a mutual statement of a boundary.

The two verses are built on the same pattern, and both draw a limit of responsibility:

And in both verses the pronoun is brought forward: a-fa-anta. In Arabic this fronting states specification: "is it you?" — that is, this is not your work.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this fronting: neither verse says that the act is impossible; both say that the agent is being sought in the wrong place. And indeed in the ninety-ninth verse the same pattern will come once more: a-fa-anta tukrihu'n-nās.

And the difference between the two verses must be recorded: the listening and the looking do happen (yastamiʿūna, yanẓuru). What is missing is the result. The problem, that is, is not failure to arrive but failure to meet a response where it arrives. The measure recorded at al-Baqara 2/74 works here: "the question is not whether the knowledge arrives but whether the place it arrives at takes it in."

وَلَوْ كَانُوا۟ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ / وَلَوْ كَانُوا۟ لَا يُبْصِرُونَ — and the note at the end of the two verses differs, and this is worth recording.

I record this as an observation about the word order: what is added to deafness is reason, what is added to blindness is sight again. The loss of hearing, that is, might have been made up for by reason; the verse closes that door too. I give this explanation in the direction the lexicographers record it, not as a settled ruling.

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَظْلِمُ ٱلنَّاسَ شَيْـًٔا (44) — and the sentence joins with the ruling of the twenty-third verse: innamā baghyukum ʿalā anfusikum. The two verses point in the same direction: the outcome comes back upon the one who acts.

At Fuṣṣilat 41/46 (wa mā rabbuka bi-ẓallāmin li'l-ʿabīd) the same principle was treated; I rely on that treatment.

"On the day He gathers them — as though they had stayed no more than an hour of a day — they will recognise one another. Those who denied the meeting with God have indeed lost; they were not on the right way. · Whether We show you something of what We promise them, or take you to Us: their return is to Us. Then God is witness over what they do."

كَأَن لَّمْ يَلْبَثُوٓا۟ إِلَّا سَاعَةً مِّنَ ٱلنَّهَارِ — and the pattern ka-an lam occurs for the third time in the sūra.

Three occurrences, one pattern. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the repetition of the pattern: the sūra shows that three distinct things can become as though they had never been — a prayer, a place, a lifetime. And in all three what is erased is the thing that seems most impossible to erase.

يَتَعَارَفُونَ بَيْنَهُمْ — Form VI, which states reciprocity: they recognise one another.

Two explanations of the function of the sentence are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

وَإِمَّا نُرِيَنَّكَ بَعْضَ ٱلَّذِى نَعِدُهُمْ أَوْ نَتَوَفَّيَنَّكَ (46) — the sentence is almost identical with al-Raʿd 13/40 and was treated there in detail.

The two verses can be compared:

al-Raʿd drew the limit by a division of labour; Yūnus draws it by the place of return. I record this as an observation: the two verses say the same thing with two different words — the one ḥisāb, the other marjiʿ.

And at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56 a table of this limit across seven sūras was set up. What Yūnus adds to that table is the ninety-ninth verse, and I shall take it up there.

"Every community has a messenger. When their messenger comes, judgment is given between them with equity and they are not wronged. · They say: 'When is this promise, if you are truthful?' · Say: 'I have no power to harm or to benefit even myself, except as God wills. Every community has a term; when their term comes they will not fall an hour behind nor go an hour ahead.'"

وَلِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ رَّسُولٌ — the principle was treated at Fāṭir 35/24 (wa in min ummatin illā khalā fīhā nadhīr) and at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/59. I rely on that treatment.

And at al-Raʿd 13/7 (wa li-kulli qawmin hād) two readings were tabulated. The sentence in Yūnus is the one closest in wording to the first of those readings, where no preference was imposed: a messenger sent to every community.

مَتَىٰ هَٰذَا ٱلْوَعْدُ — the question was tabulated in al-Nabaʾ and it was recorded there: these questions are not requests for information. I rely on that treatment (Yūnus 10/48 was named there).

قُل لَّآ أَمْلِكُ لِنَفْسِى ضَرًّا وَلَا نَفْعًا — the answer must be recorded: the question was about the time of the punishment, the answer is about the authority of the one speaking.

And the scope of the answer must be recorded: li-nafsī — "even for myself". The limit, that is, is drawn not by authority over others but by the person himself.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this word: the sentence does not say "I can do you no harm"; it says "I cannot even do it to myself." And in the eighteenth verse exactly these two verbs had been used of the idols: mā lā yaḍurruhum wa lā yanfaʿuhum. The sūra negates the same two verbs first of the things worshipped and then of the messenger — but between them stands a note: illā mā shāʾa'llāh.

لِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلٌ — ajal was treated in many places in the index (al-Aḥqāf 46/3, al-Zumar 39/42, Fāṭir 35/45, Luqmān 31/29, al-ʿAnkabūt 29/53, al-Raʿd 13/2). I do not repeat it.

What belongs here is the difference: in the other places the term was for the universe or for the person; here it is for the community. A term, that is, is written for peoples too.

فَلَا يَسْتَـْٔخِرُونَ سَاعَةً وَلَا يَسْتَقْدِمُونَ — both directions are closed off: neither back nor forward.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the verse rejects not only delay but being brought forward as well. And this answers the eleventh verse: there were people there who asked for haste; here it is said that haste too is impossible.

"Say: 'Tell me: if His punishment comes to you by night or by day, what part of it do the guilty seek to hasten?' · 'Will you believe in it only once it has fallen? Now? When you were the ones seeking to hasten it!' · Then it will be said to those who did wrong: 'Taste the lasting punishment! Are you being repaid with anything but what you earned?' · They ask you: 'Is it true?' Say: 'Yes, by my Lord, it is true; and you cannot escape it.'"

This word occurs in two places in the sūra, and both close the same question:

The same word, the same pattern (a-āl'āna wa qad …), two distinct addressees. This is a repetition that can be counted and verified within the sūra.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sameness of pattern in the two sentences: the sūra gives the question of faith that does not come in time first as a general rule (51) and then with an example from history (91). And in both the objection is made to the same point: "now?" What is refused, that is, is not the content of the faith but its time.

And the difference between the two verses must be recorded too: in the fifty-first verse the charge is seeking haste (kuntum bihī tastaʿjilūn); in the ninety-first it is disobedience (ʿaṣayta qablu). Two distinct pasts, one outcome.

بَيَٰتًا أَوْ نَهَارًا — and this pair has the same structure as laylan aw nahārā in the twenty-fourth verse.

Bayāt — the root ب-ي-ت: to pass the night. Bayātan — at night, while asleep. The word is narrower than laylan in the twenty-fourth verse: not merely night, but the state of being asleep at night.

مَّاذَا يَسْتَعْجِلُ مِنْهُ ٱلْمُجْرِمُونَ — "what part of it do the guilty seek to hasten?"

The question exposes a break in the logic: what is sought in haste is the very thing that will not be wanted when it comes. And the eleventh verse had already stated the outcome of this haste.

This verse had taken its place in the table set up at Sabaʾ 34/3. I take the table from there, because one of the verses is this one:

And the difference recorded in the section on Sabaʾ holds here too: the oath is by wa rabbī, that is, by the speaker's own Lord.

The difference that belongs here is the particle: in Sabaʾ and al-Taghābun there is balā (the particle of answer that rebuts a negative); in Yūnus there is ī — a particle in Arabic meaning "yes", used only together with an oath. The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

And the reason lies in the sentence itself, and I record this as an observation about the language: the question is asked not in the negative but in the affirmative — a-ḥaqqun huwa ("is it true?"). An affirmative question is answered not with balā but with ī. This is a choice required by the grammar.

وَيَسْتَنۢبِـُٔونَكَ — Form X: to ask for news, to seek information. The root ن-ب-أ: news that matters, news that has consequences.

أَحَقٌّ هُوَ — and the backbone word of the sūra occurs here as a question. The answer is given with the same word: innahū la-ḥaqq. The question, that is, is answered with the question's own word.

"If every soul that did wrong possessed everything on the earth, it would offer it as ransom to escape. And they will keep their remorse to themselves when they see the punishment. Judgment is given between them with equity and they are not wronged. · Know that to God belongs whatever is in the heavens and on the earth. Know that God's promise is true — but most of them do not know. · He gives life and He gives death; and to Him you will be brought back."

The scene of ransom was treated in the index: al-Zumar 39/47 (mā fi'l-arḍi jamīʿan wa mithlahū maʿah) and al-Raʿd 13/18. I rely on that treatment.

And the difference of measure must be recorded:

Yūnus does not raise the amount. I record this as an observation: the weight here falls not on the amount but on what follows in the scene.

The root أ-س-ر-ر: to conceal, to keep within. And the lexicographers record that the word also carries an opposite sense (aḍdād): in some uses, "to make plain".

For this reason the classical commentaries differ over the meaning of the expression:

All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And what must be recorded is this: the remorse is there. What the scene shows is not the absence of remorse but its uselessness. At al-Zumar 39/56-58 three excuses were tabulated (remorse → shifting the responsibility → the wish to return) and it was recorded there: the first step in the sequence is remorse. Yūnus gives that first step by itself.

أَلَآ إِنَّ … — and the particle a-lā occurs four times in the sūra (twice in 55, once in 62, once in 66). In Arabic a-lā is a particle that calls attention and brings the sentence after it forward.

And the fifty-fifth and sixty-sixth verses are almost identical; the difference is in a single word:

In Arabic mā is used of what has no reason, man of what has. I record this as an observation about the language: the fifty-fifth verse states the dominion, the sixty-sixth states that the beings worshipped are themselves inside that dominion. And indeed the rest of the sixty-sixth verse says exactly this: those associated with God belong to Him too.

"O people! There has come to you an admonition from your Lord, a healing for what is in the breasts, a guidance and a mercy for those who believe. · Say: 'In the bounty of God and in His mercy — in that let them rejoice. That is better than what they gather.'"

The verse defines the text with four words, and each of the four must be analysed separately.

And there is an order in the word order, which I record: the first two words come unqualified (jāʾatkum — it has come to you), the last two qualified (li'l-muʾminīn).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the position of the qualification li'l-muʾminīn: the admonition and the healing are open to all people; the guidance and the mercy are for those who believe. The door of the text, that is, is for everyone; its outcome is for the one who answers.

And this was treated in exactly these terms at Fuṣṣilat 41/44: huwa li'lladhīna āmanū hudan wa shifāʾ — and it was recorded there: "the same text: for the one a way and a healing, for the other a weight and a blindness. The text does not change; the place that receives it changes." I rely on that treatment.

The two verses can be set side by side:

And the difference of order is worth recording: in Fuṣṣilat guidance comes first and healing after; in Yūnus healing first and guidance after. I give this as my own reading and it is not binding: the sequence in Yūnus is a sequence of treatment — first the reminder, then the recovery, then the walking.

لِّمَا فِى ٱلصُّدُور — "for what is in the breasts."

And the indirectness of the expression must be recorded: it does not say "a healing for hearts"; it says "a healing for what is in the breasts".

I record this as my own reading: what is treated is not the organ but the content — the thing that is in the breast. And the Qurʾān names elsewhere the things that are in the breast: ghill (rancour), ḥasad (envy), ḍīq (constriction), waswasa (whispering). The verse gathers them all into a single unspecified expression.

In al-ʿĀdiyāt this verse was named on the occasion of mā fi'ṣ-ṣudūr; I rely on that treatment.

The root ف-ر-ح was treated at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/75 (the difference between faraḥ and maraḥ) and was named again at al-Raʿd 13/26. I rely on that treatment.

What belongs here is this, and it must be recorded: rejoicing occurs twice in the sūra, and its objects differ:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the repetition of the root: in the twenty-second verse the rejoicing was cut short at once by the storm. In the fifty-eighth the same verb is put in the imperative and tied to another object. The sūra does not forbid rejoicing — it changes its place.

And the word order must be recorded: bi-dhālika is brought forward and repeated with a fāʾ (bi-faḍli'llāhi wa bi-raḥmatihī fa-bi-dhālika fa'l-yafraḥū). The grammarians explain this repetition as emphasis: the specifying of the thing to be rejoiced in.

هُوَ خَيْرٌ مِّمَّا يَجْمَعُونَ — the comparison is made with what they gather. The root ج-م-ع is the verb of amassing. The question of amassing was treated in al-Humaza and al-Takāthur; I rely on that treatment.

"Say: 'Tell me: of what God has sent down to you as provision, you have made some forbidden and some lawful. Did God give you leave, or are you inventing against God?' · And what will those who invent lies against God think about the day of resurrection?"

The verse is a question about authority, and the form of the question must be recorded: āllāhu adhina lakum — "did God give you leave?"

And the word leave comes from the third verse of the sūra: illā min baʿdi idhnih. The same word, once for intercession and once for a ruling. I record this as an observation about the wording.

A note per the method (Method): no legal ruling is issued in this commentary. What the verse says in its own words is where the authority to declare things lawful and forbidden is taken from — I issue no ruling about any particular list of foods.

And the historical background of the verse is transmitted in the classical sources: the Arabs' counting certain animals forbidden by rules of their own making. The Qurʾān names this practice elsewhere (al-Anʿām 6/136-140, al-Māʾida 5/103). I give this connection at the level of the verse; I do not go into detail.

وَمَا ظَنُّ ٱلَّذِينَ يَفْتَرُونَ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ ٱلْكَذِبَ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ (60) — and the word ẓann comes once more, this time as a question.

I record this as an observation about the word order: in the thirty-sixth verse ẓann was what is followed; here it is asked about as an expectation concerning the reckoning. The same word in two distinct offices: in the one it is put in the place of a proof, in the other it guesses at an outcome.

Wa mā takūnu fī shaʾnin wa mā tatlū minhu min qurʾānin wa lā taʿmalūna min ʿamalin illā kunnā ʿalaykum shuhūdan idh tufīḍūna fīh, wa mā yaʿzubu ʿan rabbika min mithqāli dharratin fi'l-arḍi wa lā fi's-samāʾi wa lā aṣghara min dhālika wa lā akbara illā fī kitābin mubīn

"Whatever matter you are engaged in, whatever you recite of the Qurʾān, whatever work you all do — We are witnesses over you at the moment you plunge into it. Not the weight of a mote escapes your Lord, on the earth or in the sky; nor anything smaller than that or greater, but it is in a clear book."

The verse counts three things, and the sequence must be recorded:

And the change of person must be recorded: two singulars, then a plural. The rhetoricians record this too as iltifāt — as in the twenty-second verse, but in the opposite direction: from singular to plural.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the chain of pronouns: the verse addresses first the messenger and then everyone. And the sentence gathers them all into a single ruling: illā kunnā ʿalaykum shuhūdā.

شَأْن — root ش-أ-ن: a state, a condition, the matter one is engaged in. The breadth of the word is worth recording: not a particular work but any state whatever.

إِذْ تُفِيضُونَ فِيهِ — the root ف-ي-ض: to overflow, to brim and pour. Afāḍa fi'l-ḥadīth — he plunged into the talk, he was immersed in the subject.

And the picture in the word must be recorded: ifāḍa is to enter into something by overflowing into it. The verse, that is, chooses the moment when a person is immersed in his work — the moment when his attention is most scattered and he is least aware of himself.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the concrete sense of the word: the witnessing is stated not from outside the work but from right inside it.

This construct was analysed in detail at Sabaʾ 34/3, and a plain limit was set there per the method (Method). I keep that limit unchanged:

"The atom of modern physics is not to be drawn out of this word."

The renderings the lexicographers give were tabulated there (a mote of dust, a small ant, the smallest part of a thing) and the common point was recorded: dharra is "the smallest thing that can be seen" — not a unit of measurement but a description of a limit.

And it was shown there that the verse itself requires this reading: wa lā aṣgharu min dhālika wa lā akbar — "nor anything smaller than that, nor greater." If dharra were the absolutely smallest particle, the expression "smaller than that" would be meaningless.

The same sentence is in Yūnus as well and yields the same conclusion. I do not go hunting for scientific miracles.

And at al-Zilzāl 99/7-8 the construct had been treated as the measure of a deed; this verse was named there too. The table can be completed:

And the difference in Yūnus must be recorded: in Sabaʾ the construct came as proof that the Hour will come; here it comes as the continuation of the watching over a man at the moment he plunges into his work. The same ruling, that is, looking in the one place to the future and in the other to the present.

لَا يَعْزُبُ — the root ع-ز-ب was analysed at Sabaʾ 34/3: to move away, to fall apart from, to pass out of sight. And it was recorded there: the verse does not say "He does not know", it says "it does not stay far from Him" — knowledge is described not as an act of searching but as an absence of distance. I do not repeat it.

The only difference that belongs here is one of order, and it can be counted:

I record this as an observation about the wording and draw no ruling from it; the contexts of the two verses differ (the one the Hour, the other man's deed), and that the order has to do with this is a possibility, not a finding.

"Know that the friends of God have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve. · They are those who believe and who have been guarding themselves. · Theirs is the good news in the life of this world and in the hereafter. There is no changing the words of God. That is the great triumph."

The construct occurs in this form only here in the Qurʾān.

The root و-ل-ي: to be near, to be adjoining. Walī — the one who is near, who takes charge of another's affair, the friend. The core of the word is absence of distance.

And the most important thing to record is this: the verse gives the definition itself, and the next verse is that definition.

Alladhīna āmanū wa kānū yattaqūn — they believed and they were guarding themselves.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the presence of the sixty-third verse: the construct is not left open, it is defined at once. And there are two things in the definition: an acceptance (āmanū, perfect) and a continuity (kānū yattaqūn, kāna + imperfect — which states continuation).

A note per the method (Method): I do not enter the mystical and theological debates built around this construct through history. Since the verse itself gives a definition, I do not go beyond the definition.

The construct was treated in the index: al-Aḥqāf 46/13 and Fuṣṣilat 41/30.

The core recorded in the section on al-Aḥqāf was this, and I rely on it: the construct closes off both directions of time — khawf belongs to the future, ḥuzn to the past. Neither what waits ahead, that is, nor what is left behind.

And in the section on Fuṣṣilat the difference between the two sūras was tabulated: in al-Aḥqāf a statement of ruling, in Fuṣṣilat direct address from the mouths of the angels (allā takhāfū wa lā taḥzanū).

The three places can be set side by side:

And Yūnus adds two things:

First: the particle a-lā. The sentence opens with a calling of attention — with a particle used in only four places in the sūra.

Second: the time of the good news. Lahumu'l-bushrā fi'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā wa fi'l-ākhira.

And this coincides exactly with Fuṣṣilat 41/31: naḥnu awliyāʾukum fi'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā wa fi'l-ākhira — "we are your friends in the life of this world and in the hereafter." And it was recorded there: "what is promised does not belong only to what comes after."

The shared wording between the two verses must be recorded, and it is entirely a datum of the text:

The same root (و-ل-ي) and the same construction of time, in two sūras. I record this as an observation about the wording.

بُشْرَىٰ — root ب-ش-ر: skin, the outer surface; and from this the news that makes a face open up. The concrete root of the word must be recorded: good news is what comes out on the face. And this can be read together with the scene of faces in the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses.

And explanations of what the good news amounts to in this world are transmitted in the classical commentaries (a righteous dream, the good news at the moment of death, people's remembering one with good, and the like). I do not relate these explanations here, because none of them has any indication in the verse, and invented transmission is forbidden in this series. I leave it at what the verse says: the good news is there in both times.

لَا تَبْدِيلَ لِكَلِمَٰتِ ٱللَّهِ — and the demand of the fifteenth verse is closed here.

How the sentence is built must be recorded: the lā here is the lā that negates a whole class (the same structure was treated at al-Baqara 2/256). It is not, that is, "there is little changing": the very category of changing is removed.

This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading.

"Do not let their words grieve you. All might belongs to God; He is the Hearing, the Knowing. · Know that whoever is in the heavens and on the earth belongs to God. Those who call on others besides God are not really following partners; they follow only conjecture, and they only guess. · It is He who made the night for you to rest in, and the day to give light. In this there are signs for a people who hear."

وَلَا يَحْزُنكَ قَوْلُهُمْ — and this is from the same root as lā hum yaḥzanūn in the sixty-second verse (ح-ز-ن).

The same root, three verses apart: in the one a ruling, in the other a consolation. I record this as an observation about the wording.

And the construct had a place in the table of responsibility at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56 (Luqmān 31/23 fa-lā yaḥzunka kufruh, Fāṭir 35/8 fa-lā tadhhab nafsuka ʿalayhim ḥasarāt). I rely on that treatment.

إِنَّ ٱلْعِزَّةَ لِلَّهِ جَمِيعًا — and the ground of the consolation must be recorded: what is aimed at is not the words but the claim of power behind the words.

The root ع-ز-ز: to be hard, firm, unwearing away; and from this might, invincibility.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the context of the sentence: the source of the grief is not the content of the words but the standing of the one who speaks them. The verse removes that standing.

يَخْرُصُونَ — the root خ-ر-ص was analysed at al-Dhāriyāt 51/10 (qutila'l-kharrāṣūn) and this verse was named there too. I rely on that treatment. The concrete sense of the root: to estimate the dates on a palm by eye. That is, khars is a guess made without measuring.

And ẓann and khars occur in the same sentence. I record this as an observation about the word order: by laying the two words one on the other the verse weakens the claim to knowledge twice over — what they follow is conjecture, what they do is guesswork.

And it is the fourth occurrence of the word ẓann in the sūra (22, 36, 60, 66). I will give the table in the closing section.

هُوَ ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلَّيْلَ لِتَسْكُنُوا۟ فِيهِ وَٱلنَّهَارَ مُبْصِرًا (67) — the verse is word for word the same as Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/61 and was treated there. I rely on that treatment.

مُبْصِرًا — an active participle: "that which makes seeing possible". The lexicographers record this as a figure: it is not the day that sees, but those who see in the day.

And its place within the sūra must be recorded: in the fifth verse the sun and the moon were named as a measure of time; here night and day are named as benefit — rest and sight. The same fact from two different sides.

"They said: 'God has taken a child.' He is far above this; He is the One who needs nothing. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and on the earth. You have no warrant for this. Do you say about God what you do not know?' · Say: 'Those who invent lies against God will not prosper.' · An enjoyment in this world; then their return is to Us."

The verse answers the claim from two distinct planes, and the two can be separated:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two sentences are built separately: the first makes the claim meaningless, the second groundless. And the second is an application of the sūra's axis of knowledge.

The root غ-ن-ي: to be without need, to be sufficient in oneself. And the root occurs for the third time in the sūra (24 lam taghna, 36 lā yughnī, 68 al-ghaniyy). In all three the core is the same: sufficiency.

I record this as an observation about the wording: one root, on three distinct planes within the sūra.

سُلْطَٰن — the sense "proof" for this word was treated at al-Ṣāffāt 37/156 and at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/35, 40/56. I rely on that treatment: in the Qurʾān sulṭān is used regularly in the sense of support, warrant.

أَتَقُولُونَ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ — and this sentence has the same structure as the answer in the eighteenth verse (a-tunabbiʾūna'llāha bimā lā yaʿlam). In both places knowledge is put in question: in the one God's knowledge, in the other the claimant's.

مَتَٰعٌ فِى ٱلدُّنْيَا — and the construct is the same as matāʿa'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā in the twenty-third verse. In both places it does the same work: it puts a limit of time on the matter.

"Recite to them the account of Noah. When he said to his people: 'My people! If my standing among you and my reminding you of God's signs weigh heavy on you — I have put my trust in God. So settle your affair, you and your partners; then let your affair not stay clouded over for you; then carry out your judgment on me and give me no respite.' · 'If you turn away — I asked no wage of you. My wage is with God alone, and I have been commanded to be among those who submit.' · They denied him; so We saved him and those with him in the ship, made them successors, and drowned those who denied Our signs. Look, then, at how those who were warned ended!"

Noah's word is built out of a series of imperatives, and the sequence must be recorded:

غُمَّة — root غ-م-م: to cover, to close over like cloud. Ghamm — grief; the picture in the root is the sky closing over with cloud. And ghumma here means "closedness, uncertainty": let your decision not stay closed to yourselves.

At al-Anbiyāʾ 21/88 wa najjaynāhu mina'l-ghamm had been treated — what the prophet Jonah was saved from is from the same root. I record this as an observation about the wording; I make no claim that the two verses refer to one another.

وَلَا تُنظِرُونِ — "give me no respite."

The root ن-ظ-ر: to look; and in Form IV to grant a delay (inẓār). And the root occurs in many places in the sūra: fa'ntaẓirū (20, 102), man yanẓuru ilayk (43), unẓurū mādhā fi's-samāwāt (101), lā tunẓirūn (71). The same root serves for looking, for waiting and for granting a term.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the unity of the root: in Arabic waiting and looking come from the same root, because the one who waits is the one who has fixed his eye on a place. And the sūra's question of postponement (11, 49) is woven with this root.

فَمَا سَأَلْتُكُم مِّنْ أَجْرٍ (72) — it is the common declaration of the messengers and was tabulated in the index (in the sections on al-Ṭūr 52/40, Ṣād 38/86, Nūḥ 71/3; al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/109 ff., Hūd 11/29). I rely on that treatment.

وَجَعَلْنَٰهُمْ خَلَٰٓئِفَ (73) — and the word of the fourteenth verse comes back. In both places the same thing happens: a people goes, and another comes in its place. The difference is that in the fourteenth verse it is those addressed who are made successors, here those who were saved.

فَٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلْمُنذَرِينَ — and the construct had occurred in the thirty-ninth verse as ʿāqibatu'ẓ-ẓālimīn. In both places the same command: fa'nẓur — look.

"Then after him We sent messengers to their own peoples. They brought them clear proofs; but they were not going to believe in what they had denied before. Thus do We set a seal on the hearts of those who overstep the bounds."

The verse repeats the sentence of the thirteenth verse: wa jāʾathum rusuluhum bi'l-bayyināti wa mā kānū li-yuʾminū. It is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

بِمَا كَذَّبُوا۟ بِهِۦ مِن قَبْلُ — "in what they had denied before."

The classical commentaries differ over the meaning of the sentence:

All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And the common point is worth recording: the verse ties the failure to believe not to the insufficiency of the proof but to a stance taken in advance. And this coincides with the diagnosis of the thirty-ninth verse: they denied what they could not encompass in knowledge.

نَطْبَعُ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِ ٱلْمُعْتَدِينَ — the root ط-ب-ع: to seal, to stamp. The root was treated in the index (Muḥammad 47/16, al-Jāthiya 45/23); I do not repeat it.

And the word order must be recorded: the hearts that are sealed are the hearts of the muʿtadīn — the root ع-د-و: to overstep the bounds. The seal, that is, comes after a quality; not upon a group with no quality named.

"Then after them We sent Moses and Aaron with Our signs to Pharaoh and his notables. They grew proud, and they were a guilty people. · When the truth came to them from Us they said: 'This is plain sorcery.' · Moses said: 'Do you say this of the truth when it has come to you? Is this sorcery? Sorcerers do not prosper.' · They said: 'Have you come to turn us away from what we found our fathers upon, so that greatness in the land may belong to you two? We are not going to believe you.'"

The sentence in the seventy-sixth verse is on the same pattern as the second verse of the sūra, and this is why the narrative is placed here:

The only difference between the two sentences is that the one qualifies the person and the other what he brought.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sameness of wording in the two verses: the sūra gives the narrative not as a story but as the historical instance of the sentence in the second verse. And there is one more datum supporting this reading: the thirty-ninth verse had already said kadhālika kadhdhaba'lladhīna min qablihim.

أَتَقُولُونَ لِلْحَقِّ لَمَّا جَآءَكُمْ — and the backbone word of the sūra occurs in Moses's answer: al-ḥaqq.

How the sentence is built must be recorded: Moses does not say "this is not sorcery". A-taqūlūna li'l-ḥaqqi lammā jāʾakum — "do you say this of the truth when it has come to you?"

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the object of the sentence: the answer does not begin by refuting the claim; it begins by naming what the claim is about. The argument, that is, is turned from the question "what is this?" to the question "what are you calling it?"

وَلَا يُفْلِحُ ٱلسَّٰحِرُونَ — and the root occurs in three places in the sūra with a ruling:

Three occurrences, one verb (ف-ل-ح). I record this as an observation about the wording.

The concrete sense of the root ف-ل-ح: to split, to plough the soil. Fallāḥ — a farmer. And the sense "to prosper" comes from this picture: to split open what is closed and reach what one wants.

لِتَلْفِتَنَا عَمَّا وَجَدْنَا عَلَيْهِ ءَابَآءَنَا (78) — and the ground of the objection is the fathers.

The root ل-ف-ت: to turn, to turn about. The rhetorical term iltifāt used earlier is from this same root — the turning of the address in another direction. And in the twenty-second verse of the sūra this very linguistic event occurred. I record this as an observation about the root; I make no claim of a reference between the verses.

The argument from the fathers was treated in many places in the index (al-Zukhruf 43/22-23, Luqmān 31/21). I rely on that treatment.

وَتَكُونَ لَكُمَا ٱلْكِبْرِيَآءُ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ — "so that greatness in the land may belong to you two."

I record this as an observation, and it connects with the diagnosis of kibr in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin): those who raise the objection ascribe their own motives to the other side. And indeed the seventy-fifth verse had said of them fa'stakbarū. The sūra, that is, records the quality of those who make the accusation before the accusation itself. This is a sequence that can be verified within the sūra.

"Pharaoh said: 'Bring me every learned sorcerer.' · When the sorcerers came, Moses said to them: 'Throw what you have to throw.' · When they had thrown, Moses said: 'What you have brought is sorcery. God will certainly bring it to nothing. God does not set right the work of those who spread corruption.' · God brings the truth about by His words, however much the guilty may dislike it."

The grammarians pause over how the sentence is built, and two readings are transmitted:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. The sense arrives at the same place either way: what has been brought is named.

And what is to be recorded of the word order is this: al-siḥru comes definite. In the seventy-sixth verse Pharaoh's men had said siḥrun mubīn (indefinite). The same word, once indefinite and once definite.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of definiteness: they called the truth "a sorcery"; Moses names what really is sorcery definitely. The word, that is, is returned to where it belongs.

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَيُبْطِلُهُ — and the verb is in the future: sa-yubṭiluhū.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence states the outcome of the event before it happens. And the same structure had occurred in the thirty-first verse of the sūra: fa-sa-yaqūlūna'llāh. In both places the particle sīn gives as certain a thing that has not yet happened.

The root ب-ط-ل: to come to nothing, to be void, to be without effect. Bāṭil is from the same root.

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُصْلِحُ عَمَلَ ٱلْمُفْسِدِينَ — and two opposite roots stand in the same sentence: ص-ل-ح and ف-س-د.

The word order of the sentence must be recorded: the verse does not say "the work of those who spread corruption is corrupt"; it says "God does not set it right". The ruling, that is, is not about the quality of the work but about its not being supported.

وَيُحِقُّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْحَقَّ بِكَلِمَٰتِهِ (82) — verb and object are from the same root (ح-ق-ق): yuḥiqqu'l-ḥaqq.

Form IV: to bring a thing about, to make it stand fixed. The sentence means, that is, not "He makes the truth true" but "He sets the truth in its place".

And the means is stated: bi-kalimātihī — by His words. And the same word had occurred in the sixty-fourth verse: lā tabdīla li-kalimāti'llāh. It is a link that can be verified within the sūra: the word that does not change is the instrument by which the truth is brought about.

"None believed in Moses but a group of the young from among his people — in fear that Pharaoh and his notables would put them to the test. Pharaoh had indeed gained the upper hand in the land, and he was among those who overstep the bounds. · Moses said: 'My people! If you have believed in God and submitted to Him, then put your trust in Him.' · They said: 'We have put our trust in God. Our Lord! Do not make us a trial for the wrongdoing people; and deliver us by Your mercy from the denying people.'"

There is an ambiguity in the sentence, and it has been debated in the classical commentaries:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. The wording of the verse suits either, because the referent of the pronoun is not stated.

ذُرِّيَّة — root ذ-ر-ر / ذ-ر-و: offspring, lineage; and in most uses the word is used of children and the young.

And the smallness of the number must be recorded: fa-mā āmana … illā — the pattern of restriction. The verse, that is, gives the fewness of the believers with a pattern of exception.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the contrast with the ninety-eighth verse: from the people of Moses a handful believe; from the people of Jonah all of them. The sūra keeps the two extreme cases in the same section.

عَلَىٰ خَوْفٍ — "upon fear." They believe, that is, but the fear does not go away.

I record this as an observation, and it may be compared with the sixty-second verse: there it was said lā khawfun ʿalayhim. The two verses do not contradict one another: the one states a ruling about the final outcome, the other a condition in this world. And the difference is visible at the level of the particle too: lā khawfun ʿalayhim (no fear is upon them) — āmana ʿalā khawfin (he believed upon fear).

فِتْنَة — root ف-ت-ن: to melt gold in fire and separate out what is pure. The word was treated in the index; the core sense is testing, a burning sifting.

And how the prayer is built must be recorded: lā tajʿalnā fitnatan li'l-qawmi'ẓ-ẓālimīn — "do not make us a trial for the wrongdoing people."

The classical commentaries differ over the meaning of the expression:

All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And the link with the word in the eighty-third verse must be recorded: there what was feared was an yaftinahum. What is feared in the eighty-third verse, that is, becomes the subject of the prayer in the eighty-fifth. It is a link that can be verified within the sūra.

فَعَلَيْهِ تَوَكَّلُوٓا۟ — and tawakkul occurs twice in the sūra: in the seventy-first verse in Noah's mouth (fa-ʿala'llāhi tawakkaltu), here in Moses's mouth and in his people's answer. The same verb, two prophets, in the same position: when the other side is strong.

"We revealed to Moses and his brother: 'Prepare houses for your people in Egypt, make your houses a qibla, and perform the prayer.' And give good news to those who believe. · Moses said: 'Our Lord! You have given Pharaoh and his notables ornament and wealth in the life of this world. Our Lord, was it so that they might lead astray from Your way? Our Lord, wipe out their wealth and harden their hearts, so that they may not believe until they see the painful punishment.' · 'The prayer of you two is answered. So keep straight, and do not follow the way of those who do not know.'"

The classical commentaries differ over the meaning of the expression:

All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference and I issue no legal ruling.

And the context of the command must be recorded: the first instruction given to a people under pressure is to settle and to pray. I record this as an observation: the commands are not to flee or to fight; they are to build a place and to keep an order standing.

And there is a shift of person in the word order: tabawwaʾā (dual — you two) → wa'jʿalū, wa aqīmū (plural — all of you). The command begins with the two of them and opens out to the community.

The root ط-م-س was treated in the index: the root was analysed in al-Mursalāt, at Yāsīn 36/66, at al-Qamar 54/37 and in al-Dukhān, and this verse was named there.

The note there was this, and I rely on it: "the wealth is not destroyed; it is made useless and unrecognisable." The core of the root: to wipe out the traces, the shape, the distinguishing lines of a thing.

And in al-Dukhān this prayer was tabulated as a "plain request".

وَٱشْدُدْ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ فَلَا يُؤْمِنُوا۟ حَتَّىٰ يَرَوُا۟ ٱلْعَذَابَ ٱلْأَلِيمَ — this part of the prayer has been dwelt on.

The explanations given in the classical commentaries:

I relate the explanations as they are transmitted and impose no preference.

And this datum of the text must be recorded, and it can be stated without entering into a preference: the ninety-sixth and ninety-seventh verses will repeat the same sentence as a ruling: inna'lladhīna ḥaqqat ʿalayhim kalimatu rabbika lā yuʾminūn · wa law jāʾathum kullu āyatin ḥattā yarawu'l-ʿadhāba'l-alīm.

That is, the expression in the prayer (fa-lā yuʾminū ḥattā yarawu'l-ʿadhāba'l-alīm) and the ruling in the ninety-seventh verse (ḥattā yarawu'l-ʿadhāba'l-alīm) are word for word the same.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this word-for-word repetition: the sūra afterwards gives the sentence of Moses's prayer as a general rule. This is an observation that supports the second explanation from within the text — but it is not a preference, because the other explanations are not contrary to the wording either.

قَدْ أُجِيبَت دَّعْوَتُكُمَا فَٱسْتَقِيمَا (89) — the answer is in the dual: "the prayer of you two". Yet it was Moses who was speaking.

The grammarians explain this as "Aaron's saying amen" or as "the prayer having been made on behalf of them both". I relate these explanations as they are transmitted.

فَٱسْتَقِيمَا — Form X, root ق-و-م: to stand straight. The root was analysed at al-Aḥqāf 46/13 (thumma'staqāmū); I rely on that treatment.

And the word order must be recorded: the prayer is answered, and a command follows at once. Being answered, that is, produces not a conclusion but a responsibility.

Wa jāwaznā bi-banī Isrāʾīla'l-baḥra fa-atbaʿahum Firʿawnu wa junūduhū baghyan wa ʿadwā, ḥattā idhā adrakahu'l-gharaqu qāla āmantu annahū lā ilāha illa'lladhī āmanat bihī banū Isrāʾīla wa ana mina'l-muslimīn · Āl'āna wa qad ʿaṣayta qablu wa kunta mina'l-mufsidīn · Fa'l-yawma nunajjīka bi-badanika li-takūna li-man khalfaka āyatan, wa inna kathīran mina'n-nāsi ʿan āyātinā la-ghāfilūn

"We brought the Children of Israel across the sea; Pharaoh and his troops pursued them in overreaching and enmity. Then, when the drowning overtook him, he said: 'I believe that there is no god but the one in whom the Children of Israel believe; and I am among those who submit.' · 'Now? When you disobeyed before and were among those who spread corruption!' · Today We shall save you in your body, so that you may be a sign to those who come after you. But many people are indeed heedless of Our signs."

This principle was treated in two places in the index and I rely on them.

At Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/84-85 (fa-lammā raʾaw baʾsanā qālū āmannā bi'llāhi waḥdahū … fa-lam yaku yanfaʿuhum īmānuhum lammā raʾaw baʾsanā) what was recorded was this: the belief comes not by proof but by sight; and the ground of the refusal is named as a rule: sunnata'llāhi'llatī qad khalat fī ʿibādih — the way that has always run, it was so in the past as well.

At al-Zumar 39/56-59 three excuses were tabulated, and it was recorded there: the second excuse ("if only I had been guided") is refused with balā qad jāʾatka āyātī.

The three places can be set side by side:

And what Yūnus adds must be recorded: the ground is rested not on a rule but on the addressee's own past. Qablu — "before". The verdict is given in a personalised form.

And the link with the fifty-first verse closes here: the same word (a-āl'āna), the same pattern (wa qad …). The sūra laid down the rule in the fifty-first verse and applied it in the ninety-first. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading.

أَدْرَكَهُ ٱلْغَرَقُ — the root د-ر-ك: to catch up with, to reach, to overtake. And the word order must be recorded: the subject is the drowning, the object Pharaoh. The sentence, that is, does not say "he drowned": it says "the drowning overtook him".

I record this as my own reading: the verse relates the event not as an act of Pharaoh's but as the overtaking of him by something that came after him. And the preceding sentence was already a scene of pursuit: fa-atbaʿahum — he had gone after them. The pursuer becomes the pursued. This is an observation that follows from the verse's own choice of verbs.

And the pattern ḥattā idhā must be recorded. It occurs three times in the sūra:

Three occurrences, one pattern. And in all three the same work is done: a process is related, and then with ḥattā idhā the breaking point comes.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the repetition of the pattern: the sūra marks the moment of the break three times with the same grammatical instrument. And in all three the break comes at the peak — while the ship runs on a fair wind, while the field is at its most splendid, while the pursuer is about to catch up.

بَغْيًا وَعَدْوًا — and the word baghy comes from the twenty-third verse.

The same root: in the one the conduct on land of those saved from the sea, in the other the conduct of one who is about to drown in it. I record this as an observation about the wording.

This expression is one of the most debated places in the sūra. I give the classical explanations in a table.

The root ب-د-ن: body, frame; and the lexicographers record in particular the sense of a body without a soul or a large, bulky body. Badana — a large animal for sacrifice.

And the work of the particle bi- has been dwelt on.

All four explanations are transmitted in the classical sources; I do not impose a preference.

And the fourth explanation about the root ن-ج-و is worth recording, because it rests on the concrete sense of the word: najwa — a raised place, a mound. The sense "to be saved" comes from this picture: when the flood comes, the one who climbs high is saved. I relate this derivation as the lexicographers record it.

Per the method (Method) I draw a plain limit, and writing it is obligatory:

I draw no conclusion from this verse about modern archaeology, about any mummy held in a museum, or about any particular historical person. The verse gives no name, no date, no place. One does not enter into detail the Qurʾān does not give — this is the rule this series applies in the narratives. And once such a link is made, the truth of the text is bound to the fate of the link. The same reasoning was written at al-Sajda 32/5 and in al-Maʿārij; I rely on that treatment.

لِتَكُونَ لِمَنْ خَلْفَكَ ءَايَةً — "so that you may be a sign to those who come after you."

And the word must be recorded: āya — a sign, a proof. Throughout the sūra āya had been used of God's proofs (5, 6, 15, 20, 21, 67, 92, 97, 101). Here a human being becomes a sign.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the use of the word within the sūra: in the twentieth verse a sign (a miracle) had been demanded. In the ninety-second verse a sign is given — but not to the one who demanded it, to those who come after; and the thing that becomes the proof is the demander himself.

وَإِنَّ كَثِيرًا مِّنَ ٱلنَّاسِ عَنْ ءَايَٰتِنَا لَغَٰفِلُونَ — and the verse ends by saying that even a proof that is given may go unnoticed.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence at once qualifies the elation of the preceding sentence. And the word ghafla comes from the seventh verse: wa'lladhīna hum ʿan āyātinā ghāfilūn. It is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

"We settled the Children of Israel in an abode of truthfulness and provided them with good things. They did not fall into disagreement until knowledge came to them. Your Lord will judge between them on the day of resurrection concerning what they disagreed about."

مُبَوَّأَ صِدْقٍ — the root ب-و-أ: to settle in a place, to take up quarters. And the same root had occurred in the eighty-seventh verse as a command: an tabawwaʾā li-qawmikum bi-Miṣra buyūtā.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the repetition of the root: in the eighty-seventh verse the settling was commanded; in the ninety-third it is said who did the settling. It is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.

And the qualifier ṣidq is on the same pattern as qadama ṣidqin in the second verse. Both constructs state a firmness.

فَمَا ٱخْتَلَفُوا۟ حَتَّىٰ جَآءَهُمُ ٱلْعِلْمُ — "they did not fall into disagreement until knowledge came to them."

The sentence is surprising and must be read with care: the disagreement begins after the knowledge comes.

The explanation given in the classical commentaries is this, and I relate it as it is transmitted: the cause of the disagreement is not ignorance but division in spite of knowledge — the disagreement, that is, arises not from the absence of a proof but from taking a stance against the proof.

And this coincides with the nineteenth verse of the sūra: wa mā kāna'n-nāsu illā ummatan wāḥidatan fa'khtalafū. The two verses use the same verb (خ-ل-ف, Form VIII) and in both the disagreement is something that comes afterwards.

And the same structure was treated at al-Jāthiya 45/17 (fa-ma'khtalafū illā min baʿdi mā jāʾahumu'l-ʿilm); the same line was present at Fuṣṣilat 41/45 as well. I rely on that treatment.

And the verse ends by deferring the judgment: inna rabbaka yaqḍī baynahum yawma'l-qiyāma. This is the completion of the sentence in the nineteenth verse, wa lawlā kalimatun sabaqat min rabbika la-quḍiya baynahum: there it was said that the judgment had been deferred; here, when it will be given.

"If you are in doubt about what We have sent down to you, ask those who were reading the Book before you. The truth has come to you from your Lord; so do not be among those who doubt. · And do not be among those who deny the signs of God, or you will be among the losers."

The verse has been debated in the classical commentaries, because the condition is put directly to the Prophet.

The principal explanations given. I set them out in a table and impose no preference:

All three explanations are transmitted.

And this datum of word order must be recorded, and it can be stated without entering into a preference: the rest of the sentence removes the doubt. Laqad jāʾaka'l-ḥaqqu min rabbika fa-lā takūnanna mina'l-mumtarīn — "do not be among those who doubt." The condition, that is, is closed the moment it is set up.

The root م-ر-ي: to fall into disagreement, to waver. Mirāʾ — contention. The lexicographers also record the concrete sense of the root as "to squeeze the udder for milk" and make the link thus: to keep worrying at a thing. I give this derivation as a transmission from the lexicographers.

And the form of the prohibition in the two verses must be recorded: lā takūnanna — a prohibition plus the nūn of emphasis. This pattern will occur once more in the sūra, in the hundred and fifth verse: wa lā takūnanna mina'l-mushrikīn. The same pattern three times, three commands to keep clear of three distinct groups: those who doubt (94), those who deny (95), those who associate others with God (105).

I record this as an observation about the word order: towards its close the sūra frames its commands negatively — it says not what is to be done but whom one is not to be among.

"Those against whom the word of your Lord has come true will not believe · even if every sign should come to them — until they see the painful punishment."

The sentence is a repetition of the thirty-third verse: kadhālika ḥaqqat kalimatu rabbika ʿala'lladhīna fasaqū annahum lā yuʾminūn.

وَلَوْ جَآءَتْهُمْ كُلُّ ءَايَةٍ — and the demand for a sign in the twentieth verse is closed here.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the subject of the two verses: in the twentieth verse a sign was demanded; the ninety-seventh verse says that the coming of every kind of sign would not change the outcome either. And the same question was treated at al-Raʿd 13/31 (wa law anna qurʾānan suyyirat bihi'l-jibāl) — there the sentence broke off before it was completed. In Yūnus the sentence is completed.

حَتَّىٰ يَرَوُا۟ ٱلْعَذَابَ ٱلْأَلِيمَ — and this expression is word for word the same as the prayer in the eighty-eighth verse. It was recorded above; I do not repeat it.

Fa-lawlā kānat qaryatun āmanat fa-nafaʿahā īmānuhā illā qawma Yūnus, lammā āmanū kashafnā ʿanhum ʿadhāba'l-khizyi fi'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā wa mattaʿnāhum ilā ḥīn

"Would that a town had believed and its faith had profited it! Except the people of Jonah: when they believed We lifted from them the punishment of disgrace in the life of this world and let them enjoy themselves for a time."

This is the verse from which the sūra takes its name. And the first thing to be recorded is that the narrative is not told.

The narrative of the prophet Jonah was treated in three places in the index:

At al-Ṣāffāt 37/139-148 the narrative was analysed in detail (abaqa, sāhama, iltaqamahu'l-ḥūt, mulīm, nabadhnāhu bi'l-ʿarāʾ, yaqṭīn, miʾati alfin aw yazīdūn) and at al-Anbiyāʾ 21/87-88 the three namings were tabulated. I rely on that treatment and repeat none of it.

And the difference in Sūrat Yūnus is exactly this, and it must be recorded: here the prophet does not appear at all as an agent. There is only a construct in the sentence: qawma Yūnus. The hero of the narrative is named, but what is related is his people.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the verse's own sentence: the sūra carries a prophet's name — but it takes that name not from what befell the prophet but from the decision his people made. And this had already been recorded in the section on al-Qalam 68/48: "Yūnus 10/98 is worth noting: the people of Jonah are named in the Qurʾān as the only community that believed before the punishment came. That is, the people the prophet left behind did believe."

The grammarians pause over the word order, and the debate is on two points.

First: in what sense is law lā used here?

Second: where does the exception illā qawma Yūnus attach?

Both questions have been debated in the classical books of grammar; I do not impose a preference. And both debates come out at the same place: the people of Jonah are an exception.

And the real subject of the verse must be recorded: not faith, but faith's profiting.

Fa-nafaʿahā īmānuhā — "and its faith had profited it."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the second verb of the sentence: the verse does not say "no town believed"; it says "there was no town whose faith profited it". And the difference lies in the principle set up in the preceding section: Pharaoh too believed (90) — but his time had passed.

The sūra, that is, places two scenes one after the other:

Seven verses apart, two extreme cases. And the difference between them is neither the content of the faith nor the standing of the one who speaks it — it is only the time.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two scenes are set side by side: the sūra shows in a single section the difference between "faith that comes in time" and "faith whose time has passed". And that the sūra takes its name from the second — from the one that was accepted — is a choice.

And the root ك-ش-ف occurs for the second time in the sūra (12, 98, 107 — tabulated above).

And the comparison must be recorded:

The same verb, two distinct outcomes. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared verb.

خِزْي — root خ-ز-ي: shame, being disgraced, being brought low. And the punishment is named with this quality: ʿadhāba'l-khizyi — the punishment of disgrace.

I record this as an observation: what is brought forward is not the pain of the punishment but its disgracing.

وَمَتَّعْنَٰهُمْ إِلَىٰ حِينٍ — and this construct is word for word the same as al-Ṣāffāt 37/148: fa-āmanū fa-mattaʿnāhum ilā ḥīn.

It was recorded in the section on al-Ṣāffāt: "after six sections of destruction, drowning, ruin and abasement, the series closes with a people that believed."

The two verses can be set side by side, and the difference must be recorded:

In al-Ṣāffāt there is only the belief and the term; in Yūnus there is a verb of lifting in between. Yūnus, that is, implies that the punishment was about to come.

إِلَىٰ حِينٍ — ḥīn: an unspecified stretch of time. And the construct does the same work as matāʿun fi'd-dunyā in the seventieth verse: it puts a limit of time on the matter.

I record this as my own reading: what the verse shows is that a community can change direction as a whole. Throughout the sūra it has been individuals who were related — the man who prays (12), the owners of the garden (24), the drowning ruler (90). In the ninety-eighth verse the subject is a qarya: a settlement, a community.

And the verb is plural: āmanū. The decision, that is, is related as taken not one by one but together.

"Had your Lord willed, everyone on the earth would have believed, all of them together. Will you then compel people until they become believers? · No soul can believe except by God's leave. And He lays filth upon those who do not use their reason."

This limit was treated many times in the index, and at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56 a table across six sūras was set up. I carry the table here and add Yūnus, because this verse is one of the plainest expressions of that line:

And what Yūnus adds to this table must be recorded, and it is in two items.

First: here the limit is set not as a statement but as a question. A-fa-anta tukrihu'n-nās — "will you compel them?" In the other verses it was said "you are not"; here it is asked.

Second: here it is not the impossibility of compulsion but its needlessness that is shown. The first half of the sentence establishes this: wa law shāʾa rabbuka la-āmana man fi'l-arḍi kulluhum jamīʿā. That "everyone should believe" is possible — but that way has not been chosen.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two sentences: the verse first says that willing would have been enough, and then asks about compelling. Compulsion, that is, is placed not as something that could take the place of willing, but as a needless imitation of it.

At al-Baqara 2/256 (lā ikrāha fi'd-dīn) the same root was treated and it was recorded there:

"The lā here is the lā that negates a whole class. It is not, that is, 'let there be no measure of compulsion': the very category of compulsion is removed." And the ground: qad tabayyana'r-rushdu mina'l-ghayy — "when the distinction is in plain sight, there is no need for compulsion."

The two verses can be set side by side:

The same root, two distinct grounds. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root of the two verses together with the difference of their reasons: al-Baqara makes compulsion unnecessary (the distinction is plain), Yūnus makes it out of place (it would have happened had it been willed). The two verses support the same ruling from two different directions.

And this verse had already been named at Qāf 50/45 — there, in the treatment of wa mā anta ʿalayhim bi-jabbār. I rely on that treatment.

And at al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/4 this verse had entered a table: wa law shāʾa rabbuka la-āmana man fi'l-arḍ (Yūnus 10/99), wa law shiʾnā la-ātaynā kulla nafsin hudāhā (al-Sajda 32/13). And it was recorded there: "all three verses have the same structure: willing + compelling + not happening." I rely on that treatment.

A note per the method (Method): this verse is not to be used to pass a wholesale ruling on anyone in the matter of religious belief, nor to produce a position in current politics. What the verse says in its own words is that compelling is not the messenger's work.

وَمَا كَانَ لِنَفْسٍ أَن تُؤْمِنَ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ ٱللَّهِ (100) — and the word leave occurs for the third time in the sūra.