Yūnus 10:7-10

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.