al-Qāriʿa 101:6-7

Fa-ammā man thaqulat mawāzīnuh · Fa-huwa fī ʿīshatin rāḍiya "As for him whose scales weigh heavy, he is in a contented life."

Note this: two verses earlier the mountains had turned into carded wool. And now, in the very middle of that scene, the verse speaks of weight.

To see how abrupt this transition is, read the sequence:

People will be like scattered moths — the mountains will be like carded wool — as for him whose scales weigh heavy…

For two verses the reader has watched weight being done away with. Now he is told that weight is the measure.

This is the backbone of the sūra. Without asking a question, the text makes a question be asked: on a day when even the mountains have no weight left, what thing can weigh heavy?

The answer is not written in the sūra. But the framing of the question is the work of the sūra's whole structure: the two similes are not idle, they are there to prepare the balance.

I record this as my own reading. The structure itself, however, is plain in the text: two pictures of lightness, then two judgements of heaviness and lightness. The ordering belongs to the text.

أَمَّا is in Arabic the particle of tafṣīl (setting out in detail): it is used when a whole is being divided into its parts. Its apodosis must carry a فَ.

The property of the pattern is this: the division is absolute and leaves no gap between. When ammā… wa-ammā… is said, there are two categories and there is no third.

By using this pattern the sūra divides mankind in two. In the fourth verse there was a single mass, "people"; from the sixth verse on there are two groups.

So the movement of the sūra is this: one → two. First everyone becomes the same (the moths), then they are divided in two (the balance).

And this must be stated: the sūra does not say who is on which side. It gives the criterion, not the list. This accords with the principle recorded in the method of this commentary (Method): what the verses describe are attributes, and whoever bears that attribute is included in it.

Root: ث-ق-ل — and this is the very root that occurred twice, two sūras earlier, in al-Zalzala.

The course of the root in three places:

Al-Zalzala used the root at the two extremes: the greatest burden and the smallest mote. Al-Qāriʿa uses the root as the result of a measurement. That is, the unit was introduced first, and then it was put on the scale.

I record this as an observation about the arrangement of the muṣḥaf; it is not a claim about the order of revelation.

Root: و-ز-ن. To weigh. مِيزَان — a balance; it is a noun of instrument on the mifʿāl pattern (originally miwzān, the wāw having turned into a yāʾ). Its plural is مَوَازِين.

Why the plural? There are three basic views:

All three have been defended in the classical sources, and they make no great difference to the meaning.

But the second view has a practical side: when it is read as the plural of mawzūn, what is heavy is not the balance but the things weighed. This sits more easily with the grammar of the verse, because the expression "the balance weighs heavy" requires a figure of speech in Arabic just as it does in English.

The distribution in the Qurʾān. There is a striking distribution between the singular and the plural uses of the word:

• The singular (ٱلْمِيزَان) occurs in the context of the measure of justice in this world: "He raised the sky and set the balance; do not transgress in the weighing" (al-Raḥmān 55/7-8); "We sent Our messengers with clear proofs, and We sent down with them the Book and the balance, that people might uphold justice" (al-Ḥadīd 57/25); "Give full measure and full weight" (Hūd 11/85).
• The plural (ٱلْمَوَازِين) occurs in the scenes of the hereafter: al-Aʿrāf 7/8-9, al-Muʾminūn 23/102-103, al-Anbiyāʾ 21/47, and this sūra.

I want to draw attention to this distribution; I cannot say for certain whether it has exceptions, and for that reason I do not present it as a rule. But if the distribution holds, it gives one this to think about: in this world justice is a single measure; in the hereafter the measures have been multiplied. In this world there is one balance that weighs everyone; on that day each life is weighed on its own balance.

The exegetes have differed on this:

There is a further debate in the classical theological literature: is the weighing a real operation, or is it an expression of absolute justice? Some scholars, keeping to the plain sense of the verses, have said that a real weighing is spoken of; others have held that the weighing is a description conveying that no right will be lost by so much as a mote.

I take no side in this debate. The point both accept in common is this: the measurement is exact and no one is wronged. The Qurʾān says this separately: "We shall set up the scales of justice for the day of resurrection; no soul will be wronged by so much as a mote" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/47).

This verse, as was recorded in the section on al-Zalzala too, joins the two sūras: al-Zalzala's dharra and al-Qāriʿa's mawāzīn occur in the same sentence.

In a well-known hadith found in al-Bukhārī and Muslim it is transmitted that the Prophet said: "There are two words light on the tongue, heavy in the balance."

The idea the report carries is the idea of this sūra: there is no relation between how easy a thing is to say and what it comes to on the scale. The balance weighs not the effort spent but the thing that is placed on it.

And this connects directly with the sūra's two similes. The mountain looked heavy and came out light. A word looks light and can come out heavy. Apparent weight and weighed weight are not the same thing.

عِيشَة — Root: ع-ي-ش. To live. ʿAysh — life, livelihood. Maʿīsha — livelihood, the manner of getting a living. عِيشَة, however, is on the fiʿla pattern, and in Arabic this pattern conveys the manner of doing: jilsa (the manner of sitting), mīta (the manner of dying), ʿīsha (the manner of living).

So the verse does not say "life", it says "a manner of living". What is given is not a span of life but a way of living.

رَاضِيَة — Root: ر-ض-و. To be content, to be well pleased.

The word is an active participle: "the one that is content", "the one that is well pleased". But who is it that is content? Is it the life that is content?

The grammarians give three explanations here:

All three have been defended in the classical sources. The third explanation is a recognised device of language: we say "a sleepless night", though what is sleepless is not the night but ourselves.

An indication from within the Qurʾān. The active form of the word is used elsewhere expressly of a person:

"O soul at peace! Return to your Lord, well pleased and well pleasing." (al-Fajr 89/27-28)

There the two words stand side by side: رَاضِيَة (the one that is well pleased) and مَرْضِيَّة (the one that is well pleased with). That is, the Qurʾān can use these two patterns separately and knows the difference between them. That the active is the one chosen in al-Qāriʿa strengthens the sense "the one that is content" rather than "the one that is approved".

And there is an exact parallel:

"He is in a contented life." (al-Ḥāqqa 69/21)

The same expression word for word — fa-huwa fī ʿīshatin rāḍiya. In al-Ḥāqqa this sentence is said of the person given his record in his right hand. The two sūras tell of the same outcome in the same words.

فِى — to be inside something. The verse does not say "he has a contented life", it says "he is in a contented life". The person does not possess the life; he is inside it. Not ownership but enclosure.