Hūd 11:44

wa qīla yā arḍu'blaʿī māʾaki wa yā samāʾu aqliʿī wa ghīḍa'l-māʾu wa quḍiya'l-amru wa'stawat ʿalā'l-Jūdiyyi wa qīla buʿdan li'l-qawmi'l-ẓālimīn

"And it was said: 'Earth, swallow your water! Sky, hold back!' The water subsided, the matter was ended, and the ark came to rest upon al-Jūdī. And it was said: 'Away with the wrongdoing people!'"

This verse is an example frequently cited in the sources of Arabic rhetoric. The reason is the shortness of the sentences and the way they are lined up. I set the verse out as a table:

Four of the eight sentences are passive. And this is a feature of the word order worth recording: the agent is nowhere named.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the table above: the verse never fills in the distance between the one who gives the command and the one who receives it. The command is spoken, the result is reported; there is no stage in between.

The root ب-ل-ع: to swallow, to draw in. The root occurs here for the first time in this series.

The choice of word must be recorded: the verse does not say jaffī (dry up) or inshafī (soak it in). It says "swallow" — the act of a living thing.

And the command given to the sky is of the same kind: aqliʿī. The root ق-ل-ع: to pull up, to tear off; and to leave off a thing. Aqlaʿa ʿan — he withdrew his hand from a thing, he stopped. The sky, that is, is told "leave off raining".

The root غ-ي-ض: the receding, the diminishing of water.

And this root was treated at al-Raʿd 13/8 (wa mā taghīḍu'l-arḥāmu wa mā tazdād), and I rely on that treatment. The same root in both verses, with the same core sense: diminishing, receding.

I record this as an observation about the word: the root occurs in two places in the Qurʾān, and in both a diminishing that is not seen is described.

The root ق-ض-ي: to complete a matter, to settle it by decree, to bring it to an end.

And the construction occurs elsewhere in the Qurʾān as well (Maryam 19/21, al-Baqara 2/210). Its work here is to report that the flood is over.

The root س-و-ي: to be level, to be set right, to settle. Istawat — it came to rest, it settled.

ٱلْجُودِىّ — it is the name of a place, and it occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

A note, per the rule: as to which geographical point this name designates, differing views are transmitted in the classical sources and in the later literature. The Qurʾān gives no description of a location. In this commentary no place is identified and the argument is not opened.

This construction occurs four times in the sūra, and it was tabulated in the section on the backbone:

And Noah's is different: the name of the people is not given, and an attribute is put in its place — al-ẓālimīn.

I record this as an observation about the word order, and I tie it to a principle of the method: in this commentary no blanket ruling is issued about a community; it is the attributes the verse describes that count (Method). The forty-fourth verse does this itself: it names not the name but the attribute.

The root ب-ع-د: to be far. Buʿdan — an expression of imprecation or verdict in the pattern of the absolute object (mafʿūl muṭlaq): "away with them". And in the ninety-fifth verse the word will be reinforced with a verb: kamā baʿidat Thamūd.