Ibrāhīm 14:37

Rabbanā innī askantu min dhurriyyatī bi-wādin ghayri dhī zarʿin ʿinda baytika'l-muḥarram · Rabbanā li-yuqīmu'ṣ-ṣalāta fa'jʿal afʾidatan mina'n-nāsi tahwī ilayhim wa'rzuqhum mina'th-thamarāti laʿallahum yashkurūn

"'Our Lord! I have settled some of my offspring in a valley where nothing grows, by Your inviolable House. Our Lord! That they may hold the prayer upright. So make the hearts of some people incline towards them, and provide them with fruits — that they may give thanks.'"

The place is described by a negative attribute: ghayri dhī zarʿ — "possessing no sown crop."

The root ز-ر-ع: to put the seed into the soil. And there was a detail recorded of this root at al-Fatḥ 48/29 which can be carried over here: the word zarʿ names the work man does not do — man sows, and another brings it up. I rely on that treatment.

I record this as an observation: the valley is defined by the impossibility of agriculture. And two verses later what is asked for is precisely produce (wa'rzuqhum mina'th-thamarāt). That is, the prayer asks for the very thing the description makes impossible.

The root ح-ر-م: to make inviolable, to take within a forbidden precinct. Ḥaram — an area within which entry and certain acts are forbidden; iḥrām — the state assumed on entering that area.

And the construct must be recorded: baytika'l-muḥarram — a passive participle, that is, "the House that has been made inviolable." The verb is in the passive pattern; the one who confers the inviolability is stated in the construct itself: baytika — "Your House."

I record this as an observation about the word order: the inviolability is given not as the House's own attribute but as an attribute arising from whose it is.

The most striking sentence of the prayer.

أَفْـِٔدَة — the plural of fuʾād. The root ف-ء-د: the burning of an ember, catching fire. The word was treated at al-Sajda 32/9 and at al-Mulk 67/23; it was recorded there that choosing afʾida rather than qulūb carries the idea of a "centre of grasping". I rely on those treatments.

And the particle must be recorded: afʾidatan mina'n-nās — "hearts of some people." Min conveys the partitive; not all people.

A note on this particle is transmitted in the classical sources: had the prayer been in the form afʾidata'n-nās (the hearts of all people), other communities too would have turned towards that valley. This is transmitted as a fine point the lexicographers derive from the particle; I do not transmit it as a report.

The root ه-و-ي was analysed in detail in al-Qāriʿa and taken up once more in al-Nāziʿāt and at al-Najm 53/1. I do not repeat it here.

What was recorded in the section on al-Najm is decisive here, and I rely on it:

هَوَىٰ — to fall from a height downward; هَاوِيَة — the place fallen into; ٱلْهَوَىٰ — the desire of the self, the thing that drags a person down. And on the choice of the verb: "Ufūl is a disappearance; hubūṭ is a descent; hawā is a fall drawn by weight. The word says that the thing falling does not come down by its own will."

Now the question belonging here is this: why is a verb of falling used for hearts "inclining"?

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the data on the root analysed in the section on al-Najm: Arabic has other verbs for turning towards a place (tatawajjah, tamīlu, tanziʿu). The verb chosen conveys a movement that comes about not by will but by weight.

That is, the prayer asks not that people go there by deciding to, but that they be drawn towards it. And the verb's coming in the imperfect (tahwī) makes this movement continuous: not a single arrival but an ongoing flow.

And the second branch of the root carries an additional sense here: the word hawā in the Qurʾān names the desire of the self, the thing that drags a person down (recorded for ittakhadha ilāhahu hawāh at al-Furqān 25/43). The same root: in one place the pull that takes a person off the way, here the pull that turns him towards a place. I record this shared root as an observation about the word; I draw no ruling from it.

And the root will return once more in this sūra, in the forty-third verse: wa afʾidatuhum hawāʾ. The ring between the two occurrences will be tabulated separately at that verse.

And the prayer ends with the sūra's backbone word: yashkurūn.

I record this as an observation about the word order: in the seventh verse thanksgiving was a condition (la-in shakartum). Here it comes as a hope — and is made the ground of the provision. That is, the sūra uses the same concept once inside a ruling and once inside a prayer.