al-Ḥijr 15:88-89

Lā tamuddanna ʿaynayka ilā mā mattaʿnā bihi azwājan minhum wa lā taḥzan ʿalayhim wa'khfiḍ janāḥaka li'l-muʾminīn · Wa qul innī ana'l-nadhīru'l-mubīn

"Do not stretch your eyes towards what We have given some sections of them to enjoy; do not grieve over them, and lower your wing to the believers. · And say: 'I am a clear warner.'"

The م-د-د root: to stretch, to extend. The same root was used for the earth in the nineteenth verse of the sūra: wa'l-arḍa madadnāhā.

I record this as a weave within the sūra, and it can be verified.

And the picture in the verb must be recorded: the verse does not say "do not look". It says "do not stretch your eyes" — a movement like the gaze breaking loose from its owner and going.

And the verb is an emphatic prohibition: lā tamuddanna — with the doubled nūn.

The same expression occurs once more in the Qurʾān, almost word for word, at Ṭāhā 20/131: wa lā tamuddanna ʿaynayka ilā mā mattaʿnā bihi azwājan minhum zahrata'l-ḥayāti'l-dunyā li-naftinahum fīh.

In the index Ṭāhā currently covers the range 20/1-44; that verse has not yet been analysed. A comparison of the two verses is work that can be done when its turn comes. Here I record only the difference: in Ṭāhā the sentence has two additions — zahrata'l-ḥayāti'l-dunyā (the bloom of the life of this world) and li-naftinahum fīh (to test them by it). In al-Ḥijr these two additions are absent.

And at al-Kahf 18/27-31 the same matter was treated with another verb: wa lā taʿdu ʿaynāka ʿanhum turīdu zīnata'l-ḥayāti'l-dunyā. I rely on that treatment.

The difference between al-Kahf and al-Ḥijr is a difference of direction and must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the particles in the two verses (ʿan / ilā): the two prohibitions are the two ends of the same gaze. One forbids whom the eye may leave, the other to whom it may reach out. And in al-Ḥijr the third command names precisely the first group: wa'khfiḍ janāḥaka li'l-muʾminīn.

أَزْوَٰجًا مِّنْهُمْ — azwāj: pairs, kinds, classes. Its sense here is "some sections or groups of them", and the lexicographers attach this to the word's sense of "mate, like": sets that resemble one another.

I record a point of word order: the verse does not say "what We have given them"; it says "what We have given some sets of them to enjoy". That is, what is given is named as belonging not to the whole community but to a part of it.

The خ-ف-ض root: to lower, to bring down. The idiom of the janāḥ (wing) was treated at al-Isrāʾ 17/24 and was set out in a table there with its occurrence at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/32. I rely on those treatments.

What was recorded in the section on al-Isrāʾ:

When the word is used of a human being it means "arm, side"; the lexicographers explain the idiom by a person's gathering himself in, and rest it on the picture of a bird spreading its wings when startled and folding them when it grows calm.

And a table was given there:

Now a third usage is added here and the one addressed changes:

At al-Isrāʾ it was recorded that this comparison "will be taken up when its turn comes". In the index al-Shuʿarāʾ currently covers the range 26/1-159; 26/215 has not yet been analysed. For this reason I give the al-Shuʿarāʾ row only as a record of vocabulary, not as a reference to a place already analysed.

I record the difference between al-Ḥijr and al-Isrāʾ as my own reading, its ground being the difference of those addressed: in al-Isrāʾ the command is given to a relation of kinship, in al-Ḥijr to a fellowship of belief. And in al-Isrāʾ there was a qualification — mina'l-raḥma (out of mercy); in al-Ḥijr this qualification is absent, and in its place the one addressed is specified.

And the place of the command must be recorded: the verse is built of three commands — do not look, do not grieve, lower your wing. The first two are against one group, the third towards another group. I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence says in a single breath where attention is to be drawn from and where it is to be given.