16. Sūrat al-Naḥl

128 verses. It is widely reported that it was revealed in the Meccan period; it is also reported that the closing verses (126-128 in particular) were revealed in the Medinan period. It takes its name from the word ٱلنَّحْل (al-naḥl — the honey bee) in the sixty-eighth verse.

A second name for the sūra is also transmitted in the classical sources: sūrat al-niʿam — the sūra of favours. I transmit this naming as a report; but the ground of the name is verifiable from the text itself, and it is the backbone of this commentary as well.

The backbone of the sūra is an enumeration. It begins at the fifth verse, is cut off by a single sentence at the eighteenth, opens again at the sixty-fifth, and closes at the eighty-first. Everything that passes in between — argument, history, ruling, parable — has been placed between these two enumerations.

The table below is the order of the things the sūra enumerates. The order is the order of the verses themselves; nothing has been added.

This is the most conspicuous structural sign in the sūra, and it can be verified from the text: nowhere does the enumeration end of itself. At the end of every section there comes either a question or a ruling.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is these ten points of interruption: having enumerated the favours, the sūra does not send the reader back to the head of the list. Each time it ties the list to a question or to a ruling. The work of the enumeration is therefore not to give information; it is to open an accounting.

And the eighteenth verse declares the impossibility of the list itself: lā tuḥṣūhā — "you cannot count them". In the very act of making an enumeration, the sūra says the enumeration will not be finished. This is treated in detail below.

Atā amru'llāhi fa-lā tastaʿjilūh, subḥānahū wa taʿālā ʿammā yushrikūn

"The command of God has come; do not seek to hasten it. He is far removed from, and exalted above, what they associate with Him."

The whole sentence gathers into two expressions, and the entire matter lies in them: atā (it has come) — a perfect verb; and immediately after it fa-lā tastaʿjilūh (do not seek to hasten it) — a prohibition which shows that it has not yet come.

That is, the verse forbids that haste be asked for over the very thing it says has come. Had it come, no haste could be asked for.

This structure was analysed in detail at two places in this commentary, and I take them as the ground here:

• At al-Qamar, 54/1 (iqtarabati'l-sāʿatu wa'nshaqqa'l-qamar) the two distinct tasks of the perfect verb were tabulated: the expression of certainty (a future event whose occurrence is certain being told as though it had already happened) and the narration of an event genuinely past. And this verse was already named there as the example of the first kind.
• At al-Anbiyāʾ, 21/1 (iqtaraba li'l-nāsi ḥisābuhum) the same pattern was treated once more, and the sense of iqtaraba that comes from Form VIII — "the closing of a distance" — was recorded.

I do not repeat it here. What belongs here is the comparison of the three verses — for the three are not doing the same work:

The difference must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading, its ground being the choice of verb: al-Qamar and al-Anbiyāʾ convey drawing near — iqtaraba. al-Naḥl goes past even drawing near and conveys arrival: atā. Of the three verses this is the one that goes furthest. And it is precisely the verse that goes furthest which, immediately afterwards, forbids haste.

The contrast lies inside the sentence, and the lexicographers dwell on it. In rhetoric this usage is generally called the highest degree of certainty: the certainty of the event is so complete that the future tense fell short and the perfect was used.

And the addressee of the prohibition is worth recording. Lā tastaʿjilū — plural. It is not said who is hastening; but those who hasten are not the ones who do not want it to come, they are the ones who do. This demand will be named several times in the verses that follow.

The root has two branches, and the lexicographers record both:

There is disagreement over the usage here, and it must be set out in a table:

All three views are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

But an internal note must be entered: the second verse uses the same root once more — yunazzilu'l-malāʾikata bi'l-rūḥi min amrih. Two consecutive verses thus carry the same word: in the one a command that comes, in the other a command that descends.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this repetition: the sūra sets the command whose hastening is forbidden beside another command that is in the course of descending. What is awaited has not yet come; but news of what ought to be awaited has long since arrived.

The sentence will occur twice in the sūra: in the first verse, and at the end of the third (taʿālā ʿammā yushrikūn). Only one verse stands between them. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

The root of subḥān (س-ب-ح) has been analysed at many places in this commentary — al-Aʿlā, Yāsīn 36/36, al-Ḥashr and others: the core sense is to swim away through empty space or through water; from there, tanzīh — holding God clear of what does not befit Him. I do not repeat it here.

تَعَٰلَىٰ — root ع-ل-و: height. That it comes from Form VI (taʿālā) is worth recording: this form generally conveys reciprocity, but here it does the work the lexicographers call mubālagha (intensification) — that the height is of Himself.

Yunazzilu'l-malāʾikata bi'l-rūḥi min amrihī ʿalā man yashāʾu min ʿibādih, an andhirū annahū lā ilāha illā anā fa-ttaqūn

"He sends down the angels with the rūḥ of His command upon whom He wills of His servants: 'Warn: there is no god but I; so guard yourselves against Me.'"

The first verse announced a future event; the second announces a work now under way.

The tense of the verb shows it: atā (perfect) → yunazzilu (imperfect). And yunazzilu is Form II — the lexicographers record that here this form conveys repetition and gradualness (piece by piece, many times over).

I record this as an observation about the word order: the event whose certainty is announced is named once and in the perfect; the descent of the warning, as a verb still in progress. The mood of the sentences thus separates the character of the two events.

There is disagreement over the word, and it must be set out in a table:

The first reading has the strongest internal ground, and I record this as an observation: the qualification min amrihī in the verse coincides word for word with the expression at al-Shūrā 42/52. In al-Shūrā it was tabulated that the root و-ح-ي is the densest root of that sūra and that the channels of revelation are enumerated at 42/51-52; I rely on that treatment. Even so I do not impose a preference: all three views are transmitted, and two of them do not exclude one another — revelation is what the angel carries.

عَلَىٰ مَن يَشَآءُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ — and the one chosen is called a servant. Messengership is thus given as a task that arises from within servanthood, not as a station that takes a man outside it. This line will be drawn once more, and openly, in the forty-third verse of the sūra.

The imperative comes in the plural: andhirū — "warn". Yet the one upon whom the revelation descends is singular (man yashāʾu).

The lexicographers explain this in two ways: either it is addressed to the angels, or it is because the word man is singular in form and plural in sense. Both explanations are transmitted.

And the content of the warning is a single sentence: annahū lā ilāha illā anā. Worth recording: the warning is delivered not with a threat but with a statement. The threat comes only at the end of the sentence, and as a command: fa-ttaqūn.

And the change of person is striking; I record it as an observation about the word order: the sentence begins in the third person (yunazzilu … min amrihī … ʿibādihī), then shifts into the first (illā anā … fa-ttaqūni). In the middle of a report, the speaker Himself steps in. In Arabic this shift is called iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address), and the lexicographers record that it does the work of gathering attention.

Khalaqa'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa bi'l-ḥaqq, taʿālā ʿammā yushrikūn · Khalaqa'l-insāna min nuṭfatin fa-idhā huwa khaṣīmun mubīn

"He created the heavens and the earth in truth; He is exalted above what they associate with Him. · He created man from a drop; and behold, he is an open disputant."

Both verses begin with the same word: khalaqa. And the difference between their two objects establishes the whole evidential order of the sūra:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses stand back to back: the same verb, two objects; the one is named with its purpose, the other with its conduct. The universe keeps faith with its creation; man begins to dispute the moment after his.

This sentence occurs once more in the Qurʾān, in almost the same words, and it was treated there in detail.

At Yāsīn, 36/77 (a-wa-lam yara'l-insānu annā khalaqnāhu min nuṭfatin fa-idhā huwa khaṣīmun mubīn) the following were recorded, and I rely on that treatment:

• Idhā fujāʾiyya (the idhā that conveys suddenness): "and behold". The sentence leaps over every step between the drop and the disputant.
• Khaṣīm is on the faʿīl pattern, and in Arabic this pattern conveys a settled, fixed quality. Man is thus named not as "someone who disputes" but as "a disputant".
• The limit set by the method (Method) concerning nuṭfa: the word is not equated one to one with the terms of modern embryology; the evidence is that the beginning of man is not in his own hands.

I do not repeat it here. What belongs here is the difference between the contexts of the two verses, and that difference is large:

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the position of the two verses within their sūras: Yā Sīn uses this sentence as a conclusion — man's stance is named after all the evidence has been given. al-Naḥl uses the same sentence as a beginning. The diagnosis is entered first, the enumeration made afterwards.

And this has a consequence for the sūra: the ruling lā tuḥṣūhā (you cannot count them) that will come in the eighteenth verse rests upon the diagnosis of the fourth. The one who cannot count and the one who disputes are the same person.

The root خ-ص-م: to contend, to be an adversary, to go to law. Khuṣūma — litigation; khaṣm — the opposing party.

And this diagnosis must be read together with another root in this commentary. At al-Kahf, 18/54, it was said of man:

"Wa kāna'l-insānu akthara shayʾin jadalā" — "Man is, more than anything else, contentious."

What was recorded in the al-Kahf section was this, and I rely on it: the root ج-د-ل was the whole backbone of Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), and it was tabulated there that what is condemned is disputation without ground (bi-ghayri sulṭānin atāhum); at al-Baqara, 2/197, the concrete sense of the root — to twist a rope tight — was analysed. And there was one further note in al-Kahf: the tendency is identified (54), then a limit is set (22).

I set the three verses side by side, because the three give the same diagnosis in three different words:

And this must be recorded, because it bears on the close of the sūra: having named man a disputant in the fourth verse, al-Naḥl teaches that same man the method of disputation in the hundred and twenty-fifth: wa jādilhum bi'llatī hiya aḥsan.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses stand at the two ends of the sūra: the sūra neither forbids disputation nor praises it. In the fourth verse it identifies it as a fact; in the hundred and twenty-fifth it binds it to a form. This is the line recorded in al-Mujādala, where these two verses were already named side by side: jadal is an act that takes its value from its subject and its manner.

Wa'l-anʿāma khalaqahā, lakum fīhā difʾun wa manāfiʿu wa minhā taʾkulūn

"And the livestock He created: in them there is warmth for you, and benefits; and of them you eat."

And the construction of the opening must be recorded. The sentence does not say khalaqa'l-anʿāma lakum. It says: wa'l-anʿāma khalaqahā — the object is brought forward, and then the verb takes it up again with a pronoun.

In Arabic this is called ishtighāl, and the lexicographers record that it conveys ihtimām (giving prominence). The first item of the enumeration is thus brought forward at the level of word order too.

And the choice of that first item is worth recording: the enumeration begins not from the sky and not from the sea but from just outside the door of the house.

The concrete sense of the root: to grow warm, warmth. Difāʾ — the thing that warms; dafiya — he grew warm.

The lexicographers explain the word here specifically as clothing made from wool, hair and hide — that is, not the heat the animal gives off but the warming thing got from the animal. And this explanation has an internal ground: in the eighty-first verse sarābīla taqīkumu'l-ḥarr (garments that guard you from the heat) will occur, and in the eightieth wa min aṣwāfihā wa awbārihā wa ashʿārihā (from their wool, their fur and their hair).

What the sūra says in a single word in the fifth verse it thus repeats, unfolded, in the eightieth and eighty-first. This is a weave that can be verified from the text.

The verse enumerates three things, and their order is meaningful:

The middle item is worth recording: manāfiʿ is plural and its content is not given. Even in its first item, then, the list is left open within itself. This is a small rehearsal of what will be done openly in the eighth verse with wa yakhluqu mā lā taʿlamūn.

At Muḥammad, 47/12, it was already recorded that the word anʿām is tied to the list of favours in this sūra; I rely on that treatment.

Wa lakum fīhā jamālun ḥīna turīḥūna wa ḥīna tasraḥūn

"And in them there is beauty for you, when you bring them home at evening and when you drive them out at morning."

The preceding verse enumerated three benefits: warmth, benefits, food. This verse adds a fourth thing, and what it adds is not a benefit.

Jamāl — beauty.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses stand back to back: having enumerated utility, the sūra does not stop; it sets beauty beside utility. And it does so with a separate sentence, a separate word and a separate note of time.

Three things must be recorded besides:

One — the beauty comes with the qualification lakum (for you). The verse does not say "these animals are beautiful". It says: "in them there is beauty for you." Beauty is given not as a property of the object but as a relation established between the beholder and the object.

Two — the beauty is bound to two moments. It is stated not as a general condition but for two definite times:

Rawāḥ — to come back towards evening; al-murāḥ is the place where the animals pass the night. At al-Rūm, 30/17-18, the enumeration of the times of day and the building of the pair ʿishāʾ / ibkār were treated; the two times here are of the same family, but the scale is different: there the times were enumerated for glorification, here for looking.

Sarḥ — to let loose, to set free. In the root there is the untying of a bond; sarraḥahū — he set it loose, let it go.

Three — the order in the wording is reversed, and this is striking. The natural order would be to begin with morning and end with evening. The verse says first turīḥūn (the evening return), then tasraḥūn (the morning release).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order itself: the return is named before the release. And of the two scenes it is the return that fills the eye more — the herd comes in a body, with dust, with sound, in the evening light. The morning release is a scattering. In naming the beauty the verse thus puts what gathers first and what scatters second.

I do not impose a preference, and I do not claim that this is a rule of rhetoric; the order itself is a fact verifiable from the text, the reading of it is mine.

I open this item separately, because it bears on the whole logic of the sūra's enumeration.

When both the function and the look of a thing are enumerated in the Qurʾān, the two are generally not joined in one sentence; they are named separately. So it is in this sūra:

The same pattern in all four places: first what works, then what shows. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

And I record this as my own reading: in describing a favour the sūra does not take sufficiency as its measure. An animal could already have been enumerated because it is eaten and carries loads; the verse enumerates the scene of the evening return as well. A sea could have been enumerated because it gives fresh meat; the verse enumerates the ornament as well.

The list, then, does not hold needs alone — it holds what is not needed as well. And part of the force of the ruling lā tuḥṣūhā (you cannot count them) in the eighteenth verse comes from this: the boundary of what is to be counted is not the boundary of staying alive.

The ground of this reading is that twofold structure in four verses; I do not rest it on any transmitted report besides.

The verse records how a society looks at the means of its own livelihood. The animal is named here not only as a unit of production but also as something looked at.

I record this as an observation: there is a difference between measuring a creature solely by what it yields and taking something from the sight of it as well — and by putting the two on the same list the verse does not abolish that difference; on the contrary, it makes it visible.

Wa taḥmilu athqālakum ilā baladin lam takūnū bālighīhi illā bi-shiqqi'l-anfus, inna rabbakum la-raʾūfun raḥīm

"And they carry your loads to a land you could not reach save by straining your very selves. Your Lord is truly most kind, most merciful."

The root was treated in full in al-Inshiqāq, and a summary was given at al-Qamar, 54/1. I rely on that treatment. What is needed here from those notes is this:

The concrete sense of the root is to split, to cleave in two. مَشَقَّة (mashaqqa) is hardship — on the lexicographers' explanation, that which splits a man.

The construction here must be recorded: bi-shiqqi'l-anfus — "with the splitting of the selves".

The verse does not say "with difficulty". Nor does it use the word mashaqqa. It chooses the most concrete form of the root, and it names the object too: anfus — the selves, their own persons.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the concreteness of the word: the cost of the journey is pictured not as time or money spent but as a piece torn from the person himself.

And the equation the verse sets up is worth recording:

The favour is thus described not as "a thing given" but as a cost lifted.

I give this as an observation, and it matters for the sūra's logic of enumeration: some of the items on the list are things given (milk, fruit, shade), and some are costs not paid. The second kind is the harder to notice — for a hardship that is absent is invisible.

The verse closes with two names, and the lexicographers record the difference between them:

The lexicographers record that raʾfa is sharper and narrower than raḥma; while raḥma can reach the good and the wicked alike. I transmit this distinction as a relation the lexicographers set up, not as a settled ruling.

And that these two names are invoked here is worth recording: the subject of the sentence is a pack animal. The names come after something as everyday as that.

Wa'l-khayla wa'l-bighāla wa'l-ḥamīra li-tarkabūhā wa zīnah, wa yakhluqu mā lā taʿlamūn

"And horses, mules and donkeys — for you to ride, and as adornment. And He creates what you do not know."

The sentence enumerates two purposes, and the two come in different grammatical forms:

The lexicographers dwell on the case of the second word (whether it is a causal object, or governed by an elided verb). But in point of meaning there is no difference, and what must be recorded is this: the work done in the sixth verse with jamāl (beauty) is repeated here with zīna (adornment).

The lexicographers give the difference between the two words thus, and I transmit it: jamāl is beauty residing in the thing itself; zīna is an adornment added, laid over it. In the sixth verse, then, the sight of the animal is named; here, the appearance the animal lends its owner. I give this distinction as a tendency the lexicographers record, not as an absolute rule.

This is one of the most striking sentences in the sūra, and it must be handled with care.

The verse enumerated three animals. Then it did not close the list.

This structure was treated in detail in this commentary, and I rely on it: at Yāsīn, 36/36 (subḥāna'lladhī khalaqa'l-azwāja kullahā mimmā tunbitu'l-arḍu wa min anfusihim wa mimmā lā yaʿlamūn) the following was recorded:

"The third item comes in the same grammatical structure as the first two — the same min, the same mā. It is enumerated as a part of the list, with full standing. But its content is not given." "The verse has deliberately left the third item unfilled. To fill it with the knowledge of any one period breaks the work the verse plainly does — for the moment it is filled, the item ceases to be 'what they do not know'."

And in the Yā Sīn section this verse (al-Naḥl 16/8) was already named. I close the ring from this end.

The difference that belongs here must be recorded, and the two verses are not doing the same thing:

The difference of tense is the most important, and I record this as my own reading: in Yā Sīn the creating is named as done and finished; in al-Naḥl, wa yakhluqu — it is still going on. The list is therefore left open here not merely from a want of knowledge but because the work continues.

And the difference of person must be recorded second: in Yā Sīn those who do not know are "they" — a group being described. In al-Naḥl the one who does not know is the addressee himself: "you." The sentence states the limit of the reader's own knowledge.

This sentence is one of the places often used for claims of scientific miracle: filling the phrase "things you do not know" with the vehicles known today, with technology, or with some other phenomenon is a widespread interpretation.

This commentary does not take that road, and the reason is the same as the one written in Yāsīn: the moment the item is filled it ceases to be "what you do not know". The force of the sentence comes not from its content but from its having been left empty.

I add this as my own reading, and my ground is the enumeration as a whole: the eighteenth verse will say lā tuḥṣūhā (you cannot count them). The eighth verse shows how that ruling is possible: the list does not close, that it might be counted.

Wa ʿala'llāhi qaṣdu'l-sabīli wa minhā jāʾir, wa law shāʾa la-hadākum ajmaʿīn

"Upon God rests the pointing of the straight way; and among the ways there is one that swerves. Had He willed He would have guided you all."

It must be recorded: the eighth verse enumerated the mounts, the tenth will enumerate water. A sentence about the way has come in between.

I give this as my own reading; its ground is the position of the verse: where mounts are spoken of it is natural that the road be spoken of; but the verse leaves the physical road and passes over to direction. The enumeration slides from the place to be reached to the bearing to be held. And in the fifteenth verse subul (ways) will come back, this time in the physical sense. The sūra uses the same word on two planes.

The concrete sense of the root: to head straight in one direction; and to be middling, balanced. Qaṣd — heading towards, intent; muqtaṣid — one who holds the middle way; iqtiṣād — moderation. The root occurred at Luqmān, 31/19 (wa'qṣid fī mashyik — be moderate in your walking) and at Luqmān, 31/32 (fa-minhum muqtaṣid).

The construction is read in two ways, and both are transmitted:

I do not impose a preference.

وَمِنْهَا جَآئِرٌ — jāʾir, from the root ج-و-ر: to swerve, to bend aside, to depart from what is right. Jawr — injustice.

And the pronoun must be recorded: minhā — "of them". The verse does not say openly what the pronoun refers to; the lexicographers record that it is the ways, and that this is understood from the word sabīl carrying a plural sense as a generic noun.

The word order of the sentence sets up a balance: the pointing of the straight way rests upon God (wa ʿala'llāh), while the swerving way is named without an agent (wa minhā jāʾir). The one is taken upon Himself; of the other it is only said that it exists.

Law — a condition contrary to fact. The sentence tells of something that did not happen.

The same structure will come once more in the sūra, in the thirty-fifth verse (law shāʾa'llāhu mā ʿabadnā min dūnihī min shayʾ) — but there it is the addressees who frame the sentence, and they frame it as an excuse. This is an overlap verifiable within the sūra, and it will be treated at the thirty-fifth verse.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the comparison of these two occurrences: the same sentence, once in the mouth of the text and once in the mouth of the addressee. The text says it as a piece of knowledge; the addressee says it as a defence. The difference between them lies not in the truth of the sentence but in who uses it and for what.

Huwa'lladhī anzala mina'l-samāʾi māʾan, lakum minhu sharābun wa minhu shajarun fīhi tusīmūn · Yunbitu lakum bihi'l-zarʿa wa'l-zaytūna wa'l-nakhīla wa'l-aʿnāba wa min kulli'l-thamarāt, inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-qawmin yatafakkarūn

"It is He who sends down water from the sky: from it you drink, and from it come the trees in which you pasture your beasts. With it He brings forth for you the crops, the olive, the date palm, the vine and fruits of every kind. In that there is a sign for a people who think."

The sentence divides the water in two and gives it with two mins:

Worth recording: the verse names man's share first, but it enumerates the animal's share in the same sentence. And both are tied to the same water.

تُسِيمُونَ — root س-و-م: to send an animal out to pasture and let it graze freely. Sāʾima — an animal turned out to pasture, not given fodder. It is recorded that the word occurs in this form only here in the Qurʾān.

I give this as an observation about the word order: in the sixth verse tasraḥūn (you drive them out), here tusīmūn (you pasture them). The two verbs tell of the same act from two different sides: the one, the sight of the driving out; the other, its yield.

The eleventh verse enumerates four crops, then opens the scope:

The same pattern again: things are enumerated, then the list is left open. The work done in the eighth verse with wa yakhluqu mā lā taʿlamūn is done here with wa min kulli'l-thamarāt. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

نَخِيل وَأَعْنَاب — the pair date palm and vine is named together regularly in the Qurʾān, and this pair was treated at al-Muʾminūn, 23/19; it was recorded there that the two plants are dependent on water in an arid climate and can be stored. The same pair occurred at Yāsīn, 36/34. I rely on those treatments.

And this pair will come back once more in the sūra, in the sixty-seventh verse — this time with the crop in its processed form (tattakhidhūna minhu sakaran wa rizqan ḥasanā). This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

From the eleventh verse on, the enumeration is divided into sections by closing sentences, and each closing uses a different verb:

Seven closings, five distinct verbs. This does the same work as the closings of the wa min āyātihī series tabulated at al-Rūm, 30/20-25 — there four closings addressed four distinct capacities (to think, to know, to hear, to reason). I rely on that treatment and record the difference:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is how the two sūras use the formula: al-Rūm builds a series and frames it; al-Naḥl scatters its closings through the sūra. In al-Rūm the signs are gathered into a single section; in al-Naḥl they are worked into the weave of the sūra.

Wa sakhkhara lakumu'l-layla wa'l-nahāra wa'l-shamsa wa'l-qamar, wa'l-nujūmu musakhkharātun bi-amrih, inna fī dhālika la-āyātin li-qawmin yaʿqilūn · Wa mā dharaʾa lakum fi'l-arḍi mukhtalifan alwānuh, inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-qawmin yadhdhakkarūn

"He has made the night, the day, the sun and the moon subservient to you; and the stars are made subservient by His command. In that there are signs for a people who reason. · And what He has strewn for you over the earth, of differing colours. In that there is a sign for a people who take heed."

The root has two branches, and the lexicographers record both: to make subservient, to set to a task (taskhīr); and to mock (sukhriyya). The shared idea, on the lexicographers' explanation, is the using of a thing outside its own will.

The root was treated at Luqmān, 31/20 and 31/29 (sakhkhara lakum mā fi'l-samāwāti wa mā fi'l-arḍ); I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the splitting of the sentence in two, and this must be recorded:

The difference is plain and can be verified from the text: the night, the day, the sun and the moon are made subservient "for you". For the stars this qualification is not entered; they are named only as "made subservient by His command".

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the absence of the lakum qualification in the second sentence: the verse does not divide what serves man from what does not — but it does mark off man's share separately. The stars too are within the order; but their order is not reduced to man's service.

And in the sixteenth verse this will be completed: wa bi'l-najmi hum yahtadūn — there the face the star turns towards man will be named. This is a completion verifiable within the sūra.

A note on the variant readings: it is transmitted that in some readings wa'l-nujūmu musakhkharātun is read wa'l-nujūma musakhkharātin — on that reading the clause ceases to be a nominal sentence and attaches to the preceding verb. In point of meaning the difference is that the distinction recorded above falls away. Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference, and I state that my reading above rests on the widespread reading.

The concrete sense of the root: to spread as one scatters seed, to distribute by multiplying. Dhurriyya — offspring; the lexicographers record that it is attached to the same root. The root occurred at al-Mulk, 67/24 (huwa'lladhī dharaʾakum fi'l-arḍ).

This construction was treated in detail in this commentary. At Fāṭir, 35/27-28, it occurred three times and was tabulated there:

This is the fourth link, and its difference must be recorded: in Fāṭir the construction was repeated separately for three distinct domains — plant, stone, living creature. In al-Naḥl it is given in a single sentence, with no division: mā dharaʾa lakum fi'l-arḍ — "what He has strewn for you over the earth."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the scope of the two expressions: Fāṭir enumerates by separating, al-Naḥl by gathering. And there is one further qualification in al-Naḥl's sentence: lakum. In Fāṭir the diversity was a matter for observation; in al-Naḥl it is an item of favour. The same fact, entered in two different columns.

And at al-Rūm, 30/22, the same diversity was treated by way of tongue and colour, and compared there with Fāṭir's list of colours and with al-Ḥujurāt, 49/13. I rely on that treatment and add one further link here.

Wa huwa'lladhī sakhkhara'l-baḥra li-taʾkulū minhu laḥman ṭariyyan wa tastakhrijū minhu ḥilyatan talbasūnahā, wa tara'l-fulka mawākhira fīhi wa li-tabtaghū min faḍlihī wa laʿallakum tashkurūn

"And it is He who made the sea subservient to you: that you might eat fresh meat from it and bring out of it ornaments to wear. And you see the ships cleaving through it — that you might seek of His bounty, and that you might give thanks."

The first half of this sentence occurred at Fāṭir, 35/12, in almost the same words: wa min kullin taʾkulūna laḥman ṭariyyan wa tastakhrijūna ḥilyatan talbasūnahā. I rely on that treatment.

And what was recorded in the Fāṭir section can be carried over here: the two seas are not equal, yet benefit is drawn from both — the verse named the shared benefit after stating the inequality.

The difference here must be recorded, and the two verses are not doing the same work:

The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root thus: to cleave the water, to go forward cleaving, and to make a sound in doing so. Makhr — the ship's cleaving of the water; mākhira — that which cleaves.

The picture in the word is worth recording: the verse does not name the ship as "floating" or as "going". It names it as cleaving.

And I give this as an observation: in the seventh verse it was said that man travels by splitting his own self (bi-shiqqi'l-anfus). Here the ship that cleaves the sea is named. What the two verses have in common is the idea of cleaving; but the one takes place in the man himself, the other in the water. I record this not as a claim of kinship between roots — the roots differ (ش-ق-ق and م-خ-ر) — but as a likeness of picture.

The verse enumerates four purposes:

Worth recording: in the third purpose the lām is repeated. The lexicographers record that this repetition serves to re-establish the connection after the sentence that comes between (wa tara'l-fulka mawākhira fīh).

And the form of the last purpose changes: laʿalla. This sets the fourth item apart from the rest — the first three are outcomes, the fourth the return that is looked for.

The same distinction was treated at al-Rūm, 30/46: the last link of the wa min āyātihī series ended with wa laʿallakum tashkurūn, and it was recorded there — the series is built out of verbs of understanding, and the link that stands apart ends with a verb of response. I rely on that treatment and record that the same structure is found here within a single verse.

Wa alqā fi'l-arḍi rawāsiya an tamīda bikum wa anhāran wa subulan laʿallakum tahtadūn · Wa ʿalāmāt, wa bi'l-najmi hum yahtadūn

"And He cast firm mountains into the earth, lest it sway with you, and rivers and roads — that you might find your way. · And landmarks. And by the star they find their way."

This sentence occurred at Luqmān, 31/10, in exactly the same words, and was treated there. I rely on that treatment. The notes there were these:

• رَوَٰسِى — root ر-س-و: to drop anchor, to be held fast. The root's connection with a ship's anchoring was recorded at Qāf, 50/7.
• أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ — mayd: to sway, to be tossed about. The lexicographers use the word especially of seasickness and of the rolling of a ship.
• And the note required by the method (Method) entered in Luqmān holds here too, and I repeat it: no conclusion about modern geology, about isostasy or about gravitation is drawn from this. The function of the verse is to say that an order visible to the eye stands without any visible support.

The difference that belongs here must be recorded, and the two verses do not stand in the same context:

I record this as my own reading; its ground is how the two blocks close: Luqmān ties the mountains to a challenge — "what have you created?" al-Naḥl ties the same mountains to a sentence about finding one's way. The same fact is thus enumerated in the one as evidence, in the other as a possibility opened.

It must be recorded: in the ninth verse the word sabīl occurred in the sense of a bearing (wa ʿala'llāhi qaṣdu'l-sabīl). Here the same root comes back in the physical sense: subulā — roads.

And in both places the closing is tied to the same root: la-hadākum in the ninth verse, laʿallakum tahtadūn in the fifteenth, hum yahtadūn in the sixteenth. The root ه-د-ي occurs four times in three verses.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and I record this as my own reading: the sūra tells of finding one's way on two planes at once — finding the road across the earth, and finding the straight way. The two planes are named with the same root, and no boundary is set between them.

The sixteenth verse is among the shortest in the sūra, and it says two things.

عَلَٰمَٰت — root ع-ل-م: to know. ʿAlāma — the mark by which a thing is known. That the word comes from the root of knowing is worth recording: a mark is not knowledge itself; it is what leads to knowledge.

The lexicographers dwell on what the ʿalāmāt are here: the mountains, stones, hills and stars that give bearing on a journey. No definite list is given, and I do not give one either.

وَبِٱلنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ — and the wording shifts. The sentence passes into the third person: hum yahtadūn — "they find their way".

Yet the preceding verse was in the second person: laʿallakum tahtadūn — "that you might find your way."

I record this as an observation about the word order: the verse names the finding of one's way by the star not as something commanded of the addressee but as something actually done. What is recorded is that a possibility is in use.

And the word is singular: bi'l-najm. The lexicographers take it as a generic noun — not "by the star" but "by the stars". But another reason for its coming in the singular is transmitted: a pointing to one particular star used in finding direction. Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And a ring closes with the twelfth verse: there the stars were named as musakhkharātun bi-amrih, and no qualification belonging to man was entered. Here that qualification comes. This is a completion verifiable within the sūra.

A-fa-man yakhluqu ka-man lā yakhluq, a-fa-lā tadhakkarūn · Wa in taʿuddū niʿmata'llāhi lā tuḥṣūhā, inna'llāha la-ghafūrun raḥīm

"Is He who creates like one who does not create? Will you still not take heed? · If you set out to count God's favour you could not count it. God is truly most forgiving, most merciful."

A list that has run for thirteen verses is stopped by two sentences: a question and a ruling.

The question ties the whole list to a single comparison. A-fa-man yakhluqu ka-man lā yakhluq — and the verb is imperfect: "the one who is creating" set against "the one who does not create".

I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence uses no name. It says neither "God" nor gives the other side a name. There is only a verb and its negative. The comparison is thus built not on identities but on the work done.

And the word man must be recorded: in Arabic man is used of beings possessed of reason. The sentence therefore puts its question counting the other side as persons — on the most favourable terms available to them. Even so the outcome does not change.

This is one of the most striking sentences in the sūra, and it comes directly after a full enumeration.

The difference between the two verbs carries the whole weight of the sentence, and the lexicographers dwell on it:

The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root ح-ص-ي thus: ḥaṣā — a pebble. In the old manner of counting one counted with pebbles; from this comes the sense "a complete count, an exhaustive inventory". The word occurred at al-Jinn, 72/28 (wa aḥṣā kulla shayʾin ʿadadā) and at Maryam, 19/94 (laqad aḥṣāhum wa ʿaddahum ʿaddā — the two verbs side by side).

The difference must be recorded, and the meaning of the verse rests on it: in saying "you cannot count them" the verse does not say that counting cannot be begun. It says: if you set about counting (in taʿuddū), you cannot finish (lā tuḥṣūhā).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that two distinct verbs were chosen: the verb of the conditional clause is taʿuddū, the verb of the answering clause tuḥṣū. Had the verse forbidden counting altogether it could have used both verbs from the same root. That it keeps the distinction shows that it does not annul the act of counting itself.

And this has a direct consequence for the sūra: the sūra has in fact been counting for thirteen verses. The verse therefore halts at a point the very work it has been doing, but does not cancel it.

The word is singular: niʿmata'llāh, "God's favour" — not the plural niʿam.

The lexicographers explain it as a generic noun: it conveys not number but kind. And I give this as an observation: to say of a singular word that it cannot be counted raises the tension of the sentence — not even a single thing can be counted.

And the sūra will use this word insistently: the construction niʿmata'llāh occurs five times in the sūra (18, 53, 71, 72, 83), and once more in the form niʿmatahū (81). This is a countable fact within the sūra and will be tabulated at the end.

And the closing of the verse is striking.

The expected closing would have been a sentence about thanks, or a rebuke. The verse names forgiveness.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two sentences stand back to back: the return for a favour that cannot be counted cannot itself be rendered in full. Instead of saying that the return cannot be made, the verse says that the failure to make it is forgiven. The sentence closes, within the same verse, the account it opened.

I do not rest this reading on a transmitted report; my ground is the order of the two sentences.

Wa'llāhu yaʿlamu mā tusirrūna wa mā tuʿlinūn · Wa'lladhīna yadʿūna min dūni'llāhi lā yakhluqūna shayʾan wa hum yukhlaqūn · Amwātun ghayru aḥyāʾ, wa mā yashʿurūna ayyāna yubʿathūn

"And God knows what you conceal and what you make known. · And those they call upon besides God create nothing; they themselves are created. · They are dead, not living; nor do they know when they will be raised."

The seventeenth verse had asked: a-fa-man yakhluqu ka-man lā yakhluq. The twentieth gives the answer, and in giving it uses the same root.

The construction of the answer must be recorded: the verse does not say only "they cannot create". It turns the same root into the passive and adds: wa hum yukhlaqūn — "they themselves are created."

I give this as an observation about the word order: the position claimed and the position in fact are set against each other by the two voices of a single root. The other side is found in exactly the reverse form of its own claim.

To say amwāt (dead) would have sufficed. The verse adds ghayru aḥyāʾ (not living).

The lexicographers count additions of this kind as taʾkīd (emphasis). But one further explanation belonging here must be recorded, and I give it as my own reading: in Arabic mawt is used also of what has never lived — an inanimate object is mayyit too. The qualification ghayru aḥyāʾ marks off this second sense: what is at issue is not a thing that has died but a thing that has never been alive.

And at Fāṭir, 35/13-14, the same subject was closed off in three stages (they do not hear → were they to hear they could not answer → in the end they reject). I rely on that treatment and record the difference here: Fāṭir was treating the impossibility of communication; al-Naḥl, the character of existence.

وَمَا يَشْعُرُونَ أَيَّانَ يُبْعَثُونَ — and the pronoun must be recorded. Yubʿathūn — when "they will be raised". The sentence thus says that the objects called upon are themselves inside a process of being raised.

The lexicographers give the reference of the pronoun in two ways: either those called upon, or those who call. Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

Ilāhukum ilāhun wāḥid, fa'lladhīna lā yuʾminūna bi'l-ākhirati qulūbuhum munkiratun wa hum mustakbirūn · Lā jarama anna'llāha yaʿlamu mā yusirrūna wa mā yuʿlinūn, innahū lā yuḥibbu'l-mustakbirīn

"Your god is one god. As for those who do not believe in the hereafter, their hearts are in denial and they make themselves great. · Beyond doubt God knows what they conceal and what they make known. He does not love those who make themselves great."

The verse says two things about those who deny the hereafter, and the two lie on different planes:

And the order of the two clauses must be recorded: first the heart, then the conduct. The verse ranks conduct as an outcome of the heart.

I give this as an observation, and its ground is the order of the clauses: the verse does not name denial as a want of knowledge. Both diagnoses have to do not with knowledge but with disposition.

Lā jarama occurs in five places in the Qurʾān, and the lexicographers differ over the origin of the form.

In point of meaning all three come out at the same place: certainty. I do not impose a preference.

And this construction will occur twice in the sūra: here and in the sixty-second verse (lā jarama anna lahumu'l-nār). This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

It must be recorded: the sentence yaʿlamu mā tusirrūna wa mā tuʿlinūn occurred in the nineteenth verse. In the twenty-third it returns in almost the same words — the only difference being the change of person:

This is a repetition that can be verified from the text. And I record this as my own reading: the same sentence is said first to the general addressee, then to a particular group. The ruling is laid down first for everyone, then applied to those who hold a certain stance.

Wa idhā qīla lahum mādhā anzala rabbukum qālū asāṭīru'l-awwalīn · Li-yaḥmilū awzārahum kāmilatan yawma'l-qiyāmati wa min awzāri'lladhīna yuḍillūnahum bi-ghayri ʿilm, alā sāʾa mā yazirūn

"And when it is said to them, "What has your Lord sent down?", they say: "Tales of the ancients." · So that on the Day of Resurrection they may carry their own burdens in full, and a part of the burdens of those they lead astray without knowledge. Beware — evil is what they take upon themselves!"

The question is a question of information: mādhā anzala rabbukum — "What has your Lord sent down?"

The answer, however, does not answer the question. Asāṭīru'l-awwalīn — "tales of the ancients." What is given is not an account of what was sent down but a verdict on where it came from.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence does not even say "nothing was sent down". It accepts the question and changes its object. And in the thirtieth verse the same question will be put once more, this time to another group — and the answer will be wholly different. The sūra gives the same question to two different mouths. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

أَسَٰطِير — the plural of usṭūra, root س-ط-ر: a line, writing, to set out in rows. Misṭar — the instrument used for ruling lines. The word means "a thing written, set out in lines"; from this comes the sense "old story, tale".

There is an irony in the root of the word, and I record this as an observation about the language: the objection names what has been sent down "a thing written". Yet the subject of the objection is a text that has been sent down. Both sides use the same family of words; where they part is over the source of the text.

There is a matter here that must be handled with care, because at first sight the verse appears to contradict a principle recorded many times over in this commentary.

The principle is this, and it was treated at many places: wa lā taziru wāziratun wizra ukhrā — "no bearer of burdens bears the burden of another." It was treated in detail at Fāṭir, 35/18, and at al-Isrāʾ, 17/15.

This verse, however, says that those who lead others astray will carry a part of the burdens of those they lead astray. How is the contradiction resolved?

The answer lies in the verse's own words, and two of them are decisive:

And the burden of those led astray is not lightened: the verse does not say that their burden is taken away. What it says is that the one who leads astray is loaded in addition, as a consequence of his own act.

I record this as my own reading, and my ground is these two words (kāmilatan and min): what is carried is not another's burden — it is the return for the act of leading astray itself. The principle is thus not broken; leading astray is counted as an act in its own right.

And the qualification bi-ghayri ʿilm is worth recording: the leading astray is described as done without knowledge. The same construction occurred at Luqmān, 31/6 (li-yuḍilla ʿan sabīli'llāhi bi-ghayri ʿilm); I rely on that treatment.

Qad makara'lladhīna min qablihim fa-ata'llāhu bunyānahum mina'l-qawāʿidi fa-kharra ʿalayhimu'l-saqfu min fawqihim wa atāhumu'l-ʿadhābu min ḥaythu lā yashʿurūn · Thumma yawma'l-qiyāmati yukhzīhim wa yaqūlu ayna shurakāʾiya'lladhīna kuntum tushāqqūna fīhim

"Those before them plotted too; God came at their building from the foundations, and the roof fell in upon them from above, and the punishment came at them from where they did not perceive it. · Then on the Day of Resurrection He will disgrace them and say: 'Where are My associates, over whom you took the opposing side?'"

The scene is divided into three movements, and the three come from different directions:

I record this as an observation about the word order: unlike the first two, the third direction is not a place. The verse leaves one direction unclosed — and that direction is the one the plot could not take into account.

This picture was named at Muḥammad, 47/10; I rely on that treatment.

بُنْيَٰن and قَوَاعِد — bunyān, root ب-ن-ي: a building. Qawāʿid, the plural of qāʿida, root ق-ع-د: that which sits, that which is set down; a foundation. That the word comes from the verb "to sit" is worth recording: the foundation is where the building sits upon the ground.

مَكَرَ — root م-ك-ر: the core the lexicographers give is to work at something in secret and by indirect means. The root was treated in detail at al-Naml, 27/50-51 (wa makarū makran wa makarnā makran); I rely on that treatment.

The verb is Form III from the root ش-ق-ق: mushāqqa — to stand on opposite sides of one another, to set up an opposing front.

The picture in the root must be recorded, and it was analysed in al-Inshiqāq: shiqq — one of the two pieces into which a thing is split. So mushāqqa means "to stand in the other half".

And it must be recorded that this is the root's second occurrence in the sūra: bi-shiqqi'l-anfus (the splitting of the selves) occurred in the seventh verse. Both occurrences carry the picture of splitting; the one in the body, the other in the ranks. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

Alladhīna tatawaffāhumu'l-malāʾikatu ẓālimī anfusihim, fa-alqawu'l-salama mā kunnā naʿmalu min sūʾ, balā inna'llāha ʿalīmun bimā kuntum taʿmalūn · Fa'dkhulū abwāba jahannama khālidīna fīhā, fa-la-biʾsa mathwa'l-mutakabbirīn

"Those whom the angels take while they are wronging themselves surrender: 'We were doing no evil.' No indeed! God knows what you were doing. · So enter the gates of Hell, to remain in them. Evil is the abode of those who make themselves great!"

To cast down the salam — to lay surrender out in the open, to give oneself up. Root س-ل-م: to be sound, to be without flaw, to surrender.

And the choice of verb is worth recording: alqaw — "they cast, they threw down". The same verb was used of the mountains in the fifteenth verse (wa alqā fi'l-arḍi rawāsiya). This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra; but the agent changes between the two uses: there it is God who casts, here it is man who throws down.

مَا كُنَّا نَعْمَلُ مِن سُوٓءٍ — and even after the surrender a defence follows. The order of the sentence must be recorded: first the surrender, then the denial. The two movements do not normally stand together.

I give this as an observation: the verse shows that surrender is not acceptance — even when the resistance is over, the defence continues.

And the answer is a single word: balā — "no, it is not so". In Arabic balā is a particle used specifically to refute a negative sentence; naʿam (yes) would have confirmed the negation. The claim is refuted in one syllable.

مَثْوَى — root ث-و-ي: to stay in a place, to lodge. Mathwā — the place where one stays. The word occurred at Muḥammad, 47/12 (wa'l-nāru mathwan lahum).

Wa qīla lilladhīna'ttaqaw mādhā anzala rabbukum qālū khayrā, lilladhīna aḥsanū fī hādhihi'l-dunyā ḥasana, wa la-dāru'l-ākhirati khayr, wa la-niʿma dāru'l-muttaqīn · Jannātu ʿadnin yadkhulūnahā tajrī min taḥtiha'l-anhāru lahum fīhā mā yashāʾūn · Alladhīna tatawaffāhumu'l-malāʾikatu ṭayyibīna yaqūlūna salāmun ʿalaykumu'dkhulu'l-jannata bimā kuntum taʿmalūn

"And when it is said to those who guard themselves, "What has your Lord sent down?", they say: "Good." For those who do good in this world there is good; and the abode of the hereafter is better. How excellent is the abode of those who guard themselves! · Gardens of ʿAdn which they enter, with rivers running beneath them; there they have whatever they wish. · Those whom the angels take while they are pure, saying: "Peace be upon you! Enter the Garden for what you were doing.""

This is one of the plainest symmetries in the sūra, and it must be set out in a table:

This is a repetition that can be verified from the text. And I record this as my own reading: both answers are short, but they answer different things. The first answers the question "who sent it down" — though that was not the question asked. The second answers the question that was asked, "what has He sent down": khayrā — good.

The difference is thus given, before any difference of belief, as a difference in hearing the question.

And the sūra builds one further symmetry. The twenty-eighth and thirty-second verses begin with the same sentence:

A contrast in five lines, and all five can be verified from the text.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the third line: in the first scene it is the dying who speak first — and what they say is a defence. In the second it is the angel who speaks first — and what he says is a greeting of peace. Who speaks first determines the whole of the scene.

طَيِّبِين — root ط-ي-ب: pleasant, clean, agreeable to the heart. The root was treated at al-Ṣaff, 61/12, where it was recorded that the word is used of food, of speech and of life; I rely on that treatment. And the word will occur once more in the sūra, in the seventy-second verse, of provisions (wa razaqakum mina'l-ṭayyibāt).

عَدْن — root ع-د-ن: to stay on in a place, to settle. Maʿdan — the place where a substance lies settled; from the same root. So jannātu ʿadn means "the gardens where one stays".

Hal yanẓurūna illā an taʾtiyahumu'l-malāʾikatu aw yaʾtiya amru rabbik, ka-dhālika faʿala'lladhīna min qablihim, wa mā ẓalamahumu'llāhu wa lākin kānū anfusahum yaẓlimūn · Fa-aṣābahum sayyiʾātu mā ʿamilū wa ḥāqa bihim mā kānū bihī yastahziʾūn

"Do they look for anything but that the angels should come to them, or that the command of your Lord should come? Those before them did the same. God did not wrong them; it was themselves they were wronging. · The evils of what they had done struck them, and the very thing they mocked closed in around them."

It must be recorded: the construction amru rabbik is the same as the amru'llāh of the sūra's first verse.

The first verse had said: atā amru'llāhi fa-lā tastaʿjilūh — "it has come; do not seek to hasten it." The thirty-third says: aw yaʾtiya amru rabbik — "or that the command of your Lord should come."

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and I record this as my own reading: what the first verse forbade them to hasten is named in the thirty-third as the one thing they wait for. The sūra thus explains, thirty-two verses later, why that prohibition was laid down: if no other sign is accepted, that is all that remains.

هَلْ يَنظُرُونَ إِلَّآ — naẓar here has the sense of waiting for. And the restriction built with illā must be recorded: the verse does not say "this is what they wait for"; it says "they wait for nothing but this."

The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root thus: a thing turning back and coming down upon its owner, closing around him. Ḥāqa bihī — it befell him, it wrapped itself about him. In the Qurʾān the word occurs almost everywhere together with mockery or with plotting.

And the construction of the sentence is worth recording: ḥāqa bihim mā kānū bihī yastahziʾūn — what closes in on them is the very thing they mocked. The punishment is not fetched from outside; the thing mocked comes back.

The same sentence is repeated at several places in the Qurʾān and was treated in this commentary: the root was analysed at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), 40/45, and the same point of word order was recorded at al-Zumar, 39/48, and at al-Anbiyāʾ, 21/41. I rely on those treatments.

Wa qāla'lladhīna ashrakū law shāʾa'llāhu mā ʿabadnā min dūnihī min shayʾin naḥnu wa lā ābāʾunā wa lā ḥarramnā min dūnihī min shayʾ, ka-dhālika faʿala'lladhīna min qablihim, fa-hal ʿala'l-rusuli illa'l-balāghu'l-mubīn

"Those who associate said: 'Had God willed, neither we nor our fathers would have served anything besides Him, nor would we have forbidden anything without Him.' Those before them did the same. Is anything laid upon the messengers but plain delivery?"

In the ninth verse the text had said: wa law shāʾa la-hadākum ajmaʿīn — "had He willed He would have guided you all."

In the thirty-fifth the same sentence, in the same form, comes from the mouth of the addressee: law shāʾa'llāhu mā ʿabadnā min dūnihī min shayʾ.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and it was pointed to at the ninth verse. The comparison can now be made:

And the answer the verse gives must be recorded, because it does not reject the claim.

The answer is this: fa-hal ʿala'l-rusuli illa'l-balāghu'l-mubīn — "is anything laid upon the messengers but plain delivery?"

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the answer itself: the verse does not say that the sentence "had God willed" is untrue — indeed it said something like it itself in the ninth verse. What it says is that the sentence cannot be used as a means of unloading responsibility.

What is rejected, then, is not the proposition but the work the proposition is put to.

The same defence occurs word for word at al-Zukhruf, 43/20 (law shāʾa'l-raḥmānu mā ʿabadnāhum) and was treated there: it was recorded that the claim is framed without knowledge (in hum illā yakhruṣūn). I rely on that treatment.

This construction was treated at many places in this commentary: at al-Aḥqāf, 46/35 (balāgh), at Fāṭir, 35/19-23, at al-Zumar, 39/41 (wa mā anta ʿalayhim bi-wakīl), at al-Rūm, 30/52-53. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is that the construction has a second occurrence in the sūra: it will come once more in the eighty-second verse (fa-innamā ʿalayka'l-balāghu'l-mubīn). This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and both stand immediately after an objection.

Wa laqad baʿathnā fī kulli ummatin rasūlan ani'budu'llāha wa'jtanibu'l-ṭāghūt, fa-minhum man hada'llāhu wa minhum man ḥaqqat ʿalayhi'l-ḍalāla, fa-sīrū fi'l-arḍi fa'nẓurū kayfa kāna ʿāqibatu'l-mukadhdhibīn

"We have surely raised up in every community a messenger: 'Serve God, and keep clear of the ṭāghūt.' Among them were some whom God guided, and some upon whom error was fixed. So travel through the earth and see what became of those who cried lies."

And the verb forms of the two differ — this must be recorded:

اجْتَنِبُوا۟ — root ج-ن-ب: side, flank. Janb — the flank; jānib — the side. In Form VIII (ijtanaba) it means "not to take a thing to one's side, to draw away from it".

The picture in the word is worth recording, and I give this as an observation about the language: the verse does not say "tear it down" or "reject it". It says "keep it away from your side." The command is thus not a command to destroy but a command about distance.

طَٰغُوت — root ط-غ-ي: to overstep the bound, to overflow. Ṭughyān — excess; ṭāghī — one who oversteps. Ṭāghūt is intensive in form, and the lexicographers record that the word is used for both singular and plural. The root was treated at al-Ḥāqqa, 69/5 (fa-uhlikū bi'l-ṭāghiya) and at al-Nāziʿāt, 79/17 (innahū ṭaghā).

It must be recorded: the verse gives a second answer to the defence of the thirty-fifth verse, and this answer is historical.

The defence was: "had God willed we would not have served them." The answer: to every community a messenger was sent.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses stand back to back: the verse does not debate the existence of the will as a theory. It announces as a fact that the knowledge was delivered. And the principle recorded at al-Isrāʾ, 17/15, is stated here from the other side: there it was wa mā kunnā muʿadhdhibīna ḥattā nabʿatha rasūlā (We do not punish until We have raised up a messenger); here it is announced that the messenger has been sent. The same principle was recorded at al-Qaṣaṣ, 28/59.

فَسِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ — this proof was treated at many places in this commentary: al-Rūm 30/9 and 30/42, Fāṭir 35/44, Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/21 and 40/82, Muḥammad 47/10. I do not repeat it here. And what was recorded there holds here too: the proof is fetched not from a distant history but from the ruins that lie along the road.

In taḥriṣ ʿalā hudāhum fa-inna'llāha lā yahdī man yuḍillu wa mā lahum min nāṣirīn · Wa aqsamū bi'llāhi jahda aymānihim lā yabʿathu'llāhu man yamūt, balā waʿdan ʿalayhi ḥaqqan wa lākinna akthara'l-nāsi lā yaʿlamūn · Li-yubayyina lahumu'lladhī yakhtalifūna fīhi wa li-yaʿlama'lladhīna kafarū annahum kānū kādhibīn

"However eager you are for their guidance, God does not guide the one He lets go astray; and they have no helpers. · They swore by God with the utmost of their oaths: 'God will not raise up one who dies.' No indeed! It is a promise binding upon Him, in truth — but most people do not know. · That He may make clear to them that over which they differ, and that those who disbelieved may know that they were liars."

The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root thus: to be excessively eager to obtain a thing; and ḥarasa'l-thawb — to rub a cloth too hard in the washing and so wear it out.

This second picture is worth recording, and I give it as an observation about the language: in the root there is the idea that an excess of wanting does damage. And this is exactly what the verse says: eagerness does not change the outcome. The same line was treated at Fāṭir, 35/8 (fa-lā tadhhab nafsuka ʿalayhim ḥasarāt); I rely on that treatment.

Jahda aymānihim — "with the utmost force of their oaths". Root ج-ه-د: to spend strength, to go to the end of one's capacity. The root was treated at al-ʿAnkabūt, 29/6 and 29/69; I rely on that treatment.

The construction occurs in several places in the Qurʾān, and the same form was present at Fāṭir, 35/42.

And the work it does here must be recorded: what is sworn to is a denial — lā yabʿathu'llāhu man yamūt. A form of affirmation of the highest degree is thus used to prop up a negation.

I give this as an observation: the verse shows that the direction of certainty can change. The same word (balā) refuted a denial in the twenty-eighth verse as well; here it refutes an oath.

The thirty-ninth verse says why the raising takes place, and the ground it gives is worth recording:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the word of the first purpose: the verse names the raising first of all not as punishment but as tabyīn — a making clear. The ending of the disagreement is counted as the first work of the scene.

The root ب-ي-ن is one of the sūra's backbones and we shall return to it in the verses ahead: li-tubayyina li'l-nās in the forty-fourth verse, tibyānan li-kulli shayʾ in the eighty-ninth. All three occurrences can be verified from the text.

Innamā qawlunā li-shayʾin idhā aradnāhu an naqūla lahū kun fa-yakūn

"When We will a thing, Our word to it is only that We say to it, 'Be', and it is."

The verse is the last answer to the denial of the thirty-eighth verse (lā yabʿathu'llāhu man yamūt). And the answer is not a proof but a description.

The construction of the sentence must be recorded, and the lexicographers dwell on it:

And what draws the attention is that there is no intermediary at all between kun and yakūn: fa — immediately after.

The form occurs in eight places in the Qurʾān and was treated in detail in this commentary at Yāsīn, 36/82 (innamā amruhū idhā arāda shayʾan an yaqūla lahū kun fa-yakūn). I rely on that treatment.

The difference that belongs here must be recorded, and the wording of the two verses parts at one point:

And one further note: amru'llāh occurred in the first verse. In the fortieth the same idea is given with the word qawl. This is an overlap verifiable within the sūra.

A note on the variant readings: it is transmitted that in some readings fa-yakūn is read fa-yakūna (subjunctive); on that reading the clause is coordinated with an naqūla. It is recorded that there is no essential change in meaning.

Wa'lladhīna hājarū fi'llāhi min baʿdi mā ẓulimū la-nubawwiʾannahum fi'l-dunyā ḥasana, wa la-ajru'l-ākhirati akbar, law kānū yaʿlamūn · Alladhīna ṣabarū wa ʿalā rabbihim yatawakkalūn

"Those who emigrated for God's sake after they had been wronged — We shall surely settle them well in this world; and the reward of the hereafter is greater, if only they knew. · They are those who were patient and who rely upon their Lord."

The concrete sense of the root: to part from, to abandon, to cut a tie. Hajr — abandonment; hijra — departure from one's homeland. That it comes from Form III (hājara) is worth recording: this form conveys reciprocity, and the lexicographers record here the sense that while a man leaves a thing, the thing leaves him as well.

And the qualification is important: min baʿdi mā ẓulimū — "after they had been wronged". The departure is thus named not as a choice but as a consequence.

لَنُبَوِّئَنَّهُمْ — root ب-و-أ: to settle in a place, to give a position. Mubawwaʾ — the place in which one is settled. The lām at the head of the verb and the nūn at its end (the nūn of emphasis) must be recorded: the sentence is reinforced twice over.

And the same verb occurred in the same form at al-ʿAnkabūt, 29/58 (la-nubawwiʾannahum mina'l-jannati ghurafā), and there too it was followed by alladhīna ṣabarū wa ʿalā rabbihim yatawakkalūn. The two verses are almost identical in structure, and this is an overlap verifiable across the sūras.

The difference must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the difference between the two verses: al-Naḥl begins by giving the return in this world and adds the hereafter separately. The cost of the emigration is thus not tied to a deferred return alone.

Wa mā arsalnā min qablika illā rijālan nūḥī ilayhim fa'sʾalū ahla'l-dhikri in kuntum lā taʿlamūn · Bi'l-bayyināti wa'l-zubur, wa anzalnā ilayka'l-dhikra li-tubayyina li'l-nāsi mā nuzzila ilayhim wa laʿallahum yatafakkarūn

"And before you We sent none but men to whom We gave revelation. If you do not know, ask the people of the reminder. · With the clear proofs and the scriptures. And We have sent down to you the reminder, that you may make clear to people what has been sent down to them, and that they may reflect."

Torn from its context, this verse comes to say something altogether different. The context must therefore be set out first and openly.

The first half of the sentence is this: wa mā arsalnā min qablika illā rijālan nūḥī ilayhim — "and before you We sent none but human beings to whom We gave revelation."

There is, then, an objection in view, and the subject of the objection is this: that the messenger is a human being. This objection is recorded at many places in the Qurʾān and was treated in this commentary: at al-Anbiyāʾ, 21/3 and 21/7-8 (hal hādhā illā basharun mithlukum; wa mā jaʿalnāhum jasadan lā yaʾkulūna'l-ṭaʿām), at al-Aḥqāf, 46/9 (mā kuntu bidʿan mina'l-rusul), at Fāṭir, 35/4.

And the command fa'sʾalū ahla'l-dhikr is the second half of the answer given to that objection: "if you do not know that the earlier messengers too were human beings, ask those who do know."

Insisting on this context is obligatory, because torn from it the verse can be presented as a general and unlimited principle of consulting authority. The text does not say that. What the verse commands to be asked about is definite: the nature of the earlier messengers.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the structure of the sentence itself: the command fa'sʾalū is joined by fāʾ to the preceding clause — it is therefore a clause of consequence, not an independent principle. And the conditional clause narrows it further: in kuntum lā taʿlamūn — "if you do not know."

The same verse occurs word for word at al-Anbiyāʾ, 21/7, and the disagreement was tabulated there. I rely on that treatment and bring the table over here:

I transmit the disagreement; I do not impose a preference.

But it must be recorded that the third view has an internal ground, and this one is peculiar to al-Naḥl: in the forty-fourth verse the same word is used of the Book that is sent down. There was a similar movement in al-Anbiyāʾ — there, three verses later, it said dhikrukum, and in the al-Anbiyāʾ section this was recorded: "ask (7) → if you do not know (7) → you already have it in your hand (10)."

In al-Naḥl the same movement is completed in two verses:

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra. And I record this as my own reading: the command does not set up a standing dependence. What is commanded to be asked about is placed, immediately afterwards, into the addressee's own hand.

This verse has been used in very different places and to very different ends throughout history. In this commentary nothing is loaded onto the verse beyond what its wording and its context give.

What the verse lays down in its own wording is this, and it can be gathered into three items:

Inferences that go beyond these three items — on what subject one is to ask whom, how an authority in knowledge is to be constituted, how binding it is — come not from the wording of the verse but from later debates. This commentary does not enter that debate, and no legal ruling is issued.

Rijāl — men. Some exegetes have drawn a ruling from this word; others record that the word is used here for the contrast not an angel, but a human being — because what the sentence is about is not the messenger's sex but his kind. I transmit both explanations and lay down no ruling in this commentary; the objection the verse answers is, in the text's own words, that the messenger is a mortal man.

زُبُر — the plural of zabūr, root ز-ب-ر: to write, to incise in stone. Zabara'l-kitāb — he wrote it. In the root there is hardness and permanence; zubratu'l-ḥadīd — a lump of iron.

The same pair occurred at Fāṭir, 35/25 (jāʾathum rusuluhum bi'l-bayyināti wa bi'l-zuburi wa bi'l-kitābi'l-munīr) — there it was a threesome, here a pair. This is an overlap verifiable across the sūras.

The root ب-ي-ن occurs at three different places in the sūra and in three different tasks, and this is one of the sūra's structural signs:

All four occurrences can be verified from the text. And I record this as my own reading: the work of making clear is distributed among three distinct subjects — the Book, the messenger, and finally God. And the order is worth recording: the Book makes clear, the messenger makes clear, and what is left over is made clear in the hereafter. A place is thus shown where disagreement will be closed, if it does not close in this world.

A-fa-amina'lladhīna makaru'l-sayyiʾāti an yakhsifa'llāhu bihimu'l-arḍa aw yaʾtiyahumu'l-ʿadhābu min ḥaythu lā yashʿurūn · Aw yaʾkhudhahum fī taqallubihim fa-mā hum bi-muʿjizīn · Aw yaʾkhudhahum ʿalā takhawwuf, fa-inna rabbakum la-raʾūfun raḥīm

"Do those who plotted evil feel safe that God will not make the earth swallow them, or that the punishment will not come at them from where they do not perceive it? · Or that He will not seize them as they go to and fro — and they cannot thwart Him. · Or that He will not seize them amid a mounting fear. Your Lord is truly most kind, most merciful."

The verse enumerates four possibilities, and their ordering must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this ordering: the list runs from the most sudden to the most gradual. The first two happen in an instant; the third while they are on the move; the fourth is spread over time.

And this must be recorded: wa atāhumu'l-ʿadhābu min ḥaythu lā yashʿurūn had already occurred in the twenty-sixth verse — about a people of the past. Here the same sentence comes back as a possibility. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and it turns an example into a warning.

تَقَلُّب — root ق-ل-ب: to turn, to overturn. A verbal noun of Form V: taqallub, to turn about, to pass from one state into another. The lexicographers record here in particular the going to and fro on the roads for trade.

تَخَوُّف — root خ-و-ف: fear. There is disagreement over the sense of the word here, and it must be set out in a table:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. The second reading sits better with the four-step ordering above — for what is expected at the end of the list is gradualness. I record this as an observation, not as a preference.

And the block closes once more with the same two names — the same closing as in the seventh verse.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra. And I record this as my own reading, its ground being these two contexts: the same two names, the one after a favour, the other after a threat. The verse thereby says that the deferral too comes from the same attribute — for not one of the four possibilities has come to pass.

A-wa-lam yaraw ilā mā khalaqa'llāhu min shayʾin yatafayyaʾu ẓilāluhū ʿani'l-yamīni wa'l-shamāʾili sujjadan li'llāhi wa hum dākhirūn · Wa li'llāhi yasjudu mā fi'l-samāwāti wa mā fi'l-arḍi min dābbatin wa'l-malāʾikatu wa hum lā yastakbirūn · Yakhāfūna rabbahum min fawqihim wa yafʿalūna mā yuʾmarūn

"Have they not looked at the things God has created? Their shadows turn to the right and to the left, prostrating themselves to God, and they are lowly. · To God prostrates whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth of living creatures, and the angels; and they do not make themselves great. · They fear their Lord above them, and they do what they are commanded."

The proof from the shadow was treated in detail in this commentary: at al-Furqān, 25/45-46 (a-lam tara ilā rabbika kayfa madda'l-ẓilla wa law shāʾa la-jaʿalahū sākinā, thumma jaʿalna'l-shamsa ʿalayhi dalīlā, thumma qabaḍnāhu ilaynā qabḍan yasīrā). I rely on that treatment and summarise what was recorded there:

"A shadow is a thing with no existence of its own. It cannot be held and cannot be measured; it exists only by the existence of something else. And it is precisely this that the verse makes into a proof." "What one expects is that the shadow should be the proof of the sun. The verse says the reverse: the sun is the proof of the shadow. When a shadow is to be read, the place to look is not the shadow itself — it is its source."

Now I compare the two verses, because they put the same fact to two different uses:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of agent: in al-Furqān the shadow is passive — it is stretched out and drawn in. In al-Naḥl the shadow is the agent: it turns of itself, it prostrates of itself. The same fact is given in the one as the object of an ordering, in the other as the subject of an obedience.

The choice of this word is the most striking thing in the verse, and the root was analysed in detail at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/9. I rely on that treatment and bring its notes over here:

"Root: ف-ي-ء. The primary sense the lexicographers record: to turn, to turn back. And the concrete picture in the root is this: al-fayʾ is the shadow that turns back after the sun has passed the zenith."

And the table of distinctions drawn up in al-Ḥujurāt works directly here:

And the picture recorded in the al-Ḥujurāt section was this: in the morning the shadow is long; as the sun rises it shortens; at noon it all but vanishes; then it turns back and lengthens until evening.

What belongs here must be recorded, and the verse uses the two words together: yatafayyaʾu ẓilāluhū. The verb is from the root ف-ي-ء, its subject from the root ظ-ل-ل.

I record this as an observation about the language: two roots come together in one sentence. The verse says "shadow", and names the work the shadow does with the verb to turn. A motionless object is thereby made a moving agent.

And it was recorded that in al-Ḥujurāt the verb tafīʾa was chosen for a moral turning — the attacking party's "returning to its place". In al-Naḥl the same verb tells of a turning that takes place in nature.

The same root: in the one a turning that is asked for, in the other a turning that takes place. This is an overlap verifiable across the sūras. And the idea recorded in al-Ḥujurāt of "returning to one's natural condition" stands, in al-Naḥl's usage, in the word's own home: the shadow turns not under compulsion but of itself, by the course of the sun.

There is an asymmetry in the wording, and the lexicographers dwell on it: al-yamīn is singular, al-shamāʾil plural.

All three explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. But the fact itself can be verified from the text and must be recorded.

And a note of method is needed here.

The verse ascribes prostration to the shadow. This is a pattern treated at many places in this commentary: the ascribing of an act to beings that are inanimate or without will.

The forty-ninth verse gives the scope openly: wa li'llāhi yasjudu mā fi'l-samāwāti wa mā fi'l-arḍi min dābbatin wa'l-malāʾika.

And the word order must be recorded: the angels are enumerated separately — wa'l-malāʾika. Yet "what is in the heavens" would already have covered them.

The lexicographers count this separate enumeration as takhṣīṣ (naming a thing specially). And I give this as an observation: the angels are named together with the note that follows immediately upon them, wa hum lā yastakbirūn (they do not make themselves great). The reason they are enumerated separately is therefore the attribute that follows.

دَآبَّة — root د-ب-ب: a living thing that moves upon the ground. The root was treated at al-Jāthiya, 45/4; I do not repeat it here.

The word was treated at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), 40/60, and I rely on that treatment. What was recorded there was this:

"دَاخِرِين — root د-خ-ر: to be made small, to bow the neck, to be brought low. The word is the exact opposite of pride, and it is set against it in the same sentence."

And this note from Ghāfir works here as well — and even more plainly:

The same two words, set against each other in two different sūras. This is an overlap verifiable across the sūras.

And the difference must be recorded; I give it as my own reading: in Ghāfir being dākhir is a punishment — the end of the one who makes himself great. In al-Naḥl it is a state — the attribute of what is already so. The same word, then, is in the one a position one is brought down to, in the other a position one already occupies.

The lexicographers dwell on the construction: min fawqihim — "from above them", or "who is above them".

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And the closing of the verse must be recorded: wa yafʿalūna mā yuʾmarūn — "and they do what they are commanded."

I give this as an observation, and it bears on the sūra as a whole: the forty-eighth verse enumerated the shadows, the forty-ninth living creatures and angels. The fiftieth ties their common attribute to a single act: obeying the command. And the sūra had already named, in its fourth verse, the one being that does not obey that command: khaṣīmun mubīn.

Wa qāla'llāhu lā tattakhidhū ilāhayni'thnayn, innamā huwa ilāhun wāḥid, fa-iyyāya fa'rhabūn · Wa lahū mā fi'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa lahu'l-dīnu wāṣibā, a-fa-ghayra'llāhi tattaqūn · Wa mā bikum min niʿmatin fa-mina'llāh, thumma idhā massakumu'l-ḍurru fa-ilayhi tajʾarūn

"God said: 'Do not take two gods; He is only one god. So fear Me, and Me alone.' · To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and the earth, and to Him belongs religion, unceasingly. Will you then guard yourselves against any but God? · Every favour you have is from God. Then, when hardship touches you, it is to Him that you cry aloud."

Ilāhayni is already dual. After it ithnayni (two) has been added.

The lexicographers count this as emphasis. But one further explanation belonging here must be recorded, and I give it as an observation: the stress falls not on two but on more than one. And the answering clause bears this out: innamā huwa ilāhun wāḥid — here too the adjective wāḥid (one) has been added separately.

On both sides, then, the sentence states the number outright. It is a symmetry of word order.

Two explanations of the sense of the root are transmitted:

The majority of the lexicographers give the first sense. I transmit both explanations; I do not impose a preference.

The word occurs in this form only here in the Qurʾān.

The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root thus: the long, pain-drawn bellowing of an animal. Juʾār — the cry of cattle and of like beasts.

The choice of the word is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the verse does not say tadʿūn (you call, you pray). It chooses the sound that comes before speech. The turning in the moment of distress is thus named not as a considered prayer but as a sound that escapes without thought.

The word occurs at few places in the Qurʾān; it is recorded that in this form it is found here and in the twenty-third sūra (al-Muʾminūn 23/64).

The same cycle was treated at many places in this commentary: al-ʿAnkabūt 29/65, al-Rūm 30/33 and 30/49-51, Luqmān 31/32. I rely on those treatments. In the al-Rūm section this cycle was tabulated: hardship → turning → mercy → association. al-Naḥl builds the same cycle between its fifty-third and fifty-fifth verses.

Thumma idhā kashafa'l-ḍurra ʿankum idhā farīqun minkum bi-rabbihim yushrikūn · Li-yakfurū bimā ātaynāhum, fa-tamattaʿū fa-sawfa taʿlamūn · Wa yajʿalūna li-mā lā yaʿlamūna naṣīban mimmā razaqnāhum, ta'llāhi la-tusʾalunna ʿammā kuntum taftarūn

"Then, when He removes the hardship from you, at once a party among you associates others with their Lord. · So as to be ungrateful for what We have given them. Take your enjoyment, then; you will come to know. · And out of the provision We have given them they set aside a share for what knows nothing. By God, you shall surely be questioned about what you were inventing."

There are two idhās in the sentence, and they do different work:

Idhā fujāʾiyya was treated at many places in this commentary: Yāsīn 36/77 and al-Rūm 30/20. And the same particle was used in the sūra's fourth verse (fa-idhā huwa khaṣīmun mubīn). This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the same particle is used in the sūra's fourth verse for the passage from creation to disputation, and in the fifty-fourth for the passage from rescue to association. Both passages are given in the same way, with the steps between them leapt over.

فَرِيقٌ مِّنكُم — and the scope must be recorded. The verse does not say "all of you": farīqun minkum — "a party among you". And the same care was recorded at al-ʿAnkabūt, 29/47; I rely on that treatment. Per the method (Method) the same line is kept here: the ruling is tied not to a group but to a stance.

The construction is read in two ways, and the disagreement must be recorded:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. The internal ground of the first reading is the twentieth verse (wa mā yashʿurūna ayyāna yubʿathūn); I record this as an observation.

تَٱللَّهِ — the oath particle tāʾ. In Arabic there are three oath particles (wāw, bāʾ, tāʾ), and the lexicographers record that the tāʾ is the least used of them and that it mostly conveys wonder and astonishment. And in the Qurʾān an oath with tāʾ comes only with the name Allāh.

Wa yajʿalūna li'llāhi'l-banāti subḥānahū wa lahum mā yashtahūn · Wa idhā bushshira aḥaduhum bi'l-unthā ẓalla wajhuhū muswaddan wa huwa kaẓīm · Yatawārā mina'l-qawmi min sūʾi mā bushshira bih, a-yumsikuhū ʿalā hūnin am yadussuhū fi'l-turāb, alā sāʾa mā yaḥkumūn

"They assign daughters to God — glory be to Him — and to themselves what they crave. · When one of them is given news of a girl, his face turns black and he is choked with rage. · He hides himself from the people because of the evil of the news given him: is he to keep her in humiliation, or bury her in the dust? Beware — evil is the judgement they make!"

In treating these three verses one thing must be kept clear from the start, and the same note was entered at al-Zukhruf, 43/17-18:

The verse lays down no ruling about women. The verse reports the stance of a society towards a female child, and shows the contradiction inside that stance.

And the evidence for this within the text is the wording of the verse. It is set out below.

The sentence is made of two halves, and the contrast between them is built by the choice of words:

The verb in the second half must be recorded: yashtahūn — root ش-ه-و: appetite, desire, the craving of the self.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this verb: in the second half the verse does not say "sons". It says "what they crave". The measure is thus named not as a fact but as an appetite. With this word the sentence says that the preference rests not on a judgement but on a craving.

And subḥānahū comes in between — between the two halves. I give this as an observation about the word order: the sentence of tanzīh is placed immediately after the ascription, before the comparison is made. The sentence thus rejects one half before it sets the two halves side by side.

This scene occurs in three places in the Qurʾān, and all three were treated in this commentary. The comparison was already made at al-Takwīr, 81/8-9 (mawʾūda), and at al-Zukhruf, 43/17 (bimā ḍaraba li'l-raḥmāni mathalā). I rely on those treatments and complete the table from here, from the place where the wording is plainest:

The three verses take hold of the same fact from three different sides, and this table is the completed form of what was drawn up in al-Takwīr and al-Zukhruf.

And I record this as my own reading, its ground being the fifth line: the one place where the word is said outright is al-Naḥl. al-Takwīr names the victim but does not say "girl"; al-Zukhruf does not say it at all, and leaves the reader alone with his own ascription. al-Naḥl builds the scene in full plainness, using the word itself. Read together, the three verses show the same event told from three distances: from closest up (al-Naḥl), from the victim's place (al-Takwīr), and from inside the mind (al-Zukhruf).

The root was analysed in detail at al-Shams, 91/10, and this verse was named there. I rely on that treatment and take over its notes:

"The concrete sense of the root: to push a thing secretly inside another, to hide it, to bury it." "دَسِيسَة (dasīsa) — a hidden trap, a stratagem. In Turkish the borrowed word is still in everyday use." "The verb دَسَّ, in the Qurʾān's own usage, means to put a living being under the earth."

And in the al-Shams section this connection was recorded: the root occurs in only two places in the Qurʾān — here and at al-Shams 91/10 (wa qad khāba man dassāhā). The verb used of the man who buries his own soul is thus the very verb of this verse.

What belongs here is the comparison of this verb with the other, and the verse offers two options:

هُون — root ه-و-ن: lightness, worthlessness, humiliation. Hawn — ease; hūn / hawān — humiliation. The same root opens in two opposite directions, and the lexicographers record it: a thing's being light is either ease or worthlessness.

And the side of the two options that must be recorded is this: the verse offers no good option. The first is "to keep" — but ʿalā hūn, in humiliation. Both of the ways offered are evil, and the verse closes on both with a sentence of judgement: alā sāʾa mā yaḥkumūn.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the qualification ʿalā hūn: what the verse condemns is not the act of burying alone. How the keeping is done is condemned as well. The diagnosis therefore begins before the killing — in the counting of a child as a burden and a shame.

This sentence occurred word for word at al-Zukhruf, 43/17, and was treated there in detail. I rely on that treatment and summarise its notes:

"ظَلَّ is a defective verb: to be in a state through the day, to remain in that state. The sentence therefore does not say 'his face turned black'; it says 'his face remained blackened'. It conveys duration." "مُسْوَدًّا — root س-و-د, an active participle of Form IX. In Arabic Form IX (ifʿilāl) is used almost only for colours and defects, and the form conveys a colour's settling upon a person." "كَظِيم — root ك-ظ-م. Kaẓama'l-qirba — he filled a waterskin and tied its mouth. Kaẓīm is on the faʿīl pattern and denotes one who ties his own mouth shut; makẓūm (al-Qalam 68/48) denotes one stopped up from outside."

I do not repeat it here. Two things belong here.

One — the difference between bi'l-unthā and bimā ḍaraba. In al-Zukhruf the word did not occur at all; here it does. In the al-Zukhruf section it was recorded: "The word — 'girl' — does not occur in the sentence. In its place the man's own ascription is used as a definition." al-Naḥl does not do this.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: al-Zukhruf hides the word in order to show the contradiction. al-Naḥl says the word in order to tell what happened. The work of the two verses differs, and so does their wording.

Two — the tension produced by the verb bushshira. It was recorded in al-Zukhruf: bushshira is the verb for announcing good news; the reaction that follows is the reaction to bad news. In naming the event, then, the verse declares its side: what has happened is glad tidings.

And al-Naḥl does this once more, with the same root and more sharply: min sūʾi mā bushshira bih — "because of the evil of what he was given glad tidings of".

This construction must be recorded, and it was named in al-Zukhruf as well: sūʾ (evil) and bushshira (he was given glad tidings) stand side by side within a single expression. The two words give each other the lie.

I give this as my own reading; its ground is that juxtaposition: the evil lies not in the event but in the appraisal. The verse goes on calling the thing "glad tidings" and does not ascribe the evil to it — sūʾi mā bushshira bih, "the evil of what he was given glad tidings of", is the evil as it stands in the man's own eyes. The sentence transmits an appraisal; it does not lay down a ruling.

The root: to hide oneself, to take cover behind something. Warāʾ — what is behind; tawārā — he drew back, he hid himself.

And the object of the verb must be recorded: mina'l-qawm — "from the people". The party he hides from is his own community.

I give this as an observation, and it agrees with the historical frame recorded in al-Takwīr: it was recorded there that this practice was not widespread, but known and capable of being condoned. The wording of the verse supports this: had the practice been counted ordinary by the society, there would have been no need to hide. The man hides from a shame — and the verse says what the shame is: that a girl has been given to him.

The historical frame of this subject was given in detail in al-Takwīr: the two distinct motives the Qurʾān names (shame and the fear of poverty), the need to avoid both exaggerations about how widespread the practice was, and the fact that it was not the characteristic of one people. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it here.

Only this need be added here: these three verses of al-Naḥl are the plainest textual source for the "shame" motive within that frame. al-Isrāʾ 17/31 and al-Anʿām 6/151 say "your children" and do not specify sex; this verse, by saying bi'l-unthā, names a distinct fact.

The closing comes with a verb of giving judgement: yaḥkumūn.

And this must be recorded: what was done in the fifty-seventh verse was also a judgement — assigning daughters to God and to themselves what they crave. What is done in the fifty-ninth is also a judgement — whether to keep or to bury.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the verb itself: the verse names in a single word what it has been describing for three verses: the giving of judgement. And the judgement given is wrong in two places at once — both in what is ascribed above and in what is decided at home. The same measure is at work in two different places.

Lilladhīna lā yuʾminūna bi'l-ākhirati mathalu'l-sawʾ, wa li'llāhi'l-mathalu'l-aʿlā, wa huwa'l-ʿazīzu'l-ḥakīm · Wa law yuʾākhidhu'llāhu'l-nāsa bi-ẓulmihim mā taraka ʿalayhā min dābbatin wa lākin yuʾakhkhiruhum ilā ajalin musammā · Wa yajʿalūna li'llāhi mā yakrahūna wa taṣifu alsinatuhumu'l-kadhiba anna lahumu'l-ḥusnā, lā jarama anna lahumu'l-nāra wa annahum mufraṭūn

"To those who do not believe in the hereafter belongs the likeness of evil; and to God belongs the highest likeness. He is the Mighty, the Wise. · Were God to take people to task for their wrongdoing He would not leave a single creature upon the earth; but He defers them to an appointed term. · They assign to God what they themselves dislike, and their tongues frame the lie that the best is theirs. Beyond doubt the Fire is theirs, and they are sent on ahead."

This verse occurs at Fāṭir, 35/45, in almost the same words, and was treated there in detail as the closing verse of that sūra. I rely on that treatment. What was recorded there:

"عَلَىٰ ظَهْرِهَا — 'upon its back'. The verse does not say what the pronoun refers to; the lexicographers record that it is the earth." "In telling of the deferral of the punishment the scope is not kept to man — min dābba, every living thing upon the earth." "إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى — to a term that has been named. The same construction was treated at al-Aḥqāf, 46/3, and at al-Zumar, 39/42."

The difference that belongs here must be recorded, and it is a single word:

I record this as an observation: Fāṭir uses a general word for what is earned; al-Naḥl, in the middle of a sūra and directly after the scene of the infant daughter, narrows the word and says wrongdoing. The context explains the choice of word.

The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root thus: to go ahead, to go in front; and to neglect a thing and leave it behind. Faraṭ — the scout who goes ahead of the caravan to find water.

There is disagreement over the reading and the sense of the word here, and it must be set out in a table:

All three readings are transmitted in the sources on the variant readings, and the sense changes accordingly. I do not impose a preference.

And the first reading has a certain internal appeal, which I record as an observation: an irony is set up between the concrete picture in the root (the scout of the caravan) and the subject of the sentence (the going to the Fire) — to be in front is not, this time, a distinction.

Ta'llāhi laqad arsalnā ilā umamin min qablika fa-zayyana lahumu'l-shayṭānu aʿmālahum fa-huwa waliyyuhumu'l-yawma wa lahum ʿadhābun alīm · Wa mā anzalnā ʿalayka'l-kitāba illā li-tubayyina lahumu'lladhi'khtalafū fīhi wa hudan wa raḥmatan li-qawmin yuʾminūn

"By God, We sent messengers to communities before you; but Satan made their deeds seem fair to them. Today too he is their patron, and for them there is a painful punishment. · We sent down the Book to you only that you might make clear to them that over which they differed, and as guidance and mercy for a people who believe."

The root ز-ي-ن and the verb tazyīn were treated at many places in this commentary, and a pattern was recorded there: at Fāṭir, 35/8, and at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), 40/37, the verb came in the passive — the one who made things seem fair was not named.

Here the agent is named: fa-zayyana lahumu'l-shayṭān.

This is a difference that must be recorded, and I give it as an observation: the same verb comes in some places without an agent and in others with one. And even where the agent is named, man's responsibility is not lifted — for the verse says fa-huwa waliyyuhum: the patronage is a relationship that has been accepted.

It must be recorded: the sentence li-yubayyina lahumu'lladhī yakhtalifūna fīh occurred in the thirty-ninth verse — there the subject was God and the time was the hereafter.

In the sixty-fourth the same sentence returns with the subject changed: li-tubayyina lahumu'lladhi'khtalafū fīh — the subject is the Prophet, the time this world.

The difference of tense must be recorded, and I give it as my own reading: in the thirty-ninth verse the disagreement is something still going on; in the sixty-fourth something already over. The Book, then, is for making clear a disagreement that ought to have been settled; the hereafter, for closing the one that goes on.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and the root's series in the sūra has five links (39, 44, 64, 89, 92) — all five from the root ب-ي-ن, and all five tying the work of making clear to a different subject or to a different time.

Wa'llāhu anzala mina'l-samāʾi māʾan fa-aḥyā bihi'l-arḍa baʿda mawtihā, inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-qawmin yasmaʿūn

"God sent down water from the sky and with it revived the earth after its death. In that there is a sign for a people who hear."

And the opening is a repetition of an item from the first enumeration: the tenth verse too said anzala mina'l-samāʾi māʾan.

The difference must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the difference between the two verses: in the first enumeration the water was named as a benefit; in the second as a proof. The same fact is thus enumerated twice, and in two different tasks.

And the proof from iḥyāʾ baʿda'l-mawt was treated at many places in this commentary: Fāṭir 35/9 (ka-dhālika'l-nushūr), Qāf 50/11 (ka-dhālika'l-khurūj), Fuṣṣilat 41/39, al-Rūm 30/50. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here must be recorded: in al-Naḥl no link to the resurrection is added to this proof. Fāṭir says ka-dhālika'l-nushūr, Qāf says ka-dhālika'l-khurūj; al-Naḥl says only la-āyatan li-qawmin yasmaʿūn.

I give this as an observation: here the sūra ties the proof not to resurrection but to hearing. And this fits the series of the sūra's closing verbs — the fifth verb enters here.

Wa inna lakum fi'l-anʿāmi la-ʿibra, nusqīkum mimmā fī buṭūnihī min bayni farthin wa damin labanan khāliṣan sāʾighan li'l-shāribīn

"In the livestock too there is a lesson for you: from what is in their bellies, from between the farth and the blood, We give you pure milk to drink, going down easily for those who drink it."

This verse is one of the places most often used for claims of scientific miracle. This commentary does not take that road.

The reason is an explicit clause of the method: "No hunting for scientific miracles. No modern knowledge is forced onto a verse."

And I add two practical reasons, the same as those written at al-Qamar, 54/1:

One. The words of the verse were chosen not as the description of a physiology but as the description of a kitchen. It is shown below: the words are not the laboratory's but those of a man who slaughters an animal and opens its belly.

Two, and more important: if you tie the truth of a text to a current scientific interpretation, then when the interpretation changes you have brought the text down along with it. And the verse's own sentence does not ask for this — what it says is given below, in its own words.

The concrete sense of the root: to cross from one bank to the other. ʿUbūr — a crossing; maʿbar — a ford; ʿibāra — the speech that carries a meaning from one mind to another; taʿbīr (the interpretation of dreams) — to pass from the image to the meaning.

The choice of the word must be recorded, and it shows what the verse is doing: the verse does not say āya (sign), it says ʿibra. What is asked for, then, is a crossing from the visible to the unseen.

I give this as my own reading; its ground is the root itself: the word names not a place to stay but a place to cross. And all the detail of the verse — the farth, the blood, the milk — are the steps of that crossing, not its destination.

فَرْث — root ف-ر-ث: the sense the lexicographers give is the digested fodder in an animal's stomach. The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

And the construction must be recorded: min bayni farthin wa dam — "from between the farth and the blood".

I give this as an observation: the verse enumerates three things in succession and gives the middle one a position. The words are what could be seen in the belly of a slaughtered animal — the fodder in the stomach, the blood, and the milk. The description thus stands at the edge of what can be observed.

And there is no claim about a mechanism beyond that in the verse. The verse gives no name of an organ and describes no process. All it says is where the thing that comes out comes from.

The concrete sense of the root: a thing's separating out of a mixture and becoming pure. Khāliṣ — unmixed; ikhlāṣ — the making of religion unmixed. The root was the backbone of al-Zumar and was treated there in detail; I do not repeat it here.

And the work of the word here must be recorded: the verse enumerated two mixed things (the farth and the blood), then names what comes out khāliṣ. The word is thus placed not as a statement of chemistry but as the counterpart of the two words before it.

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the three words: the farth and the dam are mixed; the laban is unmixed. What the sentence does is to say that a separation takes place in between — not how it takes place.

The word was treated at Fāṭir, 35/12, and I rely on that treatment. What was recorded there was this:

"سَآئِغ — root س-و-غ: to pass easily down the throat. The word describes the drinkability of water by way of ease of swallowing — that is, not a chemical description but a bodily experience."

And this note holds exactly for this verse too. The two occurrences can be set side by side:

The difference must be recorded, and I give it as an observation: in Fāṭir the word was part of a comparison; in al-Naḥl it stands alone. And al-Naḥl adds a qualification: li'l-shāribīn — "for those who drink". The ease is described from the drinker's side.

The principle recorded in the Fāṭir section holds here too, and I repeat it: the verse's description is not chemical but bodily. This is linguistic evidence enough not to turn the verse into a text of physiology.

Wa min thamarāti'l-nakhīli wa'l-aʿnābi tattakhidhūna minhu sakaran wa rizqan ḥasanā, inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-qawmin yaʿqilūn

"And from the fruits of the date palm and the vine you take both sakar and a good provision. In that there is a sign for a people who reason."

Root: س-ك-ر. The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root thus: to cut off the flow of a thing, to block it. Sakara'l-nahra — he dammed the river; from this, sakr — the blocking of the mind's way, drunkenness. The same picture in the root is seen elsewhere in the Qurʾān as well: sukkirat abṣārunā — "our eyes have been sealed over" (al-Ḥijr 15/15).

There is disagreement over the sense of the word here, and it must be set out in a table:

All three views are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And what must be recorded in point of word order is this: the verse separates two things with a wāw: sakaran and rizqan ḥasanā. The two are therefore not the same thing. And only the second is given an adjective: ḥasan (good).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this asymmetry of adjectives: that no adjective is given to the first shows that the sentence sets no value upon it. The second is expressly described as "good". The sentence enumerates two products but does not put them on a level.

No legal ruling is issued. In the classical sources the relation of this verse to the ruling on wine has been debated at length; this commentary does not enter that debate. What the verse does in its wording is to separate two products and to call only one of them "good".

In the eleventh verse al-nakhīl and al-aʿnāb had already been enumerated — in their raw state. In the sixty-seventh the same pair comes back with its processed product.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra. And I record this as my own reading, its ground being the change of verb: in the eleventh verse the verb is yunbitu — God brings forth. In the sixty-seventh, tattakhidhūna — you take. The second enumeration thus takes the human hand into the list as well.

And this also shows how an item of the enumeration can be misused: two things come out of the same fruit, and the two are not equal. The enumeration records how what is given is used as well.

Wa awḥā rabbuka ila'l-naḥli ani'ttakhidhī mina'l-jibāli buyūtan wa mina'l-shajari wa mimmā yaʿrishūn · Thumma kulī min kulli'l-thamarāti fa'slukī subula rabbiki dhululā, yakhruju min buṭūnihā sharābun mukhtalifun alwānuhū fīhi shifāʾun li'l-nās, inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-qawmin yatafakkarūn

"Your Lord revealed to the honey bee: 'Take houses in the mountains, in the trees, and in the trellises men put up. · Then eat of every kind of fruit, and enter the ways of your Lord in submission.' From their bellies comes a drink of differing colours, in which there is healing for people. In that there is a sign for a people who think."

This is where the sūra takes its name, and I treat this verse in detail, because the use of the word gives direct information about the Qurʾān's vocabulary.

Root: و-ح-ي. The root was analysed in detail at al-Najm, 53/4, and the same analysis was relied upon at al-Shūrā, 42/3. I rely on that treatment and bring its definition over here:

"The concrete sense of the root: swift and hidden communication. The definition the lexicographers give joins two features of the word — speed and concealment. To convey by a sign, by a whisper, by the short way." "There is no 'sacredness' at the centre of the word; there is speed and concealment." (The same note was entered in al-Zilzāl.)

And in the al-Najm section the field of the root's use was tabulated, and this verse was already named there. I complete the table from here:

The conclusion recorded in the al-Najm section can be carried straight over here, and I repeat it: these usages show that the root does not carry the sense "prophethood". The root names only the manner of the communication: swift, direct, without an intermediary, most often by an unseen route.

Now I add what belongs here, and I record it as my own reading, its ground being the primary sense of the root:

The two features of the root — speed and concealment — are exactly met in the case of the bee.

The word, then, is used not in a figure but in its own primary sense. And this is a fact about language that must be recorded: because in English the word "revelation" is used only in the setting of prophecy, this verse reads oddly in English. In Arabic it does not — for the word names the character of the communication, not the one it is addressed to.

And I go no further than this: the verse names where the bee's knowledge comes from; it does not describe how it works.

And there is a striking feature in the wording: the imperatives are in the feminine singular.

al-Naḥl is a generic noun in Arabic that may be treated as masculine or as feminine; the verse chooses the feminine inflection. The lexicographers put this down to the word's being a generic noun and to the prevalence of the feminine usage.

And the verb's pronoun is singular, but the next sentence passes into the plural: yakhruju min buṭūnihā — "from their bellies". The lexicographers explain this by the distinction between the form and the sense of a generic noun.

And one further note: the order of the commands builds an order of life.

I record this as an observation about the word order: three commands are given, and the fourth sentence is not a command. The coming forth of the honey is not commanded — it is announced as the outcome of the three commands.

عَرْش, root ع-ر-ش: to raise, to put up a roof, to build a trellis. ʿArsh — a raised throne; ʿarīsh — a vine trellis.

And the pronoun must be recorded: yaʿrishūn — plural, third person, human beings. The third kind of house is thus what men build.

I give this as an observation: the verse enumerates three shelters — mountain, tree, and human construction. Man is not outside the order the verse sets out; he is named as an item within it.

سَلَكَ — root س-ل-ك: to enter upon a way, to be threaded into something. Silk — a string, to thread on a string.

ذُلُلًا — root ذ-ل-ل: to submit, to be docile. The plural of dhalūl; it is used of a tame, broken-in animal — dābbatun dhalūl, a beast easy to ride.

Two readings of the word's case are transmitted, and the disagreement must be recorded:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And a connection can be made with al-Ḥujurāt, and I give it as an observation: dākhirūn (bowed low) occurred in the forty-eighth verse — of the shadows and of those who prostrate. Here dhulul occurs — of the bee. Both words carry the same idea, and the sūra sets them twenty verses apart.

The construction mukhtalifun alwānuhū occurs for the second time in the sūra (in the thirteenth verse wa mā dharaʾa lakum fi'l-arḍi mukhtalifan alwānuh occurred). And at Fāṭir, 35/27-28, it had been repeated three times.

I complete the table as the fourth link:

And the fifth link stands apart from the rest. I record this as my own reading, its ground being the list itself: in the first four links the diversity is in the created thing itself — fruit, stone, living creature, what is strewn on the earth. In the fifth link the diversity is in what a living creature produces.

The construction thus passes from direct creation to an intermediary. And the conclusion recorded at Fāṭir, 35/28 — three distinct domains, one shared attribute: diversity — goes one step further here: in products as well.

And in Fāṭir this threesome was followed by innamā yakhsha'llāha min ʿibādihi'l-ʿulamāʾ — the conclusion of a list of observations. In al-Naḥl what follows is li-qawmin yatafakkarūn. The two sūras tie the same fact to two different capacities: the one to knowing, the other to thinking.

Care is needed here, and per the method (Method) the limit must be set openly.

شِفَآء — root ش-ف-ي: to be healed; and to come to the edge, to the brink of a thing. Shafā — an edge, a brink (in the Qurʾān, shafā ḥufratin — the brink of a pit). The lexicographers join the two branches: shifāʾ is to come to the edge of an illness and to pass beyond it.

The wording of the verse is this, and nothing is added to it: fīhi shifāʾun li'l-nās — "in it there is healing for people."

Three things must be recorded in the wording, and all three can be verified from the text:

These three notes are the textual barrier against turning the verse into a medical claim. The sentence is not a prescription; it is a nominal sentence with an indefinite noun.

And the classical exegetes too have differed over the scope of this expression. The disagreement must be set out in a table:

The third view is a minority one and is weak in point of word order — the nearest referent is sharāb. But it is transmitted, and I record it. I do not impose a preference.

And no medical ruling is issued in this commentary. The wording of the verse says that there is a benefit in a substance; for which disease, in what measure, on what condition — none of this is in the verse, and none of it is written here.

As my own reading I record only this, its ground being the closing of the verse: having said fīhi shifāʾun li'l-nās, the sentence does not stop — inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-qawmin yatafakkarūn. The verse itself turns the attention from the honey to thinking. And the word used in the sixty-sixth verse should be recalled: ʿibra — the place where one crosses.

The sūra takes its name from this verse, and this is worth recording.

I give this as an observation: the sūra has a hundred and twenty-eight verses, and within it are prophetic narratives, rulings, parables, history. It takes its name from a passage about a bee two verses long.

And that passage stands in the very middle of the sūra's enumeration of favours. The naming thus points to the sūra's backbone: an item from within the enumeration has become the name of the whole.

Wa'llāhu khalaqakum thumma yatawaffākum, wa minkum man yuraddu ilā ardhali'l-ʿumuri li-kay lā yaʿlama baʿda ʿilmin shayʾā, inna'llāha ʿalīmun qadīr

"God created you, then He takes you. And some of you are sent back to the most abject stage of life, so that after knowing they should know nothing. God is knowing, all-powerful."

The root ر-ذ-ل was treated at al-Shuʿarāʾ, 26/111 (wa'ttabaʿaka'l-ardhalūn): what is worthless, low, of no use in a thing; ardhal — the elative: the lowest. And this verse was already named there. I rely on that treatment.

And at al-Tīn, 95/5 (thumma radadnāhu asfala sāfilīn), this verse was used in a table of disagreement as evidence for one of the readings: the sense of the verb radda as "turning back, returning" and its use in this verse were recorded there. I rely on that treatment.

What belongs here is that the sentence is built on the axis of knowledge, and this must be recorded:

Li-kay lā yaʿlama baʿda ʿilmin shayʾā — "so that after knowing he should know nothing."

Decline, then, is described not as a weakness of the body but as the taking back of knowledge.

And this has a counterpart within the sūra. The seventy-eighth verse will build the same axis from the other end: wa'llāhu akhrajakum min buṭūni ummahātikum lā taʿlamūna shayʾā.

This is an overlap verifiable within the sūra, and eight verses stand between the two. I record this as my own reading: the sūra bounds a human life at both ends with the same word (shayʾā — nothing at all). At the beginning nothing is known; at the end what was known is taken back. And what is given in between will be enumerated in the seventy-eighth verse: hearing, eyes, hearts.

At al-Rūm, 30/54, the three stages of life (weakness → strength → weakness and grey hair) were treated and compared with the six steps at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), 40/67. I rely on that treatment and record the difference here: al-Rūm and Ghāfir measure the stages by the body; al-Naḥl by knowledge.

Wa'llāhu faḍḍala baʿḍakum ʿalā baʿḍin fi'l-rizq, fa-ma'lladhīna fuḍḍilū bi-rāddī rizqihim ʿalā mā malakat aymānuhum fa-hum fīhi sawāʾ, a-fa-bi-niʿmati'llāhi yajḥadūn

"God has favoured some of you over others in provision. Those who are favoured do not hand their provision over to those their right hands possess, so as to be their equals in it. Do they then knowingly deny God's favour?"

The verse gives an example, and the example is taken from the addressee's own life.

And its logic must be recorded, because it is indirect:

The exegetes dwell on the work of the second step, and two readings are transmitted:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

The first reading has a ground outside the verse, and it must be recorded: at al-Rūm, 30/28, a parable of exactly the same logic occurs (hal lakum min mā malakat aymānukum min shurakāʾa fī mā razaqnākum fa-antum fīhi sawāʾ) and was treated there. The two verses use the same words: mā malakat aymānukum, fī mā razaqnākum, fa-antum fīhi sawāʾ. This is an overlap verifiable across the sūras.

The difference must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading, its ground being the difference of the closings: al-Rūm ends the example with a call to reason; al-Naḥl ties the same example to an accounting of favour. The sūra draws a shared parable onto its own backbone.

The root was treated at al-Aḥqāf, 46/26, and the connection the lexicographers record was given there: arḍun juḥād — barren, arid ground. Denial is thus described not as ignorance but as a ground that does not give back what it has taken. I rely on that treatment.

And I record that the word falls very much in its place here: juḥūd is denial against knowledge. And the subject of the verse is the denial of the source of an advantage that is known. The eighty-third verse will say this outright: yaʿrifūna niʿmata'llāhi thumma yunkirūnahā — "they recognise it, then they deny it."

Wa'llāhu jaʿala lakum min anfusikum azwājan wa jaʿala lakum min azwājikum banīna wa ḥafadatan wa razaqakum mina'l-ṭayyibāt, a-fa-bi'l-bāṭili yuʾminūna wa bi-niʿmati'llāhi hum yakfurūn

"God made for you spouses of your own kind, and from your spouses He gave you sons and grandsons, and He provided you with wholesome things. Do they then believe in what is false and deny God's favour?"

The construction was treated at al-Rūm, 30/21 (an khalaqa lakum min anfusikum azwājan li-taskunū ilayhā), and the disagreement was tabulated there: "of the same kind, or of the same stock". I rely on that treatment.

The difference that belongs here must be recorded, and the two verses do not arrive at the same place:

I record this as an observation: al-Rūm names the pairing by way of an inward state; al-Naḥl by way of a continuation. The two verses take hold of the same fact at two different points, and both are enumerated as favours.

The concrete sense of the root: to serve swiftly, to bustle about, to hurry to another's help. Ḥafada — he was quick in service.

There is disagreement over the sense of the word, and it must be set out in a table:

All three views are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And the sense of the root lends the second view a certain appeal — but the first is the more established in point of word order. I give this as an observation, not as a preference.

And the question is built upon a reversal:

I record this as an observation about the word order: the two verbs have changed places. The verb of believing is turned towards what is empty, the verb of denying towards what is real. The sentence does not state this separately; it shows it by the arrangement.

بَٰطِل — root ب-ط-ل: to come to nothing, to be void, to vanish. The lexicographers record the root's sense of "what is not fixed, what cannot keep its footing".

Wa yaʿbudūna min dūni'llāhi mā lā yamliku lahum rizqan mina'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi shayʾan wa lā yastaṭīʿūn · Fa-lā taḍribū li'llāhi'l-amthāl, inna'llāha yaʿlamu wa antum lā taʿlamūn

"And they serve, besides God, things that hold no provision for them from the heavens or the earth, and have no power to. · So do not coin likenesses for God. God knows, and you do not know."

This verse must be read with care, because immediately afterwards the sūra will give two parables (75-76).

The contradiction is only apparent, and its resolution lies in one word: li'llāh — "for God".

What is forbidden is not the making of parables; it is the coining of likenesses for God — that is, the attempt to describe Him by a comparison, to fit Him into a mould.

And the evidence for this is what comes two verses later: ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan — "God has coined a likeness." Coining a likeness is not forbidden; coining one about God is.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that these verses stand back to back: the verse marks in advance by whom the parables of the seventy-fifth and seventy-sixth verses are framed. When the agent changes, the ruling changes too.

The same principle was recorded at al-Rūm, 30/27 (wa lahu'l-mathalu'l-aʿlā fi'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ), and the same construction occurred in the sixtieth verse of this sūra (wa li'llāhi'l-mathalu'l-aʿlā). This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

Ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan ʿabdan mamlūkan lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾin wa man razaqnāhu minnā rizqan ḥasanan fa-huwa yunfiqu minhu sirran wa jahrā, hal yastawūn, al-ḥamdu li'llāh, bal aktharuhum lā yaʿlamūn

"God has coined a likeness: a slave owned by another, with power over nothing; and a man to whom We have given a good provision from Ourselves, and who spends of it in secret and openly. Are they equal? Praise belongs to God. No, most of them do not know."

The example is taken from the life of that day, and it has two sides:

And at the axis of the contrast there is one word: power. The first lā yaqdiru, the second is in fact spending. The comparison is thus built not on ownership but on the power to dispose.

سِرًّا وَجَهْرًا — at al-Baqara, 2/271, it was treated that both secret and open giving are counted lawful, and at Fāṭir, 35/29, it was recorded that the two are named with a wāw, no distinction being drawn. I rely on those treatments. Here too they are named together with a wāw.

Wa ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan rajulayni aḥaduhumā abkamu lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾin wa huwa kallun ʿalā mawlāhu, aynamā yuwajjihhu lā yaʾti bi-khayr, hal yastawī huwa wa man yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadli wa huwa ʿalā ṣirāṭin mustaqīm

"God has coined another likeness: two men. One of them is mute and has power over nothing; he is a burden to his master, and wherever he is sent he brings back nothing good. Is he equal to one who enjoins justice and is himself upon a straight path?"

In two verses the sūra gives two parables, and both open with the same verb: ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan.

And at al-Zumar, 39/29, there was a paired parable too — two slaves. The three must be compared:

What was recorded in the al-Zumar section was this, and I take it as ground here: "The verse does not argue the theoretical falsity of plurality — it shows its practical consequence. A man with more than one owner cannot know whose measure to act by." The matter is thus taken out of a dispute about belief and made a question of direction.

al-Naḥl's two parables use the same method but arrive somewhere else. I record this as my own reading, and my ground is the axis of distinction in the three parables:

In al-Zumar the measure is whom you belong to. In al-Naḥl the measure is what you are able to do.

And al-Naḥl's two parables complete each other:

The shared expression must be recorded: lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾ occurs in both parables. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

And the difference is this: in the first parable the other side gives (property), in the second he speaks (justice). In two verses the sūra thus enumerates two kinds of benefit — the material and the spoken.

And the closing of the second parable prepares the ninetieth verse: wa man yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadl. The ninetieth will open with the same word: inna'llāha yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadli wa'l-iḥsān. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and it will be treated at that verse.

The sense of the root: dumbness; and there is a distinction the lexicographers record.