al-Anbiyāʾ 21:16-18

Wa mā khalaqna's-samāʾa wa'l-arḍa wa mā baynahumā lāʿibīn · Law aradnā an nattakhidha lahwan la'ttakhadhnāhu min ladunnā in kunnā fāʿilīn · Bal naqdhifu bi'l-ḥaqqi ʿala'l-bāṭili fa-yadmaghuhu fa-idhā huwa zāhiq, wa lakumu'l-waylu mimmā taṣifūn

"We did not create the heaven and the earth and what is between them in play. · Had We wanted a diversion, We would have taken it from Our own presence — if We were to do such a thing. · No! We hurl the truth against falsehood and it crushes its skull; and at once falsehood is gone. Woe to you for what you ascribe!"

This sentence was treated in detail at al-Dukhān on 44/38, and this verse was expressly named there. The note there:

"The word is in the accusative and is a circumstantial qualifier: 'as players'. […] The sentence does not say 'we did not create'. Mā khalaqnā … lāʿibīn — what is negated is not the act but the state of the act."

And the note about bi'l-ḥaqq was treated at al-Jāthiya on 45/22 and at al-Aḥqāf on 46/3. The two notes tabulated at al-Aḥqāf were: bi'l-ḥaqq — not in vain; ajalin musammā — not without end. I rely on those treatments.

Here I add what is peculiar to al-Anbiyāʾ, and it is seen in a table of the three sūras:

And the most important difference is in the last row — I give this as my own reading: in al-Aḥqāf and al-Dukhān ḥaqq is an attribute of the creating. In al-Anbiyāʾ ḥaqq is used like a weapon: it is hurled, it strikes, it shatters. The same word: in two sūras a quality, here an act.

A difference of wording must also be recorded: al-Dukhān says al-samāwāt (plural), al-Anbiyāʾ al-samāʾ (singular). This is a verifiable difference, and I build no ruling upon it.

The seventeenth verse strengthens the negation of the sixteenth with a conditional sentence.

Law — the particle that conveys a condition unfulfilled. And the sentence is in three parts: the condition (law aradnā) → the answer (la'ttakhadhnāhu min ladunnā) → a second note (in kunnā fāʿilīn).

مِن لَّدُنَّا — "from Our own presence". And the work of this note must be recorded: the sentence does not say "we would not have taken a diversion"; it says "had we taken one, we would not have taken it from here".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the preposition: min ladunnā conveys a source. That is, the verse says that the heaven and the earth are not used as material for a diversion — what has been created is not put in the class of playthings.

In kunnā fāʿilīn — there is disagreement about it:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. On the second reading the sentence, having set up the condition, tears it up by the root.

And this is the harshest sequence of words in the sūra. Three verbs come one after another, and all three describe a physical collision.

نَقْذِفُ — root ق-ذ-ف. The sense the lexicographers give: to throw a thing far and fast, to hurl it. Qadhafa bi'l-ḥajar — he hurled the stone. The word occurs in the Qurʾān in places conveying a throwing, and in Sūrat al-Nūr it is used of slander (whence the term yarmūna/qadhf): a word too counts as a hurling.

And the prepositions must be recorded: naqdhifu bi'l-ḥaqqi ʿala'l-bāṭil. Bi conveys the instrument, ʿalā the target. That is, the truth is framed like a body hurled upon falsehood.

يَدْمَغُ — root د-م-غ. And the word is analysed here for the first time in this commentary.

Al-dimāgh — the brain. Damaghahu — he struck him on the brain, broke the skull and reached the brain. The definition the lexicographers give is extremely narrow: damgh is the blow's passing through the bone and reaching the brain; among the degrees of wounding that passed into Arab legal language, al-dāmigha is the gravest head wound, the one that tears the membrane of the brain.

So the verb does not say "it defeats" or "it silences". Yadmaghuhu — "it shatters its brain".

I do not soften the harshness of the word, because the verse does not soften it. And I record this as my own reading: the three words together build a scene of hunting or of battle. Falsehood here is not an opinion under discussion but a body that has been struck.

زَاهِق — root ز-ه-ق. This root too is analysed here for the first time in this commentary.

Zahaqa — to perish, to go out and away. And the primary use the lexicographers record: zahaqati'n-nafs — the life went out. The Qurʾān contains this use as well: wa tazhaqa anfusuhum wa hum kāfirūn (al-Tawba 9/55, 85).

That is, zāhiq does not mean "false". Zāhiq is that whose life has gone out.

Fa-idhā huwa zāhiq — and here there is the idhā of surprise: "and at once". The outcome comes without the process being told.

And an observation about the structure: two of the three verbs are imperfect (naqdhifu, yadmaghu) — that is, they convey continuity; while the outcome is given with a nominal sentence (huwa zāhiq) — that is, fixity. The throw is repeated; the outcome does not change.

وَلَكُمُ ٱلْوَيْلُ مِمَّا تَصِفُونَ — the root و-ص-ف: to describe a thing, to frame an attribute of it.

And this word is one of the frame-words of the sūra:

Three occurrences, at the beginning, the middle and the end of the sūra. This is a countable fact and will be tabulated at the end.