al-Anbiyāʾ 21:2-3

Mā yaʾtīhim min dhikrin min rabbihim muḥdathin illa'stamaʿūhu wa hum yalʿabūn · Lāhiyatan qulūbuhum wa asarru'n-najwa'lladhīna ẓalamū hal hādhā illā basharun mithlukum a-fa-taʾtūna's-siḥra wa antum tubṣirūn

"No new remembrance comes to them from their Lord but they listen to it in play · their hearts distracted. Those who do wrong spread the whisper in secret: 'Is this anything but a human being like yourselves? Will you go to sorcery with your eyes open?'"

The word muḥdath was analysed at al-Shuʿarāʾ on 26/5. What was recorded there holds here as well:

"The root ح-د-ث: to come about afterwards, to occur. Ḥadīth — what is new, an event, a saying. مُحْدَث — a passive participle: brought into being afterwards, newly sent down. […] The word is an attribute of dhikr and looks to the moment of revelation: each newly descending portion."

And a boundary was drawn there; I repeat it here because it is necessary: it is known that the word has been connected with a debate in the history of theology. This commentary does not enter into that debate; the context of the verse is the newness of the revelation.

What emerges when the two verses are set side by side is a plain instance of the Qurʾān's interpretation by the Qurʾān:

And the difference must be recorded — these are two distinct responses:

In al-Shuʿarāʾ there is a turning away: the text is not heard. In al-Anbiyāʾ it is listened to — but in play. The second is finer than the first, because the act of listening has taken place.

Istamaʿū — Form VIII. And the burden of the form works here: samiʿa is to hear, istamaʿa is to lend an ear — deliberate listening, listening that costs effort. That is, the verse describes not an inattentive hearing but an attentive listening.

I record as my own reading, and its ground is the form: the person described in the verse is not missing the text. He is listening — and playing while he listens.

The root ل-ع-ب: work without aim, without outcome; play. The word is one of the key words of this sūra and in the sixteenth verse it will be negated of creation itself: wa mā khalaqna's-samāʾa wa'l-arḍa wa mā baynahumā lāʿibīn.

The root ل-ه-و: what keeps a person from his real business, what distracts him. The root was treated at Luqmān on 31/6 (lahwa'l-ḥadīth), at al-Jumuʿa on 62/11 and at al-Ḥadīd on 57/20. I do not repeat it here.

And the division of labour between the two words must be recorded:

I record this as an observation about the structure: the verse states first the conduct and then the heart. And lāhiyatan is in the accusative — it is a circumstantial qualifier: that is, the second clause is not the cause of the first but its state at the same moment.

Asarrū — the root أ-س-ر-ر / س-ر-ر: to conceal. Al-najwā — the root ن-ج-و: to speak head to head, in lowered voices.

And the expression is striking: "they concealed the concealed". Najwā is secret speech already; asarrū is to conceal it once more.

The lexicographers transmit two readings here:

I transmit the disagreement and do not impose a preference. That certain verbs in Arabic bear two opposite senses (aḍdād) is recorded by the lexicographers; asarra has been counted among them.

وَٱلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا۟ — the subject comes after the verb. The grammarians' explanation: the sentence gives the act first and names its agent afterwards. And the naming is not a name but an attribute: alladhīna ẓalamū — "those who do wrong". I record this per the method (Method): what is named here is not a community but an attribute.

هَلْ هَٰذَآ إِلَّا بَشَرٌ مِّثْلُكُمْ — and the content of the whisper is the objection that will be answered in the seventh verse of the sūra.