al-Anbiyāʾ 21:55-58

Qālū a-jiʾtanā bi'l-ḥaqqi am anta mina'l-lāʿibīn · Qāla bal rabbukum rabbu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi'lladhī faṭarahunna wa anā ʿalā dhālikum mina'sh-shāhidīn · Wa ta'llāhi la-akīdanna aṣnāmakum baʿda an tuwallū mudbirīn · Fa-jaʿalahum judhādhan illā kabīran lahum laʿallahum ilayhi yarjiʿūn

"They said: 'Have you brought us the truth, or are you one of those at play?' · He said: 'No! Your Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, who split them into being. And I am one of those who bear witness to that.' · 'By God, I shall scheme against your idols after you have turned your backs and gone.' · So he broke them into pieces — all but the greatest of them, that they might turn back to it."

And this is one of the most striking internal connections in the sūra. It is wholly a datum of the text.

In the sixteenth verse the text had said: wa mā khalaqna's-samāʾa wa'l-arḍa wa mā baynahumā lāʿibīn — "we did not create the heaven and the earth in play."

In the fifty-fifth verse the same word occurs in a question put to a prophet: am anta mina'l-lāʿibīn?

I record this as my own reading, its ground being the two verses' shared word: having set down the ruling "creating is not play", the sūra reports that the man who carries that ruling is asked "are you at play?" The accusation is built with the very word the sūra had earlier rejected.

And Abraham's answer begins with bal — that is, it rejects the question and puts another in its place.

فَطَرَهُنَّ — faṭr, root ف-ط-ر. In the distinction set up at al-Qamar on 54/1 it was recorded: faṭr is to split from nothing and establish. I rely on that treatment.

And I record its connection with the thirtieth verse: there we had fatq — to part what has been established. Here we have faṭr — to split from nothing and establish. The same sūra uses two roots of splitting for two different works.

Faṭarahunna — the pronoun is feminine plural (hunna), referring to the heavens.

The particle of oath is tāʾ: wa-ta'llāh. And the lexicographers record the peculiarity of this particle:

So the particle marks the oath as not an ordinary one. And this particle occurs in a few places in the Qurʾān.

The root was treated at al-Ṭūr, al-Qalam and al-Ṣāffāt. And at al-Ṣāffāt precisely the counterpart of this story occurred: fa-arādū bihi kaydan fa-jaʿalnāhumu'l-asfalīn (37/98).

The comparison of the two sūras can be verified from the text and is striking:

In al-Anbiyāʾ the root occurs twice and is used by both sides: first Abraham (57), then the people (70). In al-Ṣāffāt it is used only by the people.

I record this as an observation about wording. And I add this: in this sūra the word is not the monopoly of one side. The same verb works in two directions, and what separates the outcomes is not the name of the act but its end.

بَعْدَ أَن تُوَلُّوا۟ مُدْبِرِينَ — and this expression occurs word for word at al-Ṣāffāt on 37/90: fa-tawallaw ʿanhu mudbirīn.

The same two words, in two sūras, in two different tenses. al-Ṣāffāt tells the event; al-Anbiyāʾ shows that Abraham knew of it beforehand. This is a verifiable sharing of wording, and I add as my own reading: in al-Anbiyāʾ the intention is declared before the event.

Judhādh — root ج-ذ-ذ. This root is analysed here for the first time in this commentary.

The sense the lexicographers give: jadhdha is to break a thing by cutting it, to crumble it. Judhādh — broken pieces, fragments. And the same root occurs once more in the Qurʾān: ʿaṭāʾan ghayra majdhūdh (Hūd 11/108) — "a gift not cut off".

So the root has two faces: to cut and what is not cut.

And a point of word order: judhādhan is singular while the objects are plural. The grammarians count it a verbal-noun attribute: "in a state of fragments". That is, the verse does not say into how many pieces — it names the outcome.

إِلَّا كَبِيرًا لَّهُمْ — "except the greatest of them".

And the pronoun lahum must be recorded — I give this as my own reading: the verse does not say "the great one", it says the one great to them. That is, the greatness is ascribed not to the object itself but to the people's measure. The text reports the people's estimate; it does not endorse it.

لَعَلَّهُمْ إِلَيْهِ يَرْجِعُونَ — and a ground is given. There is disagreement about to whom or what the pronoun (ilayhi) refers:

I transmit the disagreement and do not impose a preference.

And the counterpart of this sentence will come in the sixty-fourth verse — it is the sūra's strongest internal link, and I shall treat it there.