22. Sūrat al-Ḥajj

Seventy-eight verses. It takes its name from the word بِٱلْحَجِّ in the twenty-seventh verse. It is the only sūra in the Qurʾān named for the rite of the ḥajj.

Whether this sūra was revealed at Mecca or at Medina is disputed in the classical sources. The views transmitted may be summarised as follows:

The third view is the one most widely transmitted in the sources. In this commentary I impose none of them as a preference and I build no ruling upon them. Understanding the sūra does not depend on settling this distinction; it stands here only as a record.

The basmala was treated in earlier sections and is not taken up again here; the verse numbers are counted without it.

The backbone of the sūra is a change of address. The address yā ayyuha'n-nās (O people) occurs four times in this sūra: 1, 5, 49, 73. This is one of the densest concentrations within a single sūra in the Qurʾān. And the sūra closes by changing the address in the seventy-seventh verse: yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the distribution of the addresses: the sūra opens with the widest set of addressees — the whole species — and closes by narrowing. What passes in between is how that wide set is divided: the one who disputes, the one who stands at the edge, the one who submits.

The second backbone is a word: ح-ج-ج, and the place that surrounds it. The sūra opens with the Resurrection, descends in its middle to the oldest place of worship on earth, and then rises again. The most abstract and the most concrete stand within the same text.

Yā ayyuha'n-nāsu'ttaqū rabbakum inna zalzalata's-sāʿati shayʾun ʿaẓīm · Yawma tarawnahā tadhhalu kullu murḍiʿatin ʿammā arḍaʿat wa taḍaʿu kullu dhāti ḥamlin ḥamlahā wa tara'n-nāsa sukārā wa mā hum bi-sukārā wa lākinna ʿadhāba'llāhi shadīd

"O people! Be conscious of your responsibility towards your Lord. The shaking of the Hour is a tremendous thing. On the day you see it, every nursing woman will forget the child she nurses and every pregnant woman will set down her burden. You will see people drunk, though they are not drunk; but the punishment of God is severe."

The root was analysed in detail in al-Zilzāl — on the occasion of that sūra's name: a reduplicated quadriliteral root (muḍāʿaf rubāʿī), conveying a repeated, oscillating motion; ṣalṣala, qaʿqaʿa, waswasa have the same structure. I do not repeat it here.

The root was also treated at al-Baqara 2/214 — there the verb was used of people: wa zulzilū (they were shaken). The note made in al-Baqara holds exactly: the root describes the shaking of the earth, but what was shaken there was not the earth but people.

Setting the three places side by side shows how the word works:

The construct here must be recorded: zalzalatu's-sāʿa. The genitive binds the shaking not to a place but to a time. It is not "the shaking of the earth" but "the shaking of that Hour".

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the genitive itself: what is shaken is not bounded as a place. In Sūrat al-Zilzāl the subject of the shaking was the earth; here it is a time.

The sentence ends with shayʾun ʿaẓīm: "a great thing".

The choice of word is striking, and I record it as an observation about word order: shayʾ is the most general, the most contentless word in Arabic — "a thing". It is not described; it is not named. Then comes the adjective: ʿaẓīm.

The first sentence therefore does not describe the event; it reports only its magnitude. The description is left to the second verse — and that description will not be a description of an event but a human scene.

The root occurs here for the first time in the index. The sense the lexicographers give: to be parted from something in terror and bewilderment; the mind's being severed from it.

What distinguishes the root is that it differs from ordinary forgetting (nisyān). The lexicographers generally give the difference thus: nisyān is the erasure of knowledge; dhuhūl is the forcible tearing away of attention while the knowledge stays in place. The person knows, but can no longer look there.

The verse does not say tansā (she forgets), it says tadhhalu. The mother does not forget her child — she is severed from it.

The burden the mother carries has been treated in two places in this commentary, and this place is their opposite:

In al-Aḥqāf and Luqmān the mother was named together with the hardship she endured; here the same relationship is named at the moment it breaks.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared subject of the three verses: in the two sūras motherhood was used as the proof of man's most durable bond — that was the ground of the counsel given. al-Ḥajj makes that bond a unit of measurement: the magnitude of the shaking, since it cannot be told on its own, is measured by the moment the strongest bond snaps.

The choice of word carries a grammatical point, and the lexicographers record it.

In Arabic a distinction is observed between مُرْضِع (murḍiʿ, without the tāʾ) and مُرْضِعَة (murḍiʿa, with the tāʾ):

The verse chooses the second. The scene is therefore not "a woman who has a child" but a woman nursing her child at that very moment.

I transmit this distinction as the lexicographers transmit it; I do not present it as a fixed rule, because the sources themselves debate whether it holds everywhere. But that it suits the context is plain: the force of the scene comes from the severing happening in mid-act.

"Every pregnant woman will set down her burden."

The repetition of the word must be recorded: ḥamlin … ḥamlahā — the same root twice, one indefinite, one definite.

And the verb taḍaʿu: the same verb was used of giving birth at al-Aḥqāf 46/15 (wa waḍaʿathu kurhā). There birth was a natural outcome arriving at the end of thirty months; here it comes before its time, in terror.

"You will see people drunk, though they are not drunk."

This is the most striking movement of word order in the sūra, and it deserves to be dwelt on in detail.

Simile is frequent in the Qurʾān. What happens here is different: a simile is built, and then withdrawn inside the same sentence. First sukārā (drunk) is said, and immediately after wa mā hum bi-sukārā (they are not drunk).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the sentence:

• The simile is necessary, because the state described has no name in human speech. The nearest counterpart is drunkenness: the loss of balance, the blurring of perception, the failure of self-command.
• The simile is insufficient, because drunkenness is the result of a substance and is temporary. The cause of the state here is not in a substance.
• For this reason the verse adds a third sentence: wa lākinna ʿadhāba'llāhi shadīd — the cause is stated.

There are thus three steps: liken, correct, give the cause. The simile is not erased — its boundary is drawn. Having taken the picture, the reader also learns how far the picture holds.

This procedure is of the same kind as the stance recorded at al-Zumar 39/67: there too a depiction is made, and then, within the same verse, a note of transcendence is entered. In both places the text itself enters the qualification upon its own simile.

It is transmitted that the word سُكَٰرَىٰ is also read as سَكْرَىٰ (sakrā). I do not name a reader. No decisive difference of meaning arises between the two readings: one is a plural pattern, the other a singular-adjectival pattern used of a group.

The verse's method of measuring teaches something in itself: the way to convey a vast event is not to line up vast words.

The verse does not say "it is dreadful, it is terrifying." It shows the distance between a mother and her infant. The scale is taken from the place a person knows best.

Wa mina'n-nāsi man yujādilu fi'llāhi bi-ghayri ʿilmin wa yattabiʿu kulla shayṭānin marīd · Kutiba ʿalayhi annahu man tawallāhu fa-annahu yuḍilluhu wa yahdīhi ilā ʿadhābi's-saʿīr

"Among the people is one who disputes about God without knowledge and follows every rebellious satan. Of him it is written: whoever takes him as a friend, he leads him astray and guides him to the punishment of the blaze."

This pattern occurs three times in the sūra: 3, 8, 11. Each of the three opens a portrait of a man, and the three are different.

The sequence itself carries information, and I record it as an observation about word order: the man in the third verse is a follower (yattabiʿu), the man in the eighth is one who leads astray (li-yuḍilla), and the man in the eleventh is one who calculates his own account. The same pattern, three separate positions.

The root ج-د-ل was analysed at al-Baqara 2/197: to twist a rope tight; jadīl — a firmly plaited rope; in wrestling, to throw one's opponent to the ground. I do not repeat it here. In al-Baqara this word stood among the things forbidden during the ḥajj (wa lā jidāla fi'l-ḥajj) — and this sūra is the sūra of the ḥajj. That the word is placed here is worth recording.

مَّرِيد — root م-ر-د: the core sense the lexicographers give is bareness, having nothing left upon one. Amrad — a youth whose beard has not come; shajaratun mardāʾ — a leafless tree. From this comes the sense of being stripped of every good. Mārid and marīd are of the same root; so is mutamarrid (obstinate).

The picture in the word must be recorded: rebelliousness is described here not as an excess but as a stripping — having no covering left to hold on to.

The most striking place in the fourth verse is the juxtaposition of two verbs: yuḍilluhu (he leads him astray) and yahdīhi (he guides him).

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the opposition of the verbs: the verb hidāya is used here not for something positive but for conducting to punishment. The root does not by itself mean "to bring to what is right"; it means to direct somewhere. The direction is learned from the end of the sentence: ilā ʿadhābi's-saʿīr.

The sense of "directing" in the same root was recorded in al-Fatḥ when the word hady (the sacrificial animal — the one sent to its place) was treated. I rely on that treatment. And the word hady will occur in this sūra too (it will be taken up in the section 22/33-37) — the same root, in two separate places in the same sūra.

Yā ayyuha'n-nāsu in kuntum fī raybin mina'l-baʿthi fa-innā khalaqnākum min turābin thumma min nuṭfatin thumma min ʿalaqatin thumma min muḍghatin mukhallaqatin wa ghayri mukhallaqatin li-nubayyina lakum · Wa nuqirru fi'l-arḥāmi mā nashāʾu ilā ajalin musamman thumma nukhrijukum ṭiflan thumma li-tablughū ashuddakum · Wa minkum man yutawaffā wa minkum man yuraddu ilā ardhali'l-ʿumuri li-kaylā yaʿlama min baʿdi ʿilmin shayʾā · Wa tara'l-arḍa hāmidatan fa-idhā anzalnā ʿalayha'l-māʾa'htazzat wa rabat wa anbatat min kulli zawjin bahīj

"O people! If you are in doubt about the raising of the dead — We created you from dust, then from a drop, then from an ʿalaqa, then from a muḍgha whose form is determined and undetermined; that We might make it plain to you. We keep in the wombs what We will for an appointed term, then We bring you forth as an infant; then you reach your full strength. Some of you are taken in death, and some of you are turned back to the most abject age of life — so that after having known he should know nothing. You see the earth burnt out; and when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells and brings forth every delightful kind."

The verse opens with a conditional sentence: in kuntum fī raybin mina'l-baʿth — "if you are in doubt about the raising of the dead".

And the answer comes from two directions:

What the two have in common must be recorded, and I give it as my own reading: both proofs are things the addressee sees. The verse does not begin by giving news of the unseen; it begins by pointing to what is visible. The question asked was "how can something that has not happened happen?"; the answer takes the form "look at what has already happened."

The verse names four items: turāb, nuṭfa, ʿalaqa, muḍgha. Then three steps of life: ṭifl, ashudd, and two ends — death, or ardhalu'l-ʿumur.

At Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/67 the same staged forming was treated in six steps, and a limit set by the method was drawn there. At al-Zumar 39/6 (khalqan min baʿdi khalqin fī ẓulumātin thalāth) the same limit was repeated. I keep the same limit here, and repeat it with its ground:

The dictionary meanings the lexicographers give for the words are these:

These are the meanings the lexicographers record, and that is as much as I transmit. I do not enter into equating them one-to-one with the terms of modern embryology. The ground: such an equation would load onto the verse a claim the verse does not make; and it would leave the verse to be defended alongside scientific descriptions whenever those change. The proof the verse builds is not a claim of terminological accuracy.

How the proof works is plain in the verse's own sentence: li-nubayyina lakum — "that We might make it plain to you". What is made plain is the graded character of a process. The passage from one stage to the next is not in human hands, and man has witnessed none of its stages. The same line as that treated at al-Wāqiʿa 56/58-59: the separation of man's share from the outcome.

There is disagreement over this construct in the classical commentaries. I transmit the views; I do not impose a preference:

The common point is this, and it comes out of the verse itself: not every process that begins ends in the same place. The verse builds a regular series, then adds the exception to that series itself — just as in the note wa minkum man yutawaffā min qabl at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/67. And here the same note comes twice: in the womb (mukhallaqatin wa ghayri mukhallaqa), and after birth (wa minkum man yutawaffā).

The root ر-ذ-ل: the lowest part of a thing, the part that is picked out and thrown away. Ardhal — the most worthless, what is cast aside.

And the rest of the sentence must be recorded: li-kaylā yaʿlama min baʿdi ʿilmin shayʾā — "so that after having known he should know nothing."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is where the sentence stands in the verse: the verse builds an ascending series — a drop, an infant, the age of strength — and places a descent at the end of the series. Knowledge is acquired, then taken back.

And this serves the verse's real proof: man has no mastery over his own body either at the beginning or at the end. The age of strength in the middle is an exception. The one who objects to the raising of the dead is the party who has no say at either end of his own life.

The root occurs here for the first time in the index. The sense the lexicographers give: the going out of a fire, the cooling of ashes; the ending of motion and of sound. Hamadati'n-nār — the fire went out. Hāmid — lifeless, motionless.

The choice of word builds a picture: dry earth is called not "dead" (mayyita) but "burnt out". That is, the present state of something that once burned.

Comparing this word with khāshiʿa at Fuṣṣilat 41/39 shows how two sūras give the same proof in two separate pictures:

The three words face in different directions, and I record this as an observation:

• Fuṣṣilat gives the ground a posture: bowed.
• al-Ḥajj gives the ground a past: burnt out, that is, it was burning before.
• al-Zumar gives the ground an end: crumbled.

And all three are tied to the same conclusion. In Fuṣṣilat, inna'lladhī aḥyāhā la-muḥyi'l-mawtā; here, at 22/6, wa annahu yuḥyi'l-mawtā; in al-Zumar, dhikrā li-uli'l-albāb.

These two verbs are the same two verbs that occur at Fuṣṣilat 41/39: ihtazzat wa rabat.

The only difference between the two verses is the presence of a third verb:

al-Ḥajj thus takes one step beyond where Fuṣṣilat stops: it gives the outcome as well.

اِهْتَزَّ — root ه-ز-ز: to shake, to jolt. The root ر-ب-و was treated at al-Baqara 2/275 in the discussion of ribā: to increase, to swell, to rise. I do not repeat it here.

And the whole construct is worth recording: the first verse of the sūra opened with zalzala — a shaking. In the fifth verse the ground is shaken again (ihtazzat) — but this time the outcome of the shaking is vegetation.

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the presence of the two words in the same sūra four verses apart: the same family of verbs, one for ruin and one for revival. Being shaken is not in itself an end; it depends on what is shaken.

The root ب-ه-ج: beauty, a brightness pleasing to the eye, the giving of joy. Bahja — beauty, gladness.

The choice of word must be recorded as an observation: the verse speaks not of the plant's usefulness (nāfiʿ) but of its appearance. The proof is built on pleasing the eye before filling the stomach.

Dhālika bi-anna'llāha huwa'l-ḥaqqu wa annahu yuḥyi'l-mawtā wa annahu ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr · Wa anna's-sāʿata ātiyatun lā rayba fīhā wa anna'llāha yabʿathu man fi'l-qubūr

"So it is; because God is the truth itself, because it is He who gives life to the dead, and because His power extends over everything. And the Hour is coming, there is no doubt in it; and God will raise those who are in the graves."

The fifth verse was a long proof; these two verses set out the conclusions that follow from it. Five items, each joined by anna:

The logic of the order is worth recording, and I give it as an observation about word order: the list begins with the agent (who), moves to the act (what He does), attaches to power (can He do it), then descends to time (when), and ends with extent (whom).

And the note lā rayba fīhā in the fifth item is an answer to the first word of the fifth verse: that verse opened in kuntum fī raybin. The same root returns two verses later, in the form of a denial. This is a link that can be verified from the text.

Wa mina'n-nāsi man yujādilu fi'llāhi bi-ghayri ʿilmin wa lā hudan wa lā kitābin munīr · Thāniya ʿiṭfihi li-yuḍilla ʿan sabīli'llāh · Lahu fi'd-dunyā khizyun wa nudhīquhu yawma'l-qiyāmati ʿadhāba'l-ḥarīq · Dhālika bimā qaddamat yadāka wa anna'llāha laysa bi-ẓallāmin li'l-ʿabīd

"And among the people is one who disputes about God without any knowledge, without any guide, without any illuminating book; turning his side away, in order to lead men astray from the way of God. For him there is disgrace in this world; and on the Day of Resurrection We shall make him taste the punishment of burning. 'This is for what your hands sent ahead; and God is never one to wrong His servants.'"

In the third verse there was a single negation: bi-ghayri ʿilm. Here it becomes three.

The three close off every source of knowledge, and I record this as an observation about word order: a man takes a view either by his own investigation, or from a teacher, or from a text. The verse eliminates all three, one by one. One thing remains, and it comes in the very next word: a posture.

This is the most concrete description of the body in the sūra.

The root ث-ن-ي: to bend, to fold, to double over. Ithnayn (two), tathniya (the dual), istithnāʾ (to set a thing apart by bending it) are of the same root.

عِطْف — root ع-ط-ف: to lean, to bend, to incline to one side. ʿIṭf is a man's flank, his side, the line of shoulder and neck. ʿAṭfa — a bend in a road. From the same root comes ʿāṭifa (tenderness — a leaning towards someone).

The construct is, exactly: "one who bends his side". That is, to turn the body aside while speaking, to swing the shoulder round, to take up the posture of a man who will not listen.

Two explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

Both describe the same movement of the body; one looks to the cause, the other to the effect. I do not impose a preference.

And where the construct stands in the verse is worth recording: it comes immediately after the three sources of knowledge are refused. A posture is put in the place of a ground.

A description of the body of the same kind was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/51: naʾā bi-jānibih — "he removed his side". The same region (the side, the flank), the same movement. I rely on that treatment. The difference is this: in Fuṣṣilat the movement was made when a favour was given; here it is made during a dispute.

There is a movement of word order in the tenth verse, and it must be recorded: the ninth verse spoke in the third person (lahu, nudhīquhu). The tenth verse shifts abruptly to the second person: bimā qaddamat yadāka — "your hands".

This is the usage called iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address) in Arabic.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the change of pronoun: throughout the account the man was described from a distance; at the moment of the verdict, he is faced directly. A general portrait turns into a single addressee.

ظَلَّام is an intensive form: "one who wrongs greatly".

The lexicographers dwell on the pattern, and two explanations are transmitted:

I transmit both; I do not impose a preference. The same construct also occurred at Fuṣṣilat 41/46 (wa mā rabbuka bi-ẓallāmin li'l-ʿabīd).

Wa mina'n-nāsi man yaʿbudu'llāha ʿalā ḥarf · Fa-in aṣābahu khayruni'ṭmaʾanna bih · Wa in aṣābathu fitnatuni'nqalaba ʿalā wajhih · Khasira'd-dunyā wa'l-ākhirata dhālika huwa'l-khusrānu'l-mubīn

"And among the people is one who serves God on an edge. If good befalls him he settles with it; if a trial befalls him he turns about on his face. He has lost this world and the next. That is the manifest loss."

The root ح-ر-ف: the edge, the tip, the brink of a thing; a sharp rim.

The derivatives of the root complete the picture:

The concrete usages the lexicographers record: ḥarfu'l-jabal — the edge of the mountain, the lip of the precipice. Ḥarfu's-safīna — the gunwale of the ship. The word therefore conveys being not inside a thing but at its edge.

The concrete picture is this: a soldier standing not in the middle of an army but on its outermost line. He is there not in order to flee but in order to be able to flee. If the army holds he takes his share of the spoils; if it breaks he withdraws at once. Or else: a man sitting on the very lip of a rock — his weight not fully committed, half of him over the void.

I give this picture as an observation about the language; the dictionary sense of the word carries it, and similar images are transmitted in the classical commentaries as well.

The verse builds the two conditions in exact symmetry:

The symmetry is worth recording, and I give it as an observation about word order: the same verb (aṣāba), the same pattern, the same length. The only thing that changes is what arrives — and the man's entire position is determined by it.

ٱطْمَأَنَّ — root ط-م-ن: to settle, to come to rest in place. The root was treated at al-Baqara 2/260 (li-yaṭmaʾinna qalbī) — and there the lexicographers' picture, "a thing settling into a hollow and becoming fixed", was recorded. I rely on that treatment.

And the comparison matters: in al-Baqara iṭmiʾnān was Abraham's request, and it was granted. Here the same word becomes the name of a weakness — because the cause of the settling is different. There it was a proof; here it is khayr.

ٱنقَلَبَ عَلَىٰ وَجْهِهِ — inqilāb: to be turned over, to have one's underside brought up. The construct means, exactly, "he turned about upon his face" — a return from the direction he faced, and a fall with it.

I record this as an observation: for a man standing at the edge, "turning about on his face" is a natural outcome. The choice of word agrees with the first word (ḥarf): the turning of one who stands at the edge is not a walk but a fall.

Two portraits of the same kind have been treated in this commentary. Setting the three side by side shows the difference between them:

What the three share and where they differ must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading:

What they share: in none of the three is there denial. All three carry an attachment of some kind. The break arises not from the absence of attachment but from what the attachment has been made conditional upon.

The difference lies in the kind of measure: in al-ʿAnkabūt the weighing is wrong — two weights have been equated. In Fuṣṣilat the direction is wrong — the capacity is there, and is spent on asking. In al-Ḥajj the place is wrong — the man has made no choice between the centre and the edge.

And the portrait in al-Ḥajj parts from the other two at one point: here the man's service actually continues (yaʿbudu'llāha). The verb is not negated. The verse is therefore not disputing the presence of worship but the ground on which the worship rests.

What the verse describes is an attribute, not a group. Per the method (Method) I record this plainly: whoever bears this attribute is included in the description; no wholesale ruling is issued about any community.

And the test of the attribute is given within the verse itself: to settle when good comes, to withdraw when a trial comes. The measure is not what a man does while he is comfortable; it is where he stands when he is pressed.

Yadʿū min dūni'llāhi mā lā yaḍurruhu wa mā lā yanfaʿuh · Dhālika huwa'ḍ-ḍalālu'l-baʿīd · Yadʿū la-man ḍarruhu aqrabu min nafʿih · La-biʾsa'l-mawlā wa la-biʾsa'l-ʿashīr

"He calls, besides God, upon what can neither harm him nor benefit him. That is the far straying. He calls upon one whose harm is nearer than his benefit. What a wretched protector, what a wretched companion!"

The twelfth and thirteenth verses open with the same verb (yadʿū) but say two separate things. The difference must be recorded:

This is not a contradiction but a gradation, and I record it as an observation about word order: the first verse describes the object itself — it has no power of its own. The second describes the outcome of the relationship — the man who enters that relationship is harmed.

The harm therefore comes not from the object but from the attachment. The object is without effect; attaching oneself to it is not without effect.

أَقْرَبُ — "nearer". The choice of word is worth recording: the verse does not say its harm is greater than its benefit, it says it is nearer. The comparison is made not by quantity but by distance.

مَوْلَىٰ and عَشِير — two names for a relationship:

The two are two separate kinds of relation: one vertical (protection, taking charge), the other horizontal (companionship, being together). The verse negates both.

And a link to the end of the sūra must be drawn: the seventy-eighth verse will close huwa mawlākum fa-niʿma'l-mawlā. The same word stands at the two ends of the sūra: here la-biʾsa'l-mawlā, there niʿma'l-mawlā. This is a contrast that can be verified from the text.

Inna'llāha yudkhilu'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti jannātin tajrī min taḥtiha'l-anhār · Inna'llāha yafʿalu mā yurīd

"God brings those who believe and do righteous deeds into gardens beneath which rivers flow. God does what He wills."

This verse comes immediately after the three negative portraits (3, 8, 11) and sums up the other side in a single sentence.

I record this as an observation about word order: three verses set out three separate forms of deviation in detail — disputing without knowledge, turning the face away in arrogance, standing at the edge. The other side is not set out in detail: two attributes, one sentence. Faith and deed.

Deviation has kinds; the straight course has none. This is an observation that can be verified from the proportions of the verses.

That this sentence stands in this verse is striking. The pattern generally comes in contexts that speak of power; here it is placed at the end of a sentence about reward.

A similar sentence will come in the eighteenth verse of the same sūra: inna'llāha yafʿalu mā yashāʾ. There is a difference of word between the two sentences, and the lexicographers record it: the distinction between irāda and mashīʾa has been debated in the classical sources, and there is no agreement upon it. I do not enter into that debate; I record only that both words are used in the same sūra.

Man kāna yaẓunnu an lan yanṣurahu'llāhu fi'd-dunyā wa'l-ākhirati fa'l-yamdud bi-sababin ila's-samāʾi thumma'l-yaqṭaʿ · Fa'l-yanẓur hal yudhhibanna kayduhu mā yaghīẓ

"Whoever supposes that God will not help him in this world and the next, let him stretch a rope to the sky, then let him cut it; then let him look whether his scheme takes away what enrages him."

This is the most disputed verse in the sūra as regards its understanding. The disagreement lies at three separate points, and each must be recorded separately.

The first point — to whom does the pronoun in yanṣuruhu refer?

The second point — what is the sabab?

The third point — what does fa'l-yaqṭaʿ (let him cut) cut?

Several readings follow from the combination of these three points. I set out in a table those most prominent in the sources:

I impose none of these as a preference. All three are transmitted in the sources, and none of them decisively excludes the others.

The one thing that is certain is the last word of the sentence: hal yudhhibanna kayduhu mā yaghīẓ. The question is rhetorical and its answer is no. Whichever reading is taken, then, the verse arrives at the same place: rage does not remove what it rages at.

The root ك-ي-د: a hidden plan, a cunning scheme; the lexicographers also record in the root the sense of "being hard pressed, straining with difficulty" (kāda yakīdu — to be in the throes of death).

The root غ-ي-ظ: rage that boils within. The lexicographers observe a difference between ghayẓ and ghaḍab, and generally give it thus: ghaḍab is rage that shows itself, that has an effect; ghayẓ is rage that stays inside and burns the man himself. I transmit this distinction as it is transmitted.

And the choice of the word carries the whole verse; I give this as my own reading: if ghayẓ is the rage that stays inside, then the man's stretching a rope to the sky produces no result outside either. A state that remains within moves to change something without, and the verse leaves the outcome as a question.

مَا يَغِيظُ — "what enrages him". What that thing is is not said. The verse leaves the object of the rage empty and describes only the mechanism. The consequence is this: the description works without being tied to a single event.

Wa kadhālika anzalnāhu āyātin bayyināt · Wa anna'llāha yahdī man yurīd

"Thus have We sent it down as clear signs. And God guides whom He wills."

The verse closes the second block. One of the three grounds refused in the eighth verse was kitābin munīr (an illuminating book). The sixteenth verse reports that that book has been sent down.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the shared vocabulary of the two verses: munīr (illuminating) and bayyināt (clear) do the same work. What was lacking in the eighth verse is therefore supplied in the sixteenth: the ground is not absent — it has not been taken up.

Inna'lladhīna āmanū wa'lladhīna hādū wa'ṣ-ṣābiʾīna wa'n-naṣārā wa'l-majūsa wa'lladhīna ashrakū · Inna'llāha yafṣilu baynahum yawma'l-qiyāma · Inna'llāha ʿalā kulli shayʾin shahīd

"Those who believe, the Jews, the Sabians, the Christians, the Magians, and those who associate others with God — God will separate between them on the Day of Resurrection. God is surely witness over everything."

The verse names six communities. This is the widest list named together in the Qurʾān.

And what the list does is understood from what it does not do. I record this carefully:

• The verse issues no ruling about any of the groups. It does not say who is right and who is wrong.
• The verse says when the judgement will be given and by whom: yawma'l-qiyāma, and the agent is God.
• The verb is yafṣilu — root ف-ص-ل: to separate, to open a space between two things. Faṣl, tafṣīl, fāṣila are of the same root. It does the same work as the root ف-ر-ق treated in al-Furqān on the occasion of furqān.

Per the method (Method) I enter a record here, and it is binding: no wholesale ruling about any religious community may be built on this verse. The verse itself does not do that; it leaves the judgement to the Resurrection and to God. This commentary stands at the same limit.

And this agrees with the general line of the sūra: what is described throughout the sūra is attributes — the one who disputes, the one who stands at the edge, the one who turns his face away. Whoever bears the attribute is included in the description; and those attributes are the monopoly of no community.

The closing attribute matches the subject of the verse exactly. The one who will make the separation is the one who is witness over everything. The ground of the judgement is therefore not partiality but the completeness of the witnessing.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of the attribute: the verse does not say ʿalīm (knowing) or ḥakīm (giving judgement); it says shahīd. Witnessing, unlike knowledge, conveys being present at the event.

A-lam tara anna'llāha yasjudu lahu man fi's-samāwāti wa man fi'l-arḍi wa'sh-shamsu wa'l-qamaru wa'n-nujūmu wa'l-jibālu wa'sh-shajaru wa'd-dawābbu wa kathīrun mina'n-nās · Wa kathīrun ḥaqqa ʿalayhi'l-ʿadhāb · Wa man yuhini'llāhu fa-mā lahu min mukrim · Inna'llāha yafʿalu mā yashāʾ

"Have you not seen that to God prostrate those in the heavens and those on the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, the animals, and many of mankind? And for many the punishment has become due. Whomever God abases, none can honour him. God does what He wills."

This verse is one of the verses of prostration in recitation.

And a record of disagreement is needed here: how many verses of prostration this sūra contains has been debated among the schools of law.

This is a matter of law; I confine myself to transmitting the views, and I issue no ruling. No record in this commentary is binding.

The verse names nine items. The order needs to be worked out:

The logic of the order must be recorded, and I give it as an observation about word order:

First two general categories (man fi's-samāwāt, man fi'l-arḍ) — these come with the particle man, which is used of rational beings. Then the list fills in those two categories: it begins in the heavens and descends to the earth (sun, moon, stars → mountains, trees, animals).

And the order within the earth carries an arrangement too: motionless and lifeless (mountain) → motionless and living (tree) → moving and living (dawābb). From the lifeless to the living, from the fixed to the moving.

At the end of the series stands man — and man comes with a qualification of his own.

This is the most striking feature of word order in the verse, and it deserves to be dwelt on in detail.

There are two separate constructions in Arabic, and their meanings differ:

The verse uses the second: kathīrun mina'n-nās.

And immediately after, the same word returns: wa kathīrun ḥaqqa ʿalayhi'l-ʿadhāb. Both parties are thus named with the same word: kathīr and kathīr.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the word itself:

• The verse gives no proportion. It does not say "the majority prostrate", nor "the majority do not".
• Both sets are qualified by the same adjective: both are many.
• How the whole is divided is not stated.

The Qurʾān uses the pattern aktharu'n-nās elsewhere, and there a majority really is reported. Here that pattern is not chosen.

As my own reading I add this: in the list the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees and the animals pass without qualification — of none of them is "many of them" said. The qualification appears only at man. Among all the beings in the list, therefore, man is the only kind that is divided — and the verse does not give the proportion of that division, only that it exists.

The verb is singular and comes first: yasjudu. In Arabic a verb placed before its subjects stays singular; this is the ordinary rule of the language, and it operates here too.

But the singleness of the verb raises a question: how do a mountain and a man do the same thing?

The answers given to this question in the classical commentaries fall under two headings:

The two explanations are close to one another, and both occur in the sources. I do not impose a preference.

What can be drawn from the verse itself is this, and I give it as my own reading: man enters the list last and as the only qualified item. Man's prostration is thus positioned as something different from the rest of the list — because he alone carries the note "many of them".

At Fuṣṣilat 41/37 the matter of prostration was treated from another side: there the sun and the moon were named as things not to be prostrated to (lā tasjudū li'sh-shamsi wa lā li'l-qamar). Here the same two bodies are on the side that prostrates.

Setting the two verses side by side is worth recording:

The same two bodies, in two verses, in two separate positions; and the two verses complete one another. Fuṣṣilat says why they are not to be prostrated to: they are created. al-Ḥajj says the same thing from another side: they too are among those who prostrate. This is a link between the two sūras that can be verified from the text.

The root ه-و-ن: lightness, worthlessness, abasement. The root ك-ر-م: value, generosity, nobility.

The two roots are set as opposites. And the structure of the sentence must be recorded: fa-mā lahu min mukrim — "there is none to honour him", that is, there is no second authority.

And where the sentence stands in the verse is meaningful: it comes immediately after the list of prostration. Prostration is the most extreme form of lowering — the placing of the face on the ground. And immediately after describing prostration, the verse speaks of being abased.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the placing of the two sentences side by side: there are two lowerings, and they run in opposite directions. One is bending by one's own choice, the other is being brought low for not bending.

Hādhāni khaṣmāni'khtaṣamū fī rabbihim · Fa'lladhīna kafarū quṭṭiʿat lahum thiyābun min nār · Yuṣabbu min fawqi ruʾūsihimu'l-ḥamīm · Yuṣharu bihi mā fī buṭūnihim wa'l-julūd · Wa lahum maqāmiʿu min ḥadīd · Kullamā arādū an yakhrujū minhā min ghammin uʿīdū fīhā wa dhūqū ʿadhāba'l-ḥarīq

"These are two adversaries, contending about their Lord. For those who disbelieve, garments of fire have been cut; boiling water is poured over their heads. By it, what is in their bellies and their skins are melted. For them there are maces of iron. Whenever they wish to come out of it, out of anguish, they are returned into it: 'Taste the punishment of burning!'"

There is a striking shift of number in the sentence, and the lexicographers record it:

• هَٰذَانِ خَصْمَانِ — dual: "these two adversaries".
• ٱخْتَصَمُوا۟ — plural: "they contended".

The subject is dual, the verb plural.

The explanation the lexicographers give is this, and I transmit it as a report: khaṣm here conveys not a single person but a side. The sides are two, but the persons within each side are many. Hence the number is dual and the verb is plural.

And this is connected with the preceding verse. The seventeenth verse had named six groups. The nineteenth verse reduces those six to two.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the two verses: there were six names in the list; on the day of judgement there are two sides. The separation is therefore not made according to the names of the groups; and the verse does not say how the six names divide into two either.

خَصْم — root خ-ص-م: to contend, to go to law. Khuṣūma, mukhāṣama are of the same root. The word carries a legal resonance: a khaṣm is the party who stands opposite in a court.

And the subject of the contention is given: fī rabbihim — "about their Lord". A shared pronoun is used: the Lord of both parties. The dispute goes on over a shared subject.

The verb must be recorded: quṭṭiʿat — root ق-ط-ع, and in Form II (tafʿīl), the pattern that conveys intensity. The word belongs to the tailor's craft: the cutting of cloth.

I record this as an observation: the verse does not say "fire wraps them". It says garments of fire have been cut — that is, something prepared to measure, to the person. The choice of the verb builds a picture in which the punishment is not random but measured.

The root ح-م-م: to grow hot, to grow heated. Ḥamīm — boiling water.

The word was treated at al-Wāqiʿa 56/42, 54 and 93, and at Ṣād 38/57. I do not repeat it here. It was recorded there that in al-Wāqiʿa it occurs three times and that all three belong to the same group; and that in Ṣād it is paired with ghassāq.

What differs in the use here is its direction:

In the other two places ḥamīm enters by the mouth; here it is poured from outside. And the direction of the pouring is specified: min fawqi ruʾūsihim.

This difference prepares the word of the next verse.

The root occurs here for the first time in the index and deserves to be dwelt on in detail.

The core sense the lexicographers give: to melt metal or fat in fire. Ṣahara'sh-shaḥma is used of melting fat. The noun form ṣihr is melted fat.

The root has another branch as well: ṣihr — kinship established by marriage (affinity). The lexicographers generally join the two senses in the idea of "mixing and merging": things that melt run into one another; marriage too mixes two lineages. I transmit this connection as it is transmitted, and build no interpretation upon it.

The word's work here is to complete the picture:

In the nineteenth verse the water was poured over the head. The twentieth verse says where that water reaches: mā fī buṭūnihim wa'l-julūd — what is in their bellies, and the skins.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the juxtaposition of the two words: buṭūn (the inside of the belly) and julūd (skin) — the innermost and the outermost of a man. The verse binds both to the same verb. The liquid comes down from above and acts both from within and from without; no place is left between.

ٱلْجُلُود — skin. Skins were treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/20-22: there the skins were bearing witness (shahida ʿalayhim … wa julūduhum). The same organ, in two sūras, in two separate roles: in one a witness, in the other the place the punishment reaches.

مَقَامِع — its singular is مِقْمَعَة. Root ق-م-ع: to press down, to subdue, to drive back. Qamʿ is the forcing of a thing into its place; qumʿ — the bottom of a thing, the place it sits.

The pattern mifʿal is the pattern of instrument nouns in Arabic (miftāḥ — key, miqaṣṣ — shears, minshār — saw). The word therefore means, exactly, "an instrument of pressing down".

In English it is usually rendered "mace" or "club", and the lexicographers describe the word as a staff with an iron head.

And the root of the word prepares the subject of the next verse. I record this as my own reading: qamʿ means "to drive back" — and the twenty-second verse describes exactly a driving back: kullamā arādū an yakhrujū … uʿīdū fīhā. The name of the instrument and the verb of the scene do the same work.

The root غ-م-م: to cover, to overspread. Ghamām — cloud (that which covers the sky); ghamma — the distress that overspreads a man within; maghmūm — one who is covered over.

The choice of word is worth recording: the cause of their wanting to come out is given not as the fire but as being covered over. What is described, then, is less pain than enclosure.

كُلَّمَا — "every time". The particle conveys repetition: the wish to come out is not once but continual.

And I record this as an observation about word order: the verse builds a cycle — to want, to be sent back, to want again. The chief element in the scene is that the enclosure becomes continual.

Inna'llāha yudkhilu'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti jannātin tajrī min taḥtiha'l-anhār · Yuḥallawna fīhā min asāwira min dhahabin wa luʾluʾā · Wa libāsuhum fīhā ḥarīr · Wa hudū ila'ṭ-ṭayyibi mina'l-qawl · Wa hudū ilā ṣirāṭi'l-ḥamīd

"God brings those who believe and do righteous deeds into gardens beneath which rivers flow. There they are adorned with bracelets of gold and with pearls; and their garment there is silk. They have been guided to the good of speech; they have been guided to the path of the Praiseworthy."

The two sections are built in exact correspondence. The words match:

The clearest correspondence is in the two metals: ḥadīd and dhahab. Both are metal, both are in the hand. One is for striking, the other for wearing.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the kinds of the words: the contrast is built not with abstract concepts but with objects of the same kind. Garment against garment, metal against metal, what comes from above against what comes from above.

This sentence is the most striking place in the section.

Everything enumerated is material: bracelet, pearl, silk. Then something of another kind comes abruptly: aṭ-ṭayyibu mina'l-qawl — "the good of speech".

And the verb is repeated: wa hudū … wa hudū. Twice the same verb, in two separate directions: speech and path.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the breaking of the list: after objects have been enumerated, the verse stops enumerating objects. The last two items are not objects but orientations.

And that the verb is passive must be recorded: hudū — "they were guided". They did not find; they were led. This agrees with the sequence treated at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/69: first the effort, then the guiding. I rely on that treatment.

صِرَٰطِ ٱلْحَمِيدِ — "the path of al-ḥamīd". The construct is striking: the path is annexed to an attribute. Ṣirāṭun mustaqīm (the straight path) is the common construct; here the path is named by the attribute of the station to which it leads.

And the attribute ḥamīd occurs twice in this sūra: here (24) and in the sixty-fourth verse (wa inna'llāha la-huwa'l-ghaniyyu'l-ḥamīd). The root ح-م-د — praise. The subject of the two occurrences differs: one is the far end of a path travelled, the other is being in need of nothing.

Inna'lladhīna kafarū wa yaṣuddūna ʿan sabīli'llāhi wa'l-masjidi'l-ḥarāmi'lladhī jaʿalnāhu li'n-nāsi sawāʾani'l-ʿākifu fīhi wa'l-bād · Wa man yurid fīhi bi-ilḥādin bi-ẓulmin nudhiqhu min ʿadhābin alīm

"Those who disbelieve and who bar others from the way of God and from the Sacred Mosque, which We appointed for the people — the one who dwells there and the one who comes from outside being equal in it… And whoever seeks in it to swerve from the truth by wrongdoing, We shall make him taste a painful punishment."

The second term of the construct must be recorded: li'n-nās — "for the people". Not for a tribe, not for a city, not for a community.

The same record was entered at al-Baqara 2/125: wa idh jaʿalna'l-bayta mathābatan li'n-nāsi wa amnā. I rely on that treatment and repeat the observation made there: "for the people" — not for a particular community.

And the observation made in al-Baqara goes one step further here, because the verse of al-Ḥajj defines the equality explicitly:

The two words answer to two kinds of man around a place: the one who owns and the one who visits. And the verse sets sawāʾan (equal) between them.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pair of words itself: the equality is established not as an abstract principle but between two concrete positions. And one of the parties equated is the man who lives beside the place. Nearness, therefore, produces no privilege.

The same measure was treated at al-Baqara 2/199 as well: thumma afīḍū min ḥaythu afāḍa'n-nās — "press on from where the people press on." There too a claim of privilege was being removed, and there too the word used was al-nās. I rely on that treatment.

بِإِلْحَادٍۭ بِظُلْمٍ — the root ل-ح-د: to lean from one side to another, to swerve from the straight. Laḥd — the niche dug into the side of a grave; the word comes from this concrete sense. Ilḥād — swerving aside from the straight line.

The root was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/40 (inna'lladhīna yulḥidūna fī āyātinā). I rely on that treatment. There the swerving concerned the signs; here it concerns a place.

Wa idh bawwaʾnā li-Ibrāhīma makāna'l-bayti an lā tushrik bī shayʾan wa ṭahhir baytiya li'ṭ-ṭāʾifīna wa'l-qāʾimīna wa'r-rukkaʿi's-sujūd · Wa adhdhin fi'n-nāsi bi'l-ḥajji yaʾtūka rijālan wa ʿalā kulli ḍāmirin yaʾtīna min kulli fajjin ʿamīq

"And when We made ready for Abraham the place of the House: 'Associate nothing with Me; and purify My House for those who circle it, those who stand, those who bow and prostrate. And proclaim the pilgrimage among the people: they will come to you on foot and on every lean mount, coming from every deep ravine.'"

The concrete sense of the root: to level a place and make it fit to settle in; to prepare a place of lodging. Mabāʾa — a halting place, a place returned to. Bawwaʾa — he settled, he made a place ready.

The choice of word is worth recording, and I give it as an observation: the verse does not say "We showed Abraham the House" or "We had him build it". It says "We made its place ready" — makāna'l-bayt.

What the verse describes is therefore not the building itself but the place of the building. The place has priority.

The same root occurred at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/58 (la-nubawwiʾannahum mina'l-jannati ghurafā — "We shall settle them in chambers in the Garden"). The same verb; one a place in this world, the other in the next.

The command is ṭahhir (keep it pure), and those for whom it is given are enumerated. There are four items:

The order itself carries information, and I record this as an observation about word order: the list descends from the most mobile to the most still, and from the most upright to the most prone. Circling → standing → bending → falling.

And the fourth item connects with the eighteenth verse of this sūra: there all beings were prostrating. Here prostration is enumerated as the last form the human body takes around a place.

ٱلطَّآئِفِين — root ط-و-ف: to go round a thing. Ṭāʾifa (a group, a section), ṭawāf, ṭūfān (water that encompasses everything) are of the same root.

The picture in the root must be recorded: to circle is to move while remaining bound to a centre. Neither drawing away nor stopping; the centre fixed, the motion continual.

The root أ-ذ-ن: the ear (udhun). Two branches issue from it: to give leave (to lend an ear and accept) and to proclaim (to bring to the ears). Adhān is of the same root.

The verb is in Form II: adhdhin — that is, "announce, proclaim".

And the particle must be recorded: fi'n-nās — "among the people". Not ila'n-nās (to the people).

I record this as a grammatical observation: the particle fī conveys that the call is to be made in the midst of the people, from among them. It is not a summons from outside.

ٱلْحَجّ — root ح-ج-ج: to make for a place, to intend it; to repeat the intending.

The other branch of the root must be recorded: from the same root comes حُجَّة (ḥujja — proof). The lexicographers explain the connection thus: a ḥujja is what directs the hearer to a definite conclusion. The ḥajj and the ḥujja therefore do the same thing: they direct towards a goal.

I give this connection as an observation about the language; the two branches of the root are recorded in the dictionaries in this way.

Two ways of coming are enumerated, and their order must be recorded.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the one on foot is named first. The man without means has been counted before the man with means.

ضَامِر — root ض-م-ر: to grow thin, to grow lean, to waste in flesh. Ḍamīr (conscience) is reckoned to this root too: what is hidden within, what grows fine. Iḍmār — to conceal.

The word is an adjective, and it reports not the kind of the mount but its condition: "grown lean, made thin".

I record this as an observation, and its ground is the meaning of the word: the verse does not say "on a camel". It says a mount whose flesh has wasted from the length of the road. The attribute thus writes the length of the journey onto the body of the animal. The distance is conveyed not by a separate sentence but by the state of the beast.

And the construct that follows says the same thing again: min kulli fajjin ʿamīq.

فَجّ — root ف-ج-ج: a wide road between two mountains, a pass. ʿAmīq — deep, far down.

The construct means, exactly, "from every deep pass". And the adjective ʿamīq is used in Arabic for distance as well: so far off that its bottom cannot be seen.

Three separate words thus say the same thing: ḍāmir (the road has worn the mount down), fajj (a pass), ʿamīq (deep/far). The distance is conveyed three times, by three separate routes.

The command is given to a single person: adhdhin — "you, proclaim". And the outcome is plural: yaʾtūka — "they will come to you".

I record this as an observation about word order: a single call, a plural answer. And the verb of the answer is yaʾtūka — imperfect, that is, ongoing. It conveys not a single coming but a repeated movement.

Li-yashhadū manāfiʿa lahum wa yadhkuru'sma'llāhi fī ayyāmin maʿlūmātin ʿalā mā razaqahum min bahīmati'l-anʿām · Fa-kulū minhā wa aṭʿimu'l-bāʾisa'l-faqīr · Thumma'l-yaqḍū tafathahum wa'l-yūfū nudhūrahum wa'l-yaṭṭawwafū bi'l-bayti'l-ʿatīq

"That they may witness benefits for themselves and on appointed days may make mention of the name of God over the beasts of the herds He has provided them. Eat of them, and feed the destitute poor as well. Then let them be rid of their unkemptness, fulfil their vows, and circle the Ancient House."

The ground of the coming is given, and two items are enumerated: manāfiʿ and dhikr.

مَنَافِع — the plural of the root nafʿ: benefits. And the word comes indefinite and plural: which benefits is not said.

I record this as an observation about word order: the verse does not define the benefit. No note is entered as to whether it is worldly or of the hereafter. The classical commentaries dwell on this indefiniteness, and explanations are transmitted in both directions:

I do not impose a preference. But this record follows from the text: the word is indefinite and plural; the verse has set no limit.

And it is necessary to rely on al-Baqara 2/198: there the verse laysa ʿalaykum junāḥun an tabtaghū faḍlan min rabbikum was treated, and it was recorded that trade during the season of the ḥajj was explicitly declared not to spoil the rite. The word manāfiʿ in al-Ḥajj 22/28 is the positive statement of that permission in al-Baqara.

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared subject of the two verses: al-Baqara was lifting a prohibition by saying "there is no sin"; al-Ḥajj says the same thing by placing it in the list of grounds. One is a defence, the other a description.

فِىٓ أَيَّامٍ مَّعْلُومَٰتٍ — "on appointed days". No number is given, no name is given.

Which days this expression covers has been debated in the sources of law, and its relation to al-ḥajju ashhurun maʿlūmāt at al-Baqara 2/197 is also a matter of debate. No legal ruling is issued in this commentary; I confine myself to recording the existence of the disagreement, and no record here is binding.

Two commands side by side: to eat and to feed.

The order is worth recording, and I give it as an observation: first kulū (eat), then aṭʿimū (feed). The one who slaughters is not excluded from what he has slaughtered. The rite does not deprive its performer of the produce of his own hand.

ٱلْبَآئِسَ ٱلْفَقِيرَ — two attributes side by side:

The two words say two separate things: one gives the state (being in hardship), the other the means (having no property). And the verse joins the two.

تَفَث — root ت-ف-ث. The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

The explanations the lexicographers give for this word differ, and the sources record this openly:

The third record is important, and I give it as a report: it occurs in the sources that some lexicographers could not establish the meaning of this word with certainty. I impose no preference in this commentary.

What is certain is that the verb is qaḍā: l-yaqḍū — "let them finish, let them complete". What is at issue, then, is the bringing of a condition to an end.

وَلْيُوفُوا۟ نُذُورَهُمْ — "let them fulfil their vows in full". The root و-ف-ي: completeness, leaving nothing wanting. The same root does the same work as the idea of itmām treated at al-Baqara 2/196 in the context of wa atimmu'l-ḥajja wa'l-ʿumrata lillāh: that a thing begun should not be left half done.

عَتِيق — root ع-ت-ق. The root has three branches, and the lexicographers record all three:

There is disagreement over which sense the adjective bears here:

All three occur in the sources and none excludes the others. I do not impose a preference.

But the second sense makes a link with the twenty-fifth verse, and I give this as my own reading: verse 25 had said jaʿalnāhu li'n-nās — "for the people". If ʿatīq means "the property of no one", then the two verses say the same thing in two separate words: the place is nobody's possession.

This is not a firm finding — the sense of the adjective is disputed in any case. But that the two verses stand side by side is a datum that supports the reading.

The construct ٱلْبَيْتِ ٱلْعَتِيق occurs twice in this sūra: 29 and 33. The verses that lie between the two occurrences form the core of the sūra's section on the ḥajj.

Dhālika wa man yuʿaẓẓim ḥurumāti'llāhi fa-huwa khayrun lahu ʿinda rabbih · Wa uḥillat lakumu'l-anʿāmu illā mā yutlā ʿalaykum · Fa'jtanibu'r-rijsa mina'l-awthāni wa'jtanibū qawla'z-zūr · Ḥunafāʾa lillāhi ghayra mushrikīna bih · Wa man yushrik bi'llāhi fa-ka-annamā kharra mina's-samāʾi fa-takhṭafuhu'ṭ-ṭayru aw tahwī bihi'r-rīḥu fī makānin saḥīq

"So it is. Whoever honours the inviolable things of God, that is better for him with his Lord… Shun the filth of idols, and shun false speech. As ḥanīfs to God, associating nothing with Him. And whoever associates anything with God is as though he had fallen from the sky, and the birds were snatching him away, or the wind were sweeping him off to a far place."

The core sense of the root: to make inviolable, to forbid, to set apart. Ḥarām, ḥaram, iḥrām, maḥram, ḥurma are of the same root. The root occurred in many contexts in al-Baqara.

What distinguishes the root must be recorded: the same word means both "forbidden" and "worthy of reverence". The two do not contradict: to make a thing inviolable is both to protect it and to fence it. Ḥaram — a place that may not be entered and that is protected.

حُرُمَات is plural and is left indefinite: which inviolable things they are is not enumerated.

The construct is striking and the lexicographers dwell on it: ar-rijsa mina'l-awthān.

In Arabic the particle min is here reckoned explicative (bayāniyya): that is, not "the filth that comes from idols" but "the filth that is the idols" — the min explains what the rijs is.

I record this as a grammatical observation, and the lexicographers explain the usage in this way. The difference of sense is this: idols are counted not as the source of the filth but as the filth itself.

وَٱجْتَنِبُوا۟ قَوْلَ ٱلزُّورِ — "shun false speech."

The root ز-و-ر: crookedness, swerving to one side. Zāra — he visited (he turned towards someone); azwar — one whose chest is crooked. From this comes the sense of "speech that has swerved from the truth".

That the two commands are placed side by side is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: one is an object (idols), the other a word. And both are forbidden with the same verb (ijtanibū). The verse thus counts a stone object and a sentence in the same category.

ٱجْتَنِبُوا۟ — root ج-ن-ب: side, flank. In Form VIII: "not to take a thing to one's side, to pass it by". The command is therefore not "destroy them" but "do not go near them".

And the root's other occurrence in this sūra must be recorded: at 22/36, fa-idhā wajabat junūbuhā — the flanks of the sacrificial animal. The same root, one a command and one a scene.

The lexicographers dwell on the concrete sense of the root: the inward turning of the foot (ḥanaf — a kind of crookedness of the foot). From this comes the sense of "to incline in one direction".

And the Qurʾānic usage of the word turns that inclination in a positive direction: a ḥanīf is one who turns his face from everything crooked and faces a single direction.

The lexicographers record one further point, and it is curious: the same root also occurs in some usages with exactly the opposite sense (ḥanīf — one who swerves from religion). That a root should carry opposite senses (aḍdād) is a known phenomenon in Arabic. I give this as a note on the language.

This is the most detailed simile in the sūra, and it is divided into four verbs:

The structure of the simile must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: the falling man never reaches the ground.

Two possibilities are given (fa-takhṭafuhu or aw tahwī bihi), and neither of them allows the fall to be completed. Either he is snatched in the air, or he is swept away. The scene is therefore not a fall but a being held in suspension.

خَرَّ — root خ-ر-ر: to fall from a height; and, in falling, to make a sound (ḥarīr — the murmur of water). The word is used in the Qurʾān of prostration as well (kharrū sujjadā).

This is an overlap worth recording: the same verb describes both the falling to the ground in prostration and the fall in this verse. The difference lies in whether the fall is controlled. Between the list of prostration in the eighteenth verse and this verse stand the two faces of one root.

سَحِيق — root س-ح-ق: to crush, to grind fine. Saḥq — to pound in a mortar. From this comes the sense of "very far"; the lexicographers make the link thus: so far that whoever reaches it counts as crushed.

تَخْطَفُ — root خ-ط-ف: to seize swiftly. The same root occurred at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/67 (wa yutakhaṭṭafu'n-nāsu min ḥawlihim — "while people are snatched away all around them"). And there too the subject was the safety of the Sanctuary. I rely on that treatment.

The comparison of the two verses is worth recording:

In al-ʿAnkabūt safety was bound to a place; here insecurity is bound to there being nothing to hold on to.

Dhālika wa man yuʿaẓẓim shaʿāʾira'llāhi fa-innahā min taqwa'l-qulūb · Lakum fīhā manāfiʿu ilā ajalin musamman thumma maḥilluhā ila'l-bayti'l-ʿatīq

"So it is. Whoever honours the shaʿāʾir of God — that is from the taqwā of hearts. In them there are benefits for you until an appointed term; then their place of arrival is the Ancient House."

This is one of the key words of the sūra and deserves detailed treatment.

Its singular: شَعِيرَة (shaʿīra). Root: ش-ع-ر.

The root was analysed at al-Baqara 2/154, and what was recorded there was this: the root is to perceive something fine; the lexicographers relate it to shaʿr (hair) — to notice what is as fine as a hair. Shuʿūr and shāʿir are of the same root. I do not repeat it here.

What is to be added about the derivative here is this:

شَعِيرَة, by the definition the lexicographers give, is "a mark by which a thing is made known". The root's sense of "perceiving, noticing" turns, in this pattern, into "that which makes one notice".

The word's relatives complete the picture:

Thus shaʿāʾir means "mark" before it means "symbol"; and a mark is what announces the existence of a thing to another.

I give this as an observation about the language, and the pattern of the word supports it.

عَظَّمَ — root ع-ظ-م: to be great. The concrete counterpart of the root is عَظْم (ʿaẓm — bone): the hardest, largest structure of the body.

The verb is in Form II (tafʿīl): "to make great, to reckon great".

I record this as a grammatical observation: the pattern conveys not actually enlarging a thing but reckoning it great. The object itself does not change; what changes is the attitude that meets it.

And this is the same as the verb in the thirtieth verse: wa man yuʿaẓẓim ḥurumāti'llāh. Between the two verses stand two objects:

The two complete one another: one is what is not to be done, the other what is visible.

This construct is the centre of gravity of the verse.

First a question of word order: to what does the pronoun in innahā refer?

The lexicographers part company at this point, and I transmit their views:

Both carry the meaning to a similar place, and I do not impose a preference. But reading B is the more favoured among the lexicographers, because the ruling is given not of the object but of the conduct.

The construct is a genitive: "the taqwā of hearts".

The root ت-ق-و / و-ق-ي: to guard, to be guarded, to take cover. Wiqāya — a protective covering; ittiqāʾ — to put oneself under protection.

What is striking in the construct is that taqwā is annexed to an organ.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the genitive itself:

• The verse binds the counterpart of an outward act (honouring) to an inward place. The act is visible — to slaughter a sacrifice, to circle, to show reverence to a place. But its worth is weighed where it cannot be seen.
• And the construct is taqwa'l-qulūb, not qulūbu'l-atqiyāʾ (the hearts of the God-fearing). Taqwā is annexed not to the person but to the heart.
• The plural is used: al-qulūb. Not one heart, but hearts.

And the function of the construct in the verse is this: it sets a criterion. The verse does not command "honour the shaʿāʾir"; it says where the one who honours them is to bind his act.

This criterion will return once more, and more sharply, in the thirty-seventh verse: lan yanāla'llāha luḥūmuhā wa lā dimāʾuhā wa lākin yanāluhu't-taqwā minkum. The two verses do the same work and use the same word.

The thirty-third verse adds a concrete note to the thirty-second.

There is disagreement over the pronoun (fīhā):

Reading A appears the better fit for the context, since the rest of the sentence says maḥilluhā (their place of arrival), and this requires something that is driven along. But I do not impose a preference.

And the structure of the sentence is worth recording:

I record this as an observation about word order: the verse does not forbid taking benefit from the sacrificial animal; it states its term. The benefit is lawful, but it has a time.

And the word manāfiʿ occurs here for the second time — it was in the twenty-eighth verse as well (li-yashhadū manāfiʿa lahum). There is a difference between the two occurrences and it must be recorded: in 28 the benefit was the ground of the act of pilgrimage; in 33 it is on the animal. The same word, then, first about the reason for the rite and then about its object.

And it is necessary to rely on the section al-Baqara 2/196-203: the rulings of the ḥajj were treated there, and the measure of that section was recorded thus — "the time, the place and the form are regulated; but no extra burden is laid on." al-Ḥajj 22/33 carries the same measure forward: the benefit is not removed, its time is fixed.

Wa li-kulli ummatin jaʿalnā mansakan li-yadhkuru'sma'llāhi ʿalā mā razaqahum min bahīmati'l-anʿām · Fa-ilāhukum ilāhun wāḥidun fa-lahu aslimū · Wa bashshiri'l-mukhbitīn · Alladhīna idhā dhukira'llāhu wajilat qulūbuhum wa'ṣ-ṣābirīna ʿalā mā aṣābahum wa'l-muqīmi'ṣ-ṣalāti wa mimmā razaqnāhum yunfiqūn

"For every community We appointed a mansak, that they might make mention of the name of God over the beasts of the herds He has provided them. Your God is one God; so submit to Him. And give glad tidings to those who are lowly: those whose hearts tremble when God is mentioned, who are patient under what befalls them, who keep up the prayer, and who spend of what We have provided them."

The lexicographers dwell on the concrete sense of the root, and two branches are recorded:

The lexicographers enter a third record as well: the root also carries the sense of purification (nasaka'th-thawba — he washed the garment). In the sources these three senses are generally brought together in the idea of "setting a thing apart in order to cleanse it".

The pattern مَنْسَك may be a noun of place or time or a maṣdar mīmī. The word can therefore mean both "the place or the time of worship" and "the form of worship". Both readings are transmitted in the classical commentaries.

A note on variant readings: it is transmitted that the word is also read as مَنْسِك (mansik, with kasra). I do not name a reader. The two readings turn on the distinction between the pattern's being a noun of place and its being a verbal noun.

The most striking feature of the sentence is its plurality: li-kulli umma — "for every community".

I record this as an observation about word order: the verse reports that the sacrifice and the form of worship are not peculiar to this community. A different mansak has been given to different communities.

And immediately after, the common point is set down: fa-ilāhukum ilāhun wāḥid. The forms are plural, the one turned to is one.

The same sentence will come once more at 22/67: li-kulli ummatin jaʿalnā mansakan hum nāsikūh. There is a difference between the two occurrences:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that both verses open with the same sentence: the same piece of information is given twice and tied to two separate conclusions. In the one, submission; in the other, the abandoning of contention.

The root occurs here for the first time in the index.

The concrete sense the lexicographers give: khabt — low ground, a hollow, level land. Ground with no elevation, without unevenness. From this, in Form IV, ikhbāt — to be lowered, to submit, to grow still.

The picture in the word must be recorded: a mukhbit, by the root of the word, is a man who has no height. The attribute is thus described not by an action but by a form of ground.

And the root will occur once more in this sūra: at 22/54, fa-tukhbita lahu qulūbuhum — "that their hearts may be lowered before Him". What the two occurrences share is the heart.

The root: to shiver with fear, an inward trembling. The lexicographers describe wajal as "the sudden stirring of the heart".

And what distinguishes the word must be recorded: khawf (fear) is generally felt of a harm to come; wajal is a momentary, bodily shiver.

The trigger given in the verse is worth recording too: idhā dhukira'llāh — "when God is mentioned". The shiver arises, then, not from a threat but from a name.

The thirty-fifth verse names four attributes, and its order can be compared with the four at Luqmān 31/17:

The two lists share two items: prayer and patience. And patience comes in both with the same words: ʿalā mā aṣābahum / ʿalā mā aṣābak.

The difference lies in direction, and I record this as my own reading: Luqmān's list contains two outward-facing items (enjoining, forbidding); al-Ḥajj's list runs from the inside outward — heart, endurance, prayer, spending. In Luqmān patience stood at the end of the list, as the price of giving counsel; in al-Ḥajj patience stands in the middle of the list, as a state.

Wa'l-budna jaʿalnāhā lakum min shaʿāʾiri'llāhi lakum fīhā khayr · Fa'dhkuru'sma'llāhi ʿalayhā ṣawāff · Fa-idhā wajabat junūbuhā fa-kulū minhā wa aṭʿimu'l-qāniʿa wa'l-muʿtarr · Kadhālika sakhkharnāhā lakum laʿallakum tashkurūn

"The large sacrificial beasts too We have appointed for you among the shaʿāʾir of God; in them there is good for you. Make mention of the name of God over them as they stand in rows. When their flanks fall to the ground, eat of them and feed both the one who is content and the one who asks. Thus have We made them subservient to you, that you may give thanks."

The sense of the root: body, trunk; to be bulky, to grow fat. Badan is of the same root; bādin — heavy-bodied.

بُدْن, its singular بَدَنَة: by the lexicographers' definition, a large-bodied sacrificial animal.

Which animals it covers has been debated in the sources of law:

This is a matter of law; I confine myself to transmitting the views, and I issue no ruling. This record is not binding.

The root of the word is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: the animal is named not by its species or its name but by the bulk of its body. And the thirty-seventh verse will touch exactly this point: luḥūmuhā wa lā dimāʾuhā — flesh and blood.

The root: to be in a row, to be drawn up. Ṣaff, ṣufūf are of the same root; the sūra names al-Ṣaff and al-Ṣāffāt come from this root.

صَوَافّ is the plural of ṣāffa: those standing in a row.

The word's work here is to build a scene, and I record this as an observation: the animals are described standing and drawn up in a row. The verse describes not the moment of slaughter but the moment before it.

A note on variant readings: it is transmitted that the word is also read as صَوَافِنَ (ṣawāfin — standing on three legs). I do not name a reader. Both readings describe the animal's stance.

The root و-ج-ب: to fall, to come down to the ground; and to become necessary. The lexicographers join the two senses: for a thing to be "obligatory" is for it to have settled into its place, to have become unavoidable.

The construct is, exactly: "when their flanks have fallen". Junūb — flanks, sides.

I record this as an observation: the verse does not name death directly. It conveys it by the standing animal's toppling onto its side. And this makes an exact contrast with the preceding word (ṣawāff — standing drawn up): upright stance → falling to the side.

And the relation of roots must be recorded: junūb (flanks) is of the same root (ج-ن-ب) as ijtanibū (pass by) in the thirtieth verse. The same root, six verses apart, one a command and one a scene.

Two words answer to two separate kinds of needy person, and the lexicographers dwell on the difference between them.

A record is needed about the root ق-ن-ع: the root can mean both "to be content" and "to ask" (qaniʿa — he was content; qaniʿa — he asked). The lexicographers record this distinction, and which of the two is meant here has been debated.

The root ع-ر-ر: ʿarra — to come and settle upon a place, to fasten upon. A muʿtarr is one who comes into view without asking openly.

The use of the two words together builds a scope, and I give this as my own reading: one is the one who does not ask, the other the one who cannot ask but is seen. The verse therefore covers both types who do not voice their need.

And the same type was treated at al-Baqara 2/273: yaḥsabuhumu'l-jāhilu aghniyāʾa mina't-taʿaffuf — "one who does not know thinks them rich, because they refrain from asking." The word differs, the attitude described is the same.

Lan yanāla'llāha luḥūmuhā wa lā dimāʾuhā wa lākin yanāluhu't-taqwā minkum · Kadhālika sakhkharahā lakum li-tukabbiru'llāha ʿalā mā hadākum · Wa bashshiri'l-muḥsinīn

"Neither their flesh nor their blood reaches God; what reaches Him is the taqwā that comes from you. Thus has He made them subservient to you, that you may magnify God for having guided you. And give glad tidings to those who do good."

This verse is the ruling of the sūra's section on the ḥajj, and it deserves to be dwelt on in detail.

The verse proceeds in three steps:

The verb is negated with lan. In Arabic lan negates the future decisively. It is stronger than lā.

And the verb is yanālu — root ن-و-ل: to reach a thing, to attain it, to arrive at it. Nawāl — what is obtained.

The word order must be recorded, and this is the most striking feature of the verse: the subject of the sentence is luḥūm and dimāʾ, and its object is Allāh. The sentence is not built as "God does not take the flesh"; it is built as "the flesh does not reach God".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the elements: the agents are the flesh and the blood. The verse makes the material the moving party and reports that its motion cannot arrive. What is refused is not a taking but a reaching.

Two words are chosen: flesh and blood. Both are plural.

I record this as an observation about word order: the material side of the sacrifice is gathered into two items — the part that is eaten (flesh) and the part that is poured out (blood).

And that the two are enumerated separately is meaningful: flesh is the part distributed among people and producing benefit. Blood is the part that is not distributed, only poured out. The verse places both under the same ruling.

What is said, then, is that neither the part that produces benefit nor the part that does not, arrives. This shows that the distinction is not built upon benefit.

The particle of exception (lākin) does not lift the ruling; it adds a note to it.

And what does arrive is named: at-taqwā — the same word as in the thirty-second verse.

The two verses must be set side by side:

And the note in the thirty-seventh verse must be recorded: minkum — "from you". The taqwā does not belong to the animal; it belongs to the one who slaughters.

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the contrast of the two annexations: there are two genitives in the verse — luḥūmuhā (its flesh) and taqwā minkum (the taqwā from you). One is bound to the animal, the other to the man. What does not arrive belongs to the animal; what arrives belongs to the man.

This distinction is the centre of the verse and can be generalised. I record it as my own reading, and its ground is the duality the verse builds itself.

Every act of worship has two sides:

What the verse does is not to cancel the material. This needs stressing: the verse does not abolish the sacrifice. The thirty-sixth verse described the slaughter in detail; the thirty-seventh comes immediately after that description.

The material therefore stands where it is; but it is not counted sufficient on its own.

And this measure works exactly as the verse treated at al-Baqara 2/197: wa tazawwadū fa-inna khayra'z-zādi't-taqwā — "take provision; the best provision is taqwā." The observation recorded in al-Baqara holds here too: the concrete command is not cancelled, a further layer is added upon it. And both verses use the same word: taqwā.

I rely on that treatment and add this: in al-Baqara the added layer lay upon provision (the material of a journey); in al-Ḥajj the added layer lies upon the sacrifice (the material of an act of worship). Both fall within the same section of a sūra — the discussion of the ḥajj.

The purpose clause must be recorded: the verb is tukabbirū — "that you may acknowledge as great".

The root ك-ب-ر, in Form II. And this is in the same pattern and doing the same work as the verb yuʿaẓẓim (to reckon great) in the thirty-second verse. The two verbs frame the sūra's section on the ḥajj:

I record this as an observation about word order: across the three verses the object of the honouring narrows step by step — the inviolable things, the marks, and finally the one who is marked.

عَلَىٰ مَا هَدَىٰكُمْ — "for having guided you". The ground of the takbīr is therefore not the sacrifice but the guidance.

And this can be compared with the usage in the fourth verse: there we had yahdīhi ilā ʿadhābi's-saʿīr — the same root, the opposite direction. The two ends of one root within a single sūra.

The ruling of the sacrifice, its time, upon whom it falls, which animals may be slaughtered, and how the meat is to be distributed have been debated in detail in the sources of law, and there are differences among the schools.

This commentary does not enter those debates and issues no ruling. What the verse treats is not the detail of the ruling but its measure; and the verse sets that measure itself.

The distinction the verse draws does not stay confined to the sacrifice.

Every visible work, because it has a measurable side, is open to supposing itself sufficient. The count comes out right, the quantity comes out right, the form comes out right. The verse says there is one more thing that has to come out right — and that this thing cannot be counted.

And it must be recorded again that in saying this the verse does not belittle the material. The meat is distributed, the poor are fed; that is commanded immediately before this verse. The distinction is not the preferring of one to the other; it is a statement of which of them arrives where.

Inna'llāha yudāfiʿu ʿani'lladhīna āmanū · Inna'llāha lā yuḥibbu kulla khawwānin kafūr

"God defends those who believe. God does not love anyone who is treacherous and ungrateful."

The root د-ف-ع: to push, to drive back, to bar the way of something. The root was treated at al-Baqara 2/251. I do not repeat it here.

The pattern here is Form III (mufāʿala): yudāfiʿu.

This pattern generally conveys reciprocity in Arabic (qātala — he fought, jādala — he disputed). But it is used for one-sided intensity as well.

The lexicographers generally take the use in this verse in the second sense: continual and forceful defence. I give this as a report.

A note on variant readings: it is transmitted that the word is also read as يَدْفَعُ (yadfaʿu, Form I). I do not name a reader. The direction of the meaning does not change; the difference of pattern touches the note of intensity.

And where the verse stands must be recorded: this is the verse immediately before the permission to fight. Before permission is given, then, it is said who the real agent of the defence is.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the thirty-eighth verse puts God as the agent; the thirty-ninth gives permission to man. Had the order been reversed, the meaning would have been reversed too.

خَوَّان and كَفُور — both in the intensive pattern. خ-و-ن: betrayal of a trust, secret diminishing. ك-ف-ر: to cover over, ingratitude.

Udhina li'lladhīna yuqātalūna bi-annahum ẓulimū · Wa inna'llāha ʿalā naṣrihim la-qadīr · Alladhīna ukhrijū min diyārihim bi-ghayri ḥaqqin illā an yaqūlū rabbuna'llāh · Wa law lā dafʿu'llāhi'n-nāsa baʿḍahum bi-baʿḍin la-huddimat ṣawāmiʿu wa biyaʿun wa ṣalawātun wa masājidu yudhkaru fīha'sma'llāhi kathīrā · Wa la-yanṣuranna'llāhu man yanṣuruh · Inna'llāha la-qawiyyun ʿazīz

"Permission has been given to those who are fought against, because they have been wronged. God is surely able to help them. They are those who have been driven from their homes without right, only for saying 'Our Lord is God'. Were it not that God repels some people by means of others, the cloisters, the churches, the synagogues and the mosques in which the name of God is much mentioned would have been pulled down. God will surely help whoever helps Him. God is strong, mighty."

The verb is passive: "permission has been given". Who gives the permission is not said — but its not being said is not a vagueness; it is a choice of style: the rest of the sentence already speaks of God.

And the verb's being passive says one thing more, and I record this as a grammatical observation: permission is something received, not something that arises from oneself. The sentence is not built in the form "they have a right".

لِلَّذِينَ يُقَٰتَلُونَ — this verb too is passive: "those who are fought against".

This is the most decisive feature of word order in the verse and it must be recorded: the permission is given not to those who fight but to those who are fought against. The passive form of the verb fixes the position of the party.

A note on variant readings: it is transmitted that the verb is also read as يُقَاتِلُونَ (yuqātilūna, active — "those who fight"). I do not name a reader. The difference between the two readings is meaningful: the one indicates the party subjected to fighting, the other the party doing the fighting. I transmit the disagreement; I do not impose a preference.

بِأَنَّهُمْ ظُلِمُوا۟ — the ground is given, and this verb too is passive: "they were wronged."

Three verbs in succession are passive: udhina, yuqātalūna, ẓulimū. I record this as an observation about word order: throughout the sentence the party occupying the position of subject initiates no action of its own.

The exceptive construction is striking. The sentence says "they were driven out without right", and then adds an exception: illā an yaqūlū rabbuna'llāh.

In Arabic this is called istithnāʾ munqaṭiʿ: not a real exception but a construction close to irony. It means, that is, "their only offence was this".

I record this as a grammatical observation, and the lexicographers explain the construction in this way: the pattern says by the form of the sentence that the ground alleged cannot count as a ground.

This sentence occurred in the same words at al-Baqara 2/251 and was treated there. I rely on that treatment and repeat the observation recorded there:

The balance is established not by the dominance of a single power but by powers limiting one another. The verse does not say "God destroys the corrupters"; it says "He repels some people by means of others." The instrument, that is, is again man.

It was also recorded in the al-Baqara section that this verse occurs once more at al-Ḥajj 22/40. Now the difference between the two occurrences must be drawn out:

The relation of the two verses must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading:

al-Baqara lays down the general ruling: without the repelling, the earth would be corrupted. al-Ḥajj gives one concrete item of the same ruling: without the repelling, the places of worship would be pulled down.

al-Ḥajj thus draws out one example from within what al-Baqara calls "corruption". And the example chosen is striking: as the index of corruption, it is not crops, or trade, or life that is chosen, but places of worship.

The verse names four buildings. This is a list without parallel in the Qurʾān and needs careful treatment.

A record is needed on the third item: it has been debated whether the word ṣalawāt is used here in the sense of "worship" or "place of worship". Since the list consists throughout of names of places, the sense of place comes to the fore, but both readings are transmitted. I do not impose a preference.

Observations on the structure of the list — I give them so far as they can be drawn from the text:

First: the order. The list runs from the least crowded to the most crowded: the single hermit's cell → the church → the synagogue → the mosque. This is an observation about word order.

Second: where the qualification stands. The verse names four buildings, then attaches a relative clause to all of them at once: yudhkaru fīha'sma'llāhi kathīrā — "in which the name of God is much mentioned".

That the qualification is attached to all four buildings has been debated by the lexicographers: some say the qualification belongs only to the last (masājid), others that it belongs to all four. I transmit both views; I do not impose a preference.

Third and most important — per the method (Method) I record it plainly:

No wholesale ruling about any religious community may be built on this list. The verse issues no verdict of truth about the systems of belief to which the named buildings belong; it neither endorses nor rejects them. What the verse says is one thing only: had the destruction not been prevented, all of these would have been pulled down.

And this commentary draws no present-day political conclusion from the verse. The verse states a principle; how the principle is to be applied to which event today is not the subject of this text and is not entered into here.

What can be drawn from the verse on the basis of the text is this, and I give it as my own reading: the permission is given not in order to attack but in order to stop a destruction. The construction of the sentence shows it: the conditional clause depicts a destruction (la-huddimat), and the repelling is set against that destruction.

لَّهُدِّمَتْ — root ه-د-م: to pull down, to bring a building down from its foundations. The verb is in Form II (tahdīm) and is passive: the pattern conveys intensity — being pulled down one by one, from end to end.

Alladhīna in makkannāhum fi'l-arḍi aqāmu'ṣ-ṣalāta wa ātawu'z-zakāta wa amarū bi'l-maʿrūfi wa nahaw ʿani'l-munkar · Wa lillāhi ʿāqibatu'l-umūr

"They are those who, if We give them power and place on the earth, keep up the prayer, pay the alms, enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. And to God belongs the end of all affairs."

The verse is built as a conditional sentence, and this is its most striking feature.

The root م-ك-ن: place, location; to set a thing in its place. Makān, tamkīn, mumkin are of the same root. In Form II, makkana: to make one possessed of a place, to give means and power.

The root was treated at al-Aḥqāf 46/26 (wa laqad makkannāhum fīmā in makkannākum fīh) — there the means given to the people of ʿĀd were described. I rely on that treatment.

The comparison of the two verses is worth recording:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of the two patterns: al-Aḥqāf describes how a means already given went to waste; al-Ḥajj describes how a means yet to be given would be used. One is a reckoning of the past, the other a condition upon the future.

Three of the same four occurred at Luqmān 31/17. The two lists must be set side by side:

There are two differences, and both must be recorded:

The first difference: the alms are in the al-Ḥajj list and not in Luqmān. I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the context of the lists: the list in Luqmān is a father's counsel to his son — a list of personal responsibility. The list in al-Ḥajj is the list of one who holds power — and the alms are the only item that requires a disposal over property.

The second difference: patience is in Luqmān and not in al-Ḥajj. As recorded in Luqmān, the item of patience there answered to the natural consequence of the second and third commands: the price of saying something to people. That item is absent from the al-Ḥajj list — because the list is not the list of the party who pays the price but of the party who has the means.

I give these two observations as my own reading; their ground is the difference in the addressees of the two verses.

By the analysis of direction recorded at Luqmān 31/17, the four verbs line up thus:

I record this as an observation about word order: the list opens on the vertical axis and then passes to the horizontal. And the vertical axis is set as the first business of power.

The closing of the verse enters a note upon the list as a whole.

The root ع-ق-ب: heel, the back of a thing; what comes after a thing. ʿĀqiba — what comes at the end.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is where the sentence stands in the verse: the verse enumerates what power will do, and then says to whom the outcome belongs. The relation between the two sentences is this: the works to be done belong to man, the outcome does not.

And this agrees with a line the sūra has drawn earlier: in the fifteenth verse kayd (the laying of a scheme) produced no outcome; in the thirty-eighth the agent of the defence was God. In all three places man's share is separated from the outcome.

Wa in yukadhdhibūka fa-qad kadhdhabat qablahum qawmu Nūḥin wa ʿĀdun wa Thamūd · Wa qawmu Ibrāhīma wa qawmu Lūṭ · Wa aṣḥābu Madyan · Wa kudhdhiba Mūsā fa-amlaytu li'l-kāfirīna thumma akhadhtuhum · Fa-kayfa kāna nakīr · Fa-ka-ayyin min qaryatin ahlaknāhā wa hiya ẓālimatun fa-hiya khāwiyatun ʿalā ʿurūshihā wa biʾrin muʿaṭṭalatin wa qaṣrin mashīd

"If they deny you — before them the people of Noah (Nūḥ), ʿĀd, Thamūd, the people of Abraham, the people of Lot (Lūṭ) and the inhabitants of Madyan denied too. Moses (Mūsā) too was denied. I granted the disbelievers a respite, then I seized them. How was My rejection of them! How many a town We destroyed while it was doing wrong: now it stands with its roofs fallen in; and how many an abandoned well, how many a lofty palace!"

Six communities and one prophet's name are enumerated. The order must be recorded:

The seventh item breaks the pattern of the list, and this is an observation about word order: in the first six the denying party is the subject (kadhdhabat); with Moses the verb is passive and Moses becomes the subject (wa kudhdhiba Mūsā).

His people are not named. In the classical commentaries the reason given is that those who denied Moses were not his own people alone. I transmit this as a report.

فَأَمْلَيْتُ — root م-ل-و/م-ل-ي: to draw out, to give time. Malā — a long stretch of time. The verb means "I granted a respite".

And the person of the verbs must be recorded: amlaytu, akhadhtuhum — first person singular. Where "We" is mostly used throughout the sūra, "I" comes here. This is an iltifāt, and it makes the ruling singular.

نَكِير — root ن-ك-ر: to refuse to recognise, to reject. The construct kayfa kāna nakīr — "how was their refusal to recognise Me?" or "how was My rejection of them?" Both readings are possible, and the lexicographers record both.

The root خ-و-ي: to be emptied, to be left hollow; to collapse. Khawāʾ — empty, desolate.

عُرُوش — its singular ʿarsh: a roof, a covered structure. The same word is used for "throne" as well.

The construct is, exactly: "fallen in upon its roofs". The walls have collapsed, the roof has come down to the ground, and the rubble lies beneath the roof.

I record this as an observation: the verse gives the order of the ruin. First the wall goes, then the roof falls upon it. The last thing standing, then, is the thing on top.

Two more structures are enumerated, and the two are opposites:

The root ع-ط-ل: to stand empty, to be without function; to be unadorned (ʿāṭil — a woman without ornaments).

The root ش-ي-د: to raise up; and shīd — lime, plaster. Mashīd therefore means both "raised" and "plastered".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the contrast of the two objects: the verse has chosen two extremes — the lowest structure (a well) and the highest structure (a palace). One carries water, that is, life; the other displays power. And both are named in the same end.

And what is striking is this: of the well it is not said "it was pulled down", but "it was left idle". The well is still standing — but there is no one to use it. Desolation, that is, is counted as an item separate from destruction.

A-fa-lam yasīrū fi'l-arḍi fa-takūna lahum qulūbun yaʿqilūna bihā aw ādhānun yasmaʿūna bihā · Fa-innahā lā taʿma'l-abṣāru wa lākin taʿma'l-qulūbu'llatī fi'ṣ-ṣudūr

"Have they not travelled in the land, so that they might have hearts with which to understand, or ears with which to hear? The truth is that it is not the eyes that go blind; it is the hearts within the breasts that go blind."

The logic of the verse is built the other way round, and this is striking.

The expected construction is: "had they hearts, they would travel and take a lesson." The verse builds the reverse: a-fa-lam yasīrū … fa-takūna lahum qulūb — "have they not travelled, so that they might have hearts?"

Travelling, then, is set as the cause of the heart, not as its effect.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the verb fa-takūna is in the subjunctive (conveying result): the verse says that seeing the ruins would bring an organ into being. The heart is not the precondition of travelling; it is its product.

The verse names two organs: the heart and the ear. The eye is not named.

And this prepares the second half of the sentence: lā taʿma'l-abṣār — the eyes do not go blind.

I record this as an observation about word order: the eye is absent from the first list; and in the second sentence it is exempted from the ruling. The two moves face the same way: the eye is not the matter the verse is disputing.

At al-Aḥqāf 46/26 three organs were treated together: samʿ, abṣār, afʾida — hearing, eyes, hearts. There all three had been given, and all three had been of no use. I rely on that treatment.

The comparison of the two verses:

The difference of order is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: al-Aḥqāf enumerated the instruments in the order in which they were given. al-Ḥajj puts the heart first — and the end of the verse says why: the matter is in the heart.

At Fuṣṣilat 41/5 the other party had described its own condition by three obstacles: akinna (coverings on the heart), waqr (heaviness in the ear), ḥijāb (a veil between). And at Fuṣṣilat 41/44 the text itself gave the same verdict about them. I rely on that treatment.

Setting the three places side by side shows how the matter is handled:

This sentence deserves detailed treatment.

First a grammatical matter: to what does the pronoun in fa-innahā belong?

The lexicographers explain this pronoun as a ḍamīru'sh-shaʾn (the pronoun of the situation): a pronoun that refers to nothing in particular but puts the whole sentence forward. Its counterpart in English is the expression "the truth is that".

I transmit this as a grammatical note in the form in which it is transmitted. The pattern lays stress on the sentence that follows.

The second matter: the logic of the sentence.

The verse seems to deny an obvious fact: eyes do not go blind. Yet eyes do go blind, and everyone knows it.

The resolution of the sentence is this, and I give it as my own reading, its ground being the context:

The verse is not disputing the existence of blindness as a medical condition. The subject is the ruins described in the preceding verse: fallen roofs, abandoned wells, lofty palaces. These are being seen. The eye is working — indeed the verse assumes that these people travel in the land.

What the verse says, then, is this: what is missing here is not the image. The image is complete, the conclusion drawn is nil. And to name this state the verse takes the word "blindness" from the eye and gives it to the heart.

The word is carried from one organ to another — and as it is carried, its ruling in its old place is expressly cancelled (lā taʿma'l-abṣār). This is not a simile; it is the moving of a word's place.

The third matter: why the note "within the breasts"?

ٱلَّتِى فِى ٱلصُّدُورِ — "which are within the breasts".

This note has been dwelt on, because that the heart is in the breast is already known. Two explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

I transmit both; I do not impose a preference.

As my own reading I add this, its ground being the verse as a whole: the verse performs a change of place — blindness is carried from the eye to the heart. And the new address of what is carried is given explicitly. The function of the note is to keep the transfer from hanging in the air: blindness is loaded not onto an abstract concept but onto a particular organ in a particular place.

The root ق-ل-ب: to turn, to bring the underside up. Inqilāb, taqallub are of the same root. And the root occurred in the eleventh verse of this sūra as well: inqalaba ʿalā wajhih — "he turned about on his face". The same root, one the name of an organ and one a verb.

The distinction the verse draws becomes still more visible in an age of information: images have never been so abundant, and the abundance of images by itself produces no conclusion.

The verse does not give this as a list of faults. It gives it as a diagnosis: what is lacking is not data. And the address of the diagnosis is specified.

Wa yastaʿjilūnaka bi'l-ʿadhābi wa lan yukhlifa'llāhu waʿdah · Wa inna yawman ʿinda rabbika ka-alfi sanatin mimmā taʿuddūn · Wa ka-ayyin min qaryatin amlaytu lahā wa hiya ẓālimatun thumma akhadhtuhā wa ilayya'l-maṣīr

"They ask you to hasten the punishment. God does not break His promise. A day with your Lord is like a thousand years of what you count. How many a town I granted a respite while it was doing wrong, and then I seized it. To Me is the journey's end."

What the verse does is a change of scale.

The objection is this: the punishment does not come, so it will not come. The ground of the objection is the time that has passed.

And the answer opens up time itself to discussion: ka-alfi sanatin mimmā taʿuddūn — "like a thousand years of what you count."

The note must be recorded: mimmā taʿuddūn. The counting party is specified. The verse, in saying "a thousand years", is therefore not reporting an absolute span; it is making a comparison against man's unit of counting.

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is that note: the sentence does not report a length of time, it reports the difference between two scales. And the particle of comparison (kāf) supports this too: ka-alfi sanatin — "like a thousand years", not "a thousand years".

At al-Maʿārij 70/4 another number occurs (fifty thousand years), and at al-Sajda 32/5 a thousand years occurs again. The difference of the numbers has been dwelt on in the classical commentaries and various explanations are transmitted. No calculation is drawn from these numbers in this commentary; per the method (Method) no reckoning of numbers is made. The one thing recorded is that all three verses do the same work: not to take man's measure of time as absolute.

The verb occurred in the forty-fourth verse as well: fa-amlaytu li'l-kāfirīn. It is repeated here, and this is a link that can be verified from the text.

The difference between the two occurrences is in the object:

And in both the same sequence of verbs is repeated: granting a respite → seizing.

ٱلْمَصِير — root ص-ي-ر: to pass from one state to another; to arrive. Maṣīr — the place one comes to.

Qul yā ayyuha'n-nāsu innamā ana lakum nadhīrun mubīn · Fa'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti lahum maghfiratun wa rizqun karīm · Wa'lladhīna saʿaw fī āyātinā muʿājizīna ulāʾika aṣḥābu'l-jaḥīm

"Say: 'O people! I am to you only a clear warner.' Those who believe and do righteous deeds shall have forgiveness and a noble provision. But those who run about among Our signs, seeking to frustrate them are the companions of the blaze."

The sūra's third address yā ayyuha'n-nās comes here (1, 5, 49, 73).

And the pattern of the sentence must be recorded: innamā — the particle of restriction (ḥaṣr). "Only, nothing but."

I record this as a grammatical observation: in the forty-seventh verse it was said yastaʿjilūnaka bi'l-ʿadhāb — "they ask you to hasten the punishment". The forty-ninth verse corrects the addressee of that demand: bringing punishment is not the warner's business. The particle of restriction does exactly this work.

The same limit was treated at al-Furqān 25/43 (a-fa-anta takūnu ʿalayhi wakīlā), and was recorded there as a "limit of responsibility". I rely on that treatment.

The root: to be powerless, to be unable to do a thing. ʿAjz, ʿājiz, muʿjiza are of the same root.

In Form III (mufāʿala), muʿājiz: "one who strives to render powerless". The word therefore conveys not a failure but an effort to make something fail.

سَعَوْا۟ — root س-ع-ي: to walk quickly, to run; to strive.

The construct is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: the verse does not say "those who deny the signs". It says "those who run about among Our signs" — the verb, that is, is a verb of motion. Denial is described as a work done at a run, not sitting down.

And this makes a link with the forty-sixth verse: there we had a-fa-lam yasīrū fi'l-arḍ — "have they not travelled in the land?" Two verbs of motion in two verses: one required, the other censured. The same energy, in two separate directions.

Wa mā arsalnā min qablika min rasūlin wa lā nabiyyin illā idhā tamannā alqa'sh-shayṭānu fī umniyyatih · Fa-yansakhu'llāhu mā yulqi'sh-shayṭānu thumma yuḥkimu'llāhu āyātih · Wa'llāhu ʿalīmun ḥakīm · Li-yajʿala mā yulqi'sh-shayṭānu fitnatan li'lladhīna fī qulūbihim maraḍun wa'l-qāsiyati qulūbuhum · Wa inna'ẓ-ẓālimīna la-fī shiqāqin baʿīd · Wa li-yaʿlama'lladhīna ūtu'l-ʿilma annahu'l-ḥaqqu min rabbika fa-yuʾminū bihi fa-tukhbita lahu qulūbuhum

"We have sent no messenger or prophet before you but that, when he desired / when he recited, Satan cast something into his desire / into what he recited. God abolishes what Satan casts, then makes His signs firm. God is knowing, wise. That He may make what Satan casts a trial for those in whose hearts is a sickness and for those whose hearts are hardened; and that those who have been given knowledge may know that it is the truth from your Lord, and may believe in it, and that their hearts may be lowered before Him."

This verse has been associated in the history of exegesis with a certain report. The matter was treated in al-Najm, and the stance adopted there is kept here exactly. I repeat the records made in al-Najm:

• I do not pass over the matter, because per the method disagreement is not concealed.
• The report has been widely rejected in the tradition of ḥadīth criticism; the discontinuity of its chains (their being mursal) and the absence of an unbroken line of transmission are given as the grounds. I give this judgement as a report.
• I do not transmit the wording of the sentence that is alleged.
• I do not speculate on the details of the report.

And I add one thing more here, because this verse is intelligible on its own, apart from that report:

The verse itself does not narrate an event. No name of a person, no time, no place occurs in it. The sentence is built in the form of a general rule: wa mā arsalnā min qablika min rasūlin wa lā nabiyyin illā … — that is, "it holds for all messengers and prophets without exception".

I record this as an observation about word order: the pattern of the sentence is universal. Its being tied to a particular incident arises not from the verse's own wording but from a report coming from outside.

Root: م-ن-ي. The root was treated in al-Najm and in al-Qiyāma, and its derivatives were recorded thus:

- مَنَىٰ (manā) — he apportioned, he measured, he determined. - مَنِيَّة — death; "that which has been apportioned". - أُمْنِيَّة (umniyya), its plural أَمَانِىّ — a wish, a fancy.

It is transmitted that the word is read in two separate senses in this verse, and both readings occur in the classical sources:

That the second sense (to recite) exists in Arabic is recorded by the lexicographers. I transmit both readings and impose no preference.

What must be recorded is this: whichever reading is taken, the second half of the verse does not change. Fa-yansakhu'llāhu mā yulqi'sh-shayṭānu thumma yuḥkimu'llāhu āyātih — what is cast is removed, and the signs are made firm.

Two verbs in succession, and both must be recorded:

The root ن-س-خ: to remove a thing and put another in its place; and to copy. The lexicographers record both senses: naskh is both "abrogation" and "transcription".

The root ح-ك-م: to make firm, to restrain. The concrete sense of the root is ḥakama — the bit placed in a horse's mouth: the thing that holds and controls the animal. From this come ḥukm, ḥikma, muḥkam.

The order of the two verbs must be recorded, and I give this as an observation about word order: first removal, then making firm. And between them stands thumma — a particle conveying an interval.

The verse thus enumerates two separate operations: the taking out of what was mixed in, and the strengthening of the text. The second is not a repetition of the first; it is a distinct operation.

The fifty-third and fifty-fourth verses give two separate outcomes of the same event:

In all three groups the heart occurs. This is a word repeated four times across three verses.

The root ق-س-و: to harden, to grow stiff. It is used of stone.

And two kinds of sickness are distinguished: maraḍ (sickness — working but disordered) and qaswa (hardness — not working at all). The two are enumerated separately.

فَتُخْبِتَ لَهُۥ قُلُوبُهُمْ — the root خ-ب-ت was treated in the thirty-fourth verse: khabt — low, level ground; ikhbāt — to be lowered, to submit. What the two occurrences share is the heart.

And setting the two verses side by side is worth recording:

The same root twenty verses apart: one names the person, the other says where that naming takes place.

And the order in the fifty-fourth verse must be recorded: yaʿlama (let them know) → yuʾminū (let them believe) → tukhbita (let it be lowered). Three stages: knowledge, faith, the settling of the heart.

This order agrees with the distinction treated at al-Baqara 2/260: there faith and iṭmiʾnān were distinguished and it was recorded that "one is acceptance, the other a settling within". Here the same distinction is given in three steps. I rely on that treatment.

Wa lā yazālu'lladhīna kafarū fī miryatin minhu ḥattā taʾtiyahumu's-sāʿatu baghtatan aw yaʾtiyahum ʿadhābu yawmin ʿaqīm · Al-mulku yawmaʾidhin lillāhi yaḥkumu baynahum · Fa'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti fī jannāti'n-naʿīm · Wa'lladhīna kafarū wa kadhdhabū bi-āyātinā fa-ulāʾika lahum ʿadhābun muhīn

"Those who disbelieve will not cease to be in doubt about it until the Hour comes upon them suddenly, or the punishment of a barren day comes upon them. On that day sovereignty belongs to God; He judges between them. Those who believe and do righteous deeds are in gardens of bliss. But those who disbelieve and deny Our signs shall have an abasing punishment."

The root ع-ق-م: barrenness, failure to bear. ʿAqīm — one that bears no child; and the lexicographers record in the root the sense of "closing, stopping up" as well (ʿuqma — the closing of the womb).

The word is used of wind too: ar-rīḥa'l-ʿaqīm (al-Dhāriyāt 51/41) — a wind that brings nothing forth, that has no use.

The construct here is yawmun ʿaqīm — "a barren day".

Two explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

I transmit both; I do not impose a preference.

As my own reading I add this, its ground being the sense of the root: every day "gives birth" to the next; that is the series of days. A barren day is the day on which the series is cut. And this closes the debate about time in the forty-seventh verse: there the term was being stretched, here the term ends.

مِرْيَة — root م-ر-ي: doubt, hesitation; and to milk (marā — he milked the udder). The lexicographers make the link thus: one who doubts turns the matter over and over; one who milks draws at the udder again and again. I transmit this connection as it is transmitted.

What distinguishes the word: unlike shakk, mirya is a doubt that is kept up. And the verse says so with the verb as well: lā yazālu — "unceasingly".

The word order of the sentence must be recorded: al-mulku first, lillāh last.

In Arabic the fronting of the predicate conveys restriction (ḥaṣr). Here the reverse obtains: the subject is in front, but the prepositional phrase lillāh stands in the position of the predicate and carries the stress.

I record this as a grammatical observation: the sentence reports that on that day sovereignty is with no one else. And this links with the forty-first verse of the sūra: there it was said wa lillāhi ʿāqibatu'l-umūr. The two sentences do the same work: to whom power belongs in the end.

عَذَابٌ مُّهِين — the root ه-و-ن occurred in the eighteenth verse (wa man yuhini'llāh). The same root, one a verb and one an adjective.

Wa'lladhīna hājarū fī sabīli'llāhi thumma qutilū aw mātū la-yarzuqannahumu'llāhu rizqan ḥasanā · Wa inna'llāha la-huwa khayru'r-rāziqīn · La-yudkhilannahum mudkhalan yarḍawnah · Wa inna'llāha la-ʿalīmun ḥalīm

"Those who emigrated in the way of God and were then killed or died — God will surely provide for them with a goodly provision. God is the best of providers. He will surely bring them into a place with which they will be well pleased. God is knowing, slow to act in anger."

Two verbs are enumerated separately: to be killed and to die.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the particle aw (or): the verse equates the two forms of death. Whatever comes after for the one who emigrates, the promise is the same.

And the distinction of passive and active is meaningful too: qutilū is passive (they were killed), mātū active (they died). One comes from outside, the other happens of itself. Both are tied to the same ruling.

This links with the thirty-ninth verse of the sūra: there permission was given to those who are fought against. Here the end of those who emigrate is named. The two verses answer to two states of the same community.

هَاجَرُوا۟ — root ه-ج-ر: to part, to leave, to sever a tie. Hijra, hajr, mahjūr are of the same root. In Form III there is reciprocity: hājara — to part from one another, to leave and go.

The root ح-ل-م: not to hasten, not to be carried off by anger, to move slowly. Ḥilm — to meet a thing with patience and gravity.

Where the attribute stands here is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the verse gives a promise (la-yarzuqannahum, la-yudkhilannahum — both with emphasis). And at the close comes the attribute ḥalīm.

In the forty-seventh verse the objection was istiʿjāl — a demand to hasten. And ḥilm is exactly the refusal to hasten. This relation of words between the two verses is a link that can be verified within the sūra.

Dhālika wa man ʿāqaba bi-mithli mā ʿūqiba bihi thumma bughiya ʿalayhi la-yanṣurannahu'llāh · Inna'llāha la-ʿafuwwun ghafūr

"So it is. Whoever requites with the like of what was done to him and is then assaulted again, God will surely help him. God is much pardoning, much forgiving."

At the centre of the sentence stands a note of equivalence: bi-mithli mā ʿūqiba bih — "with the like of what was done to him".

I record this as an observation about word order: the requital is not left free; its measure is the thing that came. And the measure is bound not to the discretion of the one who requites but to what was done to him.

And there is a second step in the conditional clause: thumma bughiya ʿalayh — "then he was assaulted again". The promise, then, is tied not to the first requital but to the assault continuing after the requital.

بَغَىٰ — root ب-غ-ي: to want, to seek; and to exceed the bound. Both branches of the sense are recorded by the lexicographers; baghy is a wanting that goes past the limit.

The verse ends, after the promise of help, with two attributes of pardon: ʿafuwwun ghafūr.

This is a striking pairing, and I record it as my own reading, its ground being that the two sentences stand side by side:

The sentence acknowledges a right to requite. And at the close it names pardon. Two things in one verse: the acknowledging of a right and the recalling of pardon.

The verse imposes no preference between the two. The requital is counted lawful, and pardon is named as well. And this is of the same kind as the measure recorded at al-Baqara 2/203: there too two choices (to hasten, to stay behind) ended in an equal ruling.

عَفُوّ — root ع-ف-و: to wipe away, to efface the trace of. It is used of the wind's effacing tracks in the sand. غَفُور — root غ-ف-ر: to cover. Mighfar (the head-covering) is of the same root.

The difference between the two attributes is worth recording, and the lexicographers give it thus: ʿafw effaces the trace; ghufrān covers it over. One destroys, the other conceals. I transmit this distinction as it is transmitted.

Dhālika bi-anna'llāha yūliju'l-layla fi'n-nahāri wa yūliju'n-nahāra fi'l-layli wa anna'llāha samīʿun baṣīr · Dhālika bi-anna'llāha huwa'l-ḥaqqu wa anna mā yadʿūna min dūnihi huwa'l-bāṭilu wa anna'llāha huwa'l-ʿaliyyu'l-kabīr

"So it is; because God makes the night enter into the day and makes the day enter into the night, and because God is hearing, seeing. So it is; because God is the truth itself, and what they call upon besides Him is falsehood itself. And God is the high, the great."

The sense of the root: to enter through a narrow place. Wilāj — an entering; tawlīj — to insert. The lexicographers record the root for narrow passages, such as passing through the eye of a needle.

The choice of word is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: the relation of night and day is described not as an exchange of places but as a seeping of each into the other. The boundary, that is, is not sharp.

At al-Zumar 39/5 the same fact was described with another root: yukawwiru'l-layla ʿala'n-nahāri wa yukawwiru'n-nahāra ʿala'l-layl — ك-و-ر: to wind, to fold. I rely on that treatment.

The two verbs can be compared:

Both pictures describe the same fact, and both say that the boundary is not sharp. And I keep here the limit set by the method that was drawn in the al-Zumar section: I draw from these words no firm conclusion about the shape or the motion of the earth. What the verse describes is the unbroken passage of night into day.

The root ح-ق-ق: to be fixed, to stand in place, to be realised. Ḥaqq is that which does not move from its place.

The root ب-ط-ل: to come to nothing, to be void, to perish. The lexicographers explain bāṭil as "that which has no support to hold it up". Bāṭil is what falls of itself.

The opposition of the two roots is built into the meanings of the words themselves, and I record this as an observation about the language: one stands, the other falls. The contrast lies not on the axis of true and false but on the axis of permanence.

And the sixty-second verse is a repetition of the sixth: dhālika bi-anna'llāha huwa'l-ḥaqq — the same sentence, fifty-six verses apart. This is a link that can be verified from the text.

A-lam tara anna'llāha anzala mina's-samāʾi māʾan fa-tuṣbiḥu'l-arḍu mukhḍarra · Inna'llāha laṭīfun khabīr · Lahu mā fi's-samāwāti wa mā fi'l-arḍ · Wa inna'llāha la-huwa'l-ghaniyyu'l-ḥamīd

"Have you not seen that God sends down water from the sky, and the earth becomes green? God is one who reaches the finest thing, aware. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. God is the one in need of nothing, the praiseworthy."

The same proof was given in the fifth verse with four verbs: hāmida → ihtazzat → rabat → anbatat.

Here it is given with a single verb: fa-tuṣbiḥu'l-arḍu mukhḍarra.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the comparison of the two verses: the sūra gives the same proof twice. In the first the process is detailed, in the second the outcome is in a single word. Long when the proof is being built, short when it is being recalled.

فَتُصْبِح — root ص-ب-ح: to become morning. The verb means "to be found in a state in the morning", and from this "to come into a state".

And the tenses of the verbs must be recorded: anzala is perfect (past), tuṣbiḥu imperfect (present/future). There is a shift of tense between the two verbs, and this reports that the fact recurs.

مُخْضَرَّة — root خ-ض-ر: greenness. The pattern is Form IX (ifʿilāl) — in Arabic the pattern used for verbs of colour and of defect. Iḥmarra (it reddened), iṣfarra (it yellowed) are of the same pattern.

The choice of pattern is an observation: this form conveys that the colour comes about of itself and completely. The greening, then, is described not as the result of an operation but as a coming into a state.

لَطِيف — root ل-ط-ف: fineness, reaching to the finest place. The attribute was treated at Luqmān 31/16 (inna'llāha laṭīfun khabīr) — there it came in the context of the mustard seed, and it was recorded that "the attribute matches the subject of the verse exactly: reaching what is smallest". I rely on that treatment.

And in the present context the same match holds: the water goes down into the soil and does its work in a place that cannot be seen, inside the seed. The attribute laṭīf suits that work.

A-lam tara anna'llāha sakhkhara lakum mā fi'l-arḍi wa'l-fulka tajrī fi'l-baḥri bi-amrih · Wa yumsiku's-samāʾa an taqaʿa ʿala'l-arḍi illā bi-idhnih · Inna'llāha bi'n-nāsi la-raʾūfun raḥīm

"Have you not seen that God has made subservient to you whatever is on the earth, and the ships that run upon the sea by His command? And He holds the sky from falling upon the earth except by His leave. God is most kind to people, most merciful."

The root م-س-ك: to hold, not to let go, to grasp. Imsāk — a holding; the lexicographers attach misk to this root as well (that which holds a scent).

And the word order of the verb must be recorded: yumsiku's-samāʾa an taqaʿa — literally, "He holds the sky from falling".

I record this as an observation: the verse describes the sky's standing not as a balance but as a holding. The present state, that is, is not described as continuing of itself; it is described as the result of a continual holding.

Per the method (Method) I draw a limit: I derive from this verse no scientific claim about gravitation or the motion of heavenly bodies. What the verse establishes is not a description of physics but a record of dependence: the state depends upon a holding from outside.

إِلَّا بِإِذْنِهِ — a note of exception. Neither its not falling nor its falling, therefore, lies outside the scope of that same leave. The verse does not report an absolute impossibility.

رَءُوف — root ر-أ-ف: a fine-grained compassion. The lexicographers observe a difference between raʾfa and raḥma and generally give it thus: raʾfa is finer and more particular; raḥma is more encompassing. I transmit this distinction as it is transmitted.

And where the two attributes stand in this verse is worth recording: after speaking of the sky, the sea and the earth, the verse names man at the close: bi'n-nāsi la-raʾūfun raḥīm. The scale descends from the largest to the smallest.

Wa huwa'lladhī aḥyākum thumma yumītukum thumma yuḥyīkum · Inna'l-insāna la-kafūr

"It is He who gave you life, then will cause you to die, then will give you life again. Man is indeed ungrateful."

The moods of the verbs must be recorded:

I record this as an observation about word order: one of the three is an accomplished fact, and it is the state the addressee is in. The first item of the series is therefore not in dispute — the addressee is living it.

And the second and third are in the same pattern. The verse builds a series in which, the first being granted, the second and third do not require separate assessment.

This is a summary of the proof in the fifth verse. The sūra does the same work a second time: there the process was detailed, here it is reduced to three verbs.

إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ لَكَفُورٌ — the root ك-ف-ر: to cover. Kafūr is in the intensive pattern.

And the root of the word matches the subject of the verse, and I give this as an observation: the verse builds a three-stage series of life; and ingratitude is named as the covering over of that series. The root conveys exactly this.

Li-kulli ummatin jaʿalnā mansakan hum nāsikūh · Fa-lā yunāziʿunnaka fi'l-amr · Wa'dʿu ilā rabbik · Innaka la-ʿalā hudan mustaqīm · Wa in jādalūka fa-quli'llāhu aʿlamu bimā taʿmalūn · Allāhu yaḥkumu baynakum yawma'l-qiyāmati fīmā kuntum fīhi takhtalifūn

"For every community We appointed a mansak; they perform it. So let them not contend with you in this matter. Call to your Lord; you are on a straight guidance. And if they dispute with you, say: 'God knows best what you are doing.' God will judge between you on the Day of Resurrection concerning that in which you differed."

The sentence occurred at 22/34. The differences must be recorded:

هُمْ نَاسِكُوهُ — "they are its performers". A nominal sentence and the pattern of the active participle: it conveys continuity.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference between the two verses: the thirty-fourth verse bound the mansak to submission; the sixty-seventh binds it to the cutting off of dispute. The same fact is used for two separate conclusions.

The root ن-ز-ع: to pull out, to tear away. Nazʿ — to wrench a thing from its place; the sūra name al-Nāziʿāt is from this root. In Form III (munāzaʿa) there is reciprocity: to pull against one another, to contend.

The picture in the word is worth recording: contention is described as two parties each pulling a thing towards itself — like pulling at the two ends of a rope.

And the verb is in the prohibitive, but its addressee is in the third person: fa-lā yunāziʿunnaka. That is, "let them not contend with you". The apparent addressee of the command is they, but what is in practice being said is said to the Prophet.

The lexicographers explain this pattern as "a command in the form of a prohibition": to all appearances a prohibition upon the other party, in reality a "do not enter into contention" addressed to the one spoken to. I transmit this explanation as it is transmitted.

And this can be read together with the measure treated at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/46: wa lā tujādilū ahla'l-kitābi illā bi'llatī hiya aḥsan. I rely on that treatment. The two verses face the same way: the dispute itself is not the goal.

The answer given must be recorded, and this is the most striking place in the verse.

The answer given to the dispute is not a counter-argument. Allāhu aʿlamu bimā taʿmalūn — "God knows best what you are doing."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the content of the answer: the answer does not enter into the subject of the dispute. It refers the matter to an authority — and that authority does not judge in this world: the sixty-ninth verse gives its time: yawma'l-qiyāma.

And the choice of verb is meaningful: bimā taʿmalūn — "what you do". Not what you believe, but what you do.

This links with the seventeenth verse of the sūra: there too six groups were enumerated and the judgement was left to the Resurrection — inna'llāha yafṣilu baynahum yawma'l-qiyāma. The same structure, twice, fifty verses apart.

And the verbs are close as well: there yafṣilu (He separates), here yaḥkumu (He judges).

A-lam taʿlam anna'llāha yaʿlamu mā fi's-samāʾi wa'l-arḍ · Inna dhālika fī kitāb · Inna dhālika ʿala'llāhi yasīr

"Do you not know that God knows what is in the heaven and the earth? That is in a book. That is easy for God."

The pattern a-lam tara (have you not seen?) occurred three times in the sūra: 18, 63, 65. Here the pattern changes: a-lam taʿlam — "do you not know?"

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the change of verb: in the three earlier places something visible was being shown to the addressee — a world prostrating, the greening ground, the running ship. Here there is nothing to show: the subject is knowledge itself. And the verb changes accordingly.

إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ فِى كِتَٰبٍ — "that is in a book". The word is indefinite: "a book". Which book is not said.

It is transmitted that in the classical commentaries this expression is taken to indicate the Lawḥ-i Maḥfūẓ. I transmit this as a report; the verse itself gives no name, and no name the verse does not give is inserted in this commentary.

إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ يَسِيرٌ — the root ي-س-ر: ease. The root was treated at al-Baqara 2/185 (yurīdu'llāhu bikumu'l-yusra). I rely on that treatment. And the root will return indirectly in the last verse of this sūra: wa mā jaʿala ʿalaykum fi'd-dīni min ḥaraj.

Wa yaʿbudūna min dūni'llāhi mā lam yunazzil bihi sulṭānan wa mā laysa lahum bihi ʿilm · Wa mā li'ẓ-ẓālimīna min naṣīr · Wa idhā tutlā ʿalayhim āyātunā bayyinātin taʿrifu fī wujūhi'lladhīna kafaru'l-munkar · Yakādūna yasṭūna bi'lladhīna yatlūna ʿalayhim āyātinā · Qul a-fa-unabbiʾukum bi-sharrin min dhālikum · An-nāru waʿadaha'llāhu'lladhīna kafarū wa biʾsa'l-maṣīr

"They serve, besides God, things for which He has sent down no warrant and of which they themselves have no knowledge. The wrongdoers shall have no helper. When Our clear signs are recited to them, you recognise displeasure on the faces of those who disbelieve; they all but assault those who recite Our signs to them. Say: 'Shall I tell you of something worse than that? The Fire!' God has promised it to those who disbelieve; and what a wretched journey's end!"

The seventy-first verse is the eighth verse in abbreviated form. There three grounds were refused; here two:

سُلْطَان — root س-ل-ط: mastery, dominion; sharpness. The lexicographers record the word in the sense both of "authority" and of "proof"; what the two have in common is a power that overcomes the other party.

And the two items answer to the two sources of knowledge: one sent down from outside, the other found within oneself. Neither is present.

This is the most striking sentence of observation in the sūra.

ٱلْمُنكَر — root ن-ك-ر: not to recognise, to find strange. Munkar means "unrecognised, rejected"; and in the Qurʾān it is generally used in the sense of evil (at 22/41, nahaw ʿani'l-munkar).

And in the sentence two opposed verbs stand side by side: taʿrifu (you recognise) and al-munkar (the unrecognised). The two are not of the same root but exactly opposite in sense: ع-ر-ف and ن-ك-ر are a known pair of opposites in Arabic (maʿrūf / munkar).

I record this as an observation about the language, and here lies the point of the sentence: you recognise the unrecognised. What appears on the face is the thing whose name is "not being recognised"; and it is plain enough to be read on a face.

And the object of the observation must be recorded: fī wujūhihim — on their faces. Not in speech, but on the face. The verse speaks, that is, not of a spoken objection but of an expression.

يَكَادُونَ يَسْطُونَ — the root س-ط-و: to fall upon someone, to advance on him; to raise the hand. The lexicographers explain the word as "to bear down on someone using one's strength".

And the note yakādūna (they all but) is important: the act does not take place. The verse describes not an event but a threshold.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the combination of the two verbs: the scene advances in three degrees — the expression that appears on the face → almost assaulting → but not assaulting. The verse stops at the third degree.

قُلْ أَفَأُنَبِّئُكُم بِشَرٍّ مِّن ذَٰلِكُمْ — "shall I tell you of something worse than that?"

The logic of the sentence is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: the other party's face changes because it reckons the signs "evil". And the answer is given using their own measure: since you find it evil, shall I tell you of something worse? The reply is built out of the other party's own word.

Yā ayyuha'n-nāsu ḍuriba mathalun fa'stamiʿū lah · Inna'lladhīna tadʿūna min dūni'llāhi lan yakhluqū dhubāban wa lawi'jtamaʿū lah · Wa in yaslubhumu'dh-dhubābu shayʾan lā yastanqidhūhu minh · Ḍaʿufa'ṭ-ṭālibu wa'l-maṭlūb

"O people! A parable has been struck; listen to it. Those you call upon besides God could not create a fly even if they all gathered for it. And if the fly were to snatch something from them, they could not recover it from it. Weak is the seeker, and weak the sought."

Parables in the Qurʾān are generally given directly. Here a warning comes first: ḍuriba mathalun fa'stamiʿū lah.

I record this as an observation about word order: a call to attention has been set before the parable. And the verb is istamaʿa — Form VIII: to lend an ear, to listen with attention (unlike samiʿa: not to hear but to listen).

And this is directly connected with the matter treated at al-Baqara 2/26. There the example of the gnat (baʿūḍa) is given, and it was recorded, with the report that this example was objected to, as follows:

It is transmitted in the classical commentaries that this verse was revealed upon the mockery of the Qurʾān's giving as examples creatures that look small and insignificant. The answer is to the effect that the size of the example is of no consequence: the worth of a comparison comes not from the dimensions of the thing compared but from the truth of what it shows.

I rely on that treatment. And the two verses must be compared:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the function of the two verses: al-Baqara legitimates the method, al-Ḥajj applies it. And al-Ḥajj, by setting a command to listen before it, forestalls from the outset any making light of the smallness of the example.

The parable contains two separate claims, and the two must be recorded separately:

And the second step is heavier than the first. I give this as my own reading, its ground being the comparison of the two claims:

The first step refuses a claim to create — and creating is in any case an extraordinary work. The second step refuses an ordinary work: to take back something snatched from oneself. This is a work any living thing can do.

The parable, therefore, does not raise the claim; it lowers it. And the lower it goes, the more decisive it becomes.

وَلَوِ ٱجْتَمَعُوا۟ لَهُۥ — "even if they all gathered for it." The note also puts number out of play: multitude does not change the outcome.

لَّا يَسْتَنقِذُوهُ — root ن-ق-ذ: to save, to pull free. In Form X: istinqādh — to try to rescue, to get back.

ذُبَاب — a fly. The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

This sentence is the densest place in the verse and deserves unravelling.

The sentence consists of two words, both from the same root (ط-ل-ب), one an active participle and one a passive participle:

And the verb is given to both at once: ḍaʿufa — "he was powerless, he is weak".

The lexicographers differ over whom the sentence intends. I transmit their views:

I do not impose a preference. All three occur in the sources.

But the work the sentence does is the same whichever reading is taken, and I give this as my own reading:

The sentence builds a symmetry and places the same ruling at both its ends. The seeker and the sought, the searcher and the searched for — both are qualified by the same attribute.

The consequence is this: there is no power at any side of the relationship. Usually in a relation of demand one of the parties is strong — either the one who asks (who takes by force) or the one asked (who has the power to give). The sentence eliminates both.

And that the words are chosen from the same root shows this at the level of sound as well: ṭālib and maṭlūb are built from the same letters. The sentence thus says by the very structure of the word that the two parties are of the same stuff.

This is of the same kind as the parable of the spider treated at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/41: there we had awhana'l-buyūti la-baytu'l-ʿankabūt — the frailest of houses. In both parables a small creature is chosen, and in both the matter is not strength but weakness. I rely on that treatment.

The measure the parable chooses is worth recording: a fly is a creature a man can drive off but cannot finally master. It is harmless, but persistent.

By lowering the claim to this level the verse ends the argument. It makes no lofty comparison — it does not say the sun, the mountain, the sea. It takes the smallest thing and shows that even there the outcome does not change.

Mā qadaru'llāha ḥaqqa qadrih · Inna'llāha la-qawiyyun ʿazīz · Allāhu yaṣṭafī mina'l-malāʾikati rusulan wa mina'n-nās · Inna'llāha samīʿun baṣīr · Yaʿlamu mā bayna aydīhim wa mā khalfahum · Wa ila'llāhi turjaʿu'l-umūr

"They have not valued God with the value that is His due. God is strong, mighty. God chooses messengers from among the angels and from among men. God is hearing, seeing. He knows what is before them and what is behind them. And to God all affairs are returned."

This sentence was treated at al-Zumar 39/67, and what was recorded there was this: the core sense of the root ق-د-ر is measure; the sentence reports an error of measurement. I do not repeat it here.

The difference between the two occurrences lies in what follows:

And the difference of context must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: in al-Ḥajj the sentence comes immediately after the parable of the fly. The error of measurement, that is, is named after having been shown by way of a fly.

The link between the parable and the ruling is this: to reckon as equal to Him one who is powerless before a thing the size of a fly is an error of measure. And the verse names that error in the language of measure: mā qadarū … ḥaqqa qadrih.

قَوِىّ — root ق-و-ي: strength. The attribute occurs twice in this sūra: 40 and 74. In the fortieth verse after the principle of repelling, here after the parable. In both places at the end of a comparison of strength.

The root ص-ف-و: purity, clearness. Ṣafā, ṣafwa are of the same root. In Form VIII, iṣṭifāʾ: to choose out and purify, to set apart the cleanest.

The picture in the word must be recorded, and I give this as an observation: the act of choosing is named not as a preference but as a purifying. What is chosen, then, is not what is separated out of a crowd but what is strained out of a mixture.

And the word order of the sentence is worth recording: mina'l-malāʾikati rusulan wa mina'n-nās.

Two sources are enumerated: angels and men. And both are tied to the same verb.

I record this as an observation about word order: messengership is set down not as the property of a kind of being but as a choosing. And that the choice is made from both kinds is said in the same sentence.

This can be read together with the objection treated at al-Furqān 25/7: there objection was made to the messenger's being human (mā li-hādha'r-rasūli yaʾkulu'ṭ-ṭaʿām). al-Ḥajj 22/75 gives an indirect answer to that objection: the choice is made from both kinds, and the party who chooses is the same. I rely on that treatment.

The construct was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/42: min bayni yadayhi wa lā min khalfih — and it was recorded there: "In Arabic this pair is used to cover all the directions of a thing." I rely on that treatment.

To whom does the pronoun here (hum) refer? The lexicographers differ:

I do not impose a preference. Reading A appears closer to the context, since the subject of the preceding sentence is the choosing.

وَإِلَى ٱللَّهِ تُرْجَعُ ٱلْأُمُورُ — it does the same work as the sentence in the forty-first verse: wa lillāhi ʿāqibatu'l-umūr. The same word (al-umūr), the same ruling, thirty-five verses apart.

Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanu'rkaʿū wa'sjudū wa'ʿbudū rabbakum wa'fʿalu'l-khayra laʿallakum tufliḥūn