سُورَةٌ أَنزَلْنَٰهَا وَفَرَضْنَٰهَا وَأَنزَلْنَا فِيهَآ ءَايَٰتٍۭ بَيِّنَٰتٍ لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ
"This is a sūra We have sent down and whose rulings We have determined precisely. In it We have sent down clear verses, that you may take heed."
This verse is one of the most striking openings in the Qurʾān in point of syntax, and the reason is this:
The Qurʾān uses the word sūra in many places. The addressees are asked to "bring a sūra like it" (al-Baqara 2/23, Yūnus 10/38); it is told what men did when a sūra was sent down (al-Tawba 9/64, 9/86, 9/124; Muḥammad 47/20). But in all these places the word points from outside at a text being spoken of.
Here, however, the sūra names itself. The subject of the sentence is the text itself: sūratun — "this is a sūra". And immediately after, two verbs come about that sūra: anzalnāhā (we sent it down) and faraḍnāhā (we determined it).
| Explanation | Root | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| From a city wall | س-و-ر | Sūr — the wall that surrounds a city. A sūra too encloses a portion, sets its bounds. |
| From height, from a rank | س-و-ر | Siwār — a bracelet; tasawwur — to climb up over. A sūra is a rank, a step. |
| From a remaining piece | س-أ-ر | Suʾr — what is left over of a thing. A sūra is a piece separated from a whole. |
I prefer none of them, and none is binding. But what the three explanations have in common may be recorded: all three arrive at the idea of a "separated portion" — whether walled around, or set apart as a step, or broken off from a whole.
The primary sense of the root: to notch, to cut a nick, to set a mark by cutting into an object. To cut the notch in which a bowstring will sit, to nick a measure into a rod — that is the verb.
This root was analysed at al-Baqara, 2/68 (lā fāriḍun wa lā bikr — in the description of the cow, in the sense "advanced in age"); the note there was this: fāriḍ, of an animal, means "past bearing, of a determined age", and from the same root come farḍ and farīḍa: an obligation determined precisely, with its limit drawn.
| Word | Sense | Its link with the concrete core |
|---|---|---|
| فَرْض (farḍ) | An obligation determined precisely | Marked by notching: its place is fixed |
| فَرِيضَة (farīḍa) | A determined share, a determined amount | A portion cut off and set apart |
| فَرْض (in a bow) | The notch at the end of the bow | The root itself, directly |
| فِرَاض | The place where a thing has been cut, set apart | — |
| مَفْرُوض | Determined, set apart | — |
And the Qurʾān uses this root in the division of inheritance and in the fixing of a dower: naṣīban mafrūḍan — "a determined share" (al-Nisāʾ 4/7); fa-niṣfu mā faraḍtum — "half of what you determined" (al-Baqara 2/237). In both places the word comes together with a number, a fraction, an amount.
So faraḍnāhā means this: what is inside this sūra was not left indefinite; its bounds were drawn, its shares were set apart, its measure was notched.
And this agrees exactly with the content of the sūra. In Sūrat al-Nūr there are rulings given with numbers: a hundred (2), eighty (4), four (4, 6, 8, 13), five (7, 9), three (58). Few other sūras in the Qurʾān carry so many numbers.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground can be counted: the root of the verb faraḍnāhā is "to notch and set a measure", and the sūra does in fact set measures.
A variant reading is transmitted in the sources: it is recorded that beside wa faraḍnāhā (undoubled) the word is also read with the consonant doubled. The doubled reading is Form II and conveys multiplicity, going into detail: "we determined it in detail", "we determined many rulings one by one". Since I cannot state with certainty which reader read which, I write no names; this is the practice adopted in this commentary. The two readings do not exclude one another: the one conveys the precision of the determining, the other its detail.
| Object | What is said | |
|---|---|---|
| The first | hā — the sūra itself | Anzalnāhā wa faraḍnāhā — we sent it down and determined it |
| The second | āyātin bayyināt — the verses within it | Anzalnā fīhā — we sent down within it |
The verse thus names the whole and the part separately: first the sūra as a unit, then what is in it, item by item.
This is the finest point of syntax in the verse, and it is worth recording. The text claims its own wholeness: this is not a set of scattered rulings brought together — it is a text sent down as a unit. And this claim is a ground for those who hold that the sūra really has a single weave.
I record this as my own reading; that the verb occurs twice and that its objects differ is the wording of the text.
بَيِّنَات — root ب-ي-ن. The root was treated in detail at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/6 (fa-tabayyanū); the note there was this: the concrete sense of the root is separation, the space between two things (bayn), and bayān is an operation of separating — separating what is mixed, making it distinguishable.
So bayyināt does not mean "easy verses" — it means "verses that distinguish". Verses that separate one thing from another, that make a boundary visible.
And the word will return three more times in the sūra: āyātin mubayyināt (34), āyātin mubayyināt (46), yubayyinu'llāhu lakumu'l-āyāt (58, 59, 61). The distribution of the root through the sūra shows how the sūra names its own work: separating.
That it comes indefinite is worth noting too: āyātin bayyinātin — "certain clear verses". There is no article. The rule the classical lexicographers record is that the indefinite here conveys magnification; I impose no preference.
The choice of the form matters. The verse does not say taʿlamūn (that you may know), it says tadhakkarūn. Dhikr is the bringing back of what has been forgotten; not learning but remembering.
This says something, when the content of the sūra is considered. The subjects of Sūrat al-Nūr — guarding a person's standing, not spreading what one has heard, not entering without leave, lowering the glance — are none of them things man has never known. Instead of giving new knowledge, the verse speaks of calling back something known.
And the word will return in the twenty-seventh verse: dhālikum khayrun lakum laʿallakum tadhakkarūn — at the end of the manners of asking leave, the same verse-ending.
It is rare for a sūra in the Qurʾān to open in this way. Sūras generally begin with a group of letters, with an oath, with praise, with an address, or directly with the subject. Here there is a sentence of presentation: "this is such and such, it was done thus, and this is what for."
And the presentation prepares what comes immediately after. In the second verse a very heavy ruling will come. The first verse says in advance where that ruling comes from and what kind of thing it is: sent down and determined. Neither a custom men produced, then, nor a piece of advice open to interpretation.
I record this as an observation about the word order. Setting a frame before a heavy ruling is a structure seen also in the long legislative sections of al-Baqara: before the ruling, the nature of the ruling is stated.
Faraḍnāhā — to notch, to set a measure. A thing's having a measure means that it is not without limit. And the whole subject of the sūra is the domains in which man of himself recognises no limit: speech, curiosity, the glance, accusation.
All of these, left to themselves, tend to grow. A word grows, a curiosity grows, an accusation grows. The sūra's first sentence cuts a notch into the growing.
And the last word of the verse says how this will work: tadhakkarūn — that you may remember. The limit, then, is laid down not as a barrier coming from outside but as a measure remembered from within.