al-Nūr 24:55

Waʿada'llāhu'lladhīna āmanū minkum wa ʿamilu'l-ṣāliḥāti la-yastakhlifannahum fi'l-arḍi kama'stakhlafa'lladhīna min qablihim wa la-yumakkinanna lahum dīnahumu'lladhi'rtaḍā lahum wa la-yubaddilannahum min baʿdi khawfihim amnā, yaʿbudūnanī lā yushrikūna bī shayʾā, wa man kafara baʿda dhālika fa-ulāʾika humu'l-fāsiqūn

"God has promised those of you who believe and do righteous works that He will surely make them successors in the earth, as He made those before them successors; and that He will surely establish for them their religion, which He has approved for them; and that He will surely give them, after their fear, safety. They will serve Me, associating nothing with Me. And whoever denies after that — it is they who are the transgressors."

This verse has been much cited in political arguments through history and today. Those arguments are not entered in this section.

The rule of the method (Method) is plain: no side is taken in current politics. What will be treated is the verse's own wording, its conditions and its arrangement.

The most striking side of the verse is how many qualifications it sets upon the promise. And these qualifications can be counted from the text:

Six qualifications, in a single sentence of promise.

And this is the verse's most important observation on the arrangement, and I record it as my own reading: the promise is given to a community not for its identity but for its attributes. And the attributes are enumerated one by one.

This agrees with the measure recorded in al-Ḥujurāt and set down in the method: "what the verse describes are attributes; whoever bears that attribute is included in it."

Root: خ-ل-ف. Its concrete sense is to come behind, to come after. Khalf — what is behind; khalaf — one who comes after; ikhtilāf — a coming one after another, and from there, difference.

And istikhlāf: to bring one after another, to set him in another's place.

The idea of "coming after" in the root of the word is worth noting, and I give this as an observation about the root: khalīfa, in the root of the word, conveys an order of succession — one who comes after another. And the verse says this outright: kama'stakhlafa'lladhīna min qablihim — "as He made those before them successors".

The verse, that is, records within itself that what it gives has been given before as well, and that it is part of a succession.

And this is a thing that must be recorded: to be part of a succession means not to be permanent. One who comes after implies that after him too there will be a successor.

I record this as my own reading; the expression kama'stakhlafa is the wording of the text.

Root: م-ك-ن. Makān (a place) is from the same root. And tamkīn: to give a thing place and firmness, to settle it.

The object of the word is worth noting: la-yumakkinanna lahum dīnahum — "He will surely establish for them their religion".

What is established firmly, that is, is not a state, a power or a territory — but a religion. This is read from the wording of the text.

And the qualification alladhi'rtaḍā lahum: "which He has approved for them". The subject of the word is God; the party who approves is thus stated as well.

أَمْن — root أ-م-ن. And this is the same root as the word īmān. The analysis of the root was made at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/14; the note there: at the centre of the root stand trust, safety, the lifting of fear.

And the ring within the verse's arrangement is worth noting: the verse begins with alladhīna āmanū and gives a promise with amnā. The same root at the two ends of the verse: the one a condition, the other an outcome.

I record this as an observation about the word order.

That the verse comes after the forty-seventh to the fifty-fourth is worth noting.

Those verses described a stance in which there was a distance between what was said and what was done. And in the fifty-third verse great oaths were rejected and a ṭāʿatun maʿrūfa — a known obedience — was asked for.

The fifty-fifth verse gives the counterpart of what was asked for.

The promise, that is, comes at the end of a series and upon the conditions that series has established.

I record this as my own reading; the order of the verses stands in the text.

Having given the promise, the verse enters one further qualification, and the word is worth noting: al-fāsiqūn.

And the word occurred in the sūra's fourth verse too.

The same word, at the two ends of the sūra. The sense of the root ف-س-ق — "to come out of the skin" — was analysed at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/6: a thing's being outside where it ought to be inside.

And both occurrences convey a position. I record this as an observation about the word order.