26. Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ

Two hundred and twenty-seven verses. Meccan. One of the sūras with the highest verse count in the Qurʾān — it comes after al-Baqara, al-Aʿrāf and Āl ʿImrān. But a large number of verses is not a large bulk: the verses of al-Shuʿarāʾ are short, most of them a single sentence, some of them three words (wa jannātin wa ʿuyūn, 134). The sūra takes its length not from the length of its sentences but from their number.

It takes its name from a word in verse 224: ٱلشُّعَرَآء — al-shuʿarāʾ, "the poets". This word occurs in the last five verses of the sūra and nowhere else in the whole of it. The sūra therefore takes its name from its own final paragraph — as al-Baqara takes its name from verses 67-73 and al-Naml from verse 18. This is the ordinary situation in the naming of the sūras of the Qurʾān: the name is not a summary of the subject but a distinctive word that occurs in the sūra.

The real subject of the sūra is not poets. The real subject of the sūra is repetition.

Seven prophets are recounted — Moses (Mūsā), Abraham (Ibrāhīm), Noah (Nūḥ), Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Lot (Lūṭ), Shuʿayb — and all seven are set into the same mould. Five of them open with the same sentence, eight of them (counting the opening section) close with the same two-verse seal, and within them the same two sentences are repeated eight times and five times. These repetitions are not the ornament of the sūra but its skeleton — and because they can be counted, they will be tabulated in a separate section of this commentary.

The sūra says three things in succession:

1. Do not grieve (3) — that the addressee does not believe is not a failure of the messenger. 2. It was like this before you too (10-191) — seven accounts, seven times the same outcome. 3. This speech is not your invention (192-227) — its source, its language, the place it came down, and whose speech it is not.

And the end of the third section attaches to the beginning of the first: the sūra opens "perhaps you will destroy yourself" (3) and closes "those who did wrong will soon know to what place of return they will return" (227). The sūra thus begins by telling the messenger "this is not your business" and ends by saying "God will give the outcome".

The block boundaries of the sūra are not disputed, because the text itself draws them. Every block ends with the same two verses.

All eight of the eight blocks end with the same two verses. This is an order not found at this density in any other sūra of the Qurʾān. Al-Ṣāffāt too had a sequence of prophets and a closing seal (al-Ṣāffāt) — but there the seal was in four pieces and was not stamped in full on everyone. In al-Shuʿarāʾ the seal is two verses and is exactly the same eight times. A comparison of the two sūras is given below in a separate table.

All two hundred and twenty-seven verses of the sūra end with a nasal letter (nūn or mīm) following a long vowel. There are two dominant patterns: ‑īna (muʾminīn, ʿālamīn, ṣādiqīn) and ‑ūna (yaʿlamūn, yafʿalūn, yahīmūn); the minority that comes between them ends in ‑īm (al-raḥīm, ʿaẓīm, ʿalīm, ḥamīm).

What is worth recording is this: the second verse of the seal (wa inna rabbaka la-huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm) departs from the dominant sound of the sūra — it ends not in ‑īn but in ‑īm. Eight blocks undergo the same change of sound at the same place eight times. The seal is therefore stamped not only with a word but with a sound: the reader hears that the block has ended.

I record this as a fact; I do not enter into any reckoning of letters or numbers — that road is closed in this commentary (al-Baqara). What is recorded is an observation about sound of the same kind as those recorded in the sections on al-Qalam and al-Ṣāffāt (al-Qalam, al-Ṣāffāt).

On the sūra's being Meccan there is something close to unanimity. Some sources transmit that the final verses (224-227, or 227 alone) are Medinan; the ground given is that the expression wa'ntaṣarū min baʿdi mā ẓulimū ("and they defended themselves after being wronged") in verse 227 points to the permission to defend oneself. This is a transmitted view; I adopt no firm preference.

The sūra as a whole sits inside the central dispute at Mecca and answers three of the claims made in it:

The basmala was treated in earlier sections; the verses are numbered without it.

Every table in this section is a count of the text. It is not interpretation; where something is interpretation it is marked as such.

From verse 10 to verse 191 of the sūra — that is, one hundred and eighty-two verses — seven prophetic accounts are recounted. Four of the accounts sit inside a shared frame:

1. The notice of denial: Kadhdhabat … al-mursalīn 2. The opening: Idh qāla lahum akhūhum … alā tattaqūn 3. The threefold introduction: innī lakum rasūlun amīn · fa'ttaqū'llāha wa aṭīʿūn · wa mā asʾalukum ʿalayhi min ajrin… 4. The closing seal: inna fī dhālika la-āyatan… · wa inna rabbaka la-huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm

And all four elements of the frame are missing in the accounts of Moses and Abraham. This is the most striking structural datum in the sūra, and it will be treated separately below.

إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَةً ۖ وَمَا كَانَ أَكْثَرُهُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ · وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ Inna fī dhālika la-āyatan wa mā kāna aktharuhum muʾminīn · Wa inna rabbaka la-huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm "In this there is surely a sign; but most of them were not believers. · And your Lord — He indeed — is the Mighty, the Merciful."

Six of the eight occurrences are bare; in two of them (Hūd and Ṣāliḥ) a short sentence announcing destruction has been added at the head of the first verse of the seal. This is a difference that can be verified from the text.

The reason is not stated in the text. I record an observation as my own reading, and it is not binding: in the accounts of Noah (119-120), Lot (170-173) and Shuʿayb (189) the destruction has already been recounted in the verses before the seal; in the accounts of Hūd and Ṣāliḥ it has not — the account of Hūd ends with the people's words "we are not going to be punished" (138), and the account of Ṣāliḥ with "they became regretful" (157). The addition at the head of the seal therefore looks as though it is completing information that was left missing. This is an explanation, not a ruling.

كَذَّبَتْ … ٱلْمُرْسَلِينَ · إِذْ قَالَ لَهُمْ أَخُوهُمْ … أَلَا تَتَّقُونَ

There are three separate facts in this table, and all three are read off the text:

One — in the accounts of Moses and Abraham there is no opening mould. Both begin with a different sentence: Moses with wa idh nādā rabbuka Mūsā (10), Abraham with wa'tlu ʿalayhim nabaʾa Ibrāhīm (69). Neither begins with "the people denied".

Two — in the account of Moses the sentence alā tattaqūn is present, but its person has changed. In verse eleven: qawma Firʿawn; alā yattaqūn — "[go] to the people of Pharaoh; will they not guard themselves?" The sentence is therefore spoken not by the prophet to those he addresses, but by God to the prophet, and those addressed become the third person. In the other five accounts the same sentence is in the form tattaqūn (you), and it is the prophet's own speech.

Three — in the account of Shuʿayb there is no akhūhum ("their brother"). In four of the five accounts the prophet is named as the "brother" of his people; with Shuʿayb this drops away and only idh qāla lahum Shuʿaybun is said. The reason appears in how those addressed are named: in the other four they are named by a lineage (qawmu Nūḥ, ʿĀd, Thamūd, qawmu Lūṭ); here by a place: aṣḥābu'l-Ayka — "the people of al-Ayka", that is, those who dwell in the dense thicket. One is the brother of a lineage; one is not called the brother of the people of a place.

And the same difference is reflected in the verb as well: because the words qawm, ʿĀd and Thamūd can be treated as feminine in Arabic, the verb is kadhdhabat; because aṣḥāb is a masculine plural, the verb is kadhdhaba. The two differences in verse 176 — the dropped akhūhum and the changed verb — can therefore be traced to the same cause. I record this as an observation about the structure.

In all five of the five accounts these three sentences come immediately after the opening verse and in the same order. The first four verses of each account (denial + opening + threefold introduction) are thus identical with one another; the accounts diverge from the fifth verse onward.

This is the most easily verifiable structural datum in the sūra: the ranges 105-109, 123-127, 141-145, 160-164 and 176-180 — five blocks of five verses — are the same but for a single word (the name of the prophet). With Shuʿayb one further word drops (akhūhum).

The sentence occurs once inside the introductory mould in each of the five accounts; in three accounts it is repeated once more.

Eight occurrences in all: 108, 110, 126, 131, 144, 150, 163, 179.

What is worth recording is what precedes the second occurrence. With Noah a single verse comes between. With Hūd and Ṣāliḥ what comes between is a list enumerating the deeds of the people — and when the list ends the same sentence is repeated. The sentence therefore frames the list: "guard yourselves against God and obey me → [you are doing these things] → guard yourselves against God and obey me."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the position of the sentence in the three accounts. In the accounts of Lot and Shuʿayb there is no repetition; there the list of offences is attached directly to the call itself (165-166 and 181-183), and no distance comes between that would require framing.

وَمَآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ أَجْرٍ ۖ إِنْ أَجْرِىَ إِلَّا عَلَىٰ رَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ "I ask you no wage for it; my wage falls only upon the Lord of all the worlds."

All five are exactly the same — there is not a letter of difference. The Qurʾān has counterparts of this sentence in other sūras as well (Hūd 11/29, 11/51; Sabaʾ 34/47; Yā Sīn 36/21 — ittabiʿū man lā yasʾalukum ajran). What is distinctive in al-Shuʿarāʾ is that the sentence is repeated five times in the same sūra and in the same position.

The function of this sentence is visible across the whole sūra: the sūra describes what the messenger is and what he is not. A man who asks no wage cannot be explained by interest. And at the end of the sūra, describing the poets, it will say "they say what they do not do" (226) — the fit between speech and conduct is thus the measure of the sūra from beginning to end. I record this as an observation about the context.

The same structure was treated in al-Ṣāffāt, and the frame set out there is not repeated here. The comparison of the two sūras is this:

The two sūras use the same technique for two different ends. The seal of al-Ṣāffāt looks toward the prophet: peace is given to him, recompense is promised to him. The seal of al-Shuʿarāʾ looks toward the people: wa mā kāna aktharuhum muʾminīn — "most of them did not believe".

And this difference separates what the two sūras say to the one addressed. I record it as my own reading: al-Ṣāffāt says "the same recompense will be given to you"; al-Shuʿarāʾ says "the same answer will be given to you". The third verse of al-Shuʿarāʾ (laʿallaka bākhiʿun nafsaka) supports this reading — the sūra opens with the grief of the messenger.

And the three prophets found only in al-Shuʿarāʾ (Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Shuʿayb) belong to the Arabian peninsula's own history. ʿĀd, Thamūd and Midian/al-Ayka are names known in the geography of those addressed. The sequence of al-Ṣāffāt, by contrast, is built out of names from the tradition of the Children of Israel. This is a difference that can be read off the text; I issue no ruling.

Ṭā-sīn-mīm · Tilka āyātu'l-kitābi'l-mubīn

"Ṭā-sīn-mīm. · These are the verses of the clear Book."

The question has been set out many times across the series (al-Baqara, Yāsīn, Ṣād, Qāf, al-Qalam) and is not repeated. Its summary: no certain knowledge about the meaning of these letters has been transmitted; the most honest position is to say that it is not known.

The only thing to be added here is a datum from the text: the letters ṭā-sīn-mīm occur in the Qurʾān at the head of two sūras — al-Shuʿarāʾ (26) and al-Qaṣaṣ (28). Sūrat al-Naml, which lies between them, begins with ṭā-sīn. Three consecutive sūras — 26, 27, 28 — thus open with the same family of letters, and all three recount the account of Moses. This is an overlap that can be counted.

The opening of al-Qaṣaṣ was treated in this commentary (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/1-6), and the same note was entered there.

تِلْكَ — feminine, the demonstrative pronoun used for the distant ("that", "there it is"). For the near one would say hādhihi.

A point of word order worth recording: the verses are in the hand of the one addressed, they are being recited — that is, they are near. Yet the distant demonstrative is used. The Arabic grammarians explain this usage as exaltation (taʿẓīm): the pronoun that points to the distant announces the elevated rank of what is pointed to.

The same opening is repeated in several sūras of the Qurʾān: tilka āyātu'l-kitābi'l-ḥakīm (Yūnus 10/1), tilka āyātu'l-kitābi'l-mubīn (Yūsuf 12/1), tilka āyātu'l-kitābi'l-ḥakīm (Luqmān 31/2 — treated in Luqmān). Al-Shuʿarāʾ uses the same attribute as Yūsuf: al-mubīn.

The root has been analysed in many places across the series (al-Zukhruf 43/2, al-Dukhān 44/2, Yāsīn) and is not repeated. The description given there: at the core of the root lies separation, the opening of a gap between two things; bayn — the space between. A thing becomes visible when it separates out.

And mubīn is an active participle, that is, not "made clear" but "making clear". The distinction matters here: the Book is not merely intelligible, it is what makes things intelligible.

A link within the sūra: the same word occurs four more times in the sūra:

The sūra thus opens with the word for clarity and, in verse 195, ties that same word to language. This link will be treated in the section on 192-199.

Laʿallaka bākhiʿun nafsaka allā yakūnū muʾminīn

"You are almost destroying yourself because they will not believe."

The root is analysed here for the first time in this commentary.

The concrete sense the lexicographers give for the root ب-خ-ع comes from the slaughter of animals: bakhaʿa'sh-shāta — in slaughtering a sheep, to carry the knife as far as the point at the very base of the neck vertebrae called the bukhʿ. The cut has been taken past what was necessary, carried to the very end of the limit.

Two derived senses arise from this:

At the centre of the root, then, lies not "excess" but "reaching the final point". Reaching the final point in slaughter wounds the animal beyond need; reaching the final point in rendering what is due gives it in full. The same motion produces two different results in two different contexts.

And the picture of the verse comes from this: the messenger is carrying his grief as far as his own life. The word does not say "to grieve greatly"; it says "to carry grief to the point where life ends".

That an active participle is used must also be recorded: bākhiʿun — "destroying". A noun, not a verb (tabkhaʿu). In Arabic the active participle can announce that the action is a settled state in the agent. What is described is therefore not a passing grief but a continuing condition.

لَعَلَّ — usually rendered "perhaps, it may be that". Here it announces no expectation; the lexicographers give this usage the sense of ishfāq (anxiety, warning against). The closest English renderings are "almost" and "you are on the point of".

Allā yakūnū — originally li-allā yakūnū, that is, a construction announcing cause: "because they will not believe".

There is a point of word order that must be recorded: the verse does not give as the cause of the grief the hostility, the injury or the mockery of those addressed. All of these occur elsewhere in the sūra (29, 116, 167, 186). The only cause given is that they do not believe.

This verse is one of the sharpest statements in the Qurʾān of the limit drawn for the messenger, and it has been treated six times across the series. In al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56 these verses were gathered into a table. Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/3 is the seventh row added to that table:

Seven verses, seven different words. And that of al-Shuʿarāʾ stands on the same line as that of Fāṭir, but one step beyond it:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of mood: in Fāṭir there is a prohibition, in al-Shuʿarāʾ an observation. Fāṭir holds the messenger back from a behaviour; al-Shuʿarāʾ shows him the condition he is already in. Since it is not known with certainty which of the two verses came down first, I set up no ordering.

The condition the verse describes is one that everyone who takes on a task recognises: bearing the weight of an outcome one cannot change. The verse does not blame this condition — the word bākhiʿun is not the name of a fault, and the rest of the sūra does not scold the messenger. The verse only shows the limit: the work done is delivery; what the one who receives it will do belongs to another domain.

And the fourth verse, coming immediately after, says why this is so.

In nashaʾ nunazzil ʿalayhim mina's-samāʾi āyatan fa-ẓallat aʿnāquhum lahā khāḍiʿīn

"If We willed, We would send down upon them a sign from heaven, and their necks would stay bowed before it."

The verse is a conditional sentence, and it announces that the condition is not realised. What it says is this: compulsion is possible; but it is not being done.

And this is the answer to the grief in the third verse. The messenger grieves that those addressed do not believe. The verse says: making them believe is not a matter that stands at the limit of power. If it were willed, the necks would bow. It is not willed — and this is not a lack but a choice.

ظَلَّ — one of the sisters of kāna; its original sense is "to remain in a state through the day", and from there it widens to "to be continuously in that state". Fa-ẓallat is in the perfect.

A point of word order: the apodosis of a conditional (jawāb al-sharṭ) normally comes in the imperfect — fa-taẓallu would have been expected. That it comes in the perfect is the Arabic technique of recounting as already done what is certain to happen. Not "they would bow", then, but "they stayed bowed". The condition has not been realised; but the certainty of the apodosis is announced by the mood of the verb.

And the sense of the verb ẓalla itself is added here: the necks do not bow for a moment, they stay bowed. Continuance lies inside the verb.

This construction is one of the disputed places in Arabic grammar, and the dispute is this:

Aʿnāq (necks) is a plural of what has no reason; by rule its predicate should have come as a feminine singular or a broken plural: khāḍiʿatan or khāḍiʿatun. But the word that comes is khāḍiʿīn — the sound masculine plural used for rational beings.

I give the transmitted explanations in a table; I do not impose a preference:

The example of Yūsuf 12/4 is worth recording: there, of eleven stars, it is said raʾaytuhum lī sājidīn — the pattern for rational beings. Where a thing performs the act of bowing or prostrating, then, the Qurʾān can use the language of rational beings for it. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

عُنُق — the neck. The neck is the place where submission and resistance appear at the same time. The head stands upright because the neck carries it; the one who submits bends his neck. This is why the word aʿnāq occurs in Arabic in contexts both of pride (shāmikhu'l-ʿunuq — his neck held high) and of bondage (fī aʿnāqihim aghlālan — Yā Sīn 36/8).

And there is a link within the sūra: in Yā Sīn 36/8 collars are put around the necks and the heads are forced upward; here the necks bow of themselves. In both verses the neck is brought into a position outside the will. I record this as an observation.

The distinction the verse states is briefly this: possibility and act are not the same thing.

The Qurʾān sets up this distinction elsewhere too: wa law shāʾa rabbuka la-āmana man fi'l-arḍi kulluhum jamīʿā (Yūnus 10/99), wa law shiʾnā la-ātaynā kulla nafsin hudāhā (al-Sajda 32/13 — treated in al-Sajda). All three verses have the same structure: willing + compelling + not realised.

And the difference here is worth recording: in Yūnus and al-Sajda the instrument of the compulsion is not named; in al-Shuʿarāʾ it is: a sign coming down from heaven. The sūra thus says that the very thing those addressed are asking for (a miracle) would in fact be compulsion.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the description of the result: khāḍiʿīn — to bow. The verse recounts what would happen if a miracle came not as "they would believe" but as "their necks would bow". The difference between faith and bowing the neck stands in the verse's choice of word. This is an explanation, not a ruling.

There are two ways of getting a view accepted: making it irresistible and persuading. The first is quick, its result is certain, and what it produces is a bowed neck. The second is slow, its result is uncertain, and what it produces is conviction. The verse says that the first is possible and chooses the second — and it says this to a messenger who is grieving.

Wa mā yaʾtīhim min dhikrin mina'r-raḥmāni muḥdathin illā kānū ʿanhu muʿriḍīn · Fa-qad kadhdhabū fa-sa-yaʾtīhim anbāʾu mā kānū bihi yastahziʾūn

"No new reminder comes to them from the Merciful but that they turn away from it. · So they have denied; and the tidings of what they used to mock will come to them before long."

Root ح-د-ث: to come to be afterwards, to occur. Ḥadīth — what is new, an event, a saying. مُحْدَث — passive participle: brought into being afterwards, newly sent down.

The word is an attribute of dhikr and looks to the moment of revelation: each newly descending portion. The verse therefore recounts not a single event but a repeated reaction: each time a new one comes, the same thing happens.

It is known that this word has been drawn into the debate in the history of theology over whether the Qurʾān is "created". In this commentary I do not enter that debate; the context of the verse is the newness of the revelation, not a dispute about being. I record this as a limitation, not as a view.

The name was analysed in detail in al-Raḥmān and is not repeated.

What is to be added here is an observation about the structure: the name set opposite the act of turning away is not al-Qahhār or al-Jabbār but al-Raḥmān. What is turned away from is therefore presented not as a threat but as a mercy. The same technique was recorded at Yāsīn 36/11 and al-Zukhruf 43/36.

The shift of tense between the two verbs is worth recording:

سَ (sīn) announces the near future in Arabic. For the distant future sawfa is used. Not "one day", then, but "before long".

أَنۢبَآء — the plural of nabaʾ; root ن-ب-أ: a great and weighty piece of news. The root was analysed in al-Nabaʾ. Ordinary news is called khabar; weighty news, nabaʾ.

And the point of word order is this: what is to come is not the punishment but the tidings. Anbāʾu mā kānū bihi yastahziʾūn — "the tidings of what they used to mock". When the thing mocked comes about, then, it no longer arrives as tidings but as event. This expression is repeated in the Qurʾān: wa ḥāqa bihim mā kānū bihi yastahziʾūn (al-Anʿām 6/10; Hūd 11/8).

A-wa lam yaraw ila'l-arḍi kam anbatnā fīhā min kulli zawjin karīm

"Do they not look at the earth? How many a noble kind have We caused to grow in it."

In the fourth verse a sign that would come down from heaven was spoken of. The seventh verse points to the sign standing on the earth.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the two verses: the sign that is asked for does not come, because the sign that stands is not looked at. A-wa lam yaraw — "have they not looked?"

A point of word order: the verb is lam yaraw (they did not see), but it comes with the preposition ilā: yaraw ilā al-arḍ. In Arabic raʾā takes a direct object (raʾā'sh-shayʾa — he saw the thing); when it comes with ilā, the sense of looking, of directing the gaze, comes to the front.

The verse therefore says not "did they not see?" but "did they not look?" Seeing is a passive business; it happens while the eye is open. Looking is a directed business. The difference stands in the preposition.

The root was analysed at al-Nabaʾ 78/8 (wa khalaqnākum azwājā) and at al-Zukhruf 43/12 (khalaqa'l-azwāja kullahā).

The description given there: زَوْج is not "a pair" but "one member of a pair". Anything that has a mate is called zawj. The English "pair" names two things together; the Arabic zawj names the single thing that has a mate.

Its use for plants is worth recording: the verse names plants as zawj. The Qurʾān repeats this in several places (min kulli'th-thamarāti jaʿala fīhā zawjayni'thnayn — al-Raʿd 13/3; wa anbatnā fīhā min kulli zawjin bahīj — Qāf 50/7, treated in Qāf).

That plants mate (pollination, male and female organs) is a fact known today. No claim of a scientific miracle is set up in this commentary — the use of the word in Arabic already covers everything that has a mate, and in some plants such as the date palm the distinction of male and female was something the Arab farmer knew. What is to be recorded is this: the verse names the thing it asks to be looked at not as "variety" but as "mating". I leave this as an observation about the word.

Root ك-ر-م: generosity, worth, nobility. Used of a person the word means "worthy, noble"; used of soil, "fertile"; used of a plant, "useful, fine".

The lexicographers give the core of the word as "a thing's being the good of its own kind". What is karīm is what gives more than it had to give.

And the same word will occur once more later in the sūra: wa maqāmin karīm (58) — the "noble station" taken from the people of Pharaoh. The sūra thus gives the same attribute both to what the earth gives and to what man loses. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

Inna fī dhālika la-āyatan wa mā kāna aktharuhum muʾminīn · Wa inna rabbaka la-huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm

"In this there is surely a sign; but most of them were not believers. · And your Lord — He indeed — is the Mighty, the Merciful."

The seal that will occur eight times in the sūra occurs here for the first time — and here it does not yet close an account. What it closes is a proof: the plant of the seventh verse.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is position: in the sūra the seal comes first after a proof from nature; in the seven occurrences that follow it will come after a proof from history. The sūra thus applies the same judgement to two different kinds of proof: "in this there is a sign, most did not believe" — for the plant as well as for the seven peoples.

Two things must be recorded.

One — mā kāna is in the perfect. The imperfect (wa mā aktharuhum muʾminīn) could also have been said; and indeed the Qurʾān says it so elsewhere (Hūd 11/17 — fa-lā taku fī miryatin minh; Yūsuf 12/103 — wa mā aktharu'n-nāsi wa law ḥaraṣta bi-muʾminīn). Here the perfect has been chosen: "were not believers." This accords with the accounts to be recounted in the seven occurrences that follow — there it will really be the past that is spoken of.

Two — that akthar (most) is said is that kull (all) is not said. The seal is repeated eight times, and in all eight it says "most". That a minority believed in every account is thus hidden in the sentence itself. In the account of Noah this minority also appears in the text (wa man maʿiya mina'l-muʾminīn, 118); in the account of Lot, his household (170); in the account of Ṣāliḥ it does not appear.

I record this as an observation about the structure: the sentence does not announce despair. What it announces is a proportion.

Both names have been analysed across the series and are not repeated: for ʿazīz, Fāṭir and al-Ḥashr; for raḥīm, al-Raḥmān and al-Fātiḥa.

In summary: the core of the root ع-ز-ز is hardness, resistance to wear — arḍun ʿazāz, hard ground. The ʿazīz is the one who cannot be reached, cannot be overcome, cannot be broken. The core of the root ر-ح-م is the womb — the closeness that protects and raises.

What is to be added here is their coming together. This pair occurs in about thirteen places in the Qurʾān, and the eight occurrences in al-Shuʿarāʾ make up the greater part of that. The instances outside the sūra: Yā Sīn 36/5 (tanzīla'l-ʿazīzi'r-raḥīm), al-Rūm 30/5, al-Sajda 32/6, al-Dukhān 44/42.

The work of the pair is visible in the context of the sūra:

The second verse of the seal thus gives both faces at once of the judgement "most did not believe" in the first verse. And this explains why the sūra closes every account with two verses: one verse states the fact, the other the measure.

And the pronoun is worth recording: la-huwa. Wa inna rabbaka la-huwa al-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm — there is a separating pronoun (ḍamīr al-faṣl) between them. In Arabic this pronoun announces restriction (ḥaṣr) and emphasis: "the truly Mighty and Merciful is He." The same construction does not occur at the beginning of the sūra, nor at its end — only in this seal, eight times.

The longest section of the sūra: fifty-nine verses. About one third of the total length of the seven accounts.

And the account does not fit the mould of the sūra: there is no kadhdhabat … al-mursalīn opening, no idh qāla lahum akhūhum, no innī lakum rasūlun amīn triad. There is only the closing seal (67-68).

In the Qurʾān the account of Moses is recounted in many sūras, and each sūra brings a different piece to the front. In this commentary the section al-Qaṣaṣ treated the part of the account running from the birth to Midian and the call in the valley; al-Nāziʿāt 79/15-26 treated the shortest telling (twelve verses). The part that falls to al-Shuʿarāʾ is what comes after the call: the presence of Pharaoh, the sorcerers, and the sea.

Wa idh nādā rabbuka Mūsā ani'ti'l-qawma'ẓ-ẓālimīn · Qawma Firʿawn; alā yattaqūn

"And when your Lord called Moses: 'Go to the wrongdoing people — the people of Pharaoh. Will they still not guard themselves?'"

The first thing to be recorded is an absence: al-Shuʿarāʾ does not recount here the valley, the fire, the tree, the staff or the hand. It begins straight away with the command: ani'ti'l-qawma'ẓ-ẓālimīn.

The same scene was recounted in detail at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/29-35 and was treated in al-Qaṣaṣ; in Ṭāhā 20/9-24 it occurs in its longest form. What al-Shuʿarāʾ leaves out is what the others recount.

I record this as an observation: the sūra does not recount the account from the beginning; it takes it up at the point where it enters the mould. And the mould of the sūra is this: the messenger speaks, the people answer. In the scene in the valley there is no people.

أَن here is explicative (tafsīriyya): it opens the content of the verb nādā (he called) that precedes it. It is like saying "he called thus:".

And the command is a single word: iʾti — go. Neither a consolation nor an equipment is set beside it. The equipment will not come until the fifteenth verse (fa'dhhabā bi-āyātinā). The order is therefore this: first the command, then the objection, then the support.

A point of word order worth recording. Those addressed are named twice, and the order is this:

What they are is said first, then who they are. The attribute has been brought forward, the name comes after.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the reason for the mission is not identity but deed. The same technique was recorded in al-Fajr too where the peoples are named — the Qurʾān targets a community not by its name but by its attribute. This is the textual ground of the principle recorded in Method: the judgement is built not on an ethnic or religious group but on the attribute.

The sentence alā tattaqūn, which will occur five times in the sūra, occurs here for the first time — and in this one place its person is different: alā yattaqūn.

The sentence therefore occurs six times; in five it is the prophet's address to his people, in one it is God's word to the prophet. This is a difference that can be verified from the text.

I record an explanation as my own reading, and it is not binding: in the other five accounts the messenger is from within his own people — akhūhum, "their brother". Moses is not from within the people he is sent to; he goes to the people of Pharaoh from outside. That the sentence comes in the third person accords with that distance: the people are not yet close enough to be addressed as "you".

And there is a datum from the text that supports this explanation: the same people will say to Moses, in the eighteenth verse, "did we not raise you?" Moses grew up among that people but is not of them. The sūra preserves this doubleness.

أَلَا — hamza (interrogative) + lā (negation). In Arabic the pattern announces not a question but urging and reproach: "still not?"

Qāla rabbi innī akhāfu an yukadhdhibūn · Wa yaḍīqu ṣadrī wa lā yanṭaliqu lisānī fa-arsil ilā Hārūn · Wa lahum ʿalayya dhanbun fa-akhāfu an yaqtulūn

"He said: 'My Lord! I fear that they will deny me. · My breast grows tight and my tongue does not loosen; so send to Aaron (Hārūn) as well. · Moreover they hold an offence against me; I fear that they will kill me.'"

The command was a single sentence. The answer is three verses. And the order of the three objections is worth recording:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the lightest first, the heaviest last. The fear of death is named third — not first. The text therefore gives the messenger's foremost anxiety as the failure of the mission, not as his own life.

The root ض-ي-ق: narrowness. Ḍayq — to be narrow. Its opposites are saʿa (breadth) and sharḥ (to split open and widen).

And the Qurʾān sets up this pair separately for Moses and for Muhammad:

This word was analysed in al-Inshirāḥ, and the description recorded there holds here too. What is to be added here is an overlap: the Qurʾān records that the breast of both messengers grew tight; to one it says "We expanded it", the other asks "expand it".

And a link can be made with the third verse of the sūra. I record it as my own reading: at 26/3 it was said to the one addressed (Muhammad) "you are almost destroying yourself". In the thirteenth verse another messenger says "my breast grows tight". Twenty verses lie between the two, and both recount the burden the messenger carries. That this link is made is not stated in the text; the position offers an overlap.

The root ط-ل-ق: the untying of a bond, becoming free. Ṭalāq (the untying of the bond of marriage) is from the same root — it was treated in al-Ṭalāq. Inṭilāq (Form VII) — to come untied of itself, to be released.

The expression therefore does not say "I cannot speak". It says: my tongue does not loosen — it stays tied, it does not flow.

And the Qurʾān recounts the same condition in Ṭāhā with another word: wa'ḥlul ʿuqdatan min lisānī (20/27) — "untie a knot from my tongue". The two sūras use the same picture: bond and knot.

Reports are transmitted to the effect that this condition had a medical or physiological cause; the Qurʾān gives no cause. The only thing the text gives is the condition itself: the tongue does not flow. About the cause I say nothing.

And Moses' own words at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/34 confirm this: wa akhī Hārūnu huwa afṣaḥu minnī lisānā — "my brother Aaron is clearer than I in tongue". That passage was treated in al-Qaṣaṣ, and I rely on that treatment.

A point of word order worth recording. Moses does not say "send Aaron with me"; he says fa-arsil ilā Hārūn — "send to Aaron".

The object of the verb is not stated, only its direction is given. The transmitted explanations: (a) "send Gabriel to Aaron", that is, reveal to him too; (b) "give the messengership to Aaron as well". Both explanations come out at the same door: the request is not for an assistant but for a fellow messenger.

The request at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/34 is different: fa-arsilhu maʿiya ridʾan yuṣaddiqunī — "send him with me as a support, to confirm me". As was recorded in al-Qaṣaṣ, there the request is for confirmation. Two different faces of the same event are given in the two sūras: in al-Shuʿarāʾ messengership, in al-Qaṣaṣ support. I record this as an observation; it is not a contradiction but two different emphases.

This expression refers to a piece of the account that al-Shuʿarāʾ does not recount: Moses' killing of a man in Egypt with his fist.

The event was treated in detail at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/14-21, and I rely on that treatment. The notes there were, in summary, these: the act is not a deliberate killing (wakaza — to strike with the fist; fa-qaḍā ʿalayh — he finished him); Moses himself assesses the event (hādhā min ʿamali'sh-shayṭān, innī ẓalamtu nafsī); and the text does not cover it up.

What is to be added here is the word order of the expression.

لَهُمْ عَلَىَّ ذَنۢبٌ — word for word: "they have [a claim concerning] an offence upon me."

Moses therefore recounts the event not in the language of his own conscience but in the language of the other side's law: "they have a claim upon me". He does not say innī ẓalamtu nafsī (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/16); he says "in their eyes I am guilty".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two prepositions (li and ʿalā): the sentence is not a confession of sin but a statement of risk. The matter is not the weight of the offence but what the other side will do about it — and the next sentence says this plainly: fa-akhāfu an yaqtulūn.

And the word dhanb: the root ذ-ن-ب, whose concrete sense is tail (dhanab). The connection the lexicographers give: an offence is what a person drags behind him — it comes after him, it does not let go. From this picture the word widens to "a burden, an act whose consequence trails after it".

And this picture agrees with the word order of the verse: Moses left Egypt years before; the offence has come after him.

All three are real, and not one of them is denied. The answer in the fifteenth verse does not say that the objections are wrong; it announces the outcome. This will be treated in the next section.

Qāla kallā; fa'dhhabā bi-āyātinā; innā maʿakum mustamiʿūn · Fa'tiyā Firʿawna fa-qūlā innā rasūlu rabbi'l-ʿālamīn · An arsil maʿanā banī Isrāʾīl

"He said: 'No! Go, both of you, with Our signs; We are with you, listening. · Come to Pharaoh and say: We are the messenger of the Lord of all the worlds. · Send the Children of Israel with us.'"

كَلَّا in Arabic announces firm refusal and deterrence. In the Qurʾān it generally comes to reject a claim (it was treated in al-Qiyāma, ʿAbasa, al-Takāthur).

What it rejects here has been disputed. There are two readings, and both can be supported from the text:

The two readings do not exclude one another. What is to be recorded is this: the first word after kallā is a command, not a consolation. The consolation is placed behind the command.

The verb is dual: idhhabā — "go, the two of you". But Aaron's being commissioned had not been stated in a verse; Moses had asked for it (13). The answer therefore does not announce in a separate sentence that the request is granted — it announces it directly through the form of the verb.

This is a point of word order and is worth recording: it is not said "I have sent Aaron too"; the verb shifts to the dual. The granting is inside the grammar.

And immediately after, the pronoun changes: maʿakum — not dual but plural ("with you").

This change has been disputed. The transmitted explanations:

I do not impose a preference. But I record an observation: the same verse holds both the dual (idhhabā) and the plural (maʿakum); the change is therefore a deliberate shift, not a casualness.

مُّسْتَمِعُون — root س-م-ع, active participle of Form X. Samiʿa is to hear, istamaʿa is to lend an ear, to listen. The difference matters: hearing is passive, listening is a directed business.

The guarantee is therefore not "we hear you" but "we are listening to you". And this will meet, later in the sūra, the sentence that comes out of Pharaoh's mouth: alā tastamiʿūn (25) — "are you not listening?" The same verb, in two different mouths.

This construction is one of the notable places in Arabic grammar: the subject is plural (innā — we), the predicate singular (rasūlu — messenger). It is not "we are messengers" (rusulu) but "we are the messenger".

The transmitted explanations:

The Qurʾān's own usage supports the first explanation: not fa-inna ʿalayka laʿnatī, but at Ṭāhā 20/47, for the same event, it says innā rasūlā rabbik (dual). The same scene is thus given in two sūras in two different moulds: singular in al-Shuʿarāʾ, dual in Ṭāhā. This is a difference that can be verified from the text and requires an explanation; I have given the transmitted explanations above, and I do not impose a preference.

This is the whole of the message to be delivered to Pharaoh: one sentence.

And the content of the request is worth recording: faith is not asked for, the abandoning of the throne is not asked for. The only thing asked for is the release of a community.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the bareness of the sentence: the messengership first demands the lifting of a concrete wrong. The call to God's oneness will come later (23-28), because Pharaoh asks. The order is therefore this: first the demand of a right, then — upon the questioner's own question — the description of God.

Qāla a-lam nurabbika fīnā walīdan wa labithta fīnā min ʿumurika sinīn · Wa faʿalta faʿlataka'llatī faʿalta wa anta mina'l-kāfirīn

"He said: 'Did we not raise you among us as a child? Did you not stay among us many years of your life? · And then you did that deed of yours which you did; you are one of the ungrateful.'"

Pharaoh does not discuss the request. He does not say a word about whether the Children of Israel will be released, about whether the messengership is true, about who God is. He turns the subject to the person.

There are two moves, and both are on the same line:

I record this as an observation: neither is an argument; both are a positioning directed at the person. They carry the conversation from a dispute about a right to an accounting of debt and crime.

The verb is rabbā (Form II): to raise, to bring up. And the lexicographers record that this verb comes from the same semantic field as the word رَبّ (Lord): the core of the root ر-ب-ب is to bring a thing up to its completion, to own it and watch over it. The root was analysed in al-Fātiḥa.

And the point of word order stands here: Moses had said he was the messenger of rabbu'l-ʿālamīn (16). Pharaoh reminds him of his own nurture. The two words are from the same root.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the two verses: against the claim of "the Lord of all the worlds", Pharaoh puts forward his own lordship — not openly, but through a verb: "I raised you". Later in the sūra he will say it openly as well (29 — la-ini'ttakhadhta ilāhan ghayrī).

The root و-ل-د: to give birth. Walīd — newly born, a small child. The word increases the weight of the obligation: the one looked after was in no condition to defend himself.

And this refers to the scene at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/8-9: the child had reached Pharaoh's palace by water, and his wife had taken him in. That event was treated in al-Qaṣaṣ. Pharaoh names the result of the event and does not name its cause: he does not say why the child was put into the water.

Moses will recall exactly this in the twenty-second verse.

A point of word order worth recording. Pharaoh does not name the event: he does not say "you killed a man". He repeats the word with a verbal noun from its own root: faʿalta faʿlata-ka'llatī faʿalta — "you did that deed of yours which you did".

The same root three times. In Arabic this construction announces that the act is something known and needing no naming. The closest English rendering: "you did that deed of yours."

فَعْلَة — the faʿla pattern announces a single occurrence (in Arabic, maṣdar al-marra). That is: "that one act of yours". The same pattern was also recorded in this commentary at al-Qamar 54/36 for baṭsha (baṭshatanā — "our one seizing").

And one further observation: the vagueness of the expression increases the force of the accusation. An unnamed offence stands heavier than a named one — because, not being described, it cannot be answered.

The word means both "ungrateful" and "denier"; the core of the root ك-ف-ر is covering over, and it has been analysed across the series (al-Kāfirūn, al-Muddaththir).

The context here brings the ingratitude side forward: the sentence is the continuation of the sentence "we looked after you". What is being said is "you covered over the kindness".

But the second sense is also possible, and it is transmitted: having left the religion of Pharaoh. Both senses can be supported from the text; I do not impose a preference. What is to be recorded is this: the word comes out of the mouth of the accuser — and the sūra nowhere uses this word of Moses.

Qāla faʿaltuhā idhan wa anā mina'ḍ-ḍāllīn · Fa-farartu minkum lammā khiftukum fa-wahaba lī rabbī ḥukman wa jaʿalanī mina'l-mursalīn · Wa tilka niʿmatun tamunnuhā ʿalayya an ʿabbadta banī Isrāʾīl

"He said: 'I did it then, and I was one of those who had strayed. · So I fled from you when I feared you. Then my Lord bestowed judgement upon me and made me one of the messengers. · And that favour you hold over me is that you have enslaved the Children of Israel!'"

Three verses do three pieces of work, and their order is worth recording:

Moses therefore takes up the two accusations in reverse order: Pharaoh had named the obligation first, then the offence; Moses first admits the offence, then refutes the obligation. The heavier is taken up first.

The act is admitted. It is not covered over, not made light of; it is not called an accident.

إِذًا — "then, at that time". An adverb of time. The work of the word is to place the act in a period: in the state I was in then.

وَأَنَا۠ مِنَ ٱلضَّآلِّينَ — a circumstantial clause: "while I was one of those who had strayed."

The root ض-ل-ل: to lose the way, to fail to find the right direction. The root was analysed in al-Fātiḥa and in al-Najm. In this context the word means not "denier" but "one who does not fully know what he is doing, one who has missed the mark" — indeed at al-Ḍuḥā 93/7 the same root is used of a messenger (wa wajadaka ḍāllan fa-hadā), and that distinction was treated in al-Ḍuḥā.

The transmitted explanations:

All three point in the same direction: that the act is not owned as a deliberate murder, but is not covered over either. As was recorded in al-Qaṣaṣ, the text does not conceal a grave event in the life of a prophet.

The root ف-ر-ر: to flee, to move away in order to escape.

A point of word order: Moses conceals neither his flight nor his fear. And the order is worth recording: farartu (I fled) comes first, khiftukum (I feared you) after — the cause is placed behind the result. In Arabic lammā makes this link: "I fled because I feared".

And this ties back to the objection in the fourteenth verse: Moses had said to God "I fear that they will kill me". Now he says the same fear to the face of the one he feared. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

Three verbs, three stages: farartu (I fled) → wahaba lī (He bestowed on me) → jaʿalanī (He made me).

حُكْم — root ح-ك-م: to make a thing firm, to prevent its going wrong. The concrete use of the root comes from the keeping of animals: ḥakama — to put the bit into a horse's mouth; ḥakama is also the name of the bit itself. Judgement, then, is what holds in check. The root was analysed at Luqmān 31/12 (ḥikma).

What is transmitted about the sense of the word here: knowledge, prophethood, the capacity to decide rightly. I adopt no firm preference; the core of the root (to make firm) fits all three.

And the same word will occur once more in the account of Abraham: rabbi hab lī ḥukman (83). Two prophets in the sūra thus use the same word — one says "it was given", the other asks "give". This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

One of the densest sentences in the sūra; it carries a whole account in a single verse.

تَمُنُّهَا — root م-ن-ن: to cut, to sever (the concrete sense); from there to bestow a gift and to hold a gift over someone's head. The root was treated in Muḥammad and at al-Ḥujurāt 49/17 (yamunnūna ʿalayka an aslamū).

The two faces of the word must be recorded:

And the point of word order stands exactly here: in saying "we raised you" Pharaoh is claiming a favour. In his answer Moses accepts the word (niʿmatun) but changes the verb: tamunnuhā — "which you hold over me". That it was a favour is not denied; what is said is what it is that stops a favour from being a favour.

عَبَّدْتَّ — root ع-ب-د, Form II (faʿʿala): to enslave, to reduce to bondage. The core of the root is submission, obedience; ʿabd — a slave, a servant. Form II adds transitivity and compulsion: "you made them slaves".

In this pattern the word occurs only here in the Qurʾān. This is a datum that can be verified from the text.

How the verse is constructed has been disputed, and the dispute changes the meaning. I give the transmitted readings in a table; I do not impose a preference.

What the three readings have in common is this, and it can be read from the text with certainty: niʿma and ʿabbadta stand in the same sentence, the one as the explanation of the other. Moses ties the kindness done to him to the order out of which that kindness came.

The background needed to understand this sentence was treated at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/1-6, and I rely on that treatment. The notes there were, in summary, these:

• يَسْتَضْعِف — root ض-ع-ف, Form X: to count someone weak and to make him weak. The pattern matters: weakness is not something that happens of itself but something that is done.
• Pharaoh's work is recounted with three verbs, and the first is dividing (wa jaʿala ahlahā shiyaʿā); wrongdoing first breaks a society into pieces.
• Two verbs are set side by side: yudhabbiḥu abnāʾahum wa yastaḥyī nisāʾahum — to slaughter the sons, to keep the women alive.

Now let us set two words side by side:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two patterns: in al-Qaṣaṣ the fact is recounted, in al-Shuʿarāʾ the fact is said to the face. And the word used in al-Shuʿarāʾ is the heavier: istiḍʿāf is to render powerless; taʿbīd is to reduce to bondage. The second is the outcome the first has reached.

And when the two sūras are read together the whole sentence emerges: the reason Moses grew up in the palace is that the sons of the Children of Israel were being killed. What Pharaoh calls a "favour" is thus a by-product of his own wrongdoing — the child was put into the water because of that very order. Al-Shuʿarāʾ does not state this chain openly; it becomes visible when read together with al-Qaṣaṣ. I record this link as a reading of the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān.

The measure the verse sets up is a concrete measure for relations of obligation: the worth of a kindness is measured not on its own but together with the order out of which it came. When an order first leaves a community powerless and then does a kindness to one of that community, what emerges is not a kindness but another face of the same order.

And the verse is striking in that the one who says this is not a bystanding victim but someone who actually received that kindness. Moses does not refuse the kindness — he carries the reckoning back to the order the giver built with his own hand.

Qāla Firʿawnu wa mā rabbu'l-ʿālamīn · Qāla rabbu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baynahumā in kuntum mūqinīn · Qāla li-man ḥawlahu alā tastamiʿūn · Qāla rabbukum wa rabbu ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn · Qāla inna rasūlakumu'lladhī ursila ilaykum la-majnūn · Qāla rabbu'l-mashriqi wa'l-maghribi wa mā baynahumā in kuntum taʿqilūn

"Pharaoh said: 'And what is the Lord of all the worlds?' · [Moses] said: 'The Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is between them — if you would know for certain.' · [Pharaoh] said to those around him: 'Are you not listening?' · [Moses] said: 'Your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers.' · [Pharaoh] said: 'This messenger of yours who has been sent to you is certainly possessed.' · [Moses] said: 'The Lord of the east and the west and what is between them — if you would use reason.'"

This is one of the most tightly built dialogue scenes in the Qurʾān. Six verses, six qāla, no explanation of any kind. The narrator does not step in: who felt what, who thought what, is not said. There are only the words.

And the words set up a pattern:

The pattern is exact: Pharaoh speaks three times and all three times drops the question; Moses answers three times and all three times answers the same question.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the arrangement of the six verses: the scene shows not a debate but how a debate is broken off. Pharaoh does not refute the answer — he reacts to it.

A point of word order worth recording, and one that has been disputed: the question is asked with مَا ("what"), not with مَنْ ("who").

In Arabic mā asks after quiddity (what a thing is, its kind), man after identity. Rational beings are asked after with man.

The transmitted explanations:

And Moses' answer seems to settle this dispute. I record it as my own reading: Moses gives no quiddity. He gives an act. He does not say "it is of such a kind"; he says "He is the Lord of such and such". The question looks for a kind; the answer shows a work.

Moses answers three times, and all three are in the same mould: rabbu … wa … wa mā baynahumā. But the field they cover changes:

The shared structure of the three answers and their differences can be verified from the text. I enter three notes:

One — in the second answer there is no conditional clause. The first and the third carry a qualification ending in in kuntum…; the second does not. And the second answer is the only one that takes those addressed themselves as its subject: rabbukum wa rabbu ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn. I record it as my own reading: a person's own existence and the existence of his forefathers are not something he needs to be persuaded of — it is already in front of him.

Two — the contents of the conditions differ: īqān (certain knowledge) and ʿaql (the use of reason). The first answer looks to the whole of the universe and sets certain knowledge as its condition; the third answer looks to east and west, that is, to an order seen by the eye every day, and sets the use of reason as its condition. The larger claim is thus tied to the heavier condition, the more visible proof to the lighter one. I record this as an observation about the structure.

Three — the answers do not narrow backwards; they descend toward the horizon. While the heavens and the earth are abstract, east and west are two points seen every morning. The higher Moses raises the argument, the more concrete he makes the proof.

And the relatives of the east-west formula in the Qurʾān must be recorded: rabbu'l-mashāriq (al-Ṣāffāt 37/5 — plural, "the easts"), rabbu'l-mashriqayni wa rabbu'l-maghribayn (al-Raḥmān 55/17 — dual). Three verses, three different numbers: singular, dual, plural. This difference was treated in this commentary in al-Ṣāffāt and al-Raḥmān, and the explanation recorded there was this: the point at which the sun rises changes every day; the singular announces "direction", the dual "the two extremes", the plural "the point of each day". I do not repeat it here.

Pharaoh gives no answer to the answer; he turns to those around him.

A point of word order: the sentence stands as a question but asks for no information. He does not suppose that they failed to hear what was said; he knows they heard it. The work of the sentence is to make the listener a witness: "look at what this man is saying".

And the verb is worth recording: tastamiʿūn — to listen. In the fifteenth verse the guarantee God gave Moses was from the same root and in the same pattern: innā maʿakum mustamiʿūn. The sūra thus uses the same verb in two different mouths:

This is an overlap that can be verified from the text. And as my own reading I record this: the guarantee given at the start of the scene comes from the same root as the verb that becomes an object of mockery in the middle of the scene. The messenger is not alone — and the sentence that tells him so uses the same word as the sentence that mocks him. That this link is intended is not stated in the text.

The root ج-ن-ن: to cover, to hide. Janna'l-layl — the night covered over. From the same root: jinn (the unseen), janna (the garden covered by trees), janīn (the covered one in the womb), junna (a shield), majnūn (one whose reason is covered over).

The root was analysed across the series (al-Jinn, al-Qalam 68/2, al-Ṭūr) and is not repeated.

Two things are to be added here.

One — the position of the accusation. The accusation comes after Moses' most reasonable answer. What he said in the twenty-sixth verse was this: "your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers". There is nothing unintelligible in it. The accusation is given not to unintelligibility but to unacceptability.

Two — the word order of the accusation. Pharaoh does not say "you are possessed". He turns to the listeners and speaks in the third person: inna rasūlakumu'lladhī ursila ilaykum — "your messenger who was sent to you".

Pharaoh thus does two things at once: he removes Moses from being the one who addresses, and he removes himself from being the one addressed. He says "he was sent not to me but to you".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two pronouns. And the accusation la-majnūn at the start of the sūra is the brother of the accusation of poetry at the end of the sūra: both classify the speaker instead of discussing what is said. This link will be treated in the section on 224-226.

Qāla la-ini'ttakhadhta ilāhan ghayrī la-ajʿalannaka mina'l-masjūnīn · Qāla a-wa law jiʾtuka bi-shayʾin mubīn · Qāla fa'ti bihi in kunta mina'ṣ-ṣādiqīn

"[Pharaoh] said: 'If you take a god other than me, I will surely make you one of the imprisoned.' · [Moses] said: 'Even if I bring you something clear?' · [Pharaoh] said: 'Bring it, then, if you are one of the truthful!'"

Pharaoh's fourth utterance ends the debate. What ran from the twenty-third verse to the twenty-eighth was a question and answer; in the twenty-ninth verse the response is given not to the answer but to the speaker.

The order is worth recording:

I record this as an observation: four stages advancing along a line that moves away from argument. And at the last stage Pharaoh states his own claim openly for the first time: ilāhan ghayrī — "a god other than me". In the eighteenth verse he had implied it with a verb (a-lam nurabbika); now he says it with a word.

A point of word order worth recording, and a mould that will be repeated in the sūra.

Pharaoh does not say "I will imprison you" (la-asjunannaka). He says "I will make you one of the imprisoned": la-ajʿalannaka mina'l-masjūnīn.

In Arabic this construction (verb + min + definite plural) means adding a person to a group, and the lexicographers record that it makes the threat heavier: the person does not become a prisoner on his own; he is put inside a known class.

And this mould occurs more than fifteen times in the sūra. Often enough to deserve a table:

The sūra thus recounts people not one by one but by membership of a group. Everyone is placed inside a plural: among the messengers, among the sorcerers, among the liars, among the expelled, among those punished.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the count above: the closing of the sūra uses the same technique — wa'sh-shuʿarāʾu yattabiʿuhumu'l-ghāwūn (224) and illā 'lladhīna āmanū (227). At its end too the sūra makes a distinction of groups.

شَىْءٍ مُّبِين — "something clear". Indefinite. Moses does not say what he will bring.

A point of word order: leaving the noun indefinite allows the claim to be set up against the threat. Moses is not bargaining, he promises no miracle — he asks for the ground of the threat: "even if I bring a proof?"

And the a-wa law pattern must be recorded: hamza (interrogative) + wāw + law (conditional). In English: "even if…?" This pattern does the same work in another place in the Qurʾān: a-wa law jiʾtukum bi-ahdā mimmā wajadtum ʿalayhi ābāʾakum (al-Zukhruf 43/24 — treated in al-Zukhruf). In both verses the pattern is set against a closed attitude.

Pharaoh does not withdraw the threat; but he accepts the demand.

I record this as an observation: the scene continues with permission given for the proof to be shown. And after the proof is shown (32-33), Pharaoh's reaction will be not to reject the proof but to name it: inna hādhā la-sāḥirun ʿalīm (34).

إِن كُنتَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِين — the same mould again: the person is assigned to a group. And the conditional particle is in, not idhā — in Arabic in is used for the doubtful, idhā for the certain.

Fa-alqā ʿaṣāhu fa-idhā hiya thuʿbānun mubīn · Wa nazaʿa yadahu fa-idhā hiya bayḍāʾu li'n-nāẓirīn · Qāla li'l-malaʾi ḥawlahu inna hādhā la-sāḥirun ʿalīm · Yurīdu an yukhrijakum min arḍikum bi-siḥrih; fa-mādhā taʾmurūn · Qālū arjih wa akhāhu wa'bʿath fi'l-madāʾini ḥāshirīn · Yaʾtūka bi-kulli saḥḥārin ʿalīm

"Thereupon he cast his staff; and there it was, a clear serpent! · And he drew out his hand; and there it was, white to the beholders! · [Pharaoh] said to the chiefs around him: 'This man is certainly a knowing sorcerer. · He wants to drive you out of your land with his sorcery. What do you command?' · They said: 'Hold him and his brother back, and send gatherers into the cities · to bring you every knowing sorcerer.'"

إِذَا here is not the conditional particle but what the lexicographers call idhā fujāʾiyya (the idhā of suddenness). Its work is to announce unexpectedness. In English it is rendered by "and there it was".

And the particle is repeated in both verses: fa-idhā hiya thuʿbān, fa-idhā hiya bayḍāʾ. Both miracles are thus given with the same suddenness.

A point of word order: the verse does not recount a transformation. It does not say "the staff turned into a snake"; it says "he cast it — and there it was, a serpent". The process in between is not in the text. This is so in the other places where the Qurʾān recounts this scene as well (al-Aʿrāf 7/107, Ṭāhā 20/20).

In this scene the Qurʾān uses three different words for what the staff turned into, and all three are for the same event. This is a datum that can be verified from the text:

The apparent tension is this: the same thing is likened both to a large and to a small snake. The transmitted explanations: (a) the jānn comparison describes the movement (the swift coiling), the thuʿbān the body; (b) they are descriptions belonging to two different moments. I do not impose a preference; the first explanation accords with the dictionary sense of the words, because the distinguishing feature the lexicographers give for jānn is speed, not size.

And this scene was treated at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/29-35; what was recorded there was Moses' reaction: wallā mudbiran wa lam yuʿaqqib — he fled without looking back. Al-Shuʿarāʾ does not recount that reaction. Because the sūra sets the scene in Pharaoh's presence, it gives no place to Moses' fear at his first encounter.

The root ن-ز-ع: to pull out, to tear away. The root was analysed at al-Nāziʿāt 79/1 and is not repeated.

بَيْضَآءُ لِلنَّٰظِرِين — "white to the beholders". A note: the whiteness is described in the eyes of those who look. The miracle therefore stands not as a subjective experience but before witnesses.

Elsewhere the Qurʾān adds a qualification to this whiteness: min ghayri sūʾ — "with no disease in it" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/32; Ṭāhā 20/22). Al-Shuʿarāʾ does not enter this qualification. This is a difference that can be verified from the text, and it may be explained thus: in al-Qaṣaṣ the address is to Moses (he is looking at his own hand), in al-Shuʿarāʾ the scene is in Pharaoh's presence. I record this as my own reading.

Pharaoh does not say "this is a lie" or "this is a trick". He accepts the event and names it.

And the name he chooses is worth recording: sāḥirun ʿalīm — "a knowing sorcerer". Not a belittlement; a concession of expertise.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the attribute itself: it was not possible to deny the event, because everyone saw it. The way to neutralise an event that cannot be denied is to place it in a known category. Sorcery was a field known in that society and having its experts. Pharaoh therefore meets the event not with "it did not happen" but with "we know what kind of thing this is".

The same technique is repeated in the Qurʾān: hādhā siḥrun mubīn (al-Aḥqāf 46/7 — treated in al-Aḥqāf), hādhā siḥrun wa innā bihi kāfirūn (al-Zukhruf 43/30). And at the end of the sūra the same technique will be applied to Muhammad: "a poet", "possessed".

And in the second verse the accusation changes. It is no longer sorcery but politics.

A point of word order: the two sentences come one after the other and the pronoun changes. In the first, hādhā (this) — Moses as an object. In the second, twice kum — yukhrija-kum, arḍi-kum. The threat is thus shifted onto the listener: "you", "your land".

And the word arḍikum must be recorded: Moses was born on that soil, and Pharaoh said so with his own mouth in the eighteenth verse (wa labithta fīnā min ʿumurika sinīn). Now the same soil is described as "yours" and Moses is counted an outsider.

I record this as an observation: in the same conversation the same person is presented first as an insider (we raised you) and then as an outsider (he will drive you from your land). Two descriptions serving two different purposes.

This sentence is one of the most striking points of word order in the sūra, and it carries a judgement on its own.

تَأْمُرُونَ — from the root amr: to command. Pharaoh does not say to the chiefs "what do you think?" (mādhā tarawn) or "what is your opinion?" (mā raʾyukum). He says "what do you command?"

One verse earlier he had said of himself ilāhan ghayrī ("a god other than me") (29). Five verses later he asks those around him "what do you command?"

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the distance between the two words within the sūra: six verses stand between the claim to divinity and the sentence of consultation. The text does not interpret this tension — it sets the two side by side.

And the same scene occurs with the same word elsewhere in the Qurʾān: al-Aʿrāf 7/110 — fa-mādhā taʾmurūn. The sentence is thus exactly the same in two sūras. This is a datum that can be verified from the text.

Two readings are transmitted about the root of the verb, and both change the meaning:

Both readings converge on "do nothing immediately". Variant readings of the word are also transmitted (arjih, arjihi, arjiʾhu); these are differences of pronunciation and do not change the meaning, so I do not go into their detail.

And the advice given is worth recording: the chiefs propose neither killing nor imprisonment. What they propose is a counter-display: to gather the experts of the same field and have the same work done.

حَٰشِرِين — root ح-ش-ر: to gather in one place what is scattered. The root was analysed at al-Takwīr 81/5 and in Qāf. The word is used in the context of the resurrection too (ḥashr), and its use here is concrete: officials going city by city to collect men.

سَحَّار — root س-ح-ر, the faʿʿāl pattern: an intensive — one who does the thing much and continually. In the thirty-fourth verse sāḥir (an active participle) was used of Moses; here saḥḥār is used of the men who are to be brought.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of the two patterns: the other side's logic of bringing "a bigger one" is reflected in the pattern of the word. The answer is thus built on degree, not on kind.

And the core of the root س-ح-ر must be recorded: the lexicographers describe the root as "to turn a thing away from its true direction, to turn the eye or the perception". From the same root: سَحَر (saḥar) — the end of the night, the hour of turning toward day. Sorcery, then, changes not the reality but the perception — and this will be confirmed in the forty-fifth verse in the text's own words: talqafu mā yaʾfikūn — "it was swallowing what they were fabricating".

Fa-jumiʿa's-saḥaratu li-mīqāti yawmin maʿlūm · Wa qīla li'n-nāsi hal antum mujtamiʿūn · Laʿallanā nattabiʿu's-saḥarata in kānū humu'l-ghālibīn · Fa-lammā jāʾa's-saḥaratu qālū li-Firʿawna a-inna lanā la-ajran in kunnā naḥnu'l-ghālibīn · Qāla naʿam wa innakum idhan la-mina'l-muqarrabīn

"And so the sorcerers were gathered for the appointed hour of a known day. · And it was said to the people: 'Will you gather too? · Perhaps we shall follow the sorcerers — if they are the ones who prevail.' · When the sorcerers came they said to Pharaoh: 'Will there really be a wage for us if we are the ones who prevail?' · 'Yes', he said, 'and then you will certainly be among those brought near.'"

In the first three of the five verses the verbs are passive: jumiʿa (were gathered), qīla (it was said). The agent is not named.

A point of word order: the passive voice, as it hides the one who acts, also announces the breadth of the act. Gatherers had been sent city by city (36), the sorcerers had been brought, the people had been summoned. All of this is fitted into a single verb.

And an observation: the text recounts the mobilisation of a state with two verbs.

مِيقَٰت — root و-ق-ت: an appointed time. Mīqāt is not "a time" but "a meeting whose time is fixed"; the word has this sense in the terms of the pilgrimage too.

And yawmin maʿlūm — "a known day". The Qurʾān does not say what day this event was. At Ṭāhā 20/59 Moses' own proposal occurs: mawʿidukum yawmu'z-zīnati wa an yuḥshara'n-nāsu ḍuḥā — "your appointment is the day of adornment (the festival); let the people be gathered in the forenoon". Al-Shuʿarāʾ does not give this detail; Ṭāhā does. The two texts do not conflict; one is shorter than the other.

I do not enter into detail the Qurʾān does not give; reports are transmitted about which festival it was and how many sorcerers came, but they are not in the Qurʾān.

The sentence stands as a question but its work is a summons. In Arabic the interrogative pattern can be used for urging. The English "will you gather?" carries the same doubleness.

And what must be recorded is this: the display is open to the public. It is held not in a closed hall but before a crowd. This is what will determine the outcome of the scene: when the sorcerers fall prostrate in the forty-sixth verse, the whole people will see it.

A point of word order worth recording, and one that has been disputed: who says this sentence?

Both readings can be supported from the text. I do not impose a preference.

But the content of the sentence, whichever reading is taken, says the same thing, and it must be recorded: in kānū humu'l-ghālibīn — "if they are the ones who prevail". The measure is not truth but victory.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the word: the sentence does not say "if they turn out to be in the right" or "if they speak the truth". Whoever wins the contest is to be followed. And ten verses after setting up this sentence, the sūra will recount that the winners of the contest themselves changed sides (46-48). The measure thus breaks itself.

The root غ-ل-ب: to prevail, to overcome. The word occurs three times in the sūra (40, 41, 44), and all three times it belongs to the side of the sorcerers: twice the expectation of the people or the sorcerers, once their own oath. There is no fourth occurrence — because they do not prevail. This is a datum that can be verified from the text.

And one of the strongest oppositions in the sūra is here.

The first question the sorcerers put to Pharaoh is about a wage: a-inna lanā la-ajrā.

And in the sūra five prophets will say the same sentence five times: wa mā asʾalukum ʿalayhi min ajrin (109, 127, 145, 164, 180) — "I ask you no wage for it".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the same word (ajr) occurs six times in the sūra: once asked for, five times refused. And the sūra will recount that those who asked for the wage in the end gave the wage up (50-51). The word ajr is thus a separator in the sūra: it measures who is speaking in return for what.

The root ق-ر-ب: to be near. Muqarrab — the passive participle of Form II: brought near, taken into proximity.

The word is used in two different fields in the Qurʾān, and the difference must be recorded:

This word was analysed in al-Wāqiʿa and in al-Muṭaffifīn, and I do not repeat it.

What is to be added here is an observation: Pharaoh answers the question about the wage with "yes" and adds something on top of it — nearness. What is offered, then, is not money but position. And a few verses later the sorcerers will refuse that position: lā ḍayra innā ilā rabbinā munqalibūn (50). What was set before them was a position; what they left behind was a position too.

Qāla lahum Mūsā alqū mā antum mulqūn · Fa-alqaw ḥibālahum wa ʿiṣiyyahum wa qālū bi-ʿizzati Firʿawna innā la-naḥnu'l-ghālibūn · Fa-alqā Mūsā ʿaṣāhu fa-idhā hiya talqafu mā yaʾfikūn · Fa-ulqiya's-saḥaratu sājidīn · Qālū āmannā bi-rabbi'l-ʿālamīn · Rabbi Mūsā wa Hārūn · Qāla āmantum lahu qabla an ādhana lakum… la-uqaṭṭiʿanna aydiyakum wa arjulakum min khilāfin wa la-uṣallibannakum ajmaʿīn

"Moses said to them: 'Cast what you are going to cast!' · So they cast their ropes and their staffs and said: 'By the might of Pharaoh, we are surely the ones who prevail!' · Then Moses cast his staff; and there it was, swallowing what they had fabricated! · Thereupon the sorcerers were thrown down prostrate. · They said: 'We believe in the Lord of all the worlds — the Lord of Moses and Aaron.' · [Pharaoh] said: 'You believed him before I gave you leave!… I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, and I will surely crucify you all!'"

The clearest structural datum of this section is the repetition of a single root. The root ل-ق-ي (to cast) occurs six times in seven verses, and its relative ل-ق-ف once:

And the last row must be recorded: at the sixth occurrence the voice changes.

For four verses the sorcerers were the side that casts; in the forty-sixth verse they become the side that is cast: fa-ulqiya's-saḥaratu sājidīn — "the sorcerers were thrown down prostrate".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the change of voice: fa-sajada's-saḥaratu ("they prostrated themselves") could have been said; it was not. The passive voice announces that the prostration was not a planned decision but an irresistible reaction — as though something set them down. The same mould occurs at al-Aʿrāf 7/120 as well (wa ulqiya's-saḥaratu sājidīn).

تَلْقَفُ — root ل-ق-ف: to snatch a thing up quickly and swallow it. Laqifa — to catch something in the air. The word says not "it destroyed" but "it swallowed": it took it in as a body.

The sorcerers swear an oath, and what they swear by must be recorded: ʿizzatu Firʿawn — the might of Pharaoh.

The root ع-ز-ز is the root of the name al-ʿAzīz in the seal of the sūra (9, 68, 104, 122, 140, 159, 175, 191), and it was analysed in Fāṭir. Its core: hardness, resistance to wear, invincibility.

The sūra thus uses the same word eight times of God and once of Pharaoh. This is a datum that can be verified from the text.

And this is another instance of the technique recorded in al-Burūj: the Qurʾān takes the attribute the other side has assigned to itself and returns it to its true owner. The sorcerers swear by the ʿizza of Pharaoh; at the end of every account the sūra stamps its seal, "the true ʿazīz is your Lord". I record this link as a reading of the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān.

A point of word order: the oath is sworn before the miracle takes place, and it carries three elements announcing certainty: innā + la- + naḥnu (the separating pronoun) + al-ghālibūn (definite). In Arabic this is one of the highest degrees of certainty. In English: "we, we most certainly are the ones who prevail."

And four verses later the same mouths will say āmannā bi-rabbi'l-ʿālamīn.

The root أ-ف-ك: to turn a thing from its direction, to overturn it. Ifk — a turned-about speech, a slander. The root was treated at al-Jāthiya 45/7 and at al-Aḥqāf 46/11, 46/28.

And this word will occur twice in the sūra:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root: the sūra names the sorcerer's work and the affāk's work with the same root — both turn a thing away from its true direction. And at the end of the sūra it will be said that the source of the Qurʾān does not come from this field (210-212). The sūra thus builds its own defence here, between a staff and some ropes.

And a point of word order: the verse does not say "it swallowed their ropes". Talqafu mā yaʾfikūn — "it was swallowing what they were fabricating". What is swallowed is not an object but an act.

The forty-seventh verse is a declaration of faith; the forty-eighth adds an explanation to it: rabbi Mūsā wa Hārūn.

Why this was added has been disputed, and there is an explanation from within the text. I record it as my own reading: the expression rabbu'l-ʿālamīn is one that Pharaoh could appropriate to himself — indeed Pharaoh had said of himself ilāhan ghayrī (29), and in another sūra the Qurʾān records him saying anā rabbukumu'l-aʿlā (al-Nāziʿāt 79/24 — treated in al-Nāziʿāt). The addition in the forty-eighth verse closes off the possibility: which Lord is meant is specified by name.

This explanation rests on a tension within the text itself and is not necessary.

There are two sentences in Pharaoh's reaction, and both bear on the whole of the sūra.

One — qabla an ādhana lakum ("before I gave you leave"). Faith is spoken of as a matter subject to permission.

I record this as an observation: the sentence shows what the claim to divinity amounts to. The claim includes not being worshipped but the authority to decide who will believe in what.

And here āmantum lahu occurs — lahu, not bihi. In Arabic āmana bi- is "to believe in a thing", āmana li- is "to trust someone, to hold him true". Pharaoh therefore does not say "you have believed in God"; he says "you have trusted him" — again pulling the subject onto the person.

Two — innahu la-kabīrukumu'lladhī ʿallamakumu's-siḥr ("he is your chief, who taught you sorcery"). The event, in other words, is explained as a conspiracy: master and pupils had come to an understanding.

This is the continuation of the naming in the thirty-fourth verse. An event that cannot be denied is explained by a known cause. And there is a problem inside the explanation, and the text makes no attempt to repair it: the sorcerers had only just been gathered from the cities (36-38), and Moses had not been in Egypt for years (21). The text does not point out this contradiction; it sets it before the reader. I record this as an observation.

The root خ-ل-ف: the back, the opposite, what takes another's place. Min khilāf — on opposite sides: the right hand with the left foot, or the reverse.

The punishment is described in detail in the text: cutting off and crucifixion. The Qurʾān records the same threat in the same words at al-Aʿrāf 7/124 and Ṭāhā 20/71 as well.

I enter a note, and it follows from the principle of this commentary: the verse establishes no penal ruling; it transmits the words of a tyrant. The difference between transmission and ruling is plain here — the sentence is in Pharaoh's mouth, and the sūra does not endorse it. I derive no legal ruling from it.

Qālū lā ḍayra; innā ilā rabbinā munqalibūn · Innā naṭmaʿu an yaghfira lanā rabbunā khaṭāyānā an kunnā awwala'l-muʾminīn

"They said: 'No harm! We are returning to our Lord. · We hope that our Lord will forgive us our faults, because we are the first of the believers.'"

The threat contained three things: cutting off, crucifixion, all of them. The answer begins with two words: lā ḍayra — "no harm".

This is the shortest and the most loaded answer in the sūra. And its structure must be recorded:

The answer is thus built in three steps: refusal, ground, hope. And the ground takes up not the content of the threat but its outcome.

The root ض-ي-ر: to do harm. Ḍayr — harm, loss. Its relatives are ḍarar (ض-ر-ر) and sūʾ.

The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān. This is a datum that can be verified from the text.

And the kind of lā must be recorded: lā al-nāfiya li'l-jins — the lā that negates the whole class. In Arabic this pattern means "there is no harm whatever"; it does not say "there is a little harm" or "this harm is unimportant". The concept of harm itself is lifted away.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pattern: the answer does not say "we will bear the pain". It says "this is not a harm" — that is, the measure the threat rests on is rejected. Cutting off and crucifixion are a harm only if the body is the final value.

The root was analysed in al-Inshiqāq and I do not repeat it. The description there: ق-ل-ب — to turn a thing over, to bring its underside up; from the same root قَلْب (qalb, the heart) — the thing that turns most from state to state. إِنقَلَبَ (Form VII, infiʿāl) — it turned, it turned back.

Three things are to be added here.

One — the word will return in the last verse of the sūra. Verse two hundred and twenty-seven: wa sa-yaʿlamu'lladhīna ẓalamū ayya munqalabin yanqalibūn — "those who did wrong will soon know to what place of return they will return".

The sūra thus uses the same root at its two ends: one speaks knowing the place of return, the other does not know it. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

Two — the use of the active participle. Munqalibūn — not "those who will return" but "those who are returning". In Arabic the active participle can announce a state already realised or already settled. The return is therefore recounted not as an event to happen in the future but as the present position.

Three — its relative in the Qurʾān. Wa innā ilā rabbinā la-munqalibūn (al-Zukhruf 43/14) — the prayer said when mounted on a beast. That passage was treated at al-Zukhruf 43/13-14. The same sentence, in two sūras in two different scenes: one setting out on a journey, the other under threat of execution. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text, and it shows what the word announces: every movement has a point of arrival.

The expression has been disputed: the first of what?

I do not impose a preference. What is to be recorded is this: men who a few minutes earlier were asking Pharaoh for a wage now describe themselves as "the first of the believers" — and they say it not as a boast but as the ground of a hope of forgiveness.

The root ط-م-ع: to want something intensely, to have one's eye on it. In Arabic the word often carries a negative colouring (covetousness); here it is used for a hope that is positive.

And the same word will occur once more in the sūra — in Abraham's mouth: wa'lladhī aṭmaʿu an yaghfira lī khaṭīʾatī yawma'd-dīn (82).

The two sentences are almost exactly the same: the same verb (ṭamaʿ), the same request (an yaghfira), the same root (خ-ط-ء). There are two differences: the sorcerers are plural (naṭmaʿu, lanā, khaṭāyānā), Abraham singular (aṭmaʿu, lī, khaṭīʾatī).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the overlap of the two sentences: the sūra builds the prayer of a prophet and the prayer of men who were sorcerers an hour before out of the same words. It observes no difference of rank between them. This is a datum that can be verified from the text; what it means is interpretation.

What the scene records is not a change of opinion. Men who came for a wage give up, within a few minutes, the wage, the position and life itself. And in doing so their being experts in their own trade plays its part: they knew better than anyone in that assembly what the thing they saw was not.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the thirty-seventh verse: those brought were saḥḥārin ʿalīm, that is, "knowing" sorcerers. Here knowledge becomes the cause not of resistance but of surrender.

Wa awḥaynā ilā Mūsā an asri bi-ʿibādī innakum muttabaʿūn · Fa-arsala Firʿawnu fi'l-madāʾini ḥāshirīn · Inna hāʾulāʾi la-shirdhimatun qalīlūn · Wa innahum lanā la-ghāʾiẓūn · Wa innā la-jamīʿun ḥādhirūn · Fa-akhrajnāhum min jannātin wa ʿuyūn · Wa kunūzin wa maqāmin karīm · Kadhālika wa awrathnāhā banī Isrāʾīl

"And We revealed to Moses: 'Set out by night with My servants; you will be pursued.' · Pharaoh sent gatherers into the cities: · 'These are a paltry little band; · and they are enraging us; · and we are a company on our guard.' · So We brought them out of gardens and springs, · out of treasures and a noble station. · So it was; and We made the Children of Israel inherit them."

The root س-ر-ي: to travel by night. Isrāʾ — a journey by night (the asrā of al-Isrāʾ 17/1 is from the same root). The word contains no daytime travel; the time is inside the root.

And a point of word order: bi-ʿibādī — "with My servants". The Children of Israel are named here not as "your people" or "them" but as "My servants".

I record this as an observation, and it ties to the whole of the sūra: in the twenty-second verse Moses had said to Pharaoh "you made slaves of the Children of Israel" (ʿabbadta). Now the same root occurs for the same community but with a different attribution: ʿibādī — My servants.

The same root, two attributions. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text. And as my own reading I record this: the sūra speaks not of the abolition of servitude but of the changing of its direction. Deliverance is recounted not as being bound to no one but as the correction of whom one is bound to. This is an explanation, not a ruling.

A point of word order: the pursuit is announced before it happens, and in the passive: muttabaʿūn — "you are the pursued".

The command to depart therefore does not hide the danger. This resembles the mould recorded at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/7-13 in the announcement given to the mother: the command is not left bare; what will happen is said.

The root ش-ر-ذ-م: the sense the lexicographers give is a small piece broken off a whole, a paltry group. Shirdhima — a group few in number and scattered.

The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān. This is a datum that can be verified from the text.

And a point of word order must be recorded: shirdhimatun qalīlūn. Shirdhima already means "a paltry group"; on top of it qalīlūn ("few") is added. The fewness is thus said twice.

A grammatical note: shirdhima is feminine singular, while its adjective is a sound masculine plural (qalīlūn). This is an ordinary usage with collective nouns — the adjective looks to the individuals of the group.

And the work of the sentence must be recorded: Pharaoh describes as small the community after which he is sending an army. If they are small, why is an army needed? The text does not ask this question; it sets the sentences side by side, and the next verse shows the contradiction of itself: innā la-jamīʿun ḥādhirūn — "we are a company on our guard".

All three sentences are reinforced with inna + lām. All three, that is, are set down as firm claims.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the three sentences: the first belittles the other side, the third calls its own side to be on guard. Contempt and precaution cannot be spoken in the same breath — and the text shows this without criticism, merely by setting them in order.

غَآئِظُون — root غ-ي-ظ: anger that seethes within. The lexicographers describe ghayẓ as anger that is not let out, that gathers in the breast; in this it is distinguished from ghaḍab.

حَٰذِرُون — root ح-ذ-ر: to be on one's guard, to take care. Two variant readings are transmitted for the word: ḥādhirūn (active participle — on guard) and ḥadhirūn (assimilate adjective, ṣifa mushabbaha — continually on guard, wary). There is a difference of sense, but a small one: the one announces being on guard at that moment, the other a wariness that has become a trait. Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And one of the sharpest reversals in the sūra is here.

In the thirty-fifth verse Pharaoh had said: yurīdu an yukhrijakum min arḍikum — "he wants to drive you out of your land".

What happens in the fifty-seventh verse is this: fa-akhrajnāhum min jannātin wa ʿuyūn — "We brought them out of gardens and springs".

The same root, the same form, the reverse direction. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

And at al-Dukhān 44/25-28 the same event is recounted in the same words (kam tarakū min jannātin wa ʿuyūn) and was treated there. The difference here is the verb: al-Dukhān says "they left behind", al-Shuʿarāʾ says "We brought out". One recounts an abandoning, the other a driving out.

Four things are enumerated, and their order is worth recording:

Three are material; the fourth is not. Maqāmin karīm is not a possession but a position.

And the attribute karīm was used of plants in the seventh verse of the sūra (min kulli zawjin karīm). The sūra thus gives the same attribute both to what the earth gives and to what man loses. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

The root و-ر-ث: a thing's passing to another after its owner.

And this is the fulfilment of the promise treated at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/1-6. The sentence recorded there was this: wa najʿalahumu'l-wārithīn (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/5) — "and make them the inheritors". The same root, the same community, the same promise.

This is an overlap that can be verified from the text, and it is the counterpart of the promise of "the reversal of position" recorded in al-Qaṣaṣ.

كَذَٰلِكَ — "so it was". A one-word fragment of a verse; the lexicographers explain it as a mark that seals the preceding scene.

Fa-atbaʿūhum mushriqīn · Fa-lammā tarāʾa'l-jamʿāni qāla aṣḥābu Mūsā innā la-mudrakūn · Qāla kallā; inna maʿiya rabbī sa-yahdīn · Fa-awḥaynā ilā Mūsā ani'ḍrib bi-ʿaṣāka'l-baḥr; fa'nfalaqa fa-kāna kullu firqin ka'ṭ-ṭawdi'l-ʿaẓīm · Wa azlafnā thamma'l-ākharīn · Wa anjaynā Mūsā wa man maʿahu ajmaʿīn · Thumma aghraqna'l-ākharīn · Inna fī dhālika la-āyatan wa mā kāna aktharuhum muʾminīn · Wa inna rabbaka la-huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm

"They pursued them as the sun rose. · When the two hosts came in sight of one another, the men of Moses said: 'We are overtaken!' · 'No!' he said, 'my Lord is with me; He will guide me.' · Thereupon We revealed to Moses: 'Strike the sea with your staff.' It parted, and every part was like a great mountain. · And We brought the others near to that place. · And We saved Moses and all who were with him; · then We drowned the others. · In this there is surely a sign; but most of them were not believers. · And your Lord — He indeed — is the Mighty, the Merciful."

The root ش-ر-ق: the rising of the sun. Mushriqīn — an active participle announcing a circumstance: "in the state of having entered upon sunrise", that is, as day broke.

And a point of word order: in the fifty-second verse the departure had been by the command asri (travel by night). Now the pursuit is at the hour of mushriqīn (as the sun rises). The text thus separates the movement of the two sides by time: one set out at night, the other went after them in the morning.

A caution: the word is mushriqīn (ش-ر-ق, to rise) and not mushrikīn (ش-ر-ك, to associate partners). The two words are easily confused in transliteration; their roots are different.

تَرَآءَىٰ — Form VI (tafāʿala): reciprocity. Tarāʾa'l-jamʿān — "the two hosts saw one another". Not a one-sided seeing.

ٱلْجَمْعَان — dual: two hosts. And the word is from the same root as the word Pharaoh used of his own side in the fifty-sixth verse: innā la-jamīʿun ḥādhirūn.

The root د-ر-ك: to catch up with, to reach, to overtake. Mudrak — passive participle: overtaken, caught.

A point of word order: the sentence is reinforced with inna + lām — the fear, that is, is put not as a possibility but as a certainty: "we are overtaken."

And the side that speaks must be recorded: aṣḥābu Mūsā — "the men of Moses". Here the sūra does not say "his people" or "the Children of Israel". In the fifty-second verse the same community had been named ʿibādī ("My servants"). Three different names, three different contexts: servants (in relation to God), men (in relation to Moses), the Children of Israel (by lineage).

The word occurs twice in the sūra, and both times it is said against a fear:

Moses, that is, says to his people the word that was said to him. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

And the continuation of the sentence must be recorded: inna maʿiya rabbī. In the fifteenth verse the guarantee was innā maʿakum mustamiʿūn ("we are with you"). Now Moses repeats the same word with a singular pronoun: "my Lord is with me."

سَيَهْدِين — sīn + imperfect: the near future. And the verb is هدى — to guide.

A point of word order: Moses does not say "He will save us" or "He will part the sea". He says "He will guide me". He does not know the solution; he knows that he will be guided.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of the verb: the revelation comes in the next verse (63). At the moment he framed the sentence, then, Moses did not yet know the solution. The text does not say this openly; the sequence shows it.

And the same verb will occur once more in the sūra — in Abraham's mouth: alladhī khalaqanī fa-huwa yahdīn (78). Two prophets use the same verb in the same pattern. This link will be treated in the section on 78-82.

The root ف-ل-ق: to split a thing in two, to cleave. From the same root: falaq (the cleaving of the dawn — analysed in al-Falaq) and fāliqu'l-ḥabbi wa'n-nawā (al-Anʿām 6/95 — the splitter of the grain).

Form VII (infaʿala) must be recorded: infalaqa — it parted of itself. In Arabic this form announces the result without bringing the agent of the verb forward.

The verse therefore does not say "God parted the sea"; the command "strike with your staff" is given, and it is said "it parted". No agent is named between the command and the result.

The root ط-و-د: a high and unshakeable mountain. Ṭawd, unlike an ordinary mountain (jabal), announces height and immovability.

فِرْق — root ف-ر-ق: a separated part. That is, each part of the water.

The work of the comparison must be recorded: the verse says the water divided in two and likens the divided parts to a mountain. There are two points to the respect in which the comparison is made: height and stillness. The water comes into a state of not flowing and standing high — that is, the reverse of its own nature.

I record this as an observation; I set up no explanation in physics of how the water stood. No hunting for scientific miracles is done in this commentary (Method).

The root ز-ل-ف: to bring near, to draw close. The same root will occur once more in the sūra: wa uzlifati'l-jannatu li'l-muttaqīn (90) — "the garden was brought near to those who guard themselves".

The same root, toward two different ends. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

ثَمَّ — "there" (an adverb of place). It must not be confused with thumma ("then"); its vowelling and its meaning are different. They occur not in the same verse but two verses apart: thamma (64) and thumma (66).

The word is repeated in two verses, and with two different verbs:

There is one verse in between: wa anjaynā Mūsā wa man maʿahu ajmaʿīn (65) — the saving.

The arrangement of the three verses is therefore this: bringing near → saving → drowning. The saving stands in the middle; the drowning is recounted only after the saving is complete.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order. And the same order is present in the section on Noah recorded in al-Ṣāffāt: first the deliverance, then the end of the other side.

أَجْمَعِين — "all together". The word announces the completeness of the deliverance: no one was left behind.

The second seal of the sūra. The mould and its function were treated in the section on 26/8-9; I do not repeat them.

The only thing to be added here is an observation about position: the seal closes, at the end of the account of Moses, a telling of fifty-seven verses — the longest block in the sūra. And the seal refers to no detail of the account: inna fī dhālika la-āyatan — "in this there is a sign". What dhālika points to is not said.

This is what makes it possible for the seal to remain the same eight times: because the demonstrative is left indefinite, it can be set unchanged at the end of every account. I record this as an observation about the structure.

Thirty-six verses. And the second account that does not fit the mould of the sūra: no kadhdhabat … al-mursalīn, no akhūhum, no threefold introduction. There is only the seal (103-104).

But the account itself does something different from all the other accounts of the sūra: at its end the fate of the people is not recounted. Noah's people are drowned, ʿĀd is destroyed, Thamūd is seized, the people of Lot are wiped out, the people of al-Ayka are taken by the punishment of the shadow. What happened to Abraham's people is not said.

In its place the account moves to the scene of the gathering (87-102). It shows the punishment, that is, not in this world but in the next.

I record this as an observation, and it can be verified from the text: in six of the seven accounts the outcome is worldly; in the account of Abraham the outcome is otherworldly.

The account divides into three parts:

Wa'tlu ʿalayhim nabaʾa Ibrāhīm · Idh qāla li-abīhi wa qawmihi mā taʿbudūn · Qālū naʿbudu aṣnāman fa-naẓallu lahā ʿākifīn · Qāla hal yasmaʿūnakum idh tadʿūn · Aw yanfaʿūnakum aw yaḍurrūn · Qālū bal wajadnā ābāʾanā kadhālika yafʿalūn

"Recite to them the tidings of Abraham as well. · When he said to his father and his people: 'What is it you serve?' · They said: 'We serve idols, and we keep standing before them.' · He said: 'Do they hear you when you call? · Or do they bring you benefit or harm?' · They said: 'No, but we found our forefathers doing so.'"

The account opens with a command, and the addressee of the command is neither Moses nor Abraham but the one the sūra addresses: "recite to them".

The level of the telling therefore changes. The account of Moses had begun wa idh nādā rabbuka Mūsā — direct narrative. The account of Abraham begins with a command to deliver.

I record this as an observation: the sūra sets the reason for recounting the account at the head of the account. What is recounted is recounted in order to be recited to those addressed.

The root ت-ل-و was analysed at al-Ṣāffāt 37/3 and I do not repeat it. The basic note there: the original sense of the root is not "to recite" but "to follow after"; the sense of reciting arises from setting letters one after another.

نَبَأ — root ن-ب-أ: a great and weighty piece of news. The root was analysed in al-Nabaʾ. Ordinary news is called khabar; weighty news, nabaʾ. And the word had also occurred in the sixth verse of the sūra (anbāʾu mā kānū bihi yastahziʾūn).

And the second great question of the sūra is asked with the same particle as the first.

Both questions are asked with مَا. And the difference must be recorded: in the twenty-third verse the use of mā was disputed, because what was asked about was a rational being. Here there is no dispute: what is asked about is stone, and mā is in place.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses use the same particle: the sūra sets up the same question in two different mouths. One asks after the quiddity of the Lord and gets an answer; the other asks after the quiddity of the idols and gets none.

And a point of word order: Abraham does not say "whom do you serve?" but "what do you serve?" The question asks not after the identity of what is served but after its kind.

And the answer is worth recording, because it contains no defence.

أَصْنَام — the plural of ṣanam: a carved, shaped idol. The lexicographers transmit a distinction between ṣanam and wathan: ṣanam is what has been given a shape (in the form of a human or an animal), wathan a shapeless stone. This distinction is not the same in every source; I make no firm choice.

And that the word comes indefinite must be recorded: aṣnāman. No name is given, no number. The answer, that is, does not identify what is served.

نَظَلُّ لَهَا عَٰكِفِين — word for word: "we keep bending over them".

ظَلَّ — it had occurred in the fourth verse of the sūra too: fa-ẓallat aʿnāquhum lahā khāḍiʿīn. The same verb, the same construction: ẓalla + lahā + a circumstantial word.

The same verb, the same preposition, the same construction — to two different objects. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

And as my own reading I record this: what was recounted in the fourth verse was the result of a compulsion that does not come. What is recounted in the seventy-first verse is an attachment made of one's own accord. The sūra gives the same verb once to compulsion and once to choice. That this link is intended is not stated in the text.

عَٰكِفِين — root ع-ك-ف: to stay in a place and not leave it, to remain beside a thing. From the same root: iʿtikāf (staying in the mosque). In the word there is not worship but attachment and not departing.

The people, that is, describe not the content of their worship but its duration: "we keep standing beside them." I record this as an observation.

This proof was treated in two places across the series, and I rely on those treatments:

Fāṭir 35/13-14: in tadʿūhum lā yasmaʿū duʿāʾakum wa law samiʿū ma'stajābū lakum — "if you call them they do not hear your call; and even if they heard, they could not answer you". The structure recorded there had two stages: they do not hear; and even if they heard, they could not answer.

al-Aḥqāf 46/5-6: wa man aḍallu mimman yadʿū min dūni'llāhi man lā yastajību lahu ilā yawmi'l-qiyāmati wa hum ʿan duʿāʾihim ghāfilūn — "who is further astray than one who calls, apart from God, upon those who cannot answer him until the Day of Resurrection? And they are unaware of their calling."

Al-Shuʿarāʾ's difference must be recorded: here the proof is given not as a judgement but as a question.

In al-Shuʿarāʾ, then, the proof makes the other side supply the answer. Abraham issues no judgement; he asks.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of mould in the three verses: a messenger speaking inside an account leads the one he addresses to his own answer. And the one addressed cannot give it — the next verse will show this.

The question contains three verbs, and their order is worth recording:

The object of the third verb has dropped: yaḍurrūn — "do they bring harm" (it does not say "you"). The first two verbs have the pronoun kum, the third does not.

The transmitted explanation: it was elided for the sake of the verse-ending; the object is understood from the sentence. This is an ordinary kind of ellipsis in Arabic, and similar examples were recorded in al-Raḥmān.

And the arrangement of the three verbs must be recorded: the three supports of a relation of worship are set out — being heard, gaining, fearing. When all three are negated, the relation has no support left.

And the word duʿāʾ: idh tadʿūn — root د-ع-و: to call, to summon. The word describes worship in its barest form: calling out. And at the end of the sūra those addressed will be spoken to with the same root: fa-lā tadʿu maʿa'llāhi ilāhan ākhar (213). This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

And the answer is no answer to the question.

بَلْ — in Arabic the particle of retraction (iḍrāb): leaving the preceding statement and passing to something else. The people, that is, do not even say "no, they do not hear"; they change the subject.

I record this as an observation about the structure, and the particle shows it on its own: bal is the particle for abandoning the answering of a question and passing to a new ground. What was asked for was a proof; what is given is a custom.

The proof from the forefathers was treated in detail in two places across the series, and I rely on those treatments:

al-Zukhruf 43/22-23: bal qālū innā wajadnā ābāʾanā ʿalā ummatin wa innā ʿalā āthārihim muhtadūn (22) and wa kadhālika mā arsalnā min qablika fī qaryatin min nadhīrin illā qāla mutrafūhā innā wajadnā ābāʾanā ʿalā ummatin wa innā ʿalā āthārihim muqtadūn (23). What was recorded there was this: the same sentence is repeated in two verses, and in the second it is said that this is an answer repeated in every age.

Luqmān 31/20-21: wa idhā qīla lahumu'ttabiʿū mā anzala'llāhu qālū bal nattabiʿu mā wajadnā ʿalayhi ābāʾanā. There too the same particle bal stands.

What is peculiar to al-Shuʿarāʾ must be recorded:

And the difference is this: in the answer in al-Shuʿarāʾ there is no claim at all. It is not said "we are rightly guided", nor "we follow them". Only a fact is announced: "they used to do so."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the comparison of the three verses: the answer in al-Shuʿarāʾ is the barest form of the proof from the forefathers — mere continuity, with no ground. And Abraham's next words touch exactly on that bareness: wa ābāʾukumu'l-aqdamūn (76) — "and your most ancient forefathers".

Qāla a-fa-raʾaytum mā kuntum taʿbudūn · Antum wa ābāʾukumu'l-aqdamūn · Fa-innahum ʿaduwwun lī illā rabba'l-ʿālamīn

"He said: 'Have you then seen what you have been serving — · you and your most ancient forefathers? · They are an enemy to me; only the Lord of all the worlds is not.'"

The pattern occurs often in the Qurʾān and was treated in this commentary in al-Najm and al-Wāqiʿa. A-raʾayta — word for word "have you seen?", but its function is "tell me, then, what do you say?". It asks not for seeing with the eye but for thinking.

And the same pattern will occur once more in the sūra: a-fa-raʾayta in mattaʿnāhum sinīn (205).

The root ق-د-م: priority, being in front. Aqdam — an elative: older, oldest.

And the point of word order stands here. The people had said "our forefathers" (74); Abraham adds one word to the sentence: al-aqdamūn — "the most ancient".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the added word: the proof from the forefathers rests on continuity. Abraham does not reject the proof; he extends it. He carries the chain back to its very beginning. Because the longer the chain grows, the sharper becomes the question of what the first link rests on.

And what was recorded at al-Zukhruf 43/23 supports this reading: there it was said that the same answer is given in every age. The proof from the forefathers is thus a chain that produces itself; each generation cites the one before it as its ground, and the head of the chain is never asked after.

And the word order of the sentence must be recorded. Abraham does not say "I am an enemy to them"; he says "they are an enemy to me".

The transmitted explanations:

The third explanation has the strongest ground within the Qurʾān and accords with the sūra's own continuation as well: from the ninety-second verse onward it will be recounted that at the gathering those served are nowhere to be found.

عَدُوّ — the word comes in the singular but is the predicate of a plural group (hum). In Arabic ʿaduww is used for both singular and plural — it is a property of the faʿūl pattern; the same was said of rasūl in the sixteenth verse.

And the exception at the end of the sentence has been disputed.

The tension is this: it is said "what you serve is an enemy to me, except the Lord of all the worlds". But the people were not serving the Lord of all the worlds.

The transmitted explanations:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. What is to be recorded is this: from the next verse onward Abraham will describe with five sentences the party he has excepted. Who the exception is, that is, is explained immediately after.

Alladhī khalaqanī fa-huwa yahdīn · Wa'lladhī huwa yuṭʿimunī wa yasqīn · Wa idhā mariḍtu fa-huwa yashfīn · Wa'lladhī yumītunī thumma yuḥyīn · Wa'lladhī aṭmaʿu an yaghfira lī khaṭīʾatī yawma'd-dīn

"It is He who created me, and He guides me. · It is He who feeds me and gives me drink. · When I fall ill, it is He who heals me. · It is He who will cause me to die and then bring me to life. · And it is He whose forgiveness of my fault on the Day of Judgement I hope for."

The five densest verses of the sūra. Very short sentences, a single subject, five fields of action, and from beginning to end a single sound: ‑īn.

Five sentences rest on the same mould, but the mould is not fixed. The differences are in the table, and all of them are read off the text:

Four facts are read straight off the table:

One — in the first sentence there is no wāw. The sequence begins alladhī khalaqanī; the following four are joined with wa'lladhī. The first sentence is therefore not a member of the sequence but its head. It stands as a direct attribute of rabba'l-ʿālamīn in the seventy-seventh verse.

Two — in the third sentence there is no relative pronoun. The other four are built with alladhī ("the one who"); the third with wa idhā mariḍtu ("when I fall ill"). The mould breaks in the middle of the sequence.

Three — the separating pronoun (huwa) is present in the first three sentences and absent in the last two.

Four — a first-person verb occurs in only two places: mariḍtu (80) and aṭmaʿu (82). The subject of every other verb is God; the subject of these two is Abraham.

The sentences are arranged in the order of a life, and this can be verified from the text:

And the sequence has a widening circle: the first sentence takes existence as its subject, the second the body, the third the body's failing, the fourth the body's ending, the fifth what comes after the body.

I record this as an observation: the sequence is not a list of doctrines; it is a person recounting his own life in order. And this explains why the sentences are so concrete — there is no abstract attribute, all of them are verbs.

Two verbs, two different tenses: khalaqa (perfect) and yahdī (imperfect).

And the fāʾ between them must be recorded. Fāʾ al-sababiyya — the fāʾ that announces cause: "He created me, and for that reason He guides me." Guidance, that is, is presented as the continuation of creation: the one who creates does not leave what he created without a way.

The same link is made elsewhere in the Qurʾān: alladhī aʿṭā kulla shayʾin khalqahu thumma hadā (Ṭāhā 20/50) — "who gave everything its creation, then guided". In both verses the order is the same: first creation, then the way.

And at al-Zukhruf 43/26-27 a similar sentence occurs in Abraham's mouth: illā'lladhī faṭaranī fa-innahu sa-yahdīn — "except the one who originated me; He will guide me". The difference between the two verses is one letter:

This is a difference that can be verified from the text. And as my own reading I record this: in al-Zukhruf the sentence stands inside a declaration of separation from father and people, and with the future it announces a confidence; in al-Shuʿarāʾ the sentence stands at the head of a sequence of description and announces continuance. Two contexts require two moods. This is an explanation; it is not binding.

And the verb yahdīn ties to the sixty-second verse of the sūra: at the seashore Moses had said inna maʿiya rabbī sa-yahdīn. The same verb, the same pattern, two prophets. The difference: Moses with the sīn (the near future), Abraham with fa-huwa (continuance). This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

Two verbs: yuṭʿimu (He feeds) and yasqī (He gives to drink).

And the position of the separating pronoun changes. In the first sentence it was fa-huwa (before the verb, with the fāʾ); here it is huwa directly. In Arabic this pronoun (ḍamīr al-faṣl) announces restriction: "the one who feeds is He alone."

The concreteness of the words must be recorded: the verse does not say "He provides" (yarzuqu). It says "He feeds and He gives to drink." Provision is an abstract concept; feeding and giving to drink are two acts of the hand.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of words: the whole sequence is built on this concreteness. Abraham had told his people that the idols do not hear (72); now he describes his own Lord by the most everyday of acts. The comparison is made not through attributes but through verbs.

The middle of the sequence, the sequence's one break, and the real subject of this commentary in this section.

The sentence differs from the other four in three respects:

And the main note is this: at one single place in the sequence the pronoun shifts to the first person, and it does so precisely in the sentence about illness.

In the four sentences the verbs are built thus:

• khalaqa-nī — He created me
• yuṭʿimu-nī, yasqī-n — He feeds me, gives me drink
• yumītu-nī, yuḥyī-n — He causes me to die, brings me to life
• yaghfira lī — He forgives me

But in the third sentence:

• mariḍtu — I fell ill
• yashfī-n — He heals me

Throughout the sequence, then, God is the agent and Abraham the object. In one verb alone Abraham becomes the agent — and that verb is illness.

I treat this difference as my own reading. I give its grounds in order.

The first ground — that the mould has been broken deliberately. The sequence could have been built as wa'lladhī yumriḍunī fa-huwa yashfīn ("it is He who makes me ill and heals me"); the mould allowed for it, and the sentence about death and life (81) is in exactly this mould: yumītunī thumma yuḥyīn. The sūra, that is, uses the same double-verb mould one verse later. It does not use it in the sentence about illness.

The second ground — that death and illness are handled separately. In the fourth sentence death is attributed directly to God: yumītunī. The text, that is, does not avoid attributing an act that appears negative (causing death). The difference in the sentence about illness cannot therefore be explained by a general rule such as "what is unpleasant is not attributed" — because one verse later death is attributed.

The third ground — the human-facing side of the causes of illness. Illness, unlike death, passes through a person's acts, his negligence, his surroundings and his choices. Death comes to everyone and comes of necessity; illness is a breakdown, and in the chain of causes of a breakdown the person too is present.

On these three grounds my own reading is this, and it is not binding: the sentence leaves illness to the person's own share and healing to God. It is not an attribution of fault but an attribution of cause — the sentence "I fell ill" is not a confession of sin but a note of which side the event came from.

And I state the limits of this reading plainly:

The explanations transmitted for this verse in the classical commentaries look in the same direction, and I give them in a table:

The three explanations do not exclude one another. And the third completes the first and the second: the mould was chosen, and the chosen mould changed the attribution.

The root م-ر-ض: the breakdown of soundness, departure from the mean. The lexicographers describe the root as "a defect and weakness occurring in the body or in one's affairs". The Qurʾān uses the same root of the heart as well: fī qulūbihim maraḍun (al-Baqara 2/10). The word, then, does not belong to the body alone.

The root ش-ف-ي: the core the lexicographers give is to come to the edge, the outermost point of a thing (shafā — edge; shafa — lip). Shifāʾ is to come to the edge of an illness, to come out of it. Healing, then, is not the annihilation of the illness but the reaching of its boundary.

And the mould fa-huwa yashfīn must be recorded: it is exactly the same construction as fa-huwa yahdīn in the first sentence. The fāʾ of cause is at work here too: "I fell ill, and therefore He heals."

Two verbs, with thumma between them.

ثُمَّ — in Arabic it announces sequence with an interval (tarākhī); fāʾ is for succession without interval, thumma for succession with time in between. That there is a distance between death and resurrection is thus in the particle itself.

And the separating pronoun is absent here. The first three sentences had huwa; here and in the fifth it is absent. I record this as an observation about the structure and propose an explanation, which is not binding: the first three sentences are works seen in this world, and there the emphasis "He alone" answers a dispute — because feeding, giving drink and healing can look as though they have other agents. On death and resurrection, however, there is no rival claim to agency to begin with.

And the same pair occurs once more in Abraham's mouth in the Qurʾān: rabbiya'lladhī yuḥyī wa yumīt (al-Baqara 2/258) — and there the answer of the one addressed is anā uḥyī wa umīt. There, that is, a rival claim exists; here it does not. This is a difference that can be verified from the text.

The end of the sequence, and the tone changes: from certainty to hope.

In four sentences the verbs were declarative: He creates, He feeds, He heals, He causes to die. In the fifth there is a verb of hope: aṭmaʿu — "I hope".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the verb itself: Abraham does not state forgiveness as a right or a certainty. The one uncertain sentence in the sequence is the one concerning his own end.

The root ط-م-ع was analysed in the fifty-first verse and compared there with the sentence of the sorcerers; I do not repeat it. The table there showed this: the two sentences are almost exactly the same, their only difference being singular and plural.

خَطِيٓـَٔة — root خ-ط-ء: to miss the target, to fail to hit. Its opposite is ṣawāb (hitting the mark). In the core of the word there is no intent; for what is intentional ithm or dhanb is used.

And a point of word order: the word is singular — khaṭīʾatī, "my fault". Not the plural (khaṭāyā). The sorcerers had used the plural: khaṭāyānā (51).

The transmitted explanation: the singular announces the class — "whatever fault of mine there may be". I make no firm choice.

يَوْمَ ٱلدِّين — "the day of dīn", that is, the day of reckoning. The root د-ي-ن was analysed in al-Fātiḥa (māliki yawmi'd-dīn) and I do not repeat it. The note there: in the core of the root lie debt, requital and submission; dayn (debt) and dīn (religion) are from the same root.

What the five sentences have in common is that not one of them contains an attribute. Abraham does not describe his Lord as "great", "powerful" or "wise". All five of the five sentences are verbal sentences.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the seventy-second verse: Abraham had asked his people what the idols do — do they hear, do they benefit, do they harm. He had asked about three verbs. Now he recounts his own side with verbs too: He creates, He guides, He feeds, He gives drink, He heals, He causes to die, He brings to life, He forgives. Eight verbs.

The comparison, that is, runs from beginning to end on the same measure: what does it do?

The most concrete side of the sequence is the space the sentence about illness leaves open. The verse does not tie illness to a punishment; nor does it place healing outside the order of causes. It stands away from both extremes: neither "what befell you is from your guilt" nor "taking hold of the means is unnecessary".

What the sentence leaves is where responsibility and surrender part: a person takes on his own share, he does not take on the outcome. And this is the same measure as in the third verse of the sūra — the messenger was told "do not grieve", because it was not he who produced the outcome.

Rabbi hab lī ḥukman wa alḥiqnī bi'ṣ-ṣāliḥīn · Wa'jʿal lī lisāna ṣidqin fi'l-ākhirīn · Wa'jʿalnī min warathati jannati'n-naʿīm · Wa'ghfir li-abī innahu kāna mina'ḍ-ḍāllīn · Wa lā tukhzinī yawma yubʿathūn · Yawma lā yanfaʿu mālun wa lā banūn · Illā man ata'llāha bi-qalbin salīm

"'My Lord! Bestow judgement upon me and join me to the righteous. · Grant me a tongue of truth among those who come after. · Make me one of the inheritors of the garden of bliss. · And forgive my father; he was one of those who had strayed. · And do not disgrace me on the day when they are raised — · the day when neither wealth nor sons will be of use; · none but he who comes to God with a sound heart.'"

After the five-sentence description come six petitions, and these too follow an order:

Five petitions for himself, one for another. And that one is the person standing on the other side of the dispute: his father.

I record this as an observation: in the seventy-seventh verse it was said "they are an enemy to me"; in the eighty-sixth forgiveness is asked for one person from within that same people.

The same word, in the same sūra, two prophets:

The same verb (و-ه-ب), the same object (ḥukm), two different moods. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

The root analysis of the word was given in the section on 26/20-22 (ح-ك-م — to make firm, to put on the bit); I do not repeat it.

The construction is an idiom in Arabic and cannot be translated word for word.

لِسَان — the tongue (the organ) and speech, the language spoken. In the construction the second sense is at work: to be well spoken of in the mouths of those who come after, to be remembered with truth.

صِدْق — root ص-د-ق: the correspondence of speech with reality, soundness. The lexicographers record that in the concrete core of the root lie hardness and durability (rumḥun ṣadq — a stout spear). True speech, then, is durable speech.

The petition, then, is this: "let a true word remain behind me." Not to be famous, but to be remembered with truth.

And a link can be made with the mould recorded in al-Ṣāffāt: there the seal of the sequence of prophets was wa taraknā ʿalayhi fi'l-ākhirīn ("and We left upon him [a remembrance] among those who came after"), and Abraham had received that seal (al-Ṣāffāt 37/108).

The same adverbial phrase (fi'l-ākhirīn), in two sūras, one a request and one a response. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text. And as my own reading I record this: when the two sūras are read together the petition and its answer come to stand side by side. That this link is made is not stated in the text.

And this petition is a matter the Qurʾān itself takes up separately.

Al-Tawba 9/114 touches directly on this event: wa mā kāna'stighfāru Ibrāhīma li-abīhi illā ʿan mawʿidatin waʿadahā iyyāhu fa-lammā tabayyana lahu annahu ʿaduwwun li'llāhi tabarraʾa minh — "Abraham's asking forgiveness for his father was only because of a promise he had made to him; when it became clear to him that he was an enemy to God, he dissociated himself from him."

The Qurʾān, that is, both transmits this petition and draws its limit. This is a datum that can be verified from the text and requires no explanation — the Qurʾān gives the explanation itself.

And at al-Mumtaḥina 60/4 the same event is named as an exception (illā qawla Ibrāhīma li-abīhi la-astaghfiranna lak) and was treated in al-Mumtaḥana. I rely on the note there.

I do not enter into details about Abraham's father that the Qurʾān does not give; the reports about his name, his trade and his end are not in the Qurʾān.

And a point of word order must be recorded: the ground given is innahu kāna mina'ḍ-ḍāllīn — "he was one of those who had strayed".

The root ض-ل-ل was analysed in the twentieth verse, and it was recorded there that Moses used it of himself (wa anā mina'ḍ-ḍāllīn). The same word thus occurs twice in the sūra: once by Moses of himself, once by Abraham of his father. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

And the choice of the word is worth recording: Abraham does not call his father kāfir or ẓālim. He uses the mildest word: one who has lost the way.

The root خ-ز-ي: to be brought to shame, to be humiliated, to have one's face fall. Khizy — disgrace.

A point of word order: Abraham does not say "protect me from the punishment" or "admit me to the garden" — he had already asked for the garden in the eighty-fifth verse. What he asks for here is not escape from punishment but not to be shamed.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of the verb: khizy is not a pain but the loss of a standing — to be made small before others. The petition, then, looks to the social side of the reckoning.

Two things are named, and both are indefinite: mālun and banūn.

In Arabic an indefinite noun after a negative particle negates the whole class: "no wealth whatever, no sons whatever".

And the two things chosen must be recorded: māl (wealth) and banūn (sons). The Qurʾān names the two together in many places — al-mālu wa'l-banūna zīnatu'l-ḥayāti'd-dunyā (al-Kahf 18/46), innamā amwālukum wa awlādukum fitna (al-Taghābun 64/15 — treated in al-Taghābun).

I record this as an observation: both are things that provide power and continuance in a society. Wealth represents present power, sons future continuation. The verse voids them both in the same sentence.

And a link can be made with the section on Hūd in the sūra: amaddakum bi-anʿāmin wa banīn (133) — sons are counted among the favours given to the people of Hūd. The sūra thus names the same thing in one place as a favour and in another as something that brings no benefit. Not a contradiction; two different days are being spoken of.

And one of the most often cited sentences of the sūra.

A point of word order must be recorded: what is the exception being made from?

The first reading is the widespread one and fits the flow of the sentence better; the second is also transmitted. I do not impose a preference.

أَتَى ٱللَّهَ بِـ — the pattern must be recorded. Atā … bi- in Arabic means "to bring"; not "to come". So it is not "he who comes to God" but "he who brings to God".

And at al-Ṣāffāt 37/84 the same construction occurs of the same person: idh jāʾa rabbahu bi-qalbin salīm. It was treated there, and the note there holds here too:

The same construction, the same structure, two different verbs (jāʾa and atā) and opposite directions: in al-Ṣāffāt Abraham himself is described, in al-Shuʿarāʾ Abraham sets a measure. This overlap was already recorded in al-Ṣāffāt and I rely on that treatment.

سَلِيم — root س-ل-م: to be sound, to be without defect, to be in safety. The root was analysed in Qāf, in al-Jinn and in al-Baqara. From the same root: salām (peace), silm (peace-making), islām (to submit).

The faʿīl pattern in Arabic can carry both an active and a passive sense, and in al-Ṣāffāt the senses transmitted for this word were given in a table. I do not repeat it; its summary is this: without defect, without illness, sound (the primary sense) or submitted (the second sense).

What is to be added here is an observation about the context, and I record it as my own reading: the primary sense of the word salīm is freedom from illness. And nine verses earlier illness had occurred: wa idhā mariḍtu fa-huwa yashfīn (80). After recounting the illness of the body and its healing, the sūra sets the soundness of the heart as its measure. That this link is intended is not stated in the text; that the two words come from the same semantic field and stand nine verses apart is a datum of the text.

What the heart is to be sound from is not said in the verse. The transmitted explanations: from associating partners, from hypocrisy, from rancour, from love of the world. There is no limit in the verse; for that reason I do not impose a preference. What is to be recorded is this: the measure is not a deed but a state — and that state is something "brought".

Wa uzlifati'l-jannatu li'l-muttaqīn · Wa burrizati'l-jaḥīmu li'l-ghāwīn · Wa qīla lahum ayna mā kuntum taʿbudūn · Min dūni'llāh; hal yanṣurūnakum aw yantaṣirūn · Fa-kubkibū fīhā hum wa'l-ghāwūn · Wa junūdu Iblīsa ajmaʿūn

"And the garden was brought near to those who guard themselves; · and the blaze was made plain to sight for those gone astray. · And it was said to them: 'Where are those you used to serve — · apart from God? Do they help you, or help themselves?' · Thereupon they were flung headlong into it: they, and those gone astray, · and the hosts of Iblīs, all together."

The two verses are mirrors of one another, and their verbs differ:

The verbs do not do opposite work; they do two different kinds of work. The garden is brought near (the distance closes); the blaze is brought out into view (visibility increases). One approaches, the other becomes visible.

The root ز-ل-ف was analysed in the sixty-fourth verse (wa azlafnā thamma'l-ākharīn), and the link between these two verses was set out in a table there; I do not repeat it.

The root ب-ر-ز: the coming out of what was hidden, appearing in the open. Bāriza — what is out in the open; burūz — appearing. Form II (barraza) is transitive and intensive: "it was brought out plainly into view."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of the two verbs: the verses recount what each side meets in the language of perception. For the one who guards himself what changes is distance; for the one gone astray what changes is sight.

The root was analysed in al-Najm and I do not repeat it. The description there: غ-و-ي — to lose the right direction, to transgress; ghayy — waywardness. And something was recorded there: the plural of the word, ghāwūn, is used in the Qurʾān for those who follow the poets (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/224).

The word thus occurs three times in the sūra:

This is a repetition that can be verified from the text, and it binds the two ends of the sūra. The word from the scene of the gathering in the account of Abraham returns in the final paragraph of the sūra. What the link means is interpretation and will be treated in the section on verse 224.

And a comparison recorded in al-Najm attaches here: in that same sūra it is said mā ḍalla ṣāḥibukum wa mā ghawā (53/2) — "your companion has neither strayed nor gone astray". Al-Najm, that is, clears the messenger of ghayy, while al-Shuʿarāʾ describes the ghāwūn. The two sūras stand on the two banks of the same root.

And the question of the seventieth verse of the sūra returns twenty-two verses later: