al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:69-74

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".