al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:90-95

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:

The same verb (taʿbudūn), two different interrogative particles: mā and ayna. One asks after the kind, the other after the place.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sameness of the verb in the two verses: the question in this world had gone unanswered — the people had said bal and changed the subject (74). The question at the gathering goes unanswered too: in the ninety-third verse the questioning continues, and in the ninety-fourth what comes is not an answer but a result.

The root ن-ص-ر: to help, to support.

In Arabic Form VIII adds reflexivity: a person's doing something for himself. Intiṣār — to help oneself, to defend, to avenge.

The question therefore has two stages, and the second is the heavier: "if they cannot help you, can they save themselves?"

The same two-stage structure was present at Fāṭir 35/14 as well (lā yasmaʿū … wa law samiʿū ma'stajābū) and was treated there. In both verses the proof is completed at the second stage.

And the verb intaṣara will return in the last verse of the sūra: wa'ntaṣarū min baʿdi mā ẓulimū (227). The same form, the same root — but there in the positive: "and they defended themselves after being wronged." This is an overlap that can be verified from the text and will be treated in the section on verse 227.

ك-ب-ك-ب — a four-letter (quadriliteral) root; the reduplicated form of the root ك-ب-ب. ك-ب-ب: to overturn face down, to fling headlong.

The reduplicated pattern (kabkaba) must be recorded: in Arabic the repetition of a letter announces the repetition of the act. The lexicographers explain this verb as "to be thrown down again and again, rolling over" — not to fall once and stop, but to tumble over and over.

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

And the verb is passive: kubkibū — "they were flung". Who flung them is not said. The verbs in the ninetieth and ninety-first verses were passive too (uzlifat, burrizat), as was the one in the ninety-second (qīla). All four verbs of the scene of the gathering, that is, are given without naming an agent.

I record this as an observation about the structure: the scene is recounted not as the works of an agent but as things that come to pass.

Three groups are named, and their order is worth recording:

The one served and the one who served go to the same place. And this is the counterpart of the sentence "they are an enemy to me" in the seventy-seventh verse: what is served does not save the one who serves.

جُنُود — the plural of jund: an army, a gathered force. The word occurred in al-Fatḥ and al-Burūj.

إِبْلِيس — the origin of the word is disputed; it is widely said to derive from the root ب-ل-س (to lose hope, to be struck dumb), and it is also transmitted that it is the arabised form of a foreign word. I make no firm choice.

And who his hosts are is not said in the verse. I do not enter into a detail the Qurʾān does not give.