al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:96-104

Qālū wa hum fīhā yakhtaṣimūn · Ta'llāhi in kunnā la-fī ḍalālin mubīn · Idh nusawwīkum bi-rabbi'l-ʿālamīn · Wa mā aḍallanā illa'l-mujrimūn · Fa-mā lanā min shāfiʿīn · Wa lā ṣadīqin ḥamīm · Fa-law anna lanā karratan fa-nakūna mina'l-muʾminīn · Inna fī dhālika la-āyatan wa mā kāna aktharuhum muʾminīn · Wa inna rabbaka la-huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm

"There, quarrelling with one another, they say: · 'By God, we were in plain error — · when we made you equal to the Lord of all the worlds! · It was only the guilty who led us astray. · Now we have no intercessor, · and not one devoted friend. · If only we had another turn, that we might be among the believers!' · 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 خ-ص-م: to quarrel, to litigate. Form VIII (ikhtiṣām) announces reciprocity: to quarrel with one another.

And at al-Ṣāffāt 37/27 the same scene was recorded: fa-aqbala baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍin yatasāʾalūn — "they turn to one another, questioning". It was treated there, and what was recorded there was this: the same sentence occurs in two different forms, in the fire and in the garden.

Al-Shuʿarāʾ's difference: the verb is not tasāʾul (questioning) but ikhtiṣām (quarrelling). This is a difference that can be verified from the text.

In Arabic an oath is made with three letters: wāw, bāʾ, tāʾ. تَ is the least used, and it comes only with the name of God.

The lexicographers record that the tāʾ oath announces taʿajjub (astonishment). Not "by God", then, but "by God — it is hardly to be believed!"

And the word occurs in several places in the Qurʾān; in each there is a context of astonishment (Yūsuf 12/73, 12/85, 12/91; al-Naḥl 16/56; al-Anbiyāʾ 21/57).

I record this as an observation: the oath sworn in the fire is not to prove a claim — it announces their astonishment at their own past.

A grammatical note: the in here is not the negative particle but the lightened form of in (in al-mukhaffafa; its original is inna). Its mark is the lām at the head of the predicate (la-fī). The sense, then, is not "we were not" but "we were".

This is a construction easily confused in Arabic, and a similar case was recorded in al-Takāthur.

The root س-و-ي: to be equal, to make equal, to set straight. Form II (sawwā) is transitive: to hold equal.

And a point of word order must be recorded: the confession is not "we served you" but "we made you equal".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of the verb: the definition of associating partners is made here not through worship but through equating. The matter, that is, is not whether something was worshipped; it is whether something was set in the same pan of the scales as God.

And this accords with Abraham's question in the seventy-second verse: he too had asked not after the content of worship but after the comparison (does it hear, does it benefit, does it harm).

And immediately after the confession comes the transfer of responsibility.

There is no verse between the two; confession and transfer are adjacent.

I record this as an observation: the same mouth says two different things in two sentences. And the Qurʾān records this scene in other sūras as well — Sabaʾ 34/31-33, al-Ṣāffāt 37/27-33 (treated in al-Ṣāffāt), al-Aḥzāb 33/67. What all of them have in common is the passing of the guilt to the other side.

ٱلْمُجْرِمُون — root ج-ر-م: the concrete sense the lexicographers give is to pluck fruit from the branch (jaramu'n-nakhl — to harvest dates). From there it passes to "to earn" and "to earn something evil, to commit a crime". Mujrim — one who earns guilt.

And that the word is left indefinite must be recorded: who is spoken of is not said. The forefathers? The leaders? The satans? The text does not say.

Two things are sought, and neither is there:

The difference of number must be recorded: the intercessor is plural, the friend singular. The transmitted explanation: intercessors may be many, but a true friend is one; both are said to be absent — "neither a crowd of mediators nor a single friend."

The root ش-ف-ع: to make a pair, to double what is single. Shafʿ — even (the al-shafʿi wa'l-watr of al-Fajr 89/3 — treated in al-Fajr). Intercession is not leaving a person alone but another's joining himself to his side. The word, that is, means before "mediation" "not being alone".

And the work of the sentence is understood from this: fa-mā lanā min shāfiʿīn — "there is no one who joins himself to us." The loneliness is in the root of the word.

حَمِيم — root ح-م-م: hot, very hot. From the same root: ḥamīm (boiling water — it does not occur in the sūra apart from 26/101, but it is frequent in the Qurʾān) and ḥamīm (an intimate friend).

Two senses in the same word, and the link the lexicographers make is this: friendship too is a kind of "heat" — the warmth of concern and closeness. The word was treated in al-Ḥāqqa and at al-Maʿārij 70/10 (wa lā yasʾalu ḥamīmun ḥamīmā).

And this verse was already cited in al-Nabaʾ; I rely on the note there.

I record a point about the word: the same word is used in the Qurʾān both for the boiling water of the fire and for a devoted friend. The verse makes those who look for the second speak from inside the first. I leave this as an observation; I do not claim that the verse intends it.

The root ك-ر-ر: to turn, to repeat, to wheel round in an attack and charge again. Karra — a turn, a repetition.

لَوْ here announces a wish (tamannī) whose fulfilment is impossible. The apodosis of the sentence is not stated — in Arabic this is called the elision of the jawāb law, and it announces that the wish goes unanswered.

And the same wish is repeated in many places in the Qurʾān: wa law tarā idh wuqifū ʿala'n-nāri fa-qālū yā laytanā nuraddu (al-Anʿām 6/27), rabbanā akhrijnā naʿmal ṣāliḥan ghayra'lladhī kunnā naʿmal (Fāṭir 35/37 — treated in Fāṭir). What all of them have in common is that the wish goes unanswered.

And a point of word order: the wish is not "let us enter the garden" but "let us be among the believers". Fa-nakūna mina'l-muʾminīn. What is asked for, that is, is not an outcome but a standing.

And this is the same word as in the seal of the sūra: wa mā kāna aktharuhum muʾminīn. The scene of the gathering, which runs from the ninety-second verse to the hundred and second, ends by arriving at the word of the seal. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text, and it shows why the seal is set exactly here.

The third seal of the sūra. The mould was treated at 26/8-9; I do not repeat it.

An observation about position: the account of Abraham ends without recounting the worldly fate of his people. The seal is set not after a destruction but after a scene of the gathering. Among the seven accounts this is so only here.