أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا۟ أَنَّا نَسُوقُ ٱلْمَآءَ إِلَى ٱلْأَرْضِ ٱلْجُرُزِ فَنُخْرِجُ بِهِۦ زَرْعًا تَأْكُلُ مِنْهُ أَنْعَٰمُهُمْ وَأَنفُسُهُمْ أَفَلَا يُبْصِرُونَ
A-wa-lam yaraw annā nasūqu'l-māʾa ila'l-arḍi'l-juruzi fa-nukhriju bihī zarʿan taʾkulu minhu anʿāmuhum wa anfusuhum, a-fa-lā yubṣirūn
"Have they not seen that We drive the water to the bare ground and bring out with it a crop of which their cattle and they themselves eat? Will they still not see?"
سَاقَ — root س-و-ق: to drive before one, to conduct. The word is used especially of driving a herd of animals from behind. From the same root come sāʾiq (the driver), sūq (a market — the place goods are driven to) and sāq (the leg, what one walks on).
The choice of the verb is worth recording: the water does not "come down" or "flow" — it is driven. That is, the sentence gives the water a direction and a driver.
And the choice of the object must be recorded too: the water is driven not to the place where the rain falls but to the dry ground. The verb puts the distance between them into the sentence.
The core given by the lexicographers: to cut and clear, to tear up by the root, to leave nothing on top. Jarazahū — he cut it, he mowed it. Sayfun jurāz — a sword that cuts and shears. And arḍun juruz: ground on which no plant is left, ground eaten bare.
The picture in the word is worth recording: for "dry ground" the verse does not choose a word meaning "waterless". The word it chooses states that what was on the ground has been taken away. That is, the dryness is recounted not as a lack but as a having-been-emptied.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the root's sense of "to cut and clear": the ground on which the proof is built is not soil that never yielded but soil whose yield has been taken. And this fits where the proof is going — all through the sūra the subject is whether a thing that has happened once can happen again.
| Place | The water's road | Outcome | Where the proof is tied |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fāṭir 35/9 | Arsala'l-riyāḥa fa-tuthīru saḥāban fa-suqnāhu ilā baladin mayyit | Fa-aḥyaynā bihi'l-arḍa baʿda mawtihā | Kadhālika'l-nushūr — the resurrection |
| al-Zumar 39/21 | Anzala mina'l-samāʾi māʾan fa-salakahū yanābīʿa fi'l-arḍ | Zarʿan mukhtalifan alwānuh … ḥuṭāmā | Dhikrā li-uli'l-albāb — a reminder |
| al-Sajda 32/27 | Nasūqu'l-māʾa ila'l-arḍi'l-juruz | Zarʿan taʾkulu minhu anʿāmuhum wa anfusuhum | A-fa-lā yubṣirūn — a question |
One — the verb. In Fāṭir suqnāhu (We drove) is perfect; in al-Sajda nasūqu is imperfect: We are driving. Fāṭir recounts a finished event, al-Sajda a work that is going on. The change of the verb tenses was recorded separately as an observation about the word order in Fāṭir 35/9; I rely on that treatment.
Two — the outcome. Al-Zumar goes as far as the crop turning yellow and becoming chaff: the proof is built on transience. Al-Sajda stops at the eating of the crop: the proof is built on usefulness. The same event, cut off at two different points.
Three — who eats. Al-Sajda names the two sides together: anʿāmuhum wa anfusuhum — their cattle and they themselves. And the order must be recorded: the animals first.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the sentence does not put man at the head of the list. There are two parties at the same table, and man is named second. This runs in the same direction as the observation recorded in Fāṭir 35/45: there too the scope was not kept limited to man (min dābba).
فَنُخْرِجُ بِهِۦ زَرْعًا — zarʿ — root ز-ر-ع: to sow. This root was treated in detail in al-Wāqiʿa 56/63-64 (a-antum tazraʿūnahū am naḥnu'l-zāriʿūn — "is it you who make it grow?"), and there man's share and the ground on which the outcome rests were separated. I rely on that treatment. Here the same distinction is made by the voice of the verb: nukhriju — it is We who bring it out.