34. Sūrat Sabaʾ

Fifty-four verses. It is widely reported that it was revealed in the Meccan period. It takes its name from the people of سَبَإ named in verse 15 — a community that lived in southern Arabia, remembered for its two gardens and its dam. The name of the people occurs only once in the sūra; yet the whole weave of the sūra is worked around that single verse.

It is one of the five sūras in the Qurʾān that open with al-ḥamdu lillāh (al-Fātiḥa, al-Anʿām, al-Kahf, Sabaʾ, Fāṭir). And in this respect it stands side by side with Fāṭir, which follows it in the sequence: two sūras in a row begin with praise.

The sūra opens with praise and moves by thanks. Two peoples are set out one after the other — one is commanded to give thanks, the other turns away from thanks — and the sūra ends with a ruling: wealth and children do not bring you near.

Four occurrences, in three distinct functions: the command, its opposite, and the one who takes the lesson. This is a weave that can be verified from the text.

And the chain is tied to a ruling in the thirty-seventh verse: wa mā amwālukum wa lā awlādukum bi'llatī tuqarribukum ʿindanā zulfā. That is: the sūra moves from the question "what do you have" to the question "what did you do with what you have".

The basmala was treated in earlier sections and is not taken up again here; the verse numbers are counted without it.

Al-ḥamdu lillāhi'lladhī lahū mā fi's-samāwāti wa mā fi'l-arḍi wa lahu'l-ḥamdu fi'l-ākhirati wa huwa'l-ḥakīmu'l-khabīr · Yaʿlamu mā yaliju fi'l-arḍi wa mā yakhruju minhā wa mā yanzilu mina's-samāʾi wa mā yaʿruju fīhā wa huwa'r-raḥīmu'l-ghafūr

"Praise belongs to God, whose is whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth; and in the hereafter too the praise is His. He is wise, aware of all things. He knows what goes into the earth and what comes out of it, what descends from the sky and what ascends into it. He is the merciful, the forgiving."

The sentence says lahu'l-ḥamd twice, and sets a difference of time between the two:

The ground of the first praise is given plainly in the verse: whatever is in the heavens and in the earth is His. The second praise is left without a ground.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the difference in how the two clauses are built: in this world a cause for praise is shown, because in this world who owns what is a matter of dispute — the twenty-second verse of the sūra will dispute exactly that. In the hereafter the dispute will be over, so no ground is needed.

And that praise continues in the hereafter is worth recording: the verse sets praise not as a behaviour belonging to this world but as a state valid in both worlds at once. At Fāṭir 35/34 it was treated that the first words out of the mouths of the people of the Garden are a sentence of praise (al-ḥamdu lillāhi'lladhī adhhaba ʿanna'l-ḥazan) — read together, the record made in this first verse appears there as something actually carried out.

The two verses end with two pairs of names, and the pairs are not symmetrical:

What is worth recording is this: the second verse describes an all-embracing knowledge (what goes in, what comes out, what descends, what ascends) — and after such a description of knowledge the expected closing would have been "ʿalīm" or "ḥafīẓ". In their place the verse sets the names of mercy and pardon.

I give this as an observation about the word order: the attribute named after knowing everything is not punishment but forgiveness. The completeness of the knowledge is attached not as a threat but as an assurance.

The middle of the second verse is a table built on four verbs:

Four verbs, two domains, and in each domain one going and one coming. The sentence thus leaves no direction uncovered: what enters the earth, what comes out of the earth, what comes down from the sky and what climbs into the sky all fall within the same knowledge.

و-ل-ج — the concrete sense of the root is to go inside through a narrow place. The lexicographers describe wallaja as "one thing's entering into another"; īlāj — to insert. The same root is used in the Qurʾān for the folding of night into day (yūliju'l-layla fi'n-nahār). The picture in the word is not disappearing — it is passing into a place that cannot be seen.

The root ع-ر-ج was analysed in detail at al-Maʿārij 70/3-4 (to ascend, to climb step by step along a sloping road; miʿrāj, maʿārij, aʿraj). I do not repeat it here.

There is one difference that belongs here and must be recorded: in al-Maʿārij the root was used of the angels and the Spirit (taʿruju'l-malāʾikatu wa'r-rūḥu ilayh) — that is, what ascended was specified. Here no subject is specified: mā yaʿruju fīhā — "whatever ascends into it". The word has been widened by being left indefinite.

And this table of four verbs prepares from the outset the claim the sūra will make later: the clause lā yaʿzubu ʿanhu mithqālu dharra, which comes in the third verse, is these four directions pressed into a single sentence.

Wa qāla'lladhīna kafarū lā taʾtīna's-sāʿah, qul balā wa rabbī la-taʾtiyannakum ʿālimi'l-ghayb, lā yaʿzubu ʿanhu mithqālu dharratin fi's-samāwāti wa lā fi'l-arḍi wa lā aṣgharu min dhālika wa lā akbaru illā fī kitābin mubīn

"Those who disbelieved said: 'The Hour will not come to us.' Say: 'No — by my Lord, the Knower of the unseen, it will certainly come to you. Not so much as the weight of a speck in the heavens or in the earth escapes Him; nor anything smaller than that, nor larger, but it is in a clear book.'"

There are three places in the Qurʾān where the Prophet is made to swear directly, and this is one of them. The record is needed, because the pattern is rare:

All three begin with a command (qul), and all three belong to the same family of subjects: the hereafter. And the last two open with exactly the same wording: qul balā wa rabbī.

The counterpart of this verse was treated in detail at al-Taghābun 64/7 — there it was analysed how the word zaʿama (a claim without support) sets the frame of the dispute. The difference that belongs here must be recorded: in al-Taghābun the objection was given with the verb zaʿama, here with a plain qāla. That is, Sabaʾ first transmits the objection bare; what shows it to be without support is not the word but the answer that follows it.

بَلَىٰ — in Arabic this is the particle of reply used to refute a negative sentence. It was treated at al-Zumar 39/59 (balā qad jāʾatka āyātī). So the answer is not "yes" — it is "no, it is not so". What is rejected is the negation on which the objection rests.

And the form of the oath is worth recording: wa rabbī — "by my Lord". Not by a general name, but named as the speaker's own Lord. The oath is sworn not on an authority the addressee accepts, but on the authority to which the speaker is bound.

The concrete sense of the root is given by the lexicographers thus: to move away, to be separated, to pass out of sight. ʿAzaba'r-rajul — the man went far off, stayed apart from his family. And from the same root ʿāzib is the shepherd who takes his flock to distant pasture; ʿazab (unmarried) is also attached to this family: the one apart from a spouse.

I transmit this picture as a relation the lexicographers have built; I do not present it as a settled etymological ruling.

What the word does here must be recorded: the verse does not say "He does not know it", it says "it does not stay far from Him". That is, knowledge is described not as an act of searching but as an absence of distance. The four-directional table of the second verse (what goes in, comes out, descends, ascends) is reduced here to a single word: no direction is far.

Per the method (Method) a limit has to be set here, and I set it plainly: the atom of modern physics cannot be drawn out of this word. What the word meant in the language in which the Qurʾān came down is known, and the senses the lexicographers give are these:

The common point is this: a dharra is "the smallest thing that can be seen". So the word is not a unit of measure but a description of a limit: the lowest step the eye can make out.

And the verse itself compels this reading, because the sentence does not stop there: wa lā aṣgharu min dhālika wa lā akbar. "Nor anything smaller than that, nor larger." So the verse does not even leave dharra standing as the smallest thing — it keeps what is below it open too.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the word aṣghar: if dharra were the absolutely smallest particle, the phrase "smaller than that" would be meaningless. The word is not an absolute magnitude but a threshold in the eye of the addressee — and the verse speaks by crossing that threshold.

The expression mithqāla dharra was treated in detail at al-Zilzāl 99/7-8, and there it was tabulated how the root ث-ق-ل holds the two ends of that sūra together. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is this: in al-Zilzāl the expression came as the measure of deeds (man yaʿmal mithqāla dharratin khayran yarah); here it comes as the extent of knowledge.

The third row matters, and it lies inside the sūra: the same expression will come once more in the twenty-second verse. The sūra uses the same measure once for God's knowledge and once for the powerlessness of those who are called upon. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

Both readings are transmitted. The difference in sense is not large; I do not impose a preference. What is worth recording is this: on either reading, what the oath rests on is the knowing of the unseen. And this bears directly on the subject of the objection: the claim that the Hour will not come is a claim about the unseen.

Li-yajziya'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāt, ulāʾika lahum maghfiratun wa rizqun karīm · Wa'lladhīna saʿaw fī āyātinā muʿājizīna ulāʾika lahum ʿadhābun min rijzin alīm

"That He may reward those who believed and did righteous deeds. For them there is forgiveness and a generous provision. And for those who run about to make Our signs of no effect, there is a painful punishment of the worst kind."

The fourth verse begins with a lām al-taʿlīl (the lām of cause): li-yajziya — "in order to reward". That is, the Hour whose coming was announced in the previous verse is tied to a purpose.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the objection said "it will not come"; the answer said first that it will come (3), then says why it will come (4). That is, the sentence is not content to refute the claim; it also gives the reason for the event.

And in that reason the reward is named first, the punishment second. This ordering holds throughout the sūra: the fourth verse for the believers, the fifth for the other side.

س-ع-ي — the concrete sense of the root is to walk fast, to bustle about, to exert oneself for a task. The word is neutral; the Qurʾān uses it both in praise and in blame. What settles its direction here is the circumstantial word that follows it.

مُعَٰجِزِين — root ع-ج-ز: to be unable, to be powerless. Muʿājiz — the active participle of Form III. This form conveys reciprocity and striving: "one who tries to render powerless, who strives to outrun and get past".

The lexicographers give the word two senses, and both are transmitted:

I do not impose a preference. What is worth recording is that the word states not an act but an aim: the verse does not say that they made the signs ineffective — it says they ran about so that it should be so.

This expression will come once more in the sūra, in almost the same words:

The only difference is the tense of the verb: the fifth has the perfect (saʿaw), the thirty-eighth the imperfect (yasʿawna). I record this as my own reading, and its support is where the two verses stand: the fifth verse comes inside a list of rulings, the thirty-eighth inside a description of an ongoing behaviour. The perfect states the ruling, the imperfect describes the state.

رِجْز — root ر-ج-ز: shaking, disordered movement; and from there filth, punishment. The lexicographers connect the word with the trembling in a camel's hind legs (rajaz). The construction is striking: ʿadhābun min rijzin alīm — "a punishment out of the worst kind of punishment". That is, the punishment is further qualified from within its own class.

Wa yara'lladhīna ūtu'l-ʿilma'lladhī unzila ilayka min rabbika huwa'l-ḥaqqa wa yahdī ilā ṣirāṭi'l-ʿazīzi'l-ḥamīd

"Those who have been given knowledge see that what has been sent down to you from your Lord is the truth itself, and that it guides to the path of the Mighty, the Praiseworthy."

In the third verse there was a saying: qāla'lladhīna kafarū. In the sixth verse there is a seeing: yara'lladhīna ūtu'l-ʿilm.

The contrast is worth recording, and I give it as my own reading; its support is the kind of the two verbs: one side speaks, the other side sees. Speech is set against sight. And ruʾya here does not mean seeing with the eye but recognition with the heart — this use of the verb is common in Arabic.

أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْعِلْمَ — the verb is passive: "those who have been given knowledge". Knowledge, that is, is named not as something acquired but as something given. At Fāṭir 35/28 (innamā yakhsha'llāha min ʿibādihi'l-ʿulamāʾ) the link between those who know and awe was treated; I rely on that treatment, and record the difference here: in Fāṭir those who know feared; here they see.

And I issue no narrowing ruling as to who is meant in the verse. Per the method (Method): what the verse describes is an attribute — having been given knowledge — and whoever bears that attribute is included in it.

صِرَٰطِ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْحَمِيدِ — and the owner of the path is named with two names. The second must be recorded: al-ḥamīd. The sūra opened with praise in the first verse; in the sixth verse the root of praise returns as a name. This is a link that can be verified within the sūra.

Wa qāla'lladhīna kafarū hal nadullukum ʿalā rajulin yunabbiʾukum idhā muzziqtum kulla mumazzaqin innakum la-fī khalqin jadīd · Aftarā ʿala'llāhi kadhiban am bihī jinnatun, bali'lladhīna lā yuʾminūna bi'l-ākhirati fi'l-ʿadhābi wa'ḍ-ḍalāli'l-baʿīd

"Those who disbelieved said: 'Shall we point you to a man who tells you that when you have been torn utterly to pieces you will be in a new creation? Has he invented a lie against God, or is there madness in him?' No! Those who do not believe in the hereafter are in the punishment and in far-gone error."

The sentence opens with a question: hal nadullukum ʿalā rajul — "shall we point you to a man?"

This pattern is worth recording, because the pattern itself is a pattern of invitation. In Arabic dalāla (to point out, to indicate) is a verb of doing good; one says "shall I point you to so-and-so" and something valuable follows. Here the same pattern is used inverted.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the pattern itself: the mockery is built not in the language of opposition but in the language of invitation. The speakers present what they reject as though introducing it — and expect the absurdity to emerge of itself from the content of the introduction.

And the word rajul must be recorded: "a man". No name is given, no attribute. At al-Najm 53/2 and al-Takwīr 81/22 the word ṣāḥibukum (your companion) was treated — what was recorded there was that the word rests on acquaintance. Here exactly the opposite is done: a familiar person is turned into an unknown "man".

And this contrast lies inside the sūra: those who say rajul in the seventh verse will be answered in the forty-sixth verse with ṣāḥibikum. This is an exchange that can be verified from the text.

In the root index this is the first place the root is analysed.

The concrete sense of the root: to tear, to rend, to shred. Mazaqa'th-thawb — he tore the cloth. The original picture in the word is a piece of cloth or leather being torn — not cut, but pulled apart.

The pattern is doubled, and this must be recorded: muzziqtum (Form II, passive — "you were torn to pieces") + kulla mumazzaq (the absolute object, mafʿūl muṭlaq — "with every kind of tearing"). That is, the verb is not said once and left; it is reinforced with its own verbal noun.

In Arabic this structure (verb + absolute object from the same root) conveys intensity and extent. In English it can only be carried by piling a reinforcing word on top: "when you have been torn utterly to pieces".

And now we come to one of the strongest textual data in the sūra — this needs a table of its own.

The expression is word for word the same in both places: kulla mumazzaq. And the difference lies in the subject of the verb: in the seventh verse it is passive (who did the tearing is not said), in the nineteenth first person (mazzaqnā — We tore them).

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verbal overlap of the two verses: those who disbelieve choose a word to describe an event they hold to be remote and ridiculous. The sūra takes that same word and fastens it to an event that actually happened in history. The tearing apart that was made an object of mockery is named twelve verses later as something that came upon a people.

That is, the objection is answered with its own word. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text, and it is one of the most striking points of word order in the sūra.

The sentence offers two possibilities:

And together the two options carry out a closing of doors: the first is a moral charge, the second a medical one. Both leave outside the possibility that what he says might be true.

At Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/28 the two-option argument built by the believing man was treated in detail. I rely on that treatment and compare the two structures, because the same form has been used for two opposite purposes:

The difference lies in a single place, and it is decisive: the second option in Ghāfir leaves the door open, the second option in Sabaʾ closes it.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the second row of the table above: both sides reason in the form "either this or that". But one leaves a share of truth to one of the options, while the other builds both options as accusations. The issue, then, is not the form of the reasoning but whether the options have been counted honestly. A real dilemma takes both possibilities into account; a manufactured dilemma offers only two separate routes to rejection.

بَلِ ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْءَاخِرَةِ فِى ٱلْعَذَابِ وَٱلضَّلَٰلِ ٱلْبَعِيدِ — and the answer rejects both options and builds a third sentence: "no!"

بَلْ — in Arabic the particle that cancels the preceding judgement and puts a new one in its place. That is, the verse does not choose one of the options; it treats the question as void.

ٱلضَّلَٰلِ ٱلْبَعِيدِ — "far-gone error". The root ب-ع-د is a backbone word in this sūra, and this is its first occurrence. It will return in the nineteenth verse inside a prayer (bāʿid bayna asfārinā), and in the fifty-second and fifty-third verses as a distance (min makānin baʿīd). I shall tabulate it at the end.

A-fa-lam yaraw ilā mā bayna aydīhim wa mā khalfahum mina's-samāʾi wa'l-arḍ, in nashaʾ nakhsif bihimu'l-arḍa aw nusqiṭ ʿalayhim kisafan mina's-samāʾ, inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-kulli ʿabdin munīb

"Do they not look at what is before them and behind them of the sky and the earth? If We willed, We would sink them into the earth, or drop upon them fragments from the sky. In that there is a sign for every servant who turns back."

The verse is built not as a command to look but as a finding that looking is absent: a-fa-lam yaraw — "have they still not looked?"

And how the place to be looked at is described is worth recording: mā bayna aydīhim wa mā khalfahum — "what is before them and behind them". This is not a distant place. No distance to be travelled for the proof is pointed out; what is pointed out is the place the addressee is already standing in.

I record this as an observation: to those who in the seventh verse counted resurrection remote, the ninth verse points to what is nearest. The claim of remoteness is answered with nearness.

Two directions, two verbs. And this is the narrowed form of the four-verb table in the second verse: there the extent of knowledge was given as up and down, here the extent of power is given in the same two directions.

I record this as my own reading; its support is the directional structure of the two verses: on the same axis the sūra places first knowledge, then power.

خ-س-ف — the concrete sense of the root is a thing's collapsing into itself, hollowing out. Khusūfu'l-qamar — the eclipse of the moon; the lexicographers explain this by the picture of the moon's "being hidden / caving in".

كِسَفًا — the plural of kisfa: a piece, a cut-off portion. Root ك-س-ف: to cut, to break into parts. The word describes the falling from the sky not of something whole but of pieces.

عَبْدٍ مُّنِيبٍ — root ن-و-ب: to come back again and again, to turn towards repeatedly. The word nawba — a turn, a spell of duty, borrowed into Turkish as nöbet — is from this root: what comes round in rotation. Munīb — the active participle of Form IV: one who turns back, who turns towards.

And the last clause of the verse sets a condition: the sign is not for everyone, but li-kulli ʿabdin munīb — for the servant who turns. At Fāṭir 35/18 the same limit was treated (innamā tundhiru'lladhīna yakhshawna rabbahum bi'l-ghayb). I rely on that treatment. The proof stands in plain view; what turns the proof into a sign is the state of the one who looks.

Wa laqad ātaynā Dāwūda minnā faḍlā, yā jibālu awwibī maʿahū wa'ṭ-ṭayr, wa alannā lahu'l-ḥadīd

"We gave David a bounty from Us: 'O mountains! Echo back with him; and you birds too!' And We softened iron for him."

Here the sūra moves into a narrative, and the move is not abrupt. The ninth verse ended with the word munīb (one who turns); the tenth verse opens with the name of a servant who turned.

David was treated in detail at Ṣād 38/17-20 — there ذَا ٱلْأَيْدِ (possessor of strength), أَوَّاب (much-returning) and the glorification of the mountains were analysed. I rely on that treatment and record the differences here.

The most striking difference is in the first row, and it must be recorded: in Ṣād the event is narrated, in Sabaʾ the command itself is transmitted. The text passes from third-person narration straight into direct address.

I give this as an observation about the word order: instead of saying "We commanded the mountains", the verse gives the wording of the command. The reader does not hear about the event; he hears the command.

The concrete sense of the root: to turn, to come back. Āba — he returned. Maʾāb — the place of return. And the word awwāb (much-returning) was treated at Ṣād, where it was recorded that it occurs three times, for David, Solomon and Job (Ayyūb).

The verb here is awwibī — an imperative of Form II, addressed to a feminine. And the lexicographers give the word two senses:

Both readings are transmitted and they do not exclude one another; I do not impose a preference.

What is worth recording is this, and I give it as my own reading: both readings meet in the same picture — a voice coming back. A word spoken on a mountain returns from the mountain. The sense "to return" in the root and the physics of an echo meet in the same place; and the attribute awwāb (the servant who turns back) is from the same root. That is, David's attribute and the command given to the mountains come from the same word.

وَٱلطَّيْرَ — the lexicographers dwell on the inflection of the word: ṭayr is in the accusative. It is said either to be a conjunct to an elided verb (wa sakhkharna'ṭ-ṭayra), or a conjunct to the position of the vocative. Both explanations are transmitted; since they do not change the sense, I do not impose a preference.

ل-ي-ن — the sense of the root is softness. Layyin — soft. Alāna — Form IV: he softened.

The root ح-د-د and the word ḥadīd were analysed in detail at al-Ḥadīd. What was recorded there holds here unchanged, and its summary is this: the root means "limit, edge, sharp cutting edge"; ḥadd a limit, ḥudūd limits, ḥaddād a blacksmith — and iron takes its name from its sharpness. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is that the two sūras take hold of iron at two different points, and this comparison must be recorded:

At al-Ḥadīd it was treated how iron is set together with the Book and the balance as one of the three legs of justice. I rely on that treatment.

And I record the difference here as my own reading; its support is the third row of the table above: in al-Ḥadīd iron is named for its hardness — baʾsun shadīd. In Sabaʾ the same substance is named for the removal of its hardness. That is, the two verses take up two opposite qualities of the same substance: one its staying hard, the other its growing soft. And both produce a benefit.

I draw no conclusion about the history of metallurgy from this expression of the verse. The working of iron with fire, its being heated and beaten, is a known craft, and the verse does not give a description of a craft. No matching with natural science is constructed; what the verse says is that something was made possible for David.

Ani'mal sābighātin wa qaddir fi's-sard, waʿmalū ṣāliḥā, innī bimā taʿmalūna baṣīr

"'Make wide coats of mail, and keep the weave to measure. Do righteous deeds; I see what you do.'"

The most striking place in the verse is the change of number in the third command, and I record this as my own reading: the first two commands are singular and concern a craft; the third command shifts suddenly to the plural and becomes a command about conduct.

And the two commands use the same verb: iʿmal (make) and iʿmalū (do). That is, making armour and doing righteous deeds are named with a single word: ع-م-ل.

This choice of word must be recorded. The verse does not set handwork and righteous deeds up as two separate domains — it makes them two objects of the same verb. And at Fāṭir 35/10 (wa'l-ʿamalu'ṣ-ṣāliḥu yarfaʿuh) the carrying power of deeds was treated; I rely on that treatment.

And this joins with the command to give thanks later in the sūra: in the thirteenth verse Solomon will be told iʿmalū āla Dāwūda shukrā — the same verb again, this time with thanks as its object.

The same verb in three verses, with three different objects: a craft, a conduct, a disposition. I record this as my own reading, and its support is the repetition of the verb: the sūra names thanks not as a feeling but as something done.

The root of the word is س-ب-غ. (It is not to be confused with ص-ب-غ; the second is ṣibgha — the root of dyeing, of giving colour.) The sense of the root س-ب-غ: to be ample, to be full and wide, to be long enough to cover a thing over.

Sābigh — ample, full, complete. And the same root is used in the Qurʾān for favour: wa asbagha ʿalaykum niʿamah (Luqmān 31/20) — "He spread His favours over you abundantly."

The form of the word in the verse is striking: sābighāt — plural, feminine, and its mawṣūf (the noun it qualifies) is not stated. The word "armour" does not occur in the verse. What is said is only the attribute: "the ample ones".

I record this as an observation about the word order: what is said is not the name of the object but the property required of it. That is, the command is not "make armour" but "make things that cover fully". That armour is meant is understood from the next command (the measure of the weave).

The concrete sense of the root: to set things out one after another, in regular sequence. Sard — to link rings into one another in a row; the weave of a coat of mail. And the same root is used in Arabic for "to recount a discourse without a break, one thing after another" — close to the English "to reel off".

That the word is used for the weave of mail is worth recording: chain mail consists of small rings hooked into one another. So sard is the ordering of the rings.

قَدِّرْ — root ق-د-ر: to set a measure, to determine an amount. An imperative of Form II: "get its measure right".

And the command itself is a rule of craft. The lexicographers explain it thus: the rings of a coat of mail must be neither too thick (it becomes heavy, it cannot be carried) nor too thin (it is pierced). The measure lies between two excesses.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is that the two commands of the verse stand side by side: the first command asks for amplitude (sābighāt — let it cover fully), the second asks for measure (qaddir — let its rings be set right). Amplitude and measure are set as two conditions of the same work. And the command that follows immediately is righteous deeds. That is, in giving the rule of a craft the text has also given the rule of a conduct: wide enough, but not without measure.

The support of this reading is the verse's own sequence; I do not rely on a transmitted report.

And the root ق-د-ر will occur twice more in the sūra: in the eighteenth verse (wa qaddarnā fīha's-sayr — We set the travel to measure) and in the thirty-sixth and thirty-ninth verses (yabsuṭu'r-rizqa … wa yaqdir). I shall tabulate this at the end.

إِنِّى بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ — and after the plural command the verse ends with a plural watching: bimā taʿmalūna — "what you do". The one who asks for measure in the craft and the one who sees the righteousness of the deed are the same subject in the same sentence.

Wa li-Sulaymāna'r-rīḥa ghuduwwuhā shahrun wa rawāḥuhā shahr, wa asalnā lahū ʿayna'l-qiṭr, wa mina'l-jinni man yaʿmalu bayna yadayhi bi-idhni rabbih, wa man yazigh minhum ʿan amrinā nudhiqhu min ʿadhābi's-saʿīr

"And to Solomon the wind: its going out in the morning a month, its coming back in the evening a month. We made the spring of molten copper flow for him. Some of the jinn worked before him by his Lord's leave. Whoever of them swerves from Our command, We make him taste the punishment of the blaze."

The clause is made of two equal halves, and two words are set against one another:

These two words are a pair in Arabic, and together they mean "the whole of the day". They correspond to the English expression "morning and evening". At Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/46 the pair ghuduwwan wa ʿashiyyā (morning and evening) was treated, and it was recorded there that the same two times are used in two different scenes. I rely on that treatment.

The root of rawāḥ, ر-و-ح, is at the same time the root of rīḥ (wind) and of rūḥ. That is, there is an overlap in the sentence close to wordplay: ar-rīḥa … wa rawāḥuhā. I record this as an observation about the language; I build no ruling about the meaning on it.

And the measure itself is worth recording: shahrun … shahrun — a month, a month. The measure is given not in distance but in time. That is, the verse does not say "so many leagues"; it says how long a journey that would normally take a month took. The measure is built on the addressee's own experience.

I do not enter into the reports about the details of the story. How the wind was used, where it went, is not in the verse; I do not manufacture a detail the text does not give.

أَسَلْنَا — root س-ي-ل: to flow. Form IV: We made flow. And the same root will occur four verses later in the name of a disaster: sayla'l-ʿarim (16) — "the flood of the ʿArim".

I record this repetition and give it as my own reading: the same root is used in two opposite directions for the two peoples of the sūra.

The same verbal root: one is "We made it flow for him", the other "We sent it upon them". When the particle changes, the direction changes: lahū (in his favour) / ʿalayhim (against them). This is a contrast that can be verified from the text.

ٱلْقِطْر — the sense the lexicographers give: molten copper (some say "molten metal" generally). The word is connected with the root qaṭr (to drip): the thing that drips, that flows.

And the word ʿayn must be recorded: ʿayna'l-qiṭr — "the spring of copper". ʿAyn in Arabic means both eye and spring. That is, the molten metal is named as though it were a spring — the word used for a source of water has been carried over to metal.

Its link with the preceding verse is worth recording: for David iron was softened, for Solomon copper was made to flow. Two metals for two prophets, and both in the state where their hardness has been undone.

ز-ي-غ — the concrete sense of the root: to swerve from the true direction, to slip, to go crooked. The lexicographers record that the word is used also of the eye's wandering off true.

And the placing of the clause must be recorded: while enumerating what was given to Solomon, the verse inserts a note about punishment. That is, what was given is not presented as an unlimited disposal; the command to which the workers are bound is named in the same sentence.

A note about the jinn, per the method (Method): at al-Jinn the limit was set that one does not go beyond what the text states about unseen beings. I rely on that. What the verse says is this: they were working, they were working by leave, and whoever swerved from the command had his recompense.

Yaʿmalūna lahū mā yashāʾu min maḥārība wa tamāthīla wa jifānin ka'l-jawābi wa qudūrin rāsiyāt, iʿmalū āla Dāwūda shukrā, wa qalīlun min ʿibādiya'sh-shakūr

"They made for him whatever he wished: lofty structures, images, basins like reservoirs, and cauldrons fixed in place. 'O family of David! Work in thankfulness!' But few of My servants are thankful."

This verse is where the backbone of the sūra is given its name. For twelve verses what was given had been enumerated; here what is asked in return is stated.

And the form of the command must be recorded: iʿmalū āla Dāwūda shukrā.

The lexicographers dwell on the inflection of the word, and three explanations are transmitted:

All three explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

But what is worth recording is what all three readings share, and I give it as my own reading: whichever is taken, thanks is named together with a verb. The verse does not say "give thanks" (ushkurū) — it says "work, thanks". In the eleventh verse David was told iʿmal (make); here the same verb comes back to the family in the plural.

That is, from beginning to end the sūra builds thanks as something done. And in the fifteenth verse the command given to the people of Sabaʾ will come with a different word: wa'shkurū lah — there the verb is the verb of thanks itself. The two commands can be set side by side:

Two peoples, two commands, one root. And the difference is this: one is commanded to give thanks while producing, the other while consuming. I record this as my own reading; its support is the verbs standing beside the two commands.

"Few of My servants are thankful."

The word order of the sentence must be recorded: the predicate (qalīl) has been brought forward, the subject (ash-shakūr) left to the end. In Arabic this fronting conveys emphasis: fewness is the first word of the sentence.

شَكُور — the intensive form (faʿūl): one who gives thanks much. So the sentence does not exactly say "the thankful are few"; it says "those who give much thanks are few".

This detail matters, and I record it as my own reading; its support is the pattern itself: the ruling of fewness is set not on thanks itself but on its continuity. Giving thanks once may be common; what the word describes is thanks that has become a habit.

And this pattern will meet us twice more in the sūra:

All three are intensive forms: shakūr and kafūr on faʿūl, ṣabbār on faʿʿāl. That is, in three separate places the sūra names qualities that have hardened into habits. This is a weave that can be verified from the text.

مَحَٰرِيب — the plural of miḥrāb. The word cannot be reduced to the present-day sense of "mihrab", the prayer niche. The primary sense the lexicographers give: the highest, best-protected, foremost part of a house or a palace. It is connected with the root ح-ر-ب, and the lexicographers explain the connection thus: the place that is defended, that is fought over. At Ṣād 38/21 the same word occurred as David's chamber (idh tasawwaru'l-miḥrāb). I rely on that treatment.

تَمَٰثِيل — the plural of timthāl; root م-ث-ل: to resemble, to make the like of a thing. The word is thus wider than "statue": to bring out the image or likeness of something.

There is a legal debate about this word, and per the method (Method) I issue no legal ruling. What is to be recorded is this: the verse states that these things were made for Solomon; it does not frame a sentence either approving or forbidding them. Differing views are transmitted on the question in the classical commentaries; I content myself with transmitting them.

جِفَانٍ كَٱلْجَوَابِ — jifān, the plural of jafna: a large bowl, a trough. Jawāb is the plural of jābiya: a basin in which water is stored, a cistern. Hence "bowls like reservoirs".

قُدُورٍ رَّاسِيَٰتٍ — qudūr, the plural of qidr: a cauldron. Rāsiyāt — root ر-س-و: to stand fast, to be anchored. The same root is used of mountains as well (rawāsī). Hence "cauldrons that cannot be lifted from their place" — too large to be carried.

The order of the list is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: lofty structures → images → bowls → cauldrons. The series descends from architecture to the kitchen. And the command that comes at the end of the list is thanks. That is, the command to give thanks comes immediately after the most concrete objects, not after the splendour.

Fa-lammā qaḍaynā ʿalayhi'l-mawta mā dallahum ʿalā mawtihī illā dābbatu'l-arḍi taʾkulu minsaʾatah, fa-lammā kharra tabayyanati'l-jinnu an law kānū yaʿlamūna'l-ghayba mā labithū fi'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn

"When We decreed his death, nothing showed them his death but a creature of the earth eating his staff. When he fell, it became clear that the jinn did not know the unseen: had they known it, they would not have remained in that humiliating punishment."

A great many details are transmitted around this story: how long he stayed thus, when the worm gnawed the staff, what the jinn did. Per the method (Method) I do not go into these details; I do not add to the verse what is not in it.

The verse itself states a conclusion, and all the weight lies there: an law kānū yaʿlamūna'l-ghayba mā labithū fi'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn — "had they known the unseen, they would not have remained in that humiliating punishment."

That is, the event is told not as a story but as a proof. And the structure of the proof is this:

This is a piece of reasoning close to the pattern called modus tollens in logic: had they known, this would not have happened; this happened; therefore they did not know. The verse draws the inference itself, and builds it with the particle law (a condition that was not fulfilled).

And the place of this conclusion in the sūra must be recorded. The line of the unseen in the sūra runs thus:

Four occurrences, in four separate places in the sūra. And the fourteenth verse holds a special place in this series: the one concrete piece of evidence is there. The third verse announced that the unseen is known; the fourteenth verse shows by an event by whom the unseen is not known.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verse's own last clause: the story is told not to describe Solomon's greatness but to show where knowledge of the unseen is not. And precisely for that reason it stands in the middle of the sūra's line of the unseen.

The sense of the root: to postpone, to delay; and to drive, to push. Nasaʾa — he postponed. And minsaʾa is on the mifʿala pattern: the instrument with which a work is done.

The lexicographers explain the word thus: the staff with which a shepherd drives his animals before him. That is, the staff is a tool used not for leaning on but for driving; and its name comes from that work.

I transmit this explanation as a relation the lexicographers have built; I do not present it as a settled etymological ruling.

And the choice of word is worth recording: the verse does not say ʿaṣā — that is the word that occurs in the stories of Moses (Mūsā). Here minsaʾa is used. That the word is different is a detail the lexicographers record; beyond that I frame no ruling about the meaning.

د-ب-ب — the concrete sense of the root is to move slowly and lightly, to stir upon the ground. The word was treated at al-Jāthiya 45/4 and at Fāṭir 35/45 (a moving living thing). I do not repeat it here.

The construction dābbatu'l-arḍ — "the creature of the earth". The sense the lexicographers commonly give is a wood-worm, a termite; the word has been understood so in this context.

This must not be confused with dābbatan mina'l-arḍ, which occurs elsewhere in the Qurʾān (al-Naml 27/82). The two constructions are different, and their contexts are different too; I do not read one through the other.

And the difference of scale the verse sets up is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: for two verses the wind, molten metal, giant cauldrons and lofty structures were enumerated. Then that whole tableau comes to an end with a staff gnawed by a worm. The word order of the sentence stresses this: mā dallahum … illā dābbatu'l-arḍ — a negation plus an exception. That is, what gave the news was none of all the powers enumerated; it was only that.

فَلَمَّا خَرَّ — kharra: to collapse, to fall. The word is used in the Qurʾān for prostration as well (kharra sājidan). Here the fall itself is described, and the fall becomes the sign that will give the news.

ٱلْعَذَابِ ٱلْمُهِينِ — root ه-و-ن: lightness, worthlessness, being brought low. Muhīn — the active participle of Form IV: that which humiliates. That is, the quality of the punishment named here is not its severity but its power to degrade.

Laqad kāna li-Sabaʾin fī maskanihim āyah, jannatāni ʿan yamīnin wa shimāl, kulū min rizqi rabbikum wa'shkurū lah, baldatun ṭayyibatun wa rabbun ghafūr

"For Sabaʾ there was a sign in their dwelling place: two gardens, one on the right and one on the left. 'Eat of the provision of your Lord and give thanks to Him. A good land, and a forgiving Lord!'"

The name of the sūra occurs in this verse, in a single word: li-Sabaʾ. And in the whole of the sūra the people are never named again.

سَبَإ — the name of a community that lived in southern Arabia, in the region of present-day Yemen. It occurs in two places in the Qurʾān: here and in Sūrat al-Naml (27/22). It is recorded that the word is transmitted both as the name of a person and as the name of a tribe; I issue no settled ruling.

There is a variant reading in the inflection of the word, and it must be recorded:

Both readings are transmitted and the sense does not change; I do not impose a preference.

"Two gardens, one on the right and one on the left."

How the description is built is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the verse does not describe the size of the gardens, their produce, or their system of irrigation. The only thing it describes is position: on the right and on the left.

This is a description that puts a human being at its centre. Right and left are fixed with respect to where an observer stands. The gardens, that is, are named as they appear to the person standing among them — and cultivated land stretching along the two slopes of a valley looks just so.

And the word āya comes in the singular: āyatun — a sign. There are two gardens, but the sign is one. That is, what is counted is not the gardens but the scene the gardens make.

Two commands: kulū (eat) and wa'shkurū (give thanks).

To whom the command is spoken is not stated in the verse — the wording is transmitted directly. And what is worth recording is that the first command is not a prohibition but a permission: kulū min rizqi rabbikum. That is, thanks is asked for not as abandoning the favour but as using it while keeping it attached to its source.

This should be read together with the command in the thirteenth verse: there it was iʿmalū … shukrā (work, thanks). Both commands tie thanks to an act: one to producing, the other to eating.

The sentence consists of two noun phrases and has no verb. In Arabic such sentences convey a fixed state.

And the setting of the two elements side by side must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the joining of the two phrases with a wāw: the verse sets the two conditions of prosperity side by side — a good place and a forgiving Lord. The soil is not named on its own; and the attribute that belongs to the relationship is forgiveness.

ط-ي-ب — the sense of the root: to be pleasant, clean, good. Ṭayyib is used of what is good both in taste and in quality. The root was treated at Fāṭir 35/10 (al-kalimu'ṭ-ṭayyib — the good word); I rely on that treatment. Here the same attribute is given to a land.

And how the next verse will undo this picture must be recorded: in the sixteenth verse the gardens will change, but the name of the land will never be mentioned again.

Fa-aʿraḍū fa-arsalnā ʿalayhim sayla'l-ʿarim, wa baddalnāhum bi-jannatayhim jannatayni dhawātay ukulin khamṭin wa athlin wa shayʾin min sidrin qalīl · Dhālika jazaynāhum bimā kafarū, wa hal nujāzī illa'l-kafūr

"But they turned away. So We sent upon them the flood of the ʿArim, and We exchanged their two gardens for two gardens bearing bitter fruit, tamarisk, and a little of the lote tree. Thus We recompensed them for their ingratitude. Do We recompense any but the ungrateful?"

The verse overturns the whole picture of the fifteenth verse with a single verb: fa-aʿraḍū.

ع-ر-ض — the concrete sense of the root: to turn one's breadth towards something, to turn sideways. ʿArḍ — breadth, width. So iʿrāḍ is not exactly to turn the face away — it is to turn side on: to show the other not your face but your flank.

This picture is worth recording, and I give it as an observation about the language: the verb describes not a refusal but an indifference. Not opposing, but turning and not looking.

And two fāʾ particles come one after the other: fa-aʿraḍū fa-arsalnā. In Arabic fāʾ conveys following immediately. That is, no interval is left between the two clauses: they turned away, We sent.

The lexicographers differ over the sense of this construction, and the disagreement must be set out in a table:

The fourth view is transmitted in some sources; I issue no ruling on its soundness. The first three are more widespread. I do not impose a preference.

I make no firm claim about the historical background, and I record this plainly. That there was a great dam in southern Arabia and that it collapsed at one period is transmitted; on this matter both the classical sources and later research name different dates and different phases of collapse. The verse gives no date and gives no name of a dam. What the text gives is the event itself and its outcome; beyond that I do not step outside the language of "it is transmitted".

And the verb arsalnā must be recorded: "We sent". The same verb is used in the sūra for sending a prophet as well (28, 34, 44). That is, the verb "to send" occurs in the sūra both for a warner and for a flood. I record this as an observation about the language.

The build of the sentence is extremely regular, and this regularity must be recorded:

The most striking point is that the name does not change. The verse does not say "We turned their gardens into desert". It says "two gardens" again — but puts three things inside them: bitter fruit, tamarisk, and a little lote.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the repetition of the word jannatayn: the punishment is described not as the taking away of what was owned but as the emptying out of the thing that keeps its name. The garden is still a garden; there is nothing left in it to eat.

أُكُلٍ خَمْطٍ — ukul: fruit, produce. Khamṭ — the sense the lexicographers give: bitter, sour fruit that has lost its taste; some mean by it a particular thorny tree. Both explanations are transmitted.

أَثْل — the tamarisk. It grows in the desert, it gives shade, its wood is used; but its fruit is not eaten.

سِدْر — the lote or jujube tree (sidr). Its fruit is eaten, but there is little of it. And the word is qualified by the adjective qalīl (little).

The order of the three is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: fruit that has become inedible → a tree never eaten from → a tree eaten from a little. The list moves from the useless to the barely useful, and stops there. So the picture is not total ruin — it is insufficiency.

And the word qalīl must be recorded: in the thirteenth verse it was said wa qalīlun min ʿibādiya'sh-shakūr. The same word comes three verses later for the lote trees that remain.

I record this overlap as my own reading; its support is that the same word occurs twice, three verses apart: the fewness of thanks and the smallness of what provision remains are named with the same adjective.

"Do We recompense any but the ungrateful?"

The sentence is an istifhām inkārī (a question that expects no answer and states a negation): "We do not."

And the change of verb must be recorded:

The same root, two different forms — and the lexicographers record the difference. Form III (mufāʿala) conveys reciprocity: mujāzāt is to give a return equal to the deed done.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the first clause narrates the event (We recompensed them), the second lays down the rule (an equal return is given only to the ungrateful). The change of word marks the passage from event to rule.

ٱلْكَفُور — an intensive form: utterly ungrateful. The exact opposite of ash-shakūr in the thirteenth verse, on the same pattern. The two words stand facing one another four verses apart.

And a note on how the word is rendered: the root ك-ف-ر here means "ingratitude" as much as "denial". The concrete sense of the root is to cover; ingratitude is covering over a favour. And the context supports this: what is enumerated before the clause is favours.

Wa jaʿalnā baynahum wa bayna'l-qura'llatī bāraknā fīhā quran ẓāhiratan wa qaddarnā fīha's-sayr, sīrū fīhā layāliya wa ayyāman āminīn · Fa-qālū rabbanā bāʿid bayna asfārinā wa ẓalamū anfusahum fa-jaʿalnāhum aḥādītha wa mazzaqnāhum kulla mumazzaq, inna fī dhālika la-āyātin li-kulli ṣabbārin shakūr

"Between them and the towns We had blessed We set towns within sight of one another, and We measured out the journeying between them: 'Travel through them by night and by day in safety.' But they said: 'Our Lord! Set our journeys far apart!' And so they wronged themselves. We turned them into tales and tore them utterly to pieces. In that there are signs for everyone who endures much and gives thanks much."

The construction describes an order of roads. Ẓāhira — root ظ-ه-ر: to appear, to be in the open, the back.

Two senses given by the lexicographers are transmitted:

The two readings do not exclude one another; I do not impose a preference.

And what is described is a concrete provision: a route with settlements to halt at along the way. That is, the road is described stripped of the risks of a desert crossing.

وَقَدَّرْنَا فِيهَا ٱلسَّيْرَ — "We measured out the journeying". The root ق-د-ر occurred in the eleventh verse in the command given to David (qaddir fi's-sard). The same root, the same form (Form II), for two different works:

The same root in three places. I record this as my own reading, and its support is the three uses of the root in the sūra: the sūra repeats the idea of "measure" in a craft, in a geography and in a distribution of provision. And in all three the measure is named as a part of the thing given.

سِيرُوا۟ فِيهَا لَيَالِىَ وَأَيَّامًا ءَامِنِينَ — "travel through them by night and by day in safety."

The order is worth recording: layāliya wa ayyāmā — nights first, then days. I record this as an observation: the dangerous time on a journey is the night. The verse speaks of safety beginning there.

ءَامِنِين — root أ-م-ن: fearlessness, security. And the word comes as a ḥāl, a circumstantial accusative: travel — while in safety. That is, safety is described not as a promise but as a condition already in hand.

The clause comes in the form of a prayer, and this must be recorded: rabbanā — "Our Lord!"

That is, what the verse describes is not a sentence of rebellion but a sentence of request. And what is requested is distance.

ب-ع-د — the sense of the root is remoteness. Bāʿid — an imperative of Form III: "open up the space between them, set them far apart."

And the ground of the request is not stated in the verse. It is widely transmitted that in the classical commentaries this request is explained as a weariness brought on by prosperity or as comfort become ordinary. Since the verse gives no ground, I do not settle on one either.

But something can be said about the structure of the sentence, and I record this as my own reading; its support is the preceding verse: what the eighteenth verse describes is that the journey had been made easy — the towns close together, the distances measured, the nights safe. What is asked for in the nineteenth verse is precisely the lifting of all that. The request, that is, is not for a lack to be made good but for an ease already given to be taken back.

And this is the exact opposite of the sūra's axis of thanks: in the fifteenth verse it was said "eat and give thanks". The sentence that comes in the nineteenth verse expresses discomfort at the gift itself.

And now the journey of this word through the sūra must be recorded, because the same root occurs in four separate places:

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the four occurrences of the root: the sūra has a people who ask for distance (19), and at the end a company trying to reach across a distance (52-53). The distance that was asked for comes back as the distance that cannot be closed.

This is one of the most striking sentences in the sūra.

أَحَادِيث — the plural of ḥadīth; root ح-د-ث. The root was analysed in detail at al-Ḍuḥā 93/11 (wa ammā bi-niʿmati rabbika fa-ḥaddith). What was recorded there holds here, and its summary is this: the primary sense of the root is "to be new, to come into being afterwards"; ḥādith what comes to be later, ḥadath an event, ḥadīth both what is new and a saying or a piece of news. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the sense carried by the plural of the word. Aḥādīth in Arabic means things that are told over and over — and in this context it means "a narrative, a story, a cautionary tale, a report that circulates on people's tongues".

And the build of the clause is this: jaʿalnāhum aḥādītha — "We made them ḥadīths". That is, a community is turned into narrative.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the root's principal sense as analysed in al-Ḍuḥā: at the core of the root lies being new. A people's turning into "ḥadīth" is its losing its real existence and becoming something reconstructed at every telling. What was concrete is gone; what remains lives in words.

And the character of the punishment changes here: in the sixteenth verse their gardens were exchanged — that is a material loss. Here the people themselves disappear and what is left is "a thing that is told".

What this word says to the present is worth recording: the measure of a community is, in the end, what is told about it. The verse names this as a punishment — that is, being spoken about is not the same thing as standing.

And here the overlap set up with the seventh verse is completed.

The construction is word for word the same and was tabulated above in the treatment of 34/7-8; I recall it briefly:

The same construction twelve verses apart. Those who disbelieved chose this word to make the resurrection look ridiculous; the sūra uses the same word for an event that happened in history.

That is, the tearing apart is set down not as a remote supposition but as a result that came about. This is one of the strongest textual data in the sūra, and it is easy to verify: in both verses, kulla mumazzaq.

And I make no firm claim about the historical counterpart of the dispersal. That this community of southern Arabia scattered to different regions at one period is transmitted; the verse does not enumerate the directions or the branches of the dispersal.

The verse ends with the backbone word of the sūra.

Two intensive forms side by side. And that the two attributes are named together is worth recording.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the story itself: in the story of Sabaʾ there are two states — abundance (15) and want (16). The answer to abundance is thanks, the answer to want is endurance. The verse describes the one who is to take the lesson as the one who stands rightly in both states.

That is, the pair of attributes corresponds exactly to the two phases of the story.

And the number of the word āya changes: in the fifteenth verse it was āyatun (singular), here āyātin (plural). The gardens were one sign; what befell them is many signs. I record this as an observation.

Wa laqad ṣaddaqa ʿalayhim Iblīsu ẓannahū fa'ttabaʿūhu illā farīqan mina'l-muʾminīn · Wa mā kāna lahū ʿalayhim min sulṭānin illā li-naʿlama man yuʾminu bi'l-ākhirati mimman huwa minhā fī shakk, wa rabbuka ʿalā kulli shayʾin ḥafīẓ

"Iblīs proved his surmise about them true; all of them followed him but a group of the believers. Yet he had no compelling power over them. We did so only that We might tell apart the one who believes in the hereafter from the one who is in doubt of it. Your Lord watches over everything."

The build of the sentence is unusual and deserves separate attention.

The expected wording would have been: "Iblīs led them astray." The sentence the verse builds is this: ṣaddaqa … ẓannahū — "he proved his surmise true".

ص-د-ق — root: to be true, for speech to correspond to fact. Form II (ṣaddaqa): to confirm, to prove true.

ظ-ن-ن — root: an opinion that is not certain, a supposition. Ẓann in Arabic lies somewhere between knowledge (ʿilm) and doubt (shakk): the outweighing probability.

The bringing together of the two words must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: what Iblīs had in hand was not knowledge but a supposition. He had made a prediction. And the verse says that the prediction came true — but in naming who made it come true it does not say that the agent was Iblīs; it says that they followed: fa'ttabaʿūh.

That is, the sentence leaves the responsibility not with the one who made the guess but with those who confirmed it.

One more note: the particle ʿalayhim — "against them". The coming true of the surmise is named as an outcome that tells against them.

And the sentence that follows immediately leaves no door open to misunderstanding: wa mā kāna lahū ʿalayhim min sulṭān.

سُلْطَٰن — root س-ل-ط: to prevail, to rule. The word is used both for "proof" and for "compelling power". Here the context indicates the second.

The balance that emerges when the two verses are set side by side is this:

I record this as my own reading, and its support is that the second verse follows immediately on the first: had the first verse been read alone, it could have been understood as an outside power being decisive. The second verse closes that possibility off. And this is a structure recorded in several places in the series: the same sentence was framed at al-Ṣāffāt 37/30 as well — wa mā kāna lanā ʿalaykum min sulṭān — where the speakers were the very party who had been followed.

The same sentence from two mouths. What is said in al-Ṣāffāt as a defence is given in Sabaʾ as a statement of fact. This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.

The lexicographers dwell on this part of the sentence, because the expression li-naʿlama ("that We may know") suggests at first sight a lack of knowledge.

The answers given in the classical period fall under two headings, and I set them out in a table:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not enter the theological debate and I do not impose a preference.

What the wording of the verse itself says is that the distinction is between two groups:

How the contrast is built must be recorded: the other side is not called "the one who disbelieves" — it is called "the one in doubt".

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the choice of word: the distinction is drawn not between faith and denial but between faith and hesitation. The measure, that is, is not holding a contrary belief; it is the absence of certainty.

And the word shakk will return in the last verse of the sūra: innahum kānū fī shakkin murīb (54). The state the sūra names in the twenty-first verse it makes its closing ruling in the fifty-fourth. This is a link that can be verified within the sūra.

حَفِيظ — root ح-ف-ظ: to guard, to watch over, to let nothing slip. The root was treated at al-Maʿārij 70/29 and 70/34; I rely on that treatment. The block closes with a name meaning "the watcher over all things" — and it arrives at the same place as the clause lā yaʿzubu ʿanhu (nothing stays far from Him) in the third verse.

Quli'dʿu'lladhīna zaʿamtum min dūni'llāh, lā yamlikūna mithqāla dharratin fi's-samāwāti wa lā fi'l-arḍi wa mā lahum fīhimā min shirkin wa mā lahū minhum min ẓahīr

"Say: 'Call upon those you have alleged besides God! They do not own so much as the weight of a speck in the heavens or in the earth; they have no share in the two; and He has no supporter among them.'"

The root ز-ع-م was analysed in detail at al-Taghābun 64/7 and at al-Jumuʿa 62/6 (a claim without proof, for which the claimant takes on no responsibility; and the zaʿīm branch — the guarantor — was treated at al-Qalam 68/40). I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the place of the word in the sentence. The verse does not name the beings called upon — it names them by way of the addressee's claim about them: alladhīna zaʿamtum. That is, what is mentioned is not the name of the object but the words the addressee says about that object.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is that the name is never given at all: the dispute is conducted not over what the beings are but over what the claim made about them rests on. This agrees exactly with the zaʿm pattern treated at al-Jumuʿa.

The verse closes off in turn every possibility of a claim to partnership:

Three stages, three different kinds of relation: to own, to share, to help.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the sequence itself: the verse begins with the strongest claim and descends to the weakest. That is, every intermediate step at which an objection might be lodged is closed off by the text itself. At Fāṭir 35/13-14 the same three-stage closing structure was treated (they do not hear / if they heard they could not answer / in the end they will reject); I rely on that treatment.

ظَهِير — root ظ-ه-ر: the back. Ẓahīr — one who backs you, the one you lean your back on. The picture in the word is bodily: help is described as support from behind.

And the same root occurred in the eighteenth verse: quran ẓāhira — towns in view. The same root in two different branches: to be visible, and to give backing. I record this as an observation about the language.

The construction occurred in the third verse. Here it comes a second time, and this repetition is one of the most regular weaves in the sūra:

The same measure, two different claims: one of knowledge, the other of ownership. And both clauses are built with a negation: lā yaʿzubu / lā yamlikūna.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the unit of measure the two clauses share: the sūra weighs the two sides in the same balance. On one side a knowledge from which not even a speck falls outside; on the other a powerlessness that does not own even a speck. The balance is the same; the pans are opposite.

Wa lā tanfaʿu'sh-shafāʿatu ʿindahū illā li-man adhina lah, ḥattā idhā fuzziʿa ʿan qulūbihim qālū mādhā qāla rabbukum, qālu'l-ḥaqq, wa huwa'l-ʿaliyyu'l-kabīr

"With Him no intercession avails except from the one He has permitted. At last, when the terror is lifted from their hearts, they say: 'What did your Lord say?' 'The truth', they say. He is the high, the great."

The question of intercession has been treated in two places in the series, and I rely on those treatments:

• al-Baqara 2/255: man dha'lladhī yashfaʿu ʿindahū illā bi-idhnih — the door is not shut, it is tied to permission. And the picture that emerges when it is read together with 2/47-48 was recorded there: there is no intercession that can be counted on of itself, as a right.
• al-Zumar 39/43-44: qul lillāhi'sh-shafāʿatu jamīʿā — intercession is not denied; its owner is named.

I do not repeat this. I record the difference that belongs here.

What Sabaʾ adds lies in the verb, and I record this as my own reading; its support is the choice of word: the verse does not say "there is no intercession", it says "it does not avail" (lā tanfaʿu). That is, the speaking of the word and the word's taking effect are separated. The permission stands as a condition set not on the existence of the intercession but on its outcome.

ف-ز-ع — the sense of the root: sudden fear, being seized with terror, starting in alarm. Fazaʿ — a start of fright.

And the pattern is striking: fuzziʿa — the passive of Form II. It is recorded that Form II here conveys izāla (removal): in Arabic some verbs, when they enter Form II, reverse their sense — like jallada (he stripped off the hide), marraḍa (he took the illness away). That is, fuzziʿa ʿan qulūbihim means not "terror was cast into their hearts" but "terror was removed from their hearts".

And the particle confirms this: fuzziʿa ʿan qulūbihim — "from their hearts". The particle ʿan conveys moving away.

There is a variant reading, and it must be recorded:

Different readings are transmitted; between the first two there is no difference in sense, the third changes the direction. I do not impose a preference.

The verse transmits a conversation, and who is speaking is not said.

It is widely transmitted that in the classical commentaries this scene takes place among the angels. Since the verse names no one, I too identify no party; what is to be recorded is the structure of the scene.

And that the answer is a single word is worth recording: al-ḥaqq.

I give this as my own reading; its support is the length of the answer: the question asks for a content ("what did He say?"), the answer gives no content — it gives a quality: "the truth". That is, what is announced is not what was said but what kind of thing it was.

And this ties back to the preceding clause: after it has been said that intercession depends on permission, it is recorded that the word coming from the authority that permits is truth. The sentence says, that is, that the permission is not arbitrary.

ٱلْعَلِىُّ ٱلْكَبِير — two names: high and great. ʿAliyy (ع-ل-و) conveys height, kabīr (ك-ب-ر) greatness. And both are names of scale, not of distance: what the scene describes is not a remoteness but a standing before greatness.

Qul man yarzuqukum mina's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ, quli'llāh, wa innā aw iyyākum la-ʿalā hudan aw fī ḍalālin mubīn

"Say: 'Who provides for you from the heavens and the earth?' Say: 'God. And surely either we or you are upon guidance or in plain error.'"

There are two commands in the verse, and both are qul: "say".

That is, the answer to the question is given by the one who asks it.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence does not wait for an answer from the other side. And this shows that the answer was not in dispute — the addressees already accepted God as creator; this was treated at al-Zumar 39/3 (the dispute is not over existence but over intermediaries). I rely on that treatment.

And the same question was asked at Fāṭir 35/3: hal min khāliqin ghayru'llāhi yarzuqukum mina's-samāʾi wa'l-arḍ. The two verses use the same verb with the same two domains.

The difference is worth recording: Fāṭir leaves the question to the addressee himself; Sabaʾ has the answer spoken too. And in Sabaʾ the sentence that comes immediately after the answer sets out the real matter.

This sentence is one of the most striking points of word order in the sūra and deserves detailed treatment.

What the sentence says is: "either we or you — either upon guidance or in plain error."

The expected sentence would have been: "we are upon guidance, you are in error." It is the addressee's position that is in dispute, and it is plain from the whole text that the speaker is certain of his own position. But the sentence is not built that way.

The wording does three things, and I record all three separately:

One — the subjects are not separated. Innā aw iyyākum — "we or you". The two parties have been made the subject of a single sentence. Which is which, the sentence does not say.

Two — the attributes are not distributed to the parties. La-ʿalā hudan aw fī ḍalālin mubīn — "upon guidance or in plain error". The two qualities stand in the open; which belongs to whom is not stated.

Three — even the particles differ. A striking detail: ʿalā (upon) is used for guidance, fī (in) for error.

This difference of particle is consistent in the Qurʾān, and the lexicographers record it. I give this as my own reading: guidance is described like a ground — one stands upon it, one sees around. Error is described like a volume — one goes into it, and nothing around is visible.

Now I return to the sentence as a whole, and I record this reading as my own reading. I give its support plainly too: no word in the sentence carries the name of a party; the particle aw (or) occurs twice, and both times it leaves the division open.

What the sentence does is to set the addressee before a possibility rather than before a verdict.

And it is worth dwelling on why this is effective:

The first sentence announces a verdict and drives the addressee to defend himself. The second announces a possibility and invites the addressee to investigate which possibility is the true one.

And note: the sentence does not build a relativism (both sides are right). The verse itself prevents this, because the two states are not presented as equal: one is hudā, the other ḍalālin mubīn — plain error. That one of the two is wrong stands inside the sentence. The only thing left unstated is which is which.

I record this separately, because the distinction matters: the sentence does not doubt that there is a truth. It only leaves the verdict to the addressee's own reasoning.

And this attitude continues in the sūra: in the forty-sixth verse the command thumma tatafakkarū (then reflect) will come. The two verses set up the same method: opening a space for thought instead of imposing a verdict. I record this as a line that can be verified within the sūra.

What this says to the present is concrete: the difference between saying to the other party in a dispute "you are wrong" and saying "one of the two of us is wrong" is that the second sentence puts the speaker at risk as well. And that is very often what makes a claim worth taking seriously: the claimant's placing himself inside the dispute too.

Qul lā tusʾalūna ʿammā ajramnā wa lā nusʾalu ʿammā taʿmalūn · Qul yajmaʿu baynanā rabbunā thumma yaftaḥu baynanā bi'l-ḥaqq, wa huwa'l-fattāḥu'l-ʿalīm

"Say: 'You will not be questioned about the crime we have committed, nor shall we be questioned about what you do.' Say: 'Our Lord will gather us together, then He will open judgement between us with the truth. He is the best of judges, the all-knowing.'"

The twenty-fifth verse continues the attitude of the twenty-fourth and is built with the same care:

And here lies the most striking detail of the sentence: the two halves are symmetrical, but the words are not.

For his own side the heavy word is chosen: ajramnā — root ج-ر-م: to commit a crime. For the other side the light word is chosen: taʿmalūn — root ع-م-ل: to do, to work (neutral).

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the semantic weight of the two roots: while saying that responsibility is separate, the sentence assigns the heavy word to itself and the neutral word to the other side. That is, even while the separation is being drawn, the other side is not accused.

And this continues the preceding verse: in the twenty-fourth verse the verdict was suspended; in the twenty-fifth the language of accusation is abandoned. The two verses are two steps of the same discipline.

And as a principle what it says overlaps with the principle of burden treated at Fāṭir 35/18 (lā taziru wāziratun wizra ukhrā) — there it was recorded that the principle is tested in its hardest form. I rely on that treatment. The difference here is this: in Fāṭir the principle was laid down as a ruling; in Sabaʾ it is used as a sentence within a dispute. The principle, that is, has been turned into a rule of conduct governing the relation with the other side.

The root ف-ت-ح was analysed in detail at al-Fatḥ on the occasion of that sūra's name (to open what is closed; fattāḥ, miftāḥ). I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the root's sense of giving judgement, and it must be recorded. In Arabic fataḥa bayna'l-khaṣmayn means "he gave judgement between two adversaries". It is transmitted by the lexicographers that in the Yemeni dialect a judge is called fātiḥ.

And the relation of the senses is worth recording: to give judgement is to open a matter that was closed. A dispute is a knot; judgement is the untying of the knot.

I give this as an observation about the language, and the word order of the verse supports it: yajmaʿu baynanā (He gathers us) → yaftaḥu baynanā (He opens between us). First a bringing together, then a parting. Both verbs come with baynanā (between us).

ٱلْفَتَّاح — an intensive form: the one who opens much, who gives judgement. In the Qurʾān this name occurs only here. And al-ʿalīm has been set beside it: the one who judges, who knows. That is, the ground of the judgement is given in the same sentence.

At al-Zumar 39/46 (anta taḥkumu bayna ʿibādika fī mā kānū fīhi yakhtalifūn) the same structure was treated: the disagreement is named as a matter and its judgement is reckoned deferred. I rely on that treatment. Sabaʾ has the same thing said from the mouth of one of the parties to the disagreement.

Qul arūniya'lladhīna alḥaqtum bihī shurakāʾ, kallā, bal huwa'llāhu'l-ʿazīzu'l-ḥakīm

"Say: 'Show me those you have attached to Him as partners!' No! Rather He is God, the mighty, the wise."

ل-ح-ق — the concrete sense of the root: to catch up from behind, to join, to be appended. Laḥiqa — he caught up, he came alongside. Form IV (alḥaqa): to append, to attach, to add one thing on to another.

The Turkish words ilhak (annexation) and lahika (an appendix) are borrowed from this root.

The choice of the verb must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading; its support is the picture in the root: the verse does not say "those you associated" (ashraktum) — it says "those you attached", "those you tacked on". That is, the partnership is named not as a relation that actually exists but as an appending done after the fact.

And the agent of the verb is the one addressed: alḥaqtum — you appended. The act is recorded as the party's own doing.

أَرُونِى — "show me". The demand is not for a proof but for a pointing out. It belongs to the same family as the pattern hātū burhānakum (bring your proof) treated at al-Baqara 2/111; I rely on that treatment. The difference is this: there what was asked for was a demonstration, here what is asked for is something that can be pointed at. The demand has been brought down to its most concrete form.

كَلَّا — in Arabic the particle that rejects a claim outright. The word was treated at al-Maʿārij 70/15 and 70/39 — there it was recorded as the cutting off of two expectations. I do not repeat it here.

And the close of the sentence must be recorded: bal huwa'llāhu'l-ʿazīzu'l-ḥakīm. The demand goes unanswered — because there is nothing to point at — and the empty place is filled with two names.

Wa mā arsalnāka illā kāffatan li'n-nāsi bashīran wa nadhīrā, wa lākinna akthara'n-nāsi lā yaʿlamūn

"We have sent you only to all mankind, as a bearer of good news and a warner. But most people do not know."

The root ك-ف-ف and the word kāffatan were treated at al-Baqara 2/208 (udkhulū fi's-silmi kāffa). What was recorded there holds here, and its summary is this: the word is connected with kaff (the palm of the hand, gathering in and holding the edge of a thing) — "leaving no piece out at the edge". I do not repeat it here.

And in al-Baqara two readings were transmitted: the whole of those entering (let everyone enter) or the whole of what is entered (let it be entered wholly). Here too there is a similar disagreement about the inflection:

The first reading is more widespread. Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

There is a difficulty in the inflection of the word, and the lexicographers record it: the word kāffatan comes before li'n-nās. Had it been an adjective of nās, in Arabic the adjective would be expected to follow the noun it qualifies. For this reason some lexicographers have preferred the second reading. I transmit this as a dispute about inflection; I frame no ruling.

But the place both readings arrive at is the same, and I record this as my own reading: whether it be "to all people" or "as one who encompasses", the work of the sentence is to lift a limit. Wa mā arsalnāka illā — the pattern of negation plus exception does not narrow the scope; it removes the possibility of narrowing.

The relation of the root ب-ش-ر with the skin is recorded by the lexicographers: bashara is the outer surface of the skin; good news is named from this root because its effect is seen in the face.

And the order of the two attributes is worth recording: good news first, then warning. This order is kept in the sūra: in the fifteenth verse Sabaʾ was first given a favour, and only afterwards did the warning come to pass.

And the word nadhīr occurs four times in the sūra:

Four occurrences, in four separate places in the sūra. And the series builds a frame: scope (28) → history (34) → the situation of this community (44) → the attribute repeated (46).

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the sentence in the forty-fourth verse: wa mā arsalnā ilayhim qablaka min nadhīr — "We sent them no warner before you." In the twenty-eighth verse the scope is declared universal; in the forty-fourth it is said that this community had not been warned before. Read together, the two verses show why the attribute is given on the scale of "all mankind".

وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ — and the verse closes with a lack of knowledge. The same sentence will be repeated word for word in the thirty-sixth verse. It is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and I shall tabulate it at the end.

Wa yaqūlūna matā hādha'l-waʿdu in kuntum ṣādiqīn · Qul lakum mīʿādu yawmin lā tastaʾkhirūna ʿanhu sāʿatan wa lā tastaqdimūn

"They say: 'When is this promise, if you are telling the truth?' Say: 'You have an appointed day; you can neither put it back by an hour nor bring it forward.'"

The question looks like a request for information, but it comes with a condition: in kuntum ṣādiqīn — "if you are telling the truth".

This condition changes the character of the question, and I record it as an observation: the sentence asks "when?" without waiting for an answer; it asks on the assumption that no answer can be given. The question, that is, is framed not to learn a date but to show that no date can be given.

And note: the question is put in the plural — in kuntum (you), ṣādiqīn (plural). Not to the Prophet alone, but to those who believe along with him.

And the answer does not give the date — but it does not brush the question aside either. What it gives is a certainty.

Both verbs are of Form X (istifʿāl), and this form conveys seeking. That is, the sentence does not say "you will not fall behind it / you will not get ahead of it", but exactly: "you cannot ask for or manage to fall behind or get ahead".

I record this as an observation about the language: the choice of form sets the impossibility down not as an incapacity but as a request that goes unanswered.

مِيعَاد — root و-ع-د: to promise. Mīʿād — on the mifʿāl pattern: the time or place appointed. The word is from the same root as "promise" (waʿd) but points to the time.

And the word order of the sentence is worth recording: the question said hādha'l-waʿd (this promise); the answer says mīʿādu yawmin (the appointed time of a day). That is, the question was asked with the word "promise", and the answer given with the derivative of the same root that states a time.

سَاعَة — "an hour". And the word's first occurrence in the sūra must be recorded: in the third verse it was as-sāʿa (the Hour). Here the same word comes in the sense of a small span of time.

The same word on two scales. I record this as my own reading, and its support is that the two occurrences turn on the same subject: the sāʿa whose coming was denied in the third verse is announced in the thirtieth as something that will not shift by so much as a sāʿa. The word has turned from the subject of the objection into the measure of the answer.

The block closes here. And its closing clause is an announcement of a time — this lies on the same line as the deferral treated at Fāṭir 35/45 (yuʾakhkhiruhum ilā ajalin musammā); I rely on that treatment.

Wa qāla'lladhīna kafarū lan nuʾmina bi-hādha'l-qurʾāni wa lā bi'lladhī bayna yadayh, wa law tarā idhi'ẓ-ẓālimūna mawqūfūna ʿinda rabbihim yarjiʿu baʿḍuhum ilā baʿḍini'l-qawl, yaqūlu'lladhīna'stuḍʿifū li'lladhīna'stakbarū law lā antum la-kunnā muʾminīn

"Those who disbelieved said: 'We will not believe in this Qurʾān, nor in what came before it.' If you could but see the wrongdoers halted before their Lord, sending speech back and forth between them! Those who were made weak will say to those who were arrogant: 'But for you, we would surely have been believers.'"

The denial is directed at two things at once: bi-hādha'l-qurʾān and bi'lladhī bayna yadayh.

At Fāṭir 35/31 the expression muṣaddiqan limā bayna yadayh (confirming what is before it) was treated, and there al-Aḥqāf 46/12 and 46/30 were relied on: the attachment to a chain. I rely on that treatment.

The difference that belongs here must be recorded: in Fāṭir the expression was in a context of acceptance (the Book confirms what came before it); here the same expression comes in a context of rejection. That is, those who reject build their rejection too along the same chain: both at once.

I record this as an observation: the objection is not presented as an objection raised against a new text. What is rejected is a whole chain.

لَن — the particle that negates the future outright: "we will never believe." The same particle was treated at al-Taghābun 64/7 (there an lan yubʿathū). In both verses lan carries a claim of certainty issuing from the other side's own mouth.

And in mid-sentence the direction changes: wa law tarā — "if you could but see!"

لَوْ here is the use that conveys a wish or astonishment, and its apodosis is not stated. In Arabic this structure (law plus the suppression of the apodosis) conveys indescribability: "if you saw — [what you would see cannot be told]."

مَوْقُوفُون — root و-ق-ف: to stand, to be halted. The passive participle: halted. The word carries the sense that they are not waiting of their own will.

يَرْجِعُ بَعْضُهُمْ إِلَىٰ بَعْضٍ ٱلْقَوْلَ — "they send speech back and forth to one another."

The construction is striking: yarjiʿu … al-qawl — to send back speech. Not conversation, that is, but mutual return. The word goes from one side to the other and back.

I record this as an observation about the language: the verb is not takallum (to speak) or taḥāwur (to converse) — it is irjāʿ (to send back). The scene is drawn not as a conversation but as a ball being sent to and fro.

Both words are of the same form, but their voices differ — and this difference must be recorded.

I give this as my own reading; its support is the voice of the two verbs: weakness is named as something that came upon them (passive: they were made weak), while arrogance is named as their own doing (active: they made themselves great). That is, the text sets a distinction already at the stage of naming.

But note: the verse had opened by naming both groups together as aẓ-ẓālimūn (the wrongdoers). The difference of voice, that is, grants no exemption; it only records how the positions came about.

لَوْلَآ أَنتُمْ لَكُنَّا مُؤْمِنِينَ — "but for you, we would have been believers."

The sentence is on the pattern law lā (imtināʿ, prevention): one thing's failing to come about because of the existence of another. That is, the fault is tied not to their own choice but to the existence of the other party.

At al-Zumar 39/57 the same line was treated: law anna'llāha hadānī la-kuntu mina'l-muttaqīn — there responsibility was passed on to God, here to a human being. The two excuses have the same structure: an unfulfilled condition and a responsibility handed over.

This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.

Qāla'lladhīna'stakbarū li'lladhīna'stuḍʿifū a-naḥnu ṣadadnākum ʿani'l-hudā baʿda idh jāʾakum bal kuntum mujrimīn · Wa qāla'lladhīna'stuḍʿifū li'lladhīna'stakbarū bal makru'l-layli wa'n-nahāri idh taʾmurūnanā an nakfura bi'llāhi wa najʿala lahū andādā, wa asarru'n-nadāmata lammā raʾawu'l-ʿadhāb, wa jaʿalna'l-aghlāla fī aʿnāqi'lladhīna kafarū, hal yujzawna illā mā kānū yaʿmalūn

"Those who were arrogant will say to those who were made weak: 'Was it we who turned you from the guidance after it came to you? No, you were guilty yourselves.' And those who were made weak will say: 'No! It was the scheming of night and day, when you kept ordering us to disbelieve in God and to set up rivals to Him.' When they see the punishment they will keep their regret inside. We will put iron collars on the necks of those who disbelieved. Are they recompensed with anything but what they used to do?"

And two bals (no!) come one after the other: in 32 from the arrogant, in 33 from the weak. That is, each side rejects the other's sentence.

Two counterparts of this scene were treated in detail in the series, and the comparison must be set out in a table:

• Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/47-50 — yataḥājjūna fi'n-nār: the three-stage chain (the weak → the arrogant → the keepers) was tabulated there.
• al-Ṣāffāt 37/27-33 — yatasāʾalūn: the reckoning between the two parties, and the comparison with Ghāfir was made there.

I rely on those treatments; I do not repeat those tables. Here I set down what is different in Sabaʾ:

The clearest difference is in the last row, and it is peculiar to Sabaʾ: in Ghāfir the dispute goes on with an appeal, in al-Ṣāffāt with a reckoning. In Sabaʾ the dispute ends in a silence: wa asarru'n-nadāmata lammā raʾawu'l-ʿadhāb.

And the choice of verb must be recorded. I give this as my own reading; its support is the verse's own word: asarrū — they kept it within, they hid it. That is, the regret is felt but not spoken. The scene opens with mutual accusation and closes in silence.

أ-س-ر — the sense of the root: to hide, to keep inside. Sirr — what is hidden. And the lexicographers also transmit that the word is used in the opposite sense (to make known); some exegetes have preferred this second sense here.

The first reading is more widespread. Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

The construction is striking in Arabic: "the scheming of the night and of the day".

On the face of it the construction ascribes the scheming to the night and to the day. The lexicographers explain it thus: the construction states time — "the scheming [you carried on] night and day". That is, night and day are the name not of the agent but of the duration of the act.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the continuation of the sentence: idh taʾmurūnanā — "when you kept ordering us". The agent is stated plainly immediately afterwards. So the schemer is not the night but the other party; night and day announce the unceasingness of the work.

And the picture in the construction is worth recording: the persuading is named not as a single event but as a process that fills all the hours. The other party speaks not of a conversation but of a siege.

The root م-ك-ر was treated at Fāṭir 35/43 (wa lā yaḥīqu'l-makru's-sayyiʾu illā bi-ahlih) and at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/45. I do not repeat it here.

أَندَاد — the plural of nidd; root ن-د-د: equal, match, like. The lexicographers record that the word conveys in particular an opposing or rival equality: not merely a like, but at the same time one who sets himself against.

غ-ل-ل — root: an iron ring put on the neck or on the captured hand; and to be thrust in between things. The root was treated at Yāsīn 36/8 (innā jaʿalnā fī aʿnāqihim aghlālan) and at al-Ḥāqqa 69/30 and in al-Insān. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the place of the clause in the scene, and I give this as an observation about the word order: the verse says that collars are put on the necks after it has described the mutual accusation and the hidden regret. The sequence, that is, is: speech → silence → binding. After the dispute ends, movement ends too.

هَلْ يُجْزَوْنَ إِلَّا مَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ — "are they recompensed with anything but what they used to do?"

The sentence is identical in pattern to the one in the seventeenth verse: wa hal nujāzī illa'l-kafūr. Both sentences are on the pattern hal … illā (a question conveying negation, plus exception).

The same pattern, two different limits: the person and the return. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

Wa mā arsalnā fī qaryatin min nadhīrin illā qāla mutrafūhā innā bimā ursiltum bihī kāfirūn · Wa qālū naḥnu aktharu amwālan wa awlādan wa mā naḥnu bi-muʿadhdhabīn

"To whatever town We sent a warner, those of it who lived in ease said: 'We disbelieve in what you have been sent with.' And they said: 'We have more wealth and more children; we are not going to be punished.'"

The word mutraf and the root ت-ر-ف were analysed in detail at al-Wāqiʿa 56/45. The summary of what was recorded there is this: the root conveys an abundance of favour and the softening and slackening that abundance brings; mutraf is the passive participle of Form IV — not "one who runs riot" but "one who has been indulged". And it was also recorded there: what is charged is not wealth but the state wealth brings a person to. I do not repeat it here.

The same word in the same pattern was treated at al-Zukhruf 43/23 too (illā qāla mutrafūhā innā wajadnā ābāʾanā ʿalā umma), and there it was analysed how the pattern of the sentence (negation plus exception) points to a saying repeated throughout history. I rely on that treatment.

And the two verses must be set side by side, because the pattern is the same and the saying is different:

The difference is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: in al-Zukhruf the mutrafs state a ground; in Sabaʾ there is no ground — only rejection. And the ground comes in the next verse: an abundance of wealth and children. That is, Sabaʾ divides the rejection and its ground between two verses.

And at al-Wāqiʿa this note was set down: almost every time the word mutraf occurs in the Qurʾān it is in a context of destruction or of opposition — and this very verse (Sabaʾ 34/34) was already cited there as an example. The circle closes here.

The logic of the sentence must be recorded, because it is plainly an inference:

The argument, that is, runs: abundance is proof of favour.

I record this as an observation: the sentence does not build denial as a metaphysical claim. What it builds is an inference from observation — and the observation is correct (they really do have more), it is the inference that is wrong.

And this is the very point the sūra will answer. The answer will come in three steps:

That is, the objection is framed in the thirty-fifth verse, and the answer given in three stages between thirty-six and thirty-nine. This is a structure that can be verified within the sūra.

أَمْوَٰلًا وَأَوْلَٰدًا — and this pair occurs twice in the sūra: here (35) and in the thirty-seventh verse. In the second place it will be flatly rejected. I take it up below.

Qul inna rabbī yabsuṭu'r-rizqa li-man yashāʾu wa yaqdir, wa lākinna akthara'n-nāsi lā yaʿlamūn

"Say: 'My Lord spreads out provision for whom He wills, and straitens it too. But most people do not know.'"

The sentence is word for word the same as al-Shūrā 42/12: yabsuṭu'r-rizqa li-man yashāʾu wa yaqdir. There the roots ب-س-ط and ق-د-ر were analysed in detail (basṭ — to spread out, to lay open; qadr — to measure, to straiten) and the distinction between 42/12 and 42/27 was tabulated: the one said that the distribution is in a single hand, the other that the total is measured. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it.

What belongs here is where the sentence is said. And that is decisive:

The same sentence at two different tasks. In al-Shūrā a declaration, in Sabaʾ a refutation.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the context of the two verses: what the sentence does in Sabaʾ is not to deny the abundance — it is to say where the abundance comes from and so to strip it of its standing as a criterion. If both the spreading out and the straitening are the work of the same hand, the amount in one's hand cannot measure the favour of that hand.

وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ — and this clause is word for word identical with the last clause of the twenty-eighth verse.

The same clause, two different ignorances. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

Wa mā amwālukum wa lā awlādukum bi'llatī tuqarribukum ʿindanā zulfā, illā man āmana wa ʿamila ṣāliḥan fa-ulāʾika lahum jazāʾu'ḍ-ḍiʿfi bimā ʿamilū wa hum fi'l-ghurufāti āminūn

"It is not your wealth nor your children that will bring you near to Us. Only the one who believes and does righteous deeds: for such there is a recompense many times over for what they did, and they are secure in the high chambers."

This verse is where the sūra arrives. Everything told up to this point is tied here to a ruling.

And the scope of the ruling takes in both peoples of the sūra:

And the thirty-seventh verse gives the measure of all three in a single sentence: what is in your hand does not bring you near.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the structure of the sūra: the sūra had told of two peoples one after the other, and the same thing had been given to both — abundance. The difference lay not in what was given but in the stance taken towards it. The thirty-seventh verse names that difference.

The sentence negates three times: wa mā amwālukum wa lā awlādukum bi'llatī tuqarribukum.

And the word bi'llatī must be recorded: a singular feminine relative pronoun. Although two things are named (wealth and children), a singular relative has been used. The lexicographers explain this by taking the two as a single thing — that is, "what is owned". Another explanation is that the relative refers back to the plural al-amwāl (a broken plural, which is treated as feminine). Both explanations are transmitted; since they do not change the sense, I do not impose a preference.

The root was treated at al-Zumar 39/3 (mā naʿbuduhum illā li-yuqarribūnā ila'llāhi zulfā), where Qāf 50/31 and al-Wāqiʿa were relied on: to draw near, nearness. I do not repeat it here.

And the two verses must be compared, because the word is the same and the sentence is its opposite:

In both verses the same two words stand together: the verb ق-ر-ب and zulfā. And the sentence framed in al-Zumar as a claim comes in Sabaʾ in the form of a sentence that is rejected.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verbal overlap of the two verses: it was recorded at al-Zumar that the dispute is not over existence but over intermediaries. Sabaʾ carries the same dispute one step further: the intermediary is not only idols — wealth and children can be used as an intermediary too. To say "I have this, therefore my standing is good" is another form of leaning on an intermediary.

The lexicographers dwell on what the exception is made from, and this is a dispute about inflection:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. And both arrive at the same result: the criterion is not wealth but faith and deeds.

And what is striking is this, and I give it as an observation: the verse does not forbid wealth and children, nor count them evil. The only thing it says is that they do not bring near. The sentence, that is, is not a counsel of asceticism but a correction of the criterion.

جَزَآءُ ٱلضِّعْفِ — ḍiʿf: root ض-ع-ف, a fold, a multiple. The construction means "a recompense many times over". And the root of the word is the same as that of ustuḍʿifū (those made weak) in the thirty-first verse.

The two ends of one root: weakness and multiplication. The lexicographers record this relation: ḍiʿf is a thing's folding over on itself; what folds becomes double. And ḍaʿf (weakness) is strength's failure to fold over on itself. I give this as an observation about the language; I frame no ruling about the meaning.

ٱلْغُرُفَٰت — the plural of ghurfa; root غ-ر-ف: to scoop up in the hand, to take from above; and a room set high. The word is used for the upper-storey room of a house.

And the last word must be recorded: āminūn — in safety. The same word was used in the eighteenth verse for the roads of Sabaʾ: sīrū fīhā layāliya wa ayyāman āminīn.

The same root at the two ends of the sūra: one a safety that slipped away, the other a safety that is given. This is an overlap that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading.

Wa'lladhīna yasʿawna fī āyātinā muʿājizīna ulāʾika fi'l-ʿadhābi muḥḍarūn · Qul inna rabbī yabsuṭu'r-rizqa li-man yashāʾu min ʿibādihī wa yaqdiru lah, wa mā anfaqtum min shayʾin fa-huwa yukhlifuh, wa huwa khayru'r-rāziqīn

"Those who run about to make Our signs of no effect will be brought into the punishment. Say: 'My Lord spreads out provision for whom He wills of His servants, and straitens it for him too. Whatever you spend, He replaces it. He is the best of providers.'"

The thirty-eighth verse is almost a word-for-word repetition of the fifth. I tabulated it above in the treatment of 34/4-5; here I set their consequences side by side:

The difference is in the second column: the fifth verse states the quality of the punishment, the thirty-eighth states being brought into it.

مُحْضَرُون — root ح-ض-ر: to be present, to be at hand. The passive participle of Form IV: those who are brought, those who are made to attend. The word conveys not walking there on one's own feet but being brought.

And this belongs to the same family as mawqūfūn (those halted) in the thirty-first verse: both words are passive. Throughout that scene the sūra places people by the act of another. I record this as an observation about the word order.

The thirty-ninth verse is a repetition of the thirty-sixth — but two additions have been made:

Both additions narrow, and I record this as my own reading; its support is the function of the two words: min ʿibādih names the recipient of the provision as a servant; lahū states that the straitening too is for the same person. That is, the thirty-ninth verse sets the spreading out and the straitening not as two different groups but as two possibilities belonging to one and the same person.

And what follows is wholly different: the thirty-sixth verse ended with a note of ignorance; the thirty-ninth passes to a command about an act.

"Whatever you spend, He replaces it."

خ-ل-ف — the sense of the root: to come after, to take the place of. The root was treated at al-Fatḥ and at Fāṭir 35/39 (khalāʾif fi'l-arḍ). I do not repeat it here.

The verb here is of Form IV: akhlafa — "to put another in its place, to give what comes after it".

And the choice of verb must be recorded. I give this as my own reading; its support is the sense of the root: the verse does not say "He gives its recompense", it says "He gives what comes in its place". That is, another thing comes after what is spent. The verb describes not a reward but a replacing.

And the place of this clause in the sūra is decisive:

A chain is built in four steps, and I record this as my own reading; its support is the order of the verses: the objection was built on the amount of wealth. The answer turns the measure from amount to flow. The sūra does not reject wealth; it changes where wealth stands: not a heap held in the hand, but something that passes through the hand.

And at al-Ḥadīd the trusteeship of wealth (mustakhlafīna fīh — 57/7) was treated in detail; I rely on that treatment. It is striking that the word in al-Ḥadīd is from the same root: خ-ل-ف. That is, the two sūras describe the changing of hands of wealth with the same root.

The same root in two directions: one says how wealth comes, the other what happens after it goes. This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.

خَيْرُ ٱلرَّٰزِقِين — and the verse ends with a construction in which providers are named in the plural. The construction does not deny that others give provision — it states who comes first in the order. This belongs to the same family as the pattern treated at al-Zumar 39/44 (lillāhi'sh-shafāʿatu jamīʿā — not a denial but a naming of ownership).

Wa yawma yaḥshuruhum jamīʿan thumma yaqūlu li'l-malāʾikati a-hāʾulāʾi iyyākum kānū yaʿbudūn · Qālū subḥānaka anta waliyyunā min dūnihim, bal kānū yaʿbudūna'l-jinna aktharuhum bihim muʾminūn · Fa'l-yawma lā yamliku baʿḍukum li-baʿḍin nafʿan wa lā ḍarrā, wa naqūlu li'lladhīna ẓalamū dhūqū ʿadhāba'n-nāri'llatī kuntum bihā tukadhdhibūn

"On the day He gathers them all together, then says to the angels: 'Was it you these were serving?' They will say: 'Glory be to You! Our protector is You, not they. No, they were serving the jinn; most of them had faith in them.' Today you can do one another neither good nor harm. And We shall say to those who wronged: 'Taste the punishment of the Fire you used to deny.'"

The question is not put to those who were served — it is put to the angels. And this ties back to the twenty-second verse of the sūra: there it was said alladhīna zaʿamtum (those you have alleged), and their identity was left open. Here an identity is named.

The word order of the question must be recorded: a-hāʾulāʾi iyyākum kānū yaʿbudūn.

Iyyākum is the object, and it has been placed before the verb. In Arabic this fronting conveys restriction (ḥaṣr): "was it you who were served?" The stress falls not on the verb but on the object.

I give this as an observation about the word order: the question is not "were these people serving?" — the serving had already taken place. What is asked is who was served.

The second part is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading; its support is the phrase min dūnihim: the angels do not say "we did not want to be served". What they say is their own position: "our walī is You, not they." That is, the answer is given not by denying the charge but by declaring where their own allegiance lies.

At Fāṭir 35/14 the same line was treated: wa yawma'l-qiyāmati yakfurūna bi-shirkikum — on the day of resurrection they will disown your associating. And at al-Aḥqāf 46/5-6 the note was set down that the relation was never established at all. I rely on those treatments.

بَلْ كَانُوا۟ يَعْبُدُونَ ٱلْجِنَّ — and the correction comes: the one really followed was another.

The limit set by the method (Method) concerning the jinn holds here too: I rely on the measure laid down at al-Jinn — no description is produced beyond what the text states. What the verse says is this: the direction of the attachment was not where the one who served supposed it to be.

And the clause aktharuhum bihim muʾminūn must be recorded: "most of them had faith in them". The verb is the verb of īmān — and here it is used not in a positive sense but in the sense of attachment. That is, the word states a trust whose direction is not specified.

I record this as an observation about the language: the verse makes an issue not of believing itself but of what is believed in. And that is what the sūra had been disputing all the way to the thirty-eighth verse.

And the verb ملك (to own) comes for the second time in the sūra.

The ruling stated in this world in the twenty-second verse is seen in fact on that day in the forty-second. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading: the sūra first gives something as a statement and then shows it as a scene.

And the phrase baʿḍukum li-baʿḍ must be recorded: reciprocity. The same phrase was there in the thirty-first verse: yarjiʿu baʿḍuhum ilā baʿḍin al-qawl. The same two parties, there exchanging speech, here reckoning benefit and harm.

ذُوقُوا۟ — "taste". The root ذ-و-ق is widespread in the Qurʾān for the tasting of punishment, and it occurred in the twelfth verse too: nudhiqhu min ʿadhābi's-saʿīr. Both occurrences are in the same sūra.

Wa idhā tutlā ʿalayhim āyātunā bayyinātin qālū mā hādhā illā rajulun yurīdu an yaṣuddakum ʿammā kāna yaʿbudu ābāʾukum, wa qālū mā hādhā illā ifkun muftarā, wa qāla'lladhīna kafarū li'l-ḥaqqi lammā jāʾahum in hādhā illā siḥrun mubīn

"When Our signs are recited to them plainly they say: 'This is nothing but a man who wants to turn you away from what your fathers served.' And they say: 'This is nothing but an invented falsehood.' And those who disbelieved said of the truth when it came to them: 'This is nothing but plain sorcery.'"

The verse transmits three sentences, and all three are on the same pattern:

All three sentences are on the pattern of negation plus exception (ḥaṣr): "this is nothing but that".

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the pattern the three sentences share: each of them performs a reduction to a single explanation. The pattern itself is one that closes a dispute — it leaves no other possibility.

And the targets change in order: first the one who speaks, then what is said, then the effect of what is said. Three objections, aimed at three different points of one event.

And it is striking that the same ḥaṣr pattern is used in the sūra's own answering sentences too — in the twenty-eighth verse (mā arsalnāka illā kāffa), in the forty-sixth verse (innamā aʿiẓukum bi-wāḥida; in huwa illā nadhīr). That is, the sūra itself uses the pattern the other side uses. I record this as an observation about the word order.

The first sentence must be recorded: rajulun yurīdu an yaṣuddakum ʿammā kāna yaʿbudu ābāʾukum.

The objection is not an objection about truth — it is an objection about intent: "he wants to turn you away". That is, what is put forward is not that what is said is false, but that saying it has a purpose.

I record this as an observation: an objection of this kind does not discuss the content of a claim; it discusses the claimant's motive. And when it is framed that way, the claim itself is never examined at all.

And the ground is again the forefathers: ʿammā kāna yaʿbudu ābāʾukum. This ground was treated in detail at al-Zukhruf 43/22-23 (innā wajadnā ābāʾanā ʿalā umma), and there the difference between two words — muhtadūn / muqtadūn — was tabulated. I rely on that treatment.

The difference here must be recorded: in al-Zukhruf following the forefathers was put forward as a positive ground ("we follow them"). In Sabaʾ it comes in the form of a defence: "he wants to turn you away from it." The same ground, that is: there a claim, here a thing to be protected.

إِفْكٌ مُّفْتَرًى — the root أ-ف-ك: to turn a thing from its direction, to turn it upside down. Ifk — speech that has turned the truth about. The root was treated at al-Aḥqāf 46/11 and 46/22, at al-Jāthiya and at al-Zukhruf. I do not repeat it here.

And muftarā has been added: from the root ف-ر-ي, "invented". The standing of the two words side by side is reinforcement: both twisted and invented.

And its link with the eighth verse must be recorded: there it was said aftarā ʿala'llāhi kadhibā — the same root (ف-ر-ي). What is asked as a question in the eighth verse is stated as a verdict in the forty-third.

This is a development that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading: at the beginning of the sūra the objection had the form of a question; towards the end it turns into the form of an assertion. In the intervening verses no proof has been offered; the only thing that has changed is the certainty of the expression.

Wa mā ātaynāhum min kutubin yadrusūnahā wa mā arsalnā ilayhim qablaka min nadhīr · Wa kadhdhaba'lladhīna min qablihim wa mā balaghū miʿshāra mā ātaynāhum fa-kadhdhabū rusulī, fa-kayfa kāna nakīr

"Yet We had given them no books to study, nor had We sent them any warner before you. Those before them denied too; and these have not attained a tenth of what We gave them. They denied My messengers. How then was My rejection of them!"

The forty-fourth verse questions the ground of the objections in the forty-third, and negates two things at once:

Both kinds of proof are closed off: transmission and testimony. This pair stands in the same frame as the demand for proof treated at al-Aḥqāf 46/4 (iʾtūnī bi-kitābin min qabli hādhā aw athāratin min ʿilm — "bring me a book from before this, or some remnant of knowledge"). I rely on that treatment.

And at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/56 (bi-ghayri sulṭānin atāhum — without any warrant that has come to them) the same measure was treated. Sabaʾ lays down the same measure by way of negation: there is no text they can point to as a ground.

يَدْرُسُونَهَا — root د-ر-س: to read a thing over and over, to work on it; and to efface its trace. The lexicographers connect the two senses thus: the trace of a much-trodden place is effaced; a much-read text is learnt by heart. I transmit this relation as a link the lexicographers have built.

And that the verb comes in the imperfect is worth recording: yadrusūnahā — "which they keep reading". The point, that is, is not merely that no book was given — it is that there is no text being worked on.

The word comes from the root ʿushr (a tenth) and is on the mifʿāl pattern. The lexicographers explain it as "a tenth"; some record that the pattern conveys multiplicity or intensity.

And the lexicographers differ over what the measure applies to:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference, and the verse does not specify in any case: mā ātaynāhum — "what We gave them".

The same line was treated at Fāṭir 35/44 and at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/21, 40/82 (wa kānū ashadda minhum quwwatan — they were stronger than these). I rely on those treatments.

What belongs here is that the measure is given numerically, and I record this as my own reading: Fāṭir and Ghāfir say "they were stronger"; Sabaʾ gives a ratio: a tenth. The comparison, that is, is built not with a qualitative but with a quantitative expression.

And the structure of the argument is this: they possessed far more, and even so they were not saved. This is a direct answer to the claim in the thirty-fifth verse — there it was said "our wealth is greater, we will not be punished". The forty-fifth verse refutes that inference from history: those who possessed more wealth denied as well, and received their recompense.

This is an exchange that can be verified within the sūra.

نَكِير — root ن-ك-ر: to not recognise, to reject, to find repugnant. The word was treated at Fāṭir 35/26, where it was recorded that it is explained as "the consequence of My rejection" and that the lexicographers describe this as the severity of the punishment. I do not repeat it here.

And the sentence is word for word the same in two sūras: fa-kayfa kāna nakīr (Fāṭir 35/26 and Sabaʾ 34/45). In both it closes a block. This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.

Qul innamā aʿiẓukum bi-wāḥida, an taqūmū lillāhi mathnā wa furādā thumma tatafakkarū, mā bi-ṣāḥibikum min jinna, in huwa illā nadhīrun lakum bayna yaday ʿadhābin shadīd

"Say: 'I admonish you with one thing only: that you stand up for God, two by two and one by one, and then reflect. There is no madness in your companion. He is nothing but a warner to you, ahead of a severe punishment.'"

This verse is where the discipline of disputation the sūra has been building all along turns into a method. It deserves detailed treatment.

إِنَّمَآ أَعِظُكُم بِوَٰحِدَةٍ — "I admonish you with one thing only."

And that one thing is not an article of belief but a procedure: to stand up, then to reflect.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verse's own wording: what comes after bi-wāḥida is not "believe that God is one" — it is "stand up and reflect". The admonition, that is, is given not as a conclusion but as a method that leads to a conclusion.

And wāḥida comes in the feminine: it is taken as the adjective of an elided word (khaṣla — a trait, an item). The lexicographers explain it so.

وَعْظ — root و-ع-ظ: to remind in a way that softens the heart, to counsel. The word differs from giving information: to remind, with effect, of something already known.

ق-و-م — the concrete sense of the root: to rise to one's feet, to stand up, to take charge of a task.

And the qualification lillāh must be recorded: "for God". The direction of the standing up, that is, has been specified. Not to win an argument, not to please a company.

Whether the standing here is a bodily movement or a "setting to work" has been debated:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. And both arrive at the same result: to come out of the state one is in.

These are the two most striking words in the verse.

مَثْنَىٰ — root ث-ن-ي: two, to fold, to double. The pattern conveys distribution: "two by two". This pattern was treated at Fāṭir 35/1 (mathnā wa thulātha wa rubāʿ — the wings of the angels), and it was recorded there: these patterns state what falls to each one separately. I rely on that treatment.

فُرَٰدَىٰ — the plural of fard; root ف-ر-د: to be single, to be alone. The word means "one by one".

And now attention must be paid to what is not in the list.

In Fāṭir, where the same pattern is used, the number rose as far as three and four (mathnā wa thulātha wa rubāʿ). Here it stops at two — and then goes down to one. The series, that is, decreases: two, then one.

I record this as my own reading, and I give its support plainly in four points:

One — the numbers go down, not up. In Fāṭir the pattern widened (2, 3, 4); here it narrows (2, 1). The verse wants the number to fall.

Two — the third verb is tafakkur, and it comes with thumma. Thumma in Arabic conveys a sequence with an interval: not immediately after, but after a while. Reflection, that is, is placed not right on the heels of standing up but after it.

Three — what is described in the preceding verse is words spoken in a body. In the forty-third verse three sentences were transmitted, and all three from a plural mouth: qālū … wa qālū … wa qāla'lladhīna kafarū. What the verse stands against, that is, is sentences repeated in chorus.

Four — it sets up the same method as the twenty-fourth verse of the sūra. There the verdict was suspended and room made for the addressee's reasoning. The same thing is done here, this time by a physical arrangement.

The reading I draw from these four supports is this: the crowd is set down as the obstacle in the way of thinking. What a person says while in a group is very often not the result of his own reasoning but the common voice of the group. The verse asks that the group be broken up so that reasoning can work: two people at most, or alone.

And being in twos has its place too, and this is worth recording separately: the verse does not set solitude down as the only remedy. Two people are the smallest unit in which thinking can be tested against another — one can speak, one can object, but the pressure of a crowd cannot be brought to bear. Solitude is the place where the outside voice is cut off altogether.

I record that this reading is not binding; similar explanations are widely transmitted in the classical commentaries as well, but I rely on the four supports above.

What this says to the present is direct: in forming an opinion about a matter, the question of where the opinion was formed comes before the opinion itself. An opinion formed inside a crowd is very often the crowd's opinion.

ف-ك-ر — the sense of the root: to turn a thing over and over in the mind. And the verb is of Form V (tafaʿʿul): this form conveys effort and continuity — "to dwell on it and think it through", not at a single glance.

I record this as an observation about the language: the form itself says that thinking takes time. And the particle thumma says the same thing. Two signs pointing the same way: there is to be no haste.

And the object of the verb is not given: tatafakkarū — "reflect". What they are to reflect on is not said. The subject, that is, is settled not by the verse but by the one who thinks.

And the concluding sentence comes: "there is no madness in your companion."

The word ṣāḥibukum was treated in detail at al-Najm 53/2 and at al-Takwīr 81/22. The summary of what was recorded there is this: the root is ص-ح-ب, to be together; the word rests on the acquaintance built by long years of living side by side — "you know him". And it was tabulated that al-Najm and al-Takwīr use the same proof: an appeal to the addressee's own memory. I do not repeat it here.

Sabaʾ adds a third link to this series, and the table can be completed:

And what Sabaʾ adds is where the sentence is placed. I record this as my own reading; its support is the order of the verse: in al-Takwīr and al-Najm the sentence comes as a direct announcement. In Sabaʾ it comes after a procedure: stand up, reflect — and then you will see that there is no madness.

That is, the verdict is set down not as information given to the reader but as a conclusion his own reasoning will arrive at.

And the exchange within the sūra is completed:

The forty-sixth verse answers both rajul and jinna: the one with ṣāḥibikum, the other with a plain negation. This is an exchange that can be verified within the sūra, and it is one of its most regular weaves.

بَيْنَ يَدَىْ عَذَابٍ شَدِيدٍ — "ahead of a severe punishment".

The phrase bayna yaday — "between his two hands", that is, before it. The same phrase occurred in the thirty-first verse: bi'lladhī bayna yadayh (in what came before it). And this temporal use of the phrase is common in Arabic: the front of a thing is what comes before it.

And the warner's position is given by this phrase: the one who stands before the punishment. A warning, that is, is something that comes before the event, not after it — and that is precisely the condition of its being a warning.

Qul mā saʾaltukum min ajrin fa-huwa lakum, in ajriya illā ʿala'llāh, wa huwa ʿalā kulli shayʾin shahīd

"Say: 'Whatever fee I have asked of you, let it be yours. My fee rests with God alone. He is witness over everything.'"

Sentences stating that the prophets ask no fee are common in the Qurʾān, and they are generally on this pattern: mā asʾalukum ʿalayhi min ajr — "I ask you no fee for this."

The sentence here is different, and the difference must be recorded: the verb is in the perfect (saʾaltukum — I asked) and a gift follows it: fa-huwa lakum — "let it be yours."

The lexicographers explain the sentence in two ways:

Both explanations are transmitted and both arrive at the same place; I do not impose a preference.

But something can be said about the form of the sentence, and I record this as my own reading; its support is that the verb is in the perfect: the sentence does not reject the charge — it removes the subject of the charge. To say "I did not ask" opens a dispute (you did / I did not). To say "if I asked, let it be yours" closes the dispute, because it leaves the other side nothing to defend.

And this continues the attitude of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses of the sūra: there too the verdict was suspended and the language of accusation abandoned. In the forty-seventh verse the same attitude takes a third form: giving up a claim.

إِنْ أَجْرِىَ إِلَّا عَلَى ٱللَّهِ — and the fee is not denied; its address is changed. The same pattern was treated at Fāṭir 35/10 (man kāna yurīdu'l-ʿizzata fa-lillāhi'l-ʿizzatu jamīʿā) and at al-Zumar 39/44 (lillāhi'sh-shafāʿatu jamīʿā): the desire is not rejected, its owner is named. I rely on those treatments.

شَهِيد — root ش-ه-د: to be present, to see, to bear witness. And that it is placed at the end of the sentence is worth recording: the question of a fee is a matter of account between two parties; the sentence closes by naming a third party — the one who sees.

Qul inna rabbī yaqdhifu bi'l-ḥaqq, ʿallāmu'l-ghuyūb · Qul jāʾa'l-ḥaqqu wa mā yubdiʾu'l-bāṭilu wa mā yuʿīd

"Say: 'My Lord hurls the truth. He is the great knower of all things unseen.' Say: 'The truth has come. Falsehood can neither begin anything nor bring it back.'"

The concrete sense of the root: to throw a thing far, to hurl it. Qadhafa bi'l-ḥajar — he threw a stone. And the word conveys that what is thrown goes fast and with force.

That the verb is used in this context is striking and must be recorded: for revelation, verbs such as "to send down" (inzāl), "to announce" (inbāʾ), "to recite" (tilāwa) are common. The verb chosen here is qadhf — to hurl.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the picture in the root: qadhf is a thing thrown towards a target, and it does not wait for the other side's acceptance. The verb pictures the coming of the truth not as an offer but as a hit.

And this verb will be used once more in the sūra, of the other side — this is one of its most striking verbal weaves:

The same verb, two sides, two objects. And the difference lies in three places: who throws, what is thrown, and the distance.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verb the two verses share: on one side the truth is thrown, and where it is thrown from is not said; on the other side the unseen is thrown, and it is stated that it is thrown from far off. What is thrown from far off does not find its target. The sūra describes the way both sides make their claims with the same verb, and sets the difference between them in terms of whether the throw lands.

عَلَّٰمُ ٱلْغُيُوب — an intensive form (faʿʿāl): one who knows much. And ghuyūb is a plural: things unseen.

This is the fourth step on the sūra's line of the unseen (3, 14, 48, 53), tabulated above in the treatment of 34/14. In the third verse it was ʿālimi'l-ghayb (singular); here it is ʿallāmu'l-ghuyūb (intensive plus plural). As the sūra nears its close it repeats the same attribute, enlarged.

"The truth has come; falsehood can neither begin nor bring back."

Two verbs are set against one another:

And this pair is generally used in the Qurʾān of creation (yabdaʾu'l-khalqa thumma yuʿīduh — He begins creation, then repeats it). Here the same pair is negated of falsehood.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the common use of the two verbs in the Qurʾān: the denial of the verbs of creating to falsehood says that falsehood produces nothing. Falsehood can neither build anything new nor bring back what it built in the past.

And the lexicographers give the sentence another sense as well:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

The place of the sentence in the sūra must be recorded: in the forty-third verse the truth was called siḥr (wa qāla'lladhīna kafarū li'l-ḥaqqi lammā jāʾahum in hādhā illā siḥrun mubīn). The forty-ninth verse answers with the same word: jāʾa'l-ḥaqq.

Five occurrences, in five separate places in the sūra. And what was rejected in the forty-third verse along with the verb "came" is announced in the forty-ninth with the verb "came" again. This is an exchange that can be verified within the sūra.

Qul in ḍalaltu fa-innamā aḍillu ʿalā nafsī, wa ini'htadaytu fa-bimā yūḥī ilayya rabbī, innahū samīʿun qarīb

"Say: 'If I go astray, I go astray only against myself. If I am guided, it is by what my Lord reveals to me. He is hearing, near.'"

The sentence is built on two conditions — but the answers to the two options are not symmetrical, and the whole point lies there:

The expected symmetry would have been: "if I go astray, against myself; if I am guided, to my own credit." The sentence does not build that.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the structural difference of the two answers: the wrong is ascribed to oneself, the right to its source. That is, the speaker takes on the responsibility for the error but claims no share in the success.

And this is the final form of the attitude taken in the twenty-fourth verse. The sūra's line of the discipline of disputation is thus completed:

Four steps in four separate places, and all of them face the same way: the speaking party does not put itself in a protected position. This is a line that can be verified from the text, and I record it as my own reading.

What this says to the present must be recorded: the seriousness of a claim is measured by how the claimant meets the possibility of being wrong. The verse does not reject the possibility of error — it takes on its consequence. And it does not claim the possibility of being right for itself either.

سَمِيعٌ قَرِيبٌ — "hearing, near".

The root ق-ر-ب occurs here for the second time in the sūra, and the third will come in the very next verse:

Three occurrences, three different directions. And the sequence is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the sūra says first the way by which a person cannot draw near (37), then that God is near already (50), then that escape is blocked from close at hand as well (51). The same root carries three different relations.

Wa law tarā idh faziʿū fa-lā fawta wa ukhidhū min makānin qarīb · Wa qālū āmannā bihī wa annā lahumu't-tanāwushu min makānin baʿīd · Wa qad kafarū bihī min qabl, wa yaqdhifūna bi'l-ghaybi min makānin baʿīd

"If you could but see the moment they are seized with terror! There is no escape now; they are taken from close at hand. 'We believe', they say. But how are they to reach out from a far place? They had denied it before, and kept throwing at the unseen from a far place."

The root ف-ز-ع occurred in the twenty-third verse: ḥattā idhā fuzziʿa ʿan qulūbihim — when the terror was lifted from their hearts. Here the same root comes in Form I and in the active: faziʿū — they were seized with terror.

The same root in two opposite directions — and twenty-eight verses lie between them. This is a contrast that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading: on one side fear is lifted, on the other side fear descends.

The root was analysed in detail at al-Mulk 67/3 (mā tarā fī khalqi'r-raḥmāni min tafāwut). The summary of what was recorded there is this: the primary sense of the root is to escape, to slip out of one's hands, to get away through a gap; fātahu'l-amr — the matter escaped him. And tafāwut (Form VI) is two things' failing to match, a gap remaining between them. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the use of the root in its bare form and negated: fa-lā fawta.

The pattern is lā al-nāfiya li'l-jins (the lā that negates a whole class): "there is no escape at all." It corresponds to the English "there is nowhere left to run".

And the way the two sūras use the root can be compared:

The same root: in one it is said that there is no gap in the creation, in the other that there is no gap to escape through. I record this as an observation about the language.

وَأُخِذُوا۟ مِن مَّكَانٍ قَرِيبٍ — "they were taken from a place close at hand."

The verb is passive (ukhidhū) and in the perfect. It is worth recording: the scene is told of the future, but the verb is given in the past tense. In Arabic this use conveys the certainty of the event: as certain as if it had already happened.

And the phrase min makānin qarīb is the first link in the weave of distance built in the last three verses of the sūra.

The concrete sense of the root: to stretch out the hand and take a thing, to reach so as to take. Nāsha'sh-shayʾa — he reached out for it, he took it.

And the pattern is of Form VI (tafāʿul): tanāwush — to reach out mutually, or with exertion.

The picture in the word must be recorded: tanāwush is the stretching out of the hand towards something within reach. Like taking a fruit from its branch. And precisely for this reason the contradiction in the sentence emerges: annā lahumu't-tanāwushu min makānin baʿīd — "how are they to reach out from a far place?"

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the meaning of the word itself: tanāwush is already a verb that requires nearness. It cannot be done from a distance — the definition of the word does not allow it. The sentence states the impossibility not as a ruling but from inside the word.

And there is a variant reading of the word:

Both readings are transmitted. On the second reading the sense of "an attempt to take from a distance" is reinforced; I do not impose a preference.

أَنَّىٰ — in Arabic an interrogative particle meaning "how / from where"; here it conveys denial: "it is not possible."

And what the verse says is a rule recorded several times in the series.

At al-Zumar 39/56-59 three excuses were tabulated, and the third was law anna lī karratan (if only I could return once more); it was recorded there that the second excuse cuts off the third. I rely on that treatment.

And at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/77-85 the exact counterpart of this sentence was treated: fa-lammā raʾaw baʾsanā qālū āmannā bi'llāhi waḥdah … fa-lam yaku yanfaʿuhum īmānuhum lammā raʾaw baʾsanā — "their faith after they had seen Our might did not avail them" — and there it was named sunnata'llāhi'llatī qad khalat fī ʿibādih: not an exception but an ongoing way of working. I rely on that treatment.

I set the three places side by side:

The three verses give the same rule with three different grounds: one by the warning's having already come, one by the continuity of the way, and one by the meaning of a word.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the third row above: Sabaʾ does not state the ground as a rule. It gives a picture: a hand reaching from far away. And the picture already contains the outcome.

And the fifty-third verse brings back the verb of the forty-eighth. I tabulated it above in the treatment of 34/48-49.

The lexicographers dwell on the sense of the construction, and what the transmitted explanations have in common is this: to throw stones at the unseen is to speak about something one has not seen without taking any measure. It is a picture close to the English "shooting in the dark". I give this comparison as a convenience of explanation, not as something transmitted.

And that the word is ghayb must be recorded: what is thrown is what the thrower does not know. That is, the sentence gives both the subject of the claim and the state of knowledge behind it in a single construction.

The last three verses of the sūra build a weave of distance, and this is the backbone of the close:

Three verses, three makāns, two distances. And the contrast must be recorded: the one who seizes is near, the one who is seized is far.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the construction the three verses share: the distance needed for escape is not there (they were seized from near), and the nearness needed for holding on is not there either (they reach from far off). In both directions the distance works against them.

And this ties back to the nineteenth verse: the people of Sabaʾ had said rabbanā bāʿid bayna asfārinā — "set our journeys far apart". The distance that was asked for comes back at the end of the sūra as the distance that cannot be closed. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.

Wa ḥīla baynahum wa bayna mā yashtahūna kamā fuʿila bi-ashyāʿihim min qabl, innahum kānū fī shakkin murīb

"A barrier is set between them and what they desire — as was done before with those of their kind. For they were in a doubt that unsettles."