إِنَّا نَحْنُ نُحْىِ ٱلْمَوْتَىٰ وَنَكْتُبُ مَا قَدَّمُوا۟ وَءَاثَٰرَهُمْ وَكُلَّ شَىْءٍ أَحْصَيْنَٰهُ فِىٓ إِمَامٍ مُّبِينٍ
Innā naḥnu nuḥyi'l-mawtā wa naktubu mā qaddamū wa āthārahum wa kulla shayʾin aḥṣaynāhu fī imāmin mubīn
"It is We who bring the dead to life, and We write down what they have sent ahead and the traces they leave behind. Everything We have counted up in a clear register."
A point of word order: innā already announces "we"; then comes naḥnu. In Arabic this is called the ḍamīr al-faṣl, the separating pronoun that comes between. Its function is restriction (qaṣr): to assign the act to that agent alone.
And this matches the closing of the sūra: in the seventy-ninth verse it will be said "the One who brought them into being the first time will give them life". In the twelfth verse the assignment, in the seventy-ninth the ground for it.
| Word | Root | What |
|---|---|---|
| Mā qaddamū | ق-د-م | What they have sent ahead — what they did themselves |
| Āthārahum | أ-ث-ر | Their traces — what they left behind |
- al-Aḥqāf 46/4 — athāratin min ʿilm ("a remnant of knowledge"): a crumb of knowledge left over from the past. The finding there: the demand is presented reduced to its minimum.
- Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/21 — āthāran fi'l-arḍ ("traces in the earth"): the mark in stone left by past peoples. The finding there: those who had left marks in stone were destroyed too.
The core of the root: a trace, the mark that remains behind. Athar — a footprint; a report handed down; a remnant.
| Place | What kind of trace | Its work |
|---|---|---|
| al-Aḥqāf 46/4 | A trace of knowledge | Asked for as proof |
| Ghāfir 40/21 | A trace in stone | Shown not to count as proof |
| Yāsīn 36/12 | A trace of deeds | Entered in the record |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference between these three uses: in al-Aḥqāf a trace was being asked for, in Ghāfir it was being said that a trace does not save, in Yāsīn the trace is written into the account. The same word, three different operations.
And the extent of āthār is not explained in the verse. It is widely transmitted that in the classical commentaries it is understood as the effects that continue after a person's death; concrete explanations such as the steps taken on the way to the mosque are also transmitted. I transmit the explanations; I do not add them to the wording of the verse: the wording says only āthārahum.
My own reading: the verse does not end the range of what enters the record with the person's lifetime. Mā qaddamū comes to a stop while āthār continues. And the direction of the two words is opposite: one is sent ahead, the other left behind.
إِمَام — root أ-م-م: to intend, to head towards; and to be in front. Umm — mother (the original, that to which one returns); umma — a body turned in one direction; imām — what is placed in front, what is looked to.
| Reading | What imām is | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Preserved Tablet — the original record in which everything is written | Kulla shayʾin aḥṣaynāh — the breadth of the phrase "everything" |
| 2 | The book of deeds | The verb of writing that governs the clause (naktubu) |
| 3 | The master copy to which reference is made | The lexical sense of the word: what guides, what is set in front |
I do not impose a preference. The common point can be verified: on all three readings the word announces a document that is consulted and followed — not a "ledger" but an "original".
أَحْصَيْنَٰهُ — root ح-ص-ي. The lexicographers connect the root with the pebble (ḥaṣā): the Arabs used pebbles in counting, and from this comes iḥṣāʾ — to count through one by one until the count is exhausted. The word is not "to record" but "to finish the counting".
I record this as an observation: the verb of recording (naktubu) and the verb of counting (aḥṣaynā) come one after the other, and the second is in the past tense. The writing is going on; the counting is named as finished.