وَمَا عَلَّمْنَٰهُ ٱلشِّعْرَ وَمَا يَنۢبَغِى لَهُۥٓ إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا ذِكْرٌ وَقُرْءَانٌ مُّبِينٌ · لِّيُنذِرَ مَن كَانَ حَيًّا وَيَحِقَّ ٱلْقَوْلُ عَلَى ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
Wa mā ʿallamnāhu'sh-shiʿra wa mā yanbaghī lah · In huwa illā dhikrun wa qurʾānun mubīn · Li-yundhira man kāna ḥayyan wa yaḥiqqa'l-qawlu ʿala'l-kāfirīn
"We did not teach him poetry; nor would it befit him. It is only a reminder and a plain Qurʾān — that it may warn whoever is alive and that the word may come true against the deniers."
This root was analysed in detail in al-Ḥāqqa at 69/41 (wa mā huwa bi-qawli shāʿir), and Yāsīn 36/69 was already named there. The findings there were these:
- The original sense of the root is not to write poetry: shaʿara — to feel, to perceive, to arrive at a fine awareness. Shāʿir — one who feels, who perceives.
- In the Arabia of the Jāhiliyya the poet was not an entertainer who spoke ornate words: he was the spokesman of the tribe, its memory, an instrument of war. And in the common understanding it was accepted that a poet had a jinn helper.
- The charge of being a poet said two things: that the word comes out of the man himself (intuition/inspiration), and that behind him stands an unseen being.
- And the main finding established there: "the distinguishing property of poetry is that it makes no claim to be true… to count a word as poetry is to lift the obligation of faith towards it."
| al-Ḥāqqa 69/41 | Yāsīn 36/69 | |
|---|---|---|
| What is rejected | The word: wa mā huwa bi-qawli shāʿir | The equipment: wa mā ʿallamnāhu'sh-shiʿr |
| The subject of the sentence | The Qurʾān — "it is not the word of a poet" | God — "We did not teach him" |
| Where the objection strikes | The kind of the text | The person's capacity |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference between the two verbs: al-Ḥāqqa rejects the genre of the text; Yāsīn says that the person received no such training. The two cut the charge at two different places: one says "this is not poetry", the other "there is no poetry in him."
And the verb ʿallamnā must be recorded: the verse does not say "he does not know poetry"; it says "We did not teach him poetry". The agent of the verb of teaching is "We" — that is, the verse already ties the source of everything the Prophet knows to one place and leaves poetry outside that list.
This verb occurs for the second time in the sūra. Its first occurrence was in the fortieth verse: la'sh-shamsu yanbaghī lahā an tudrika'l-qamar.
| Verse | Expression | Whose limit |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | la'sh-shamsu yanbaghī lahā | The limit of the order of the sky — the sun cannot enter the moon's field |
| 69 | wa mā yanbaghī lah | The limit of the word — poetry cannot enter this field |
Both occurrences can be verified. I record this as my own reading: the sūra uses the same verb twice, for two different orders. In the fortieth verse the fields of the heavenly bodies do not mix; in the sixty-ninth the fields of the kinds of speech do not mix. What is said in both sentences is the same: everything has a field of its own.
| Reading | To whom the pronoun lah refers | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | To the Prophet | "Poetry does not befit him / does not come from him" |
| 2 | To the Qurʾān | "Poetry does not befit the Qurʾān" |
Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. An observation: the pronoun in the first half of the sentence (ʿallamnā-hu) refers to the Prophet; this appears to support the first reading. It is an observation, not a preference.
And the word dhikr occurs for the second time in the sūra: in the eleventh verse mani'ttabaʿa'dh-dhikra had been said. Both occurrences can be verified: the first described the one who follows the text, the second names the text.
مُّبِين — the fifth of the sūra's six occurrences of mubīn. And note: the adjective is given to qurʾān.
ب-ي-ن — mubīn, the active participle of Form IV of this root, can be used in Arabic both intransitively (that which is itself plain) and transitively (that which makes something else plain). The lexicographers record this doubleness. Both senses are possible here, and I do not impose a preference.
| Verse | The addressee of the warning | Measure |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | qawman mā undhira ābāʾuhum | A people — a measure of condition |
| 11 | mani'ttabaʿa'dh-dhikra wa khashiya'r-Raḥmāna bi'l-ghayb | One who follows and fears — conduct and inward state |
| 70 | man kāna ḥayyan | One who is alive — a measure of a single word |
All three occurrences can be verified. And in all three the measure lies not in the warning but in the hearer.
| Reading | Who the ḥayy is | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | One whose heart is alive — who understands, who responds | The use of death and life in this sense in the Qurʾān |
| 2 | One who is still living — whose time has not yet passed | The direct sense of the word |
Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. One datum internal to the text can be recorded: the eleventh verse of the sūra had described the person on whom the warning works by an inward state (khashiya). This agrees with the first reading. It is an observation, not a preference.
The seventh verse had said: laqad ḥaqqa'l-qawlu ʿalā aktharihim fa-hum lā yuʾminūn. The seventieth verse says: wa yaḥiqqa'l-qawlu ʿala'l-kāfirīn.
| Verse | Expression | Form | About whom |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | laqad ḥaqqa'l-qawl | Perfect — realised | Aktharihim — most of them |
| 70 | wa yaḥiqqa'l-qawl | Imperfect — coming true | Al-Kāfirīn — those who persist in denial |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is these two differences: in the seventh verse the word is named as having come about, in the seventieth as coming about. And the addressee turns from a numerical majority (aktharihim) into an attribute (al-kāfirīn). The verdict, that is, is tied not to a group but to a description — and as is set down in Method, what the verse describes are attributes; whoever bears the attribute falls under it.
And a point of word order: the seventieth verse joins two purposes with a wāw — li-yundhira (that it may warn) and yaḥiqqa'l-qawl (that the word may come true). Two different outcomes of the same text, side by side in a single sentence.