al-Ṣāffāt 37:123-132

Wa inna Ilyāsa la-mina'l-mursalīn · Idh qāla li-qawmihi alā tattaqūn · A-tadʿūna baʿlan wa tadharūna aḥsana'l-khāliqīn · Allāha rabbakum wa rabba ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn · Fa-kadhdhabūhu fa-innahum la-muḥḍarūn · Illā ʿibāda'llāhi'l-mukhlaṣīn · Wa taraknā ʿalayhi fi'l-ākhirīn · Salāmun ʿalā Il Yāsīn · Innā kadhālika najzi'l-muḥsinīn · Innahu min ʿibādina'l-muʾminīn

"And Elijah too was one of the messengers sent. When he said to his people: 'Will you not guard yourselves? Do you call upon Baʿl and leave the best of creators — God, your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers of old?' They denied him; and so they will surely be brought — except God's chosen servants. And We left upon him, among those who came after: 'Peace be upon Il Yāsīn.' Thus do We requite those who do good. He was one of Our believing servants."

Elijah is named in three places in the Qurʾān: al-Anʿām 6/85 (in a list of prophets), al-Ṣāffāt 37/123 and 37/130. Outside this sūra no information is given about him.

And in this commentary no information is given about who he was, when and where he lived — the Qurʾān gives none, and the isrāʾīliyyāt sources are not entered.

What is to be recorded is what the sūra gives: he was a messenger, he forbade his people to serve Baʿl, and he was denied.

Ittaqā — root و-ق-ي, Form VIII: to protect oneself, to guard. The original sense of the root is "to protect a thing from what would harm it". Wiqāya — a protecting cover. The root was analysed in al-Baqara (hudan li'l-muttaqīn).

And this is a sentence often repeated in the Qurʾān as the first word of the messengers. In Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ it occurs in the same form from the mouths of more than one prophet.

A point of word order: alā — in Arabic a particle announcing both urging and warning. Alā + imperfect: "will you not…?"

And there is disagreement over this word.

Baʿl — root ب-ع-ل. The known sense of the word in Arabic: husband, owner, master. The Qurʾān uses it in this sense: wa hādhā baʿlī shaykhā (Hūd 11/72) — "and this husband of mine is old"; wa buʿūlatuhunna aḥaqqu bi-raddihinna (al-Baqara 2/228).

A second branch of the root is also recorded: baʿl is used too of crops and palm groves that grow by rain alone, without irrigation.

The views on its sense here:

Most of the classical commentaries adopt the first view. I impose no preference and give no information about which community the word belonged to — the Qurʾān gives none.

Tadʿūna — root د-ع-و: to call, to entreat. The root was treated at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/60 (udʿūnī astajib lakum). The note there: duʿāʾ is identified in the Qurʾān with worship itself.

Tadharūna — root و-ذ-ر: to abandon, to leave. And the root has a striking property: in Arabic the perfect (past) conjugation of this verb is not used; only the imperfect and imperative forms are used. This is a linguistic fact.

And this construction occurs in two places in the Qurʾān: al-Muʾminūn 23/14 (fa-tabāraka'llāhu aḥsanu'l-khāliqīn) and here.

Aḥsan — root ح-س-ن, an elative: "the best, the most beautiful". And note: aḥsan — "the most beautiful", not akbar (the greatest) or aqwā (the strongest).

I record this as my own reading: Elijah's measure of comparison is not power but beauty. His people call upon a master or an idol; Elijah sets against it not might but the beauty of the work done. And this is from the same root as the word muḥsinīn in the sūra's closing mould.

The same root, two sides: the one who does most beautifully, and those who do beautifully. This is a fact that can be verified from the text, and in the Elijah section the two stand together (125 and 131).

Al-khāliqīn — root خ-ل-ق: to measure out, to bring into being by giving measure. The original sense of the root is given by the lexicographers as "to measure and cut a hide". The root was analysed in al-Baqara.

And this verse is the most balanced sentence of the sūra on the question of following the forefathers.

A point of word order: Allāha is in the accusative — it attaches to aḥsana'l-khāliqīn as an appositive. That is: "the best of creators — that is, God".

And Elijah sets up two attributions:

1. rabbakum — your Lord 2. wa rabba ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn — and the Lord of your forefathers of old

I record this as my own reading — and this is the point I indicated in the section on the seventy-first verse: Elijah does not reject the forefathers. He binds the forefathers too to the same Lord.

In the seventeenth verse of the sūra the deniers had objected "and our forefathers of old too?". In the seventy-first it was said "most of those of old had gone astray". In the hundred and twenty-sixth the Lord of the forefathers is named.

The sūra, then, says three different things about the forefathers, and the three do not conflict:

This is the textual counterpart of Method's principle "no wholesale judgement is built", and it runs in the same direction as the distinction of muḥsin and ẓālim in the hundred and thirteenth verse.

Kadhdhaba — root ك-ذ-ب, Form II: to deny.

A point of word order: the two sentences are joined with fāʾ — absence of interval. Fa-kadhdhabūhu fa-innahum la-muḥḍarūn. Between the denial and the outcome there is no intervening step whatever.

Muḥḍarūn was analysed in the section on the fifty-seventh verse and a table was given. I do not repeat it.

And the difference within the sequence must be recorded: in the Noah section the other side is named with the verb aghraqnā (We drowned), in the Abraham section with jaʿalnāhumu'l-asfalīn (We made them the lowest), in the Lot section with dammarnā (We razed). In the Elijah section, however, no worldly destruction is named; it passes directly to the hereafter.

This is a fact that can be verified from the text and shows that the six sections of the sequence give six different ends.

The sentence for the third time in the sūra (40, 74, 128). It was analysed in the section on the fortieth verse.

The note of word order here is important: the exception attaches to the sentence fa-innahum la-muḥḍarūn — a group is set apart, that is, from among those who denied.

I record this as my own reading: the sentence says that a whole people does not meet the same end. And this runs in the same direction as the distinction of muḥsin and ẓālim in the hundred and thirteenth verse and the expression "the Lord of the forefathers too" in the hundred and twenty-sixth. In three separate places the sūra draws the same limit: no wholesale judgement.

And this verse is the most disputed question of variant reading and of language in the sūra.

In the received orthography of the codex the word is written in two parts: إِلْ يَاسِينَ. In the hundred and twenty-third verse, however, it is إِلْيَاسَ, in one part.

The differences of reading and pronunciation:

All three readings are transmitted in the sources on the variant readings. I give no reciter's name.

And the linguistic explanations:

The second explanation is supported by a textual datum and must be recorded: as was given in the section on the structure, from the twelfth verse to the hundred and eighty-second all the verse-endings are of the pattern long vowel + nūn/mīm. The form Ilyāsa would fall outside that pattern.

But this does not mean "it was changed merely for the sound"; what is recorded is that the two forms differ in their fit with the verse-ending.

And a note: in the hundred and thirty-second verse the pronoun is masculine singular — innahu min ʿibādina'l-muʾminīn. The mould speaks of one person, that is. This is a datum from within the word order against the "family" reading; but it does not eliminate it, because the pronoun may also refer to Ilyās in verse 123.

I do not impose a preference.