al-Ṣāffāt 37:22-26

Uḥshuru'lladhīna ẓalamū wa azwājahum wa mā kānū yaʿbudūn · Min dūni'llāhi fa'hdūhum ilā ṣirāṭi'l-jaḥīm · Wa qifūhum, innahum masʾūlūn · Mā lakum lā tanāṣarūn · Bal humu'l-yawma mustaslimūn

"Gather those who did wrong, and their consorts, and what they used to serve apart from God; and lead them to the road of the blaze. And halt them — they are to be questioned. — What is the matter with you, that you do not help one another? — Rather, today they have surrendered."

With the twenty-second verse the manner of telling changes: from declarative sentences it passes to imperatives.

Three commands one after another, and in none of them is the addressee named. In the classical commentaries it is widely said that the commands are directed to the angels; but the verse does not state this, and I give no name.

I record this as my own reading: that the addressee is not named makes the scene visual. We hear the command, the giver is clear, the receiver is indefinite — and this sets up the impression that the command is carried out at once. The step in between is not recounted.

Root ح-ش-ر: to drive together and gather what is scattered. The concrete use of the word comes from the context of war and exile: to raise a community from its place and drive it somewhere. The root was treated at Qāf 50/44 (dhālika ḥashrun ʿalaynā yasīr) and in al-Ḥashr.

And there is compulsion inside the word: ḥashr is not an invitation but a driving.

Root ز-و-ج. And there is disagreement over the sense of the word here:

In al-Wāqiʿa the sense of azwāj as "class" was treated. All three views are transmitted in the classical sources; I do not impose a preference. The verse does not specify.

And a note is required — per the method (Method): even if the first view is adopted, the verse does not say "spouses bear one another's sin". What those gathered have in common is, in the verse's own words, that they did wrong — alladhīna ẓalamū. The attribute is what is shared, not the kinship.

Note: not man but mā. Not "those whom they served", then, but "the things they served". In Arabic mā is used of non-rational beings.

This will tie to the ninety-fifth verse: a-taʿbudūna mā tanḥitūn — "do you serve what you carve?" The same particle, the same work.

And the sūra keeps to this choice consistently: the things they serve are named with mā, they themselves with alladhīna. This is a countable datum of the language.

And this is one of the sūra's harshest choices of word.

هَدَىٰ — root ه-د-ي: to lead to a way, to guide. The root was analysed in al-Fātiḥa (ihdina'ṣ-ṣirāṭa'l-mustaqīm), and as was recorded there, at the centre of the word are showing a way and leading along it.

In the Qurʾān this verb is positive almost everywhere. Here it is used for leading to the road of the blaze.

And the construct carries the same reversal:

The same verb, the same word (ṣirāṭ), the opposite direction.

In Arabic rhetoric this is called tahakkum (a mocking style): producing sharpness by using a word in the opposite context. In the section on al-Wāqiʿa the use of the word nuzul (hospitality) for punishment was another instance of the same method, and it was treated in al-Wāqiʿa.

Al-Jaḥīm — root ج-ح-م: the fire's blazing in its fiercest heat. Jaḥmatu'n-nār — the fire at its fiercest. And this word occurs six times in the sūra (23, 55, 64, 68, 97, 163) — it is the most repeated name of a place in the sūra.

وَقَفَ — root و-ق-ف: to stand, to halt. And the verb is used here transitively: qifūhum — "halt them".

A point of word order and my own reading: in the twenty-third verse the command was to lead; in the twenty-fourth comes the command to halt. The driving, that is, is broken off midway. They are being led to the road of the blaze but are stopped before arriving.

The reason is stated at once: innahum masʾūlūn — "they are to be questioned". The halt, then, is for a questioning.

Masʾūl — root س-أ-ل: to ask. A passive participle: the one asked, the one of whom an account is required. The Qurʾān uses this word elsewhere too: apart from the wa qifūhum scene, inna's-samʿa wa'l-baṣara wa'l-fuʾāda kullu ulāʾika kāna ʿanhu masʾūlā (al-Isrāʾ 17/36).

And what will be asked is not said here. The twenty-fifth verse brings a question, but that question is not a question for information.

Mā lakum — "what is the matter with you?" In Arabic a mould announcing astonishment and reproach. It will occur twice more in the sūra: 92 (mā lakum lā tanṭiqūn — to the idols), 154 (mā lakum kayfa taḥkumūn — to the deniers).

All three occurrences are questions about an inability to function, and this is a countable repetition. Two are directed at what is served, one at those who serve — and in both cases no answer comes.

Tanāṣarūn — root ن-ص-ر, Form VI (تَفَاعُل): reciprocity. Tanāṣara — they helped one another. Its original is tatanāṣarūn; one tāʾ has dropped.

The choice of Form VI is worth noting: the question is not "who will help you?" but "why do you not help one another?". No rescuer from outside is asked after, that is; what is asked after is the solidarity among themselves.

And this is the mirror of their state in this world — as my own reading: in the twenty-second verse they had been gathered together (themselves, their consorts, what they served). They came as a body but can do nothing as a body.

Bal is again iḍrāb: it leaves the question and announces the situation. The question is not answered; the impossibility of an answer is announced.

مُسْتَسْلِم — root س-ل-م, Form X. The root was analysed in al-Baqara, Qāf and al-Ḥujurāt: to be sound, wholeness, to surrender.

The work of Form X here: istaslama — he surrendered himself entirely, he gave up resisting. It is a word from the language of war: to lay down one's weapon.

And the contrast within the sūra is very marked — this is a textual datum:

The same root, the same sūra, two extremes. In the twenty-sixth verse surrender is a defeat; in the hundred and third it is a choice. The sūra uses the word twice and lets the scenes make the difference between them.

Al-yawma — "today". The bringing forward of the adverb creates emphasis: not yesterday, today. Yesterday they were resisting.