al-Ṣāffāt 37:40-44

Illā ʿibāda'llāhi'l-mukhlaṣīn · Ulāʾika lahum rizqun maʿlūm · Fawākihu wa hum mukramūn · Fī jannāti'n-naʿīm · ʿAlā sururin mutaqābilīn

"Except God's chosen servants. For them there is a known provision: fruits. And they will be honoured — in gardens of bliss, upon couches facing one another."

This sentence occurs four times in the sūra: 40, 74, 128, 160. This is a countable fact, and it forms the structural skeleton of the sūra.

In all four the same work is done: a group is set apart from a ruling. And in all four places the ruling is negative and the exception positive.

And there is a fifth occurrence — but this time the sentence is inside a falsehood:

The sūra, that is, gives the very construction it set down four times as the condition of deliverance a fifth time as an unrealised claim of the deniers. And immediately after: fa-kafarū bihi — "then they denied it" (170). This is a structure that can be verified from the text and is one of the sūra's most elegant internal links.

Root خ-ل-ص: a thing's being pure, unmixed. The root was analysed at al-Baqara 2/139 (wa naḥnu lahu mukhliṣūn): like the separating of butter from milk, a thing's having nothing else mixed into it. I do not repeat the definition given there.

But here there is a difference of pattern, and it changes the sense:

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

The difference of sense is marked and must be recorded: on the first reading the source of deliverance is being chosen, on the second sincerity. And the two readings do not exclude one another — both patterns are used in the Qurʾān: innahu min ʿibādina'l-mukhlaṣīn (Yūsuf 12/24) and mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīn (al-Bayyina 98/5; al-Zumar 39/2).

I do not impose a preference. In this commentary the form in the received orthography of the text (mukhlaṣīn) has been taken as the basis and rendered "chosen"; that the other is also transmitted has been recorded.

ʿIbād — root ع-ب-د. The word will occur in the sūra's closing mould as well: innahu min ʿibādinā'l-muʾminīn (81, 111, 132). Note: there the construct is ʿibādinā (Our servants), here ʿibāda'llāh (God's servants). The two constructs say the same thing, but one in the first person and the other in the third. This is an observation about the structure.

Root ر-ز-ق: to convey to a living being what it will benefit from. The root was treated at al-Dhāriyāt 51/22 (wa fi's-samāʾi rizqukum) and 51/58 (inna'llāha huwa'r-razzāq).

مَعْلُوم — root ع-ل-م, a passive participle: known, determined.

And the choice of the attribute has been dwelt upon. The explanations transmitted in the classical commentaries:

All three are transmitted; the verse does not specify and I impose no preference.

But a contrast must be recorded — and this is a textual datum: in the section on al-Wāqiʿa it was said of zaqqūm that it is "a tree of unknown, unrecognised kind", and the estranging function of that indefiniteness was given there in a table (al-Wāqiʿa). Here the reverse is present: maʿlūm — known. And in the sixty-second verse the sūra will compare these two sides directly: a-dhālika khayrun nuzulan am shajaratu'z-zaqqūm.

And the word will occur once more in the sūra: wa mā minnā illā lahu maqāmun maʿlūm (164) — "each of us has a known station". The same attribute, one of provision and one of station. This is a textual datum.

Fawākih — the plural of fākiha, root ف-ك-ه. The root was analysed in al-Wāqiʿa (fākiha 56/20, 32; tafakkahūn 56/65). The note there: in the root there is "taking pleasure, delighting the heart"; fākiha is not necessary food but something eaten for delight.

And a point of word order must be recorded — as my own reading: the forty-first verse says rizqun maʿlūm; the forty-second explains it with a single word: fawākih. What is called "a known provision", then, has as its content not the necessary but the additional. The word provision suggests subsistence; its explanation turns out to be hospitality.

Mukramūn — root ك-ر-م, the passive participle of Form IV: honoured, treated with hospitality. The original sense of the root is given by the lexicographers as "generosity and worth"; karīm means both generous and worthy.

And the word carries the idea of a host. The definition recorded for the word nuzul in al-Wāqiʿa is at work here too: the reception given to a guest. In the sixty-second verse the sūra will set these two words (nuzul and zaqqūm) directly against one another.

Surur — the plural of sarīr: a raised seat, a couch, a throne. The lexicographers record the link between the root س-ر-ر and surūr (joy): a sarīr is the seat one sits on in a place of joy. I give this link as a transmission from the lexicographers.

Mutaqābilīn — root ق-ب-ل, Form VI: to be facing, to stand face to face. The same root as the aqbala of the twenty-seventh verse.

And the symmetry within the sūra is completed here — this is a textual datum:

The same root three times, and in all three a "turning of the face"; but the work of the turning is different each time.

The word mutaqābilīn was treated in the same context at al-Ṭūr 52/20 and at al-Dukhān 44/53. The note there holds here too: to sit facing one another is the lifting of distance and of turned backs.