أَفَمَا نَحْنُ بِمَيِّتِينَ · إِلَّا مَوْتَتَنَا ٱلْأُولَىٰ وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمُعَذَّبِينَ · إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَهُوَ ٱلْفَوْزُ ٱلْعَظِيمُ · لِمِثْلِ هَٰذَا فَلْيَعْمَلِ ٱلْعَٰمِلُونَ
A-fa-mā naḥnu bi-mayyitīn · Illā mawtatana'l-ūlā wa mā naḥnu bi-muʿadhdhabīn · Inna hādhā la-huwa'l-fawzu'l-ʿaẓīm · Li-mithli hādhā fa'l-yaʿmali'l-ʿāmilūn
"'So then we are not to die — save our first death? And we are not to be punished?' — This indeed is the great triumph. For the like of this let the workers work."
| View | Who says it | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| The continuation of the speaker | The speech begun in the fifty-first verse continues; after looking at his companion the man turns and asks those beside him | The pronoun is plural (naḥnu) and the preceding speech also belongs to this person |
| The common word of those in the garden | They all say it together | Naḥnu is plural |
| Said to the one in the fire | The speaker turns to the one below and says "we are not to die" | The continuation of the scene |
A point of word order: the question opens with a-fa-mā — interrogative particle + fāʾ + negation. These three set up a question of astonishment attached to what precedes. In English: "So then…?"
And the question is not a real question — because its answer is known. In Arabic this is called the interrogative of astonishment (istifhām al-taʿajjub): to say again, with joy or with wonder, something already known.
I record this as my own reading: the man has just seen someone in the middle of the blaze. The source of the question is what he has seen. He perceives his own state anew by comparing it with the state he has seen.
Mawta — root م-و-ت, the marra pattern announcing "a single dying" (the faʿla pattern announces a single occurrence). Not mawt (death), that is, but mawta (one event of dying).
Al-ūlā — "the first". And the construct sets up a logic: saying "the first" appears to require the existence of a "second" — but the verse negates the second.
The explanation transmitted in the classical commentaries: al-ūlā here is not an ordinal number but means "that death which lies in the past" — that is, death in this world. There is a similar expression at al-Dukhān 44/56: lā yadhūqūna fīha'l-mawta illa'l-mawtata'l-ūlā, treated in al-Dukhān. I rely on that treatment.
And the order of the two is worth noting — as my own reading: first the duration is secured (we shall not die), then the state (we shall not be punished). The two conditions of a favour: that it last and that it not be spoilt. The same pair had been made for the drink in the forty-seventh verse: it neither harms (ghawl) nor is exhausted (yunzafūn). In both places the same logic: no spoiling from without, no ending from within.
Muʿadhdhab — root ع-ذ-ب, the passive participle of Form II. The lexicographers record an oddity: from the same root ʿadhb means sweet water. Different explanations are transmitted about the link between the two senses — on one view ʿadhāb is what cuts off a sweet life. I give this link as a transmission; I issue no firm etymological ruling.
And here the speaking party changes: verses fifty-eight and fifty-nine were a question; the sixtieth is a ruling. In the classical commentaries it is widely said that this sentence is the text's own voice.
| Element | Its work |
|---|---|
| إِنَّ | The particle of reinforcement |
| لَـ | Lām al-ibtidāʾ — a second reinforcement |
| هُوَ | Ḍamīr al-faṣl (the separating pronoun) — "this is it, and not another" |
Ḍamīr al-faṣl in Arabic sets up restriction (ḥaṣr) by separating the subject from the predicate. The sentence says, that is, not "this is a great triumph" but "the great triumph is precisely this, and nothing else".
Fawz — root ف-و-ز. The original sense the lexicographers give: to escape and to attain what one desires — the two together. Fāza — he both escaped danger and obtained what he wanted. Mafāza — both a place of deliverance and a perilous crossing in the desert.
And that both senses are at work here is worth noting: the fifty-ninth verse recounted escaping (no death, no punishment), verses forty-one to forty-nine attaining (provision, hospitality, companions). The word gathers the two under one heading.
A point of word order — and an important one: li-mithli hādhā has been brought forward. The ordinary order would have been fa'l-yaʿmali'l-ʿāmilūna li-mithli hādhā. In Arabic bringing forward (taqdīm) sets up ḥaṣr: "let them work for this, and not for anything else."
Li-mithli hādhā — "for the like of this". And note: not li-hādhā (for this) but li-mithli hādhā (for the like of this).
Two explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries for this expression's being built with the word mithl:
| Explanation | What it says |
|---|---|
| Intensification | In Arabic mithl is sometimes added for reinforcement and means "exactly this" (as in the instance laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ) |
| Real likeness | The picture recounted is an example; what is to be worked for is not this picture itself but an outcome of the kind it indicates |
Fa'l-yaʿmal — a command to the third person with the imperative lām. Not "work", then, but "let the workers work".
And the verb and its subject are from the same root: yaʿmali'l-ʿāmilūn. The same structure as qāla qāʾilun in the fifty-first verse. In this section the sūra uses a verb and subject from the same root twice. This is a textual datum.
I record this as my own reading: the sentence is not a summons but a correction of direction. "The workers" already exist and are already working; the verse does not command working, it changes the aim of the working. In the thirty-ninth verse it had been said "you are requited only for what you did" — here the same verb (ع-م-ل) is named together with its aim.