al-Ṣāffāt 37:83-87

Wa inna min shīʿatihi la-Ibrāhīm · Idh jāʾa rabbahu bi-qalbin salīm · Idh qāla li-abīhi wa qawmihi mādhā taʿbudūn · A-ifkan ālihatan dūna'llāhi turīdūn · Fa-mā ẓannukum bi-rabbi'l-ʿālamīn

"And of those who followed his way was Abraham. When he came to his Lord with a sound heart. When he said to his father and his people: 'What is it you serve? Is it fabricated gods, apart from God, that you want? Then what do you suppose of the Lord of all the worlds?'"

Shīʿa — root ش-ي-ع. And the original sense of the root is worth noting: to spread, to disperse, to multiply. Shāʿa'l-khabar — the news spread; ashāʿa — he spread it. From this shīʿa arises: a company gathered around a person and spreading his view.

At the centre of the word, then, there are two things: to follow a person and to spread his cause.

The Qurʾān uses the word both positively and negatively: wa laqad ahlaknā ashyāʿakum (al-Qamar 54/51) — "We have destroyed your like"; and at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/15 a man is named as min shīʿatihi (of his party).

To whom does the pronoun refer? Shīʿatihi — "of his party". And this is disputed:

The first view is nearer grammatically (a pronoun refers to the nearest antecedent) and is transmitted more widely in the classical commentaries. The second is also transmitted. I do not impose a preference.

And a note as my own reading: the choice of the word announces that the sequence is a chain. Abraham is presented not as a separate beginning but as a continuation. In the thirty-seventh verse it had been said of the Prophet wa ṣaddaqa'l-mursalīn ("he confirmed the messengers"); here too a prophet is joined to the one before him. What is built through the sūra is not separate heroes but a single line.

And this is one of the most often cited expressions of the sūra.

Jāʾa … bi- — in Arabic the mould announcing "to bring a thing". Not "he came", then, but "he brought". Jāʾa bi-qalbin salīm — he brought his heart.

I record this as my own reading: the mould carries the idea of an offering. In the thirty-seventh verse it had been said of the Prophet jāʾa bi'l-ḥaqq ("he brought the truth") — the same mould. In both places the sūra uses the same structure: a person brings something. The one the truth, the other his heart.

Salīm — root س-ل-م. And this is the third place in which the sūra uses the s-l-m root:

This is a countable fact and shows that this is one of the densest roots of the sūra.

The faʿīl pattern in Arabic can carry both an active and a passive sense. The senses transmitted for salīm here:

All these senses are transmitted in the classical commentaries, and most exegetes count them as complementary. I impose no preference.

And an intra-Qurʾānic link: illā man ata'llāha bi-qalbin salīm (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/89). The same construction, the same verbal mould (atā … bi-). And there too the words are Abraham's. This is a textual datum.

Qalb — root ق-ل-ب: to turn, to turn over. This sense of the root was treated in Qāf and al-Baqara. The name of the organ, that is, means "what turns, what passes from state to state". That the attribute salīm is given to this root is worth noting: soundness is asked of a thing that is continually changing.

Abraham's first utterance is a question. And the question does not ask for information.

In Arabic this is called istifhām inkārī (an interrogative of denial) or tawbīkh (an interrogative of reproach): to ask about something whose answer is known, so as to bring the addressee face to face with his own answer.

And note: not man taʿbudūn (whom do you serve) but mādhā taʿbudūn (what do you serve). The same particle was used in the twenty-second verse: wa mā kānū yaʿbudūn. The sūra names the things served consistently with the particle for non-rational beings. This is a countable datum of the language.

Li-abīhi wa qawmihi — "to his father and his people". The order is worth noting: first the father, then the people. He begins from the nearest.

And this verse is one of the densest sentences in the sūra in point of word order.

The ordinary order would have been: a-turīdūna ālihatan ifkan dūna'llāh. In the verse the order has been changed entirely:

The verb, that is, has been thrown to the very end, and the word ifk has been brought to the very front.

In Arabic bringing forward (taqdīm) sets up emphasis and ḥaṣr. The centre of gravity of the sentence becomes not "do you want?" but "is it a fabrication?"

I record this as my own reading: the question is not "do you serve?" but "is it a fabricated thing that you want?" The emphasis falls not on the verb but on the quality of the object. Abraham questions not the serving but the kind of what is served.

Ifk — root أ-ف-ك: to turn a thing from its direction, to overturn it. Afaka — he turned it; maʾfūk — one whose reason has been turned. The same root was treated in the Qurʾān at al-Dhāriyāt 51/9: yuʾfaku ʿanhu man ufik — "turned away from it is he who is turned".

And the picture of the root is worth noting: ifk does not mean exactly "a lie"; it means "speech that has turned the truth about". A lie is a fabrication; ifk is the overturning of what exists.

And the word will occur once more in the sūra: alā innahum min ifkihim la-yaqūlūn · walada'llāh (151-152) — "out of their fabrication they say 'God has begotten'". Both occurrences do the same work: fabricating an attribution. This is a countable repetition.

Dūna'llāh — "apart from God, short of God". Dūn in Arabic announces "below, short of". It had occurred in the twenty-third verse too (min dūni'llāh).

And Abraham's second question does different work from the first.

Ẓann — root ظ-ن-ن: an opinion that is not certain, supposing. But the root is two-directional in Arabic: sometimes it means "to suppose" (a weak opinion), sometimes "to know with certainty". Both uses are present in the Qurʾān: alladhīna yaẓunnūna annahum mulāqū rabbihim (al-Baqara 2/46 — certainty here).

What is transmitted about its sense here:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. The sentence is open to both readings.

And the order of the two questions is worth noting — as my own reading: the first question asked about what they serve (85-86); the second asks about what they do not serve (87). Abraham shows first what is in their hand, then what is not. And the object of the second question is given not with a name but with a construct: rabbu'l-ʿālamīn — the Lord of all the worlds. The other side's gods are "ālihatan" (plural, indefinite), what Abraham names is "the Lord of all the worlds" (singular, all-encompassing).

Rabbu'l-ʿālamīn — the same construct as in the last verse of the sūra: wa'l-ḥamdu li'llāhi rabbi'l-ʿālamīn (182). The sūra closes with the construct it set in Abraham's mouth. This is a fact that can be verified from the text.