38. Sūrat Ṣād

Eighty-eight verses. It is widely reported to have come down in the Meccan period. It takes its name from the single letter in its first verse: ص.

It is one of the three sūras in the Qurʾān that open with a single letter — Ṣād, Qāf, Nūn. The three were compared in Qāf, and what was recorded there was this: in all three, the first thing that follows the letter belongs to the field of writing. Sūrat al-Qalam names the pen; Ṣād and Qāf name the text.

The subject of the sūra can be said in a single word: judgment. But this is not the sūra of saying "judgment will be passed on the Day of Resurrection". What the sūra does is more interesting: it tells of the work of judging by putting it into the hands of individual people.

• In the twenty-second verse two litigants ask a prophet for a judgment.
• In the twenty-sixth verse the measure of judging is announced to that prophet: bi'l-ḥaqq, and lā tattabiʿi'l-hawā.
• In the twenty-seventh verse a judgment is passed about the creation of heaven and earth: not bāṭilan.
• In the twenty-eighth verse a question is asked: are the two groups to be treated alike?
• From the forty-ninth verse onward two recompenses are set side by side and nothing is asked of the reader — they are merely shown.
• And in the seventy-fifth verse Iblīs is asked: mā manaʿaka — what held you back?

Throughout the sūra, that is, someone is continually deciding about something. Some decide rightly, some are in haste, some trust their own analogy and are wrong.

And the opening and the close of the sūra set this in a frame: in the first verse an oath is sworn by the Qurʾān, and in the eighty-eighth it is said, "you will surely know its report after a time." The eighty-six verses between stand in this interval in which knowing is deferred.

This section will first make the skeleton of the sūra visible, and then come down to the verses.

The sūra consists of eleven blocks. The boundaries of the blocks are drawn mostly either by a change of personal name or by a repeated pattern.

There is something in the placement of the blocks that must be recorded: blocks III, V, VI and VII — that is, the exact middle of the sūra, the thirty-two verses from verse 17 to verse 48 — are given over to the accounts of the prophets. And these accounts stand between the polemic that precedes them and the scene that follows them.

This is a countable fact, and it can be verified one by one.

Of the eighty-eight verses, the first sixty-six, from 1 to 66, end without exception in a long ā sound followed by a single consonant:

dhikr, shiqāq, manāṣ, kadhdhāb, ʿujāb, yurād, ikhtilāq, ʿadhāb, al-Wahhāb, al-asbāb, al-aḥzāb, al-awtād, al-aḥzāb, ʿiqāb, fawāq, al-ḥisāb, awwāb, al-ishrāq, awwāb, al-khiṭāb, al-miḥrāb, al-ṣirāṭ, al-khiṭāb, anāb, maʾāb, al-ḥisāb, al-nār, al-fujjār, al-albāb, awwāb, al-jiyād, al-ḥijāb, al-aʿnāq, anāb, al-Wahhāb, aṣāb, ghawwāṣ, al-aṣfād, ḥisāb, maʾāb, ʿadhāb, sharāb, al-albāb, awwāb, al-abṣār, al-dār, al-akhyār, al-akhyār, maʾāb, al-abwāb, sharāb, atrāb, al-ḥisāb, nafād, maʾāb, al-mihād, ghassāq, azwāj, al-nār, al-qarār, al-nār, al-ashrār, al-abṣār, al-nār, al-Qahhār, al-Ghaffār.

Then in the sixty-seventh verse the sound changes, and it never returns:

ʿaẓīm, muʿriḍūn, yakhtaṣimūn, mubīn, ṭīn, sājidīn, ajmaʿūn, al-kāfirīn, al-ʿālīn, ṭīn, rajīm, al-dīn, yubʿathūn, al-munẓarīn, al-maʿlūm, ajmaʿīn, al-mukhlaṣīn, aqūl, ajmaʿīn, al-mutakallifīn, li'l-ʿālamīn, ḥīn.

Twenty-two verses, this time with a long ī or ū sound.

And where exactly is the break? At the sixty-seventh verse. And that verse is this:

قُلْ هُوَ نَبَؤٌا۟ عَظِيمٌ — "Say: it is a mighty report."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the list above: for sixty-six verses the sūra speaks in a single sound; then it says "a mighty report" and changes its voice. In the ear, the sound changes before the subject does.

One further note: the sound pattern of the second section (ī/ū + a single consonant) is the pattern of the whole of Sūrat Qāf, as recorded in Qāf. Ṣād, that is, passes over into the sound of Qāf in its last twenty-two verses. I give this as an observation; I am not building a claim on it.

In the first verse the sūra describes the Qurʾān as dhi'dh-dhikr (possessor of the reminder), and it closes in the eighty-seventh verse by saying dhikrun li'l-ʿālamīn (a reminder for all the worlds). In between the word returns six more times:

What is to be recorded is this: the same word is at once the name of the Book (1, 87), the subject of the objection (8), the thing a prophet says he turned away from (32), and the function of the accounts that are told (43, 46, 49).

The forty-ninth verse is the knot of this chain: when the thirty-two verses of the prophets are finished, the text says hādhā dhikr — "this is a reminder". What has been recounted, that is, is named after the recounting is over.

The root occurs four times, and its distribution is worth noticing:

I record this as my own reading: the attribute uttered in the middle of a dispute in the ninth verse (al-Wahhāb — the one who gives abundantly) is displayed over the next forty verses in three separate events. The sūra states the attribute first and then exemplifies it.

These two words come from the same root (أ-و-ب: to return) and occur eight times in all in the sūra.

And there is a verifiable equivalence here: the construct ḥusna maʾāb comes in exactly the same wording for David (25) and for Solomon (40); then in the forty-ninth verse it is repeated for the whole body of the God-fearing.

What was given to two prophets, that is, opens out to a class in the forty-ninth verse. And immediately afterwards the opposite is set down: sharra maʾāb.

Maʾāb means "the place one returns and arrives at". The cast of the sūra is full of awwābs (those who turn back often); the name of the place arrived at is from the same root. The one who returns and the place returned to are named with one word.

The root occurs five times, and all five are at a different work:

The occurrence in the verses of the eighties must be recorded in particular: Iblīs swears by the might of the being he is defying. I shall take this up below in its place.

Four occurrences, three separate places: in a miḥrāb on earth (21-22), in the Fire (64), and in the place where the angels are (69). The same root, on three levels.

And the order is worth recording: the sūra gives litigation first in an example that is settled (David issues a judgment), then in one that is not settled (in the Fire no one can convince anyone), and last of all in the example that stands at the beginning (the objection of Iblīs).

This is one of the finest placements in the sūra, and it rests entirely on the wording.

The same command, from the same root and in the same mood, eleven verses apart, in the mouths of two opposed sides. The other side tells its own body: hold out. The text tells its envoy: endure.

And in the forty-fourth verse the root comes a third time, this time as a verdict: innā wajadnāhu ṣābirā — "we found him patient." The command is given twice, that is, and once the outcome is announced.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the three words are from one root: the sūra does not show patience as the monopoly of one side. Holding out is something both sides can do; what divides them is what is held out for.

The most frequently repeated word in the sūra is hādhā ("this"). And its distribution falls into two.

First the other side uses it — three times, all three dismissive:

Then the text takes it back — six times, from the forty-ninth verse onward:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the distribution of the word: the side that says "this" at the beginning of the sūra and pushes it away with the back of its hand hears the same word about itself at the end. To the man who says "this astonishing thing" in the fifth verse, it is said in the fifty-seventh: "here it is — taste it."

In the thirty-ninth verse the same word occurs once more, and it stands at the gentlest place in the sūra: hādhā ʿaṭāʾunā — "this is our giving."

On the sūra's being Meccan there is a state of near-unanimity.

For verses four to eight a report about the occasion of revelation is transmitted in the classical works of exegesis and ḥadīth: the leading men of Quraysh come to Abū Ṭālib and complain about his nephew, they speak with the Prophet, and when they hear nothing from him but "lā ilāha illā'llāh" they rise from the gathering and leave, and say the words in the sixth verse.

I give this report in the language of "it is transmitted", and I issue no ruling about its chain. This much can be said: the wording of the verses is self-sufficient enough for a reader who does not know the report to follow it. The words wa'nṭalaqa'l-malaʾu minhum in the sixth verse ("their leading men rose and went off") describe a departure from a gathering; the report makes this concrete, but does not make it necessary.

The basmala was treated in earlier sections; the verses are counted without it.

Ṣād · Wa'l-Qurʾāni dhi'dh-dhikr · Bali'lladhīna kafarū fī ʿizzatin wa shiqāq · Kam ahlaknā min qablihim min qarnin fa-nādaw wa-lāta ḥīna manāṣ

"Ṣād. By the Qurʾān, possessor of the reminder. No; those who disbelieve are in a resistance and a rift. How many generations We destroyed before them; they cried out, but it was no longer the hour of escape."

The disconnected letters were treated at length in al-Baqara at 2/1, and in Qāf at 50/1 by way of an opening that may be counted this sūra's sibling. I rely on what was recorded there and do not repeat it here.

The summary is this, and it holds here exactly: the meaning of these letters is not known with certainty. One body of scholars refers the meaning to God (tafwīḍ); among the views that seek an explanation, the one that finds the most support from within the text is that the letters point to the raw material of the Qurʾān and so give the challenge its force.

And the note entered in bold in the discussion of Qāf must be entered here too: no numerical reckonings, no abjad, no letter-counting are carried out on these letters. That road is not taken in this commentary.

For the letter ṣād there are guesses transmitted in the classical sources — it is said to be the first letter of words such as ṣādiqun (one who speaks truly) or ṣadaqa (he spoke truly). I convey these but adopt none of them, because, as was recorded in the discussion of al-Baqara, the method is not systematic: applied to all the letter-groups alike, it does not yield consistent results.

There is no certain knowledge. No meaning is manufactured for the letter in this commentary.

The only thing that can be verified from the text is the pattern recorded in the discussion of Qāf: what comes after the letter is the Book, and here nothing at all intervenes.

صٓ وَٱلْقُرْءَانِ ذِى ٱلذِّكْرِ

What is sworn by is the Qurʾān, and it is named with an attribute: dhi'dh-dhikr.

ذِكْر — root ذ-ك-ر. To mention, to remember, to remind; and from there: admonition, warning, that by which a people is spoken of — honour, name.

The construct has been understood in two ways, and the disagreement is real:

I do not impose a preference. But a datum from within the sūra can be recorded: the word occurs seven more times in the sūra (tabulated above), and its last occurrence is dhikrun li'l-ʿālamīn (87) — where the sense is plainly "admonition". The sūra supports the first sense from within itself.

The comparison with Qāf must be recorded:

In Qāf the picture of "breadth and abundance" in the root of majīd was treated; I rely on that treatment. The two sūras use the same oath pattern and choose two different attributes: one names the compass of the text, the other its work.

In Arabic an oath (qasam) requires an answer (jawāb al-qasam): "…by such and such, it is so." Here there is no explicit answer — exactly as in Qāf.

The same question was treated in Qāf at 50/1 and four views were tabulated there. I rely on that; here I give the table particular to Ṣād, because in Ṣād the spread of views is wider than in Qāf.

In this disagreement I do not impose a preference.

But an observation like the one made in the discussion of Qāf can be made here too, and I record it as my own reading: all six views look for the answer around a confirmation — either that the Qurʾān is true, or that the one who cries lies meets his recompense, or that the report will be known sooner or later. The wording of the answer is disputed; its direction is not.

And the force of the last view in point of wording must be recorded: if the answer is verse 88, then the whole of the sūra is taken inside a single oath. This is a reading that makes the beginning and the end of the sūra one sentence — it is not binding, but in terms of Arabic construction it is the option that strains least.

Bal (بل) is the particle of iḍrāb: leaving off the preceding sentence and passing to something else. It was treated in Qāf at 50/2; it was recorded there that it works in two ways — either it cancels what precedes, or it leaves what precedes and leaps to the real matter.

Here it is the second, and its effect is the same as in Qāf: an oath is sworn, no answer is given, and with bal the subject shifts at once to the state of the other side. The text does not begin to defend its own claim; it makes the objection itself the subject.

And bal comes four times across the sūra: 2 (bali'lladhīna kafarū), twice in 8 (bal hum fī shakk, bal lammā yadhūqū ʿadhāb), 60 (bal antum lā marḥaban bikum). All four make a correction: they put the true name to what has been said.

The concrete sense of the root: hardness, firmness, resistance to wear. The lexicographers say al-arḍu'l-ʿazāz: hard, barren ground that a mattock will not enter. All the derivatives of the word come out of this picture:

There is one thing at the centre of the root: that a thing cannot be penetrated. A mattock does not enter hard ground; a hand cannot be laid on one who is ʿazīz.

And the word works in two directions:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sūra's own distribution of the word: the same root is used of the other side in the second verse and of God in the ninth — seven verses apart. Immediately after naming the other side's claim to might, that is, the text states where might actually lies.

One further note: the particle فِى in the construct fī ʿizzatin matters. It does not say "they are mighty"; it says "they are inside a might". In Arabic fī conveys being inside a vessel. Might is given here, that is, not as their attribute but as a state they have entered. A posture, a position.

The root was treated in Fuṣṣilat at 41/52, and what was recorded there was this: "the root ش-ق-ق: to split, to cleave in two… Shiqāq is the falling of two sides into separate halves." I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

What is to be added here is that the two words have been set side by side: ʿizza and shiqāq.

I record this as my own reading: the two together give the two faces of a single posture — hardness and severance. And this description explains every dialogue in the rest of the sūra: from the fourth verse on, what the other side says is always a derivative of these two words.

In Fuṣṣilat the word shiqāq came with the adjective baʿīd (far) — there the distance of the rift was being named. Here there is no adjective; in its place the word is paired with another word. The two sūras complete the same word with two different things.

كَمْ here is khabariyya — not interrogative but conveying multitude: "how many…" No number is given; a multitude is given.

قَرْن — root ق-ر-ن: to join, to set side by side. Qarn — a body of people who lived at the same time, adjoining one another; a generation. The picture at the root of the word is that people are together in point of time.

When "how many generations" is said, then, what is named is not the name of a people but a stretch of time. The sūra gives no names yet; the names will come in the twelfth verse.

Root ن-د-ي: to call, to call out loudly. The verb nādaw — they called, they cried out.

And its object is not given. Whom they called, what they said, is not stated. This is not an omission but a choice: what is being told is not the content of the call but that its hour had passed.

لَاتَ is a rare particle in Arabic. It is the negative lā with a tāʾ added to it, and it is used only with words denoting time. Its function: "it is no longer that hour".

The grammarians differ over how this particle works, and although the disagreement is technical it must be recorded:

The meaning is the same on all three views, and I do not impose a preference.

مَنَاص — root ن-و-ص. And the concrete sense of the root is worth recording: to flee, to slip away and escape, to draw back. Nāṣa yanūṣu — he fled, he withdrew. Manāṣ — a place of escape, a possibility of escape.

The lexicographers record that the word was first used of an animal: the startled beast's springing back and bolting. There is a sudden shying and a movement of flight, that is, inside the word.

The picture the sentence builds is this: there is crying out, there is no place to flee, and the reason there is none is not place but time. It does not say "there was no place to flee"; it says "it was no longer the hour of escape."

Three verses set up a sequence, and the sequence announces the whole of the sūra in advance:

And what the third verse says is not a threat but a piece of information about time. People crying out are described; they obtain nothing not because they objected but because they were late.

I record this as my own inference: what the verse dwells on is not remorse itself but the timing of remorse. It is said that the same words serve at one hour and do not serve at another. This must be read together with the phrase baʿda ḥīn ("after a time") at the end of the sūra: the sūra opens with a notion of term and closes with a notion of term.

Wa ʿajibū an jāʾahum mundhirun minhum wa qāla'l-kāfirūna hādhā sāḥirun kadhdhāb · A-jaʿala'l-ālihata ilāhan wāḥidā, inna hādhā la-shayʾun ʿujāb

"They were astonished that a warner from among themselves had come to them, and the disbelievers said: 'This is a sorcerer, a great liar. Has he made the gods one single god? This is truly an astonishing thing.'"

The root ع-ج-ب was treated in detail in Qāf at 50/2. I rely on that and do not repeat the analysis of the root.

The finding there was this, and it explains the whole polemical part of this sūra:

"Astonishment has no evidential value, because astonishment is a measure not of knowledge but of familiarity. A person is astonished at what he is not used to. And habit says nothing whatever about whether a thing is possible."

And the table drawn up in Qāf holds here exactly: a proof rests on a premise and can be tested; astonishment rests on habit and contains nothing to test.

Now I pass to what is particular to Ṣād, because Ṣād carries this diagnosis a step beyond Qāf.

In Qāf the object of astonishment was single: being raised after death. In Ṣād the astonishment is directed at three separate things in succession, and all three are set out between the fourth and the seventh verses:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of these three verses: all three objections have the same structure — something falls outside the customary, and is rejected for that reason. In none of them is a proof advanced; in all three the measure is the hearer's own past experience.

In describing what astonishes them, the verse bears down on a single word: minhum — from among themselves.

The object of the astonishment, that is, is not that a warner came. The idea of a warner was not strange to them; they knew the reports of the peoples that were destroyed. What astonishes them is that the warner is familiar.

And in the Qurʾān this objection will turn into an explicit sentence in the eighth verse: a-unzila ʿalayhi'dh-dhikru min bayninā — "has the reminder been sent down on him, from among us?"

In al-Qamar this objection was treated under the heading "the objection to the choice", and what was recorded there is worth noting: the same sentence occurs in the mouth of Thamūd as well (al-Qamar 54/25), and the wording is almost exactly the same. The sūra, that is, makes its hearers listen to their own sentence in the mouth of an earlier people. In al-Zukhruf at 43/31 there is another form of the same objection: "Should this Qurʾān not have been sent down on some great man of the two cities?"

Read together, what the three places yield is this, and I give it as my own reading: the objection is made not to the content of the message but to its manner of distribution. The other side takes the question of to whom revelation comes as a matter of status; the text takes it as a matter of office.

The accusation is built with two words, and the two words are on different patterns. The difference is meaningful:

The second word is thus heavier than the first. "Sorcerer" is said, but "liar" is not — what is said is "one who has made lying his trade".

سِحْر — root س-ح-ر. The lexicographers dwell on its concrete sense: to show a thing otherwise than it is, to turn the eye and the apprehension. Saḥar — the moment of daybreak when dark and light are mingled; the place where two things run into one another.

I record this as my own reading: this side of the root shows why the accusation was chosen. The other side does not deny that the speech is effective; it ascribes the effect to a confusion. "This speech does something, but what it does is not real." This is a rejection that concedes the power of the speech.

And the two accusations contradict one another: a sorcerer is one who shows what he sees as something else; a liar is one who says what is not. The one performs an operation on the real, the other does not use the real at all. To say both of the same person in the same sentence is not a consistent diagnosis but the piling of two separate grounds of rejection one on top of the other.

I give this as an observation; the verse does not itself stress the contradiction.

The sentence is built as a question but expects no answer. In Arabic this is called istifhām inkārī: rejection in the form of a question.

And the construction must be recorded: al-āliha (definite plural: the known gods) → ilāhan wāḥidā (indefinite singular: one single god).

I record this as my own reading: the objection frames a language of loss. The other side sees tawḥīd as a subtraction — an operation that comes down from many to few. The whole answer of the text is that this is not a subtraction but a correction; and the sūra will give that answer with examples over ninety verses.

And the choice of verb is striking as well: jaʿala — he made, he rendered. The other side presents tawḥīd, that is, not as a claim about the truth but as an act of the envoy's: "he has reduced the gods to one." As if the number of the gods were something somebody decides.

The word is on the fuʿāl pattern and, as was recorded in Qāf, conveys intensity: not "astonishing" but "most astonishing".

In Qāf the other side said shayʾun ʿajīb (50/2); here it says shayʾun ʿujāb. The same root, one degree higher.

In al-Jinn these two occurrences were named together, and the comparison drawn there should be recalled here too: the jinn hear the Qurʾān and say "qurʾānan ʿajabā" and believe; the Meccans use the same root and cry lies. The word is the same, the verb that follows it different.

I record this because it is decisive for the method of the sūra: astonishment is in itself neither faith nor denial. Astonishment is a starting point; what it turns out to be is settled by what is done after it.

Wa'nṭalaqa'l-malaʾu minhum ani'mshū wa'ṣbirū ʿalā ālihati-kum, inna hādhā la-shayʾun yurād · Mā samiʿnā bi-hādhā fi'l-millati'l-ākhira, in hādhā illā'khtilāq · A-unzila ʿalayhi'dh-dhikru min bayninā, bal hum fī shakkin min dhikrī, bal lammā yadhūqū ʿadhāb

"Their leading men rose and went off: 'Walk on, hold fast to your gods; there is a purpose behind this. We have not heard of this in the last religion; this is nothing but a fabrication. Has the reminder been sent down on him, from among us?' No, they are in doubt about My reminder. No, they have not yet tasted My punishment."

ٱنطَلَقَ — root ط-ل-ق. Its concrete sense: the loosing of a tie, being set free. Ṭalāq is from the same root; iṭlāq — to let go. Form VII (infiʿāl) here means "to set out, to rise and go".

The choice of verb builds a scene: people rise from a place where they had been sitting, and speak as they disperse. This is the end of a meeting.

ٱلْمَلَأ — root م-ل-أ: to fill. Malaʾ — the leading men who fill an assembly; the company that fills the eye when it is seen. The picture at the root of the word is a place being filled by them.

What must be recorded is who is speaking. In the fourth and fifth verses the speaker was al-kāfirūn (general); here the speaker is al-malaʾ, those in the seat of decision.

And what they do must be recorded: they are addressing their own body. The one addressed is no longer the envoy but their own base. This is a change of stage in the dispute: talking to one another has been abandoned, and an internal mobilisation has begun.

Two commands come in succession, and both are ordinary words. Their ordinariness is meaningful.

ٱمْشُوا۟ — root م-ش-ي: to walk. The imperative: "walk on".

The exegetes have understood this command in two ways:

The two do not exclude one another and both uses of the word are common in Arabic. I do not impose a preference.

وَٱصْبِرُوا۟ عَلَىٰٓ ءَالِهَتِكُمْ — and the most notable verbal equivalence in the sūra begins here.

It was tabulated above in the section on structure; here I open it out. The same command, from the same root and in the same mood, will come from the other side eleven verses later:

This is a datum that can be verified from the text. What is interpretation is the conclusion to be drawn from it; that I give as my own reading:

Patience is given in the sūra as a strength both sides possess. Endurance is nobody's monopoly. What divides them is not the act itself but what the act is attached to: one leans on its idols, the other on words.

And the grammar supports this: in both sentences the verb comes with the same preposition — عَلَىٰ. In Arabic ṣabara ʿalā means "to stand upon a thing, to bear with it". Both, that is, are standing upon something; the difference is the ground beneath them.

This sentence is one of the places in the sūra that must be handled with the greatest care.

يُرَادُ — root ر-و-د. Its concrete sense: to go back and forth after a thing, to seek. Rāʾid — the scout who seeks pasture and water for the tribe. Irāda — to want a thing and to turn towards it. The verb here is passive (yurād): "it is wanted, it is intended" — but the one who wants is not named.

The gap left by the passive produces the whole effect of the sentence. Who wants it? It is not stated. The nearest English rendering: "there is something behind this."

I record step by step how the sentence works:

All three steps produce indefiniteness. And it is precisely through this indefiniteness that the sentence becomes undiscussable.

I record this as my own reading: this is not a claim but an insinuation. Were it claimed, it could be tested — had it been said "he wants such and such, because such and such is the evidence", the evidence would be discussed. When it is insinuated, nothing is left to test. Whatever the one addressed says, the sentence stands: what he says can itself be counted part of "the thing that is wanted".

And this belongs to the same family as the diagnosis of ʿajab in the fourth verse:

No side is taken in present-day politics in this commentary, and none is taken here. But what the verse describes is a form of speech, and forms of speech are not bounded by a time. The note is this, and it concerns the attribute, not persons: to reject a view without looking at its content, by saying that a hidden purpose lies behind it, is exactly the posture the verse reports. Whoever does this is included in the attribute — at the beginning of the sūra as at its end, the verdict is attached to attributes and not to persons.

And that the verse records this as a defect is clear from where the sentence is placed: all four objections between four and seven are given in the same section, in the same order, and with no evidence accompanying any of them.

مِلَّة — root م-ل-ل. On the root of the word the lexicographers make a connection with imlāʾ (to dictate): milla, a dictated road that is followed; the religion a community has adopted.

ٱلْءَاخِرَة — "last", "final". And the construct is disputed:

I do not impose a preference. But the structure of the objection is the same on all three views, and that is the real matter: "we have not heard this" is advanced as evidence.

I record this as my own reading: this is the ʿajab of the fourth verse cast into the form of knowledge. Astonishment says "I am not used to it"; this sentence says the same thing as "it is not in our records". In both, the measure is the speaker's own store.

Root: خ-ل-ق. And this is the most instructive point of vocabulary in the sūra — because the same root will be used for "to create" in the seventy-first verse (innī khāliqun basharan min ṭīn).

In al-Qalam at 68/4 the khalq (outward form) and khuluq (character, inward form) branches of this root were treated; in al-Ḥashr and al-Infiṭār the concrete sense of the root was given. I rely on that and do not repeat it here. The summary was this: the original sense of the root is to cut and shape to a measure — khalaqa'l-adīma, he measured and cut the hide before cutting it out.

Now the third branch, which must be added here:

The lexicographers record that a second use came out of the root's sense of "cutting and shaping": اِخْتَلَقَ (ikhtalaqa) — to fabricate a saying, to construct and put forward something with no basis. Ikhtilāq — a fabrication. From the same root khalq — both creation and (in some uses) a made-up saying.

The relation between the two branches, as the lexicographers record it, is this:

The common point: in both, something is put forward by cutting and shaping; in both there is a work of making. The point of divergence: in the one, what comes out really exists; in the other it exists only in the saying.

The lexicographers record this second branch from the usage of Arabic itself, and the Qurʾān uses both branches: in the verse "…and you fabricate a falsehood" (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/17 — wa takhluqūna ifkā) the same root carries the sense "to fabricate".

Now I come to the link within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading:

In the seventh verse the other side calls the envoy mukhtaliq (a fabricator). In the seventy-first verse God names Himself khāliq (creator). The two words are from one root.

And the sūra puts thirty-two verses of prophets between these two words — that is, the content of the thing called "fabrication". The accusation first, the material after.

I record this as an observation about a pattern; I am not claiming that the sūra sets up a deliberate play on words. What I record is that the same root has been used in the sūra for two opposed works.

And in the second half of the eighth verse the text takes the floor. Two bals come one on top of the other:

The first correction changes the subject of the objection. The other side had asked "why him?"; the answer says the question is really "is this it?" The dispute about the envoy, that is, is diagnosed as a cover for the dispute about the text.

The second correction goes further still, and must be read with care.

لَمَّا — in Arabic this differs from lam: lam says "it did not happen", while لَمَّا says "it has not happened yet, but it is expected". The grammarians record the difference explicitly: in lammā there is a continuation and an expectation.

The sentence, that is, does not say "they did not taste the punishment"; it says "they have not yet tasted it." The time-note is inside it.

And the verb yadhūqū — root ذ-و-ق: to taste. The concrete sense of the word is tasting with the tongue; that is, the most immediate and least disputable form of knowledge. Sight can be deceived, hearing can err; taste is direct.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two words were chosen together: the sentence traces the source of the doubt to a lack of experience. Astonishment (4), insinuation (6), not having heard (7) and doubt (8) — all four come out at the same place: the other side does not yet know the thing it is passing judgment on.

And this joins with the last verse of the sūra: wa la-taʿlamunna nabaʾahū baʿda ḥīn — "you will surely know its report after a time." What is called "not yet" in the eighth verse becomes "after a time" in the eighty-eighth.

عَذَابِ — the yāʾ at the end of the word has dropped (ʿadhābī, not ʿadhāb). The same dropping occurs in the fourteenth verse too: ʿiqāb. In Qāf it was recorded that this dropping occurs twice in Qāf (waʿīd); in Ṣād too it occurs twice, and both times at the end of a verse. This is a conformity to the verse-ending: the word has been set into the sound pattern of the sūra.

Am ʿindahum khazāʾinu raḥmati rabbika'l-ʿazīzi'l-Wahhāb · Am lahum mulku's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baynahumā, fa'l-yartaqū fi'l-asbāb · Jundun mā hunālika mahzūmun mina'l-aḥzāb

"Or are the treasuries of the mercy of your Lord — the mighty, the great giver — with them? Or is the dominion of the heavens and the earth and what is between them theirs? Then let them climb up the ropes! They are a ragtag army, routed there."

Am in Arabic means "or", and it attaches to a preceding question. Here it attaches to the question in the eighth verse: a-unzila ʿalayhi'dh-dhikru min bayninā — "has the reminder been sent down on him, from among us?"

And the answer hands the question back to the other side. Thus:

I record this as my own reading: the objection had been made to a decision about distribution. The answer asks whose the distribution is. The dispute, that is, is turned from "is the choice right?" to "with whom does the power of choosing lie?"

This is another form of the diagnosis recorded in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/56: it was said there that beneath the dispute lay kibr, and that this pride was a thing not to be reached (mā hum bi-bālighīh). Here there is the same structure: a claim to authority, and the showing that the authority is not in fact in their hands.

Root خ-ز-ن: to conceal a thing, to store and guard it. Khāzin — the one who holds the treasury, its keeper. Khizāna — the place where things are kept.

And note the construct: khazāʾinu raḥmati rabbik — "the treasuries of the mercy of your Lord". Not the treasury of wealth, but of mercy.

I record this because this is what is under dispute: prophethood, in the language of the verse, is not a fortune or an office but is counted in the ledger of mercy. The other side was speaking of it as a status; the text names it as a gift.

Two names come in succession, and both matter in this sūra.

ٱلْعَزِيز — root ع-ز-ز. It was treated at the second verse: hard, impenetrable, not to be overcome. It is the answer, seven verses later, to the ʿizza of the other side (2).

ٱلْوَهَّاب — root و-ه-ب: to give without return. Pattern: فَعَّال — intensity and continuity. Hiba is from the same root: what is given without expecting a return.

This is the most distinctive side of the root, and the lexicographers record it plainly: wahb is giving without a price. Not a sale, not a reward, not a loan — without return.

The two names standing side by side set up a balance:

I record this as my own reading: the two together sum up the whole logic of the sūra. A thing that cannot be seized is a thing that can be given. The other side supposes prophethood to be something to be "wrested"; the verse says it is something "given".

And a sequence of the same kind was treated in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/3 — there five attributes came in succession and mercy and punishment were given in one breath. Here the structure is a pair, but its function is the same: the naming of two directions together.

And this name will recur in the sūra: in the thirty-fifth verse Solomon will call on it in his prayer — innaka anta'l-Wahhāb. A name that occurs in a sentence of polemic, that is, comes back twenty-six verses later in the prayer of a prophet. It was tabulated above.

The sentence is in the imperative but is not a command. In Arabic this is called taʿjīz: showing the limit of the other side's power by commanding what cannot be done.

ٱرْتَقَىٰ — root ر-ق-ي: to rise, to climb. Ruqyā — a ladder. Form VIII (iftiʿāl) conveys that the act is done by the agent's own effort: to go up by one's own exertion.

أَسْبَاب — its singular is sabab. And the concrete sense of the root is very clear: سَبَب — a rope, a cable; especially a rope used to reach somewhere. The rope let down into a well, the rope tied to a tent.

From here the abstract sense arose: sabab — the means that brings one to a thing. The word passed into Turkish as sebep, "cause", and in Turkish the rope behind it has been forgotten.

Now the picture of the sentence comes out: "If the dominion is yours, take hold of the ropes and climb."

And this uses exactly the same word as the scene of Pharaoh treated in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/36-37:

This is a shared wording that can be verified. And the conclusion recorded in the discussion of Ghāfir holds here too: a claim to authority is always told through an attempt to ascend, and it is always unreached.

Every word of the sentence carries a belittlement, and its construction is striking in Arabic.

جُنْد — root ج-ن-د: a body gathered and brought together; an army. The word is indefinite (with tanwīn) — "an army", any army.

مَّا — here, on the view of the majority of grammarians, it is زَائِدَة, that is, a particle that has come for emphasis, and it conveys belittlement (taḥqīr). The nearest English rendering: "what they call an army", "that broken-down army over there".

هُنَالِكَ — "there". A far demonstrative. Not a near place but a distant one is being pointed at.

مَهْزُوم — root ه-ز-م. And the concrete sense of the root must be recorded: to break a thing, to make it cave in; the collapse of something hollow. The lexicographers say hazama'l-siqāʾa — he caved in the waterskin (because it had emptied). The sound of a dry branch snapping is also called hazīm.

To be defeated, that is, is in Arabic a caving-in — losing one's shape not under a blow from outside but because one has emptied inside.

ٱلْأَحْزَاب — its singular ḥizb: a separated part of a body of people, a faction, a party. The word will come again in this sūra at the thirteenth verse: ulāʾika'l-aḥzāb — "those are the factions."

Now the construction is complete, and the time-note matters: mahzūm is a passive participle — that is, not "will be routed" but "routed".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pattern of the word: the sentence gives no news of the future; it makes a statement of state. The army is counted beaten before it has fought — because the picture in the root hazm is not a blow from outside but the collapse of what is hollow.

And the eleventh verse builds a bridge to the twelfth: mina'l-aḥzāb — "of the factions". Which factions? The next verse will count them. The sūra, that is, uses the word first and gives its list afterwards.

The three verses from nine to eleven do a single work: they ask whether a claim has anything behind it.

And the form of the question is worth recording. The verse does not say "you are mistaken"; it asks "what have you got?" Are there treasuries, is there dominion, will you be able to climb?

I record this as my own inference: this is a methodical answer to the objections between the fourth and eighth verses. The other side had framed sentences that cannot be tested (astonishment, insinuation, "we have not heard"). The answer asks a question that can be tested: with whom does the authority in fact lie?

And this distinction — between the untestable sentence and the testable question — will go on working through the rest of the sūra. In the twenty-second verse two litigants will lay an event before a judge and ask for a measure; those quarrelling in the Fire (59-64), on the other hand, will trade untestable accusations and reach no conclusion at all.

Kadhdhabat qablahum qawmu Nūḥin wa ʿĀdun wa Firʿawnu dhu'l-awtād · Wa Thamūdu wa qawmu Lūṭin wa aṣḥābu'l-ayka, ulāʾika'l-aḥzāb · In kullun illā kadhdhaba'r-rusula fa-ḥaqqa ʿiqāb

"Before them the people of Noah (Nūḥ) cried lies, and ʿĀd, and Pharaoh, lord of the stakes; and Thamūd, and the people of Lot (Lūṭ), and the people of al-Ayka. Those are the factions. Every one of them did nothing but cry lies to the envoys; and My punishment fell due."

Six peoples are counted, divided across two verses. And a similar list was treated in Qāf at 50/12-14 — there were eight peoples there. Comparing the two lists shows that the selection is not random.

The difference between the two closes must be recorded, and it is fine:

The concrete sense of the root ع-ق-ب was treated in Muḥammad: the heel, that which comes after. ʿĀqiba — what comes behind a matter. That is, ʿiqāb stresses the punishment's quality of "coming from behind".

I record this as my own reading: Qāf ends its list with the fulfilment of a threat, Ṣād ends the same list with the arrival of a requital. The two name the same event from two different sides: the one, the keeping of a word; the other, the outcome of a deed.

And the yāʾ at the end of the word ʿiqāb has dropped here too (ʿiqābī, not ʿiqāb) — like ʿadhāb in the eighth verse. Both are for conformity to the verse-ending.

This construct was treated in detail in al-Fajr at 89/10, and a table of four views was given there. I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

The summary of the analysis of the root there: و-ت-د — watid/watad: a stake, a nail, a post driven into the ground; its plural is awtād. The work of a stake is one thing only: to hold something in place. A stake is not driven for its own sake; it is driven so that something else will not move.

And in the discussion of al-Fajr this too was recorded: in al-Nabaʾ 78/7 the same word is used of the mountains (wa'l-jibāla awtādā) — that is, the idea of fixing is not in itself bad; what is bad is the confusion about whose the authority to fix is.

I convey the table of the disagreement from al-Fajr in summary; the detail is there:

The note in the discussion of al-Fajr holds here too: I do not impose a firm preference, and the first three views come out at the same place — a power thought to be fixed and unshakeable.

What is particular to Ṣād is where the construct stands, and this too was named in the discussion of al-Fajr:

In the discussion of al-Fajr the following was recorded for this construct, and it matters: "the expression 'lord of the stakes' is a settled designation the Qurʾān uses for Pharaoh; it is not an invention peculiar to al-Fajr. This shows that the expression was something the hearers understood." The usage in Ṣād is the ground of that finding.

أَيْكَة — dense woodland, thicket, grove. This people was named in Qāf at 50/14, and as was recorded there the Qurʾān mentions them in several places (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/176; al-Ḥijr 15/78) and associates them with the peoples to whom Shuʿayb was sent.

I do not go into the detail: whether the people of al-Ayka and the people of Midian are one people or two has been disputed in the classical sources, and no preference is adopted in this commentary.

What is to be recorded is this: five of the six peoples on the list are named by a prophet's name or by a people's name; the people of al-Ayka, however, by the name of a place — by a wood. The list, that is, varies the modes of recognition: some by their leader (Noah, Lot), some by their lineage (ʿĀd, Thamūd), some by their ruler (Pharaoh), some by their country (al-Ayka).

In the eleventh verse mina'l-aḥzāb ("of the factions") had been said, and which factions was not stated. The thirteenth verse gives the answer: ulāʾika'l-aḥzāb — "those are the factions."

The distance between the two verses is two verses, and the link is verbal; it can be verified.

I record this as my own reading: in the eleventh verse the present opponents had been named "a routed army". The thirteenth verse says who that army is by counting from the past. The present group, that is, is placed as the continuation of the groups of the past — not as an accusation but as a classification.

The construction of the sentence is striking.

إِن… إِلَّا — a strong pattern of restriction in Arabic: "nothing other than…". In English it is carried by "nothing but", "only".

And the object is plural: al-rusul — the envoys. Yet each people had had one envoy come to it.

The exegetes explain this plural in two ways:

The second view finds support in other verses of the Qurʾān — as in the saying of the people of Noah that "they cried lies to the envoys" (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/105); yet the envoy who came to them was one. I do not impose a preference, but the second explanation accords better with the usage elsewhere in the text.

Wa mā yanẓuru hāʾulāʾi illā ṣayḥatan wāḥidatan mā lahā min fawāq · Wa qālū rabbanā ʿajjil lanā qiṭṭanā qabla yawmi'l-ḥisāb

"These too await nothing but a single cry; and it has no pause. And they said: 'Our Lord! Hasten our portion to us before the Day of Reckoning.'"

Root ن-ظ-ر: to look; and to wait. The two senses come from one root: to look at a thing is to watch for its coming.

The verb here has the sense "to wait", and the pattern contains a restriction: mā yanẓuru… illā — "they await nothing but…"

And the point here is this: they are not in fact waiting for anything; their not waiting comes out at the same place as their waiting for one single thing to come. In Arabic this is an ironic usage: to say of a person who takes no notice of a thing, "he awaits only this."

Root ص-ي-ح: to raise the voice, to shout. Ṣayḥa — a loud sound uttered once. And the word is reinforced with an adjective of oneness: wāḥida.

The same word was used of the Resurrection in Qāf at 50/42 (yawma yasmaʿūna'ṣ-ṣayḥata bi'l-ḥaqq), and was treated there.

What is added here is the qualifying clause that follows.

فَوَاق — root ف-و-ق. And the concrete sense of the word is very sharp and very local:

The lexicographers describe fawāq thus: the interval allowed while a she-camel is being milked, so that her udder may gather milk a second time. The milker draws a little, leaves off, waits for the milk to come down, then draws again. The name of that interval of waiting is fawāq.

At the centre of the root is this: a thing's coming back, its returning to itself. The milk comes back to the udder; consciousness comes back to the person.

Now what the verse says becomes clear: mā lahā min fawāq — this cry has no "interval of return".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the lexicographers' description of the root: the verse does not say "this cry is very violent"; it says "it has no interval." It will not break off and begin again, and it will leave no gap in which one might come to oneself.

And the fifteenth verse must be read together with the third: there it was said wa-lāta ḥīna manāṣ — "it was no longer the hour of escape". Both announce the absence of a time: the one, that there is no time to flee; the other, that there is no interval in which to come to.

Some of the exegetes have also understood the word as "return, repetition" — that is, "there is no turning it back". Both readings come out of the same root and do not exclude one another.

قِطّ — root ق-ط-ط. Its concrete sense: to cut crosswise, to slice. Qiṭṭ — a cut piece; and from there: a written document, the slip of paper on which a person's allotted share is written, a deed.

The word has two branches of meaning, and the exegetes differ:

I do not impose a preference. On all three readings the posture of the sentence is the same: mockery and haste.

عَجِّل — root ع-ج-ل: to hurry. Form II: to bring a thing forward, to hasten it. That the verb comes in the form of a prayer must be recorded: they call out rabbanā and then say ʿajjil. A mockery is being framed, that is, in the shape of a prayer.

I record this as my own reading: the verse shows a stage of denial. The other side is no longer arguing — it is jeering. And jeering is the point the objections between the fourth and eighth verses arrive at: astonishment (4), insinuation (6), "we have not heard" (7), doubt (8), and finally mockery (16).

And there are other examples of this posture in the Qurʾān: "If this is the truth from You, then rain down stones on us from heaven" (al-Anfāl 8/32). The same structure: asking for a threat to be carried out in order to show that one does not take it seriously.

This root will occur four times in the sūra: as the construct at 16, 26, 53; and at 39 as bi-ghayri ḥisāb. And its distribution is worth recording:

I record this as an observation: the same word is used at four different works — hastened, forgotten, lifted and awaited. And the construct bi-ghayri ḥisāb ("without reckoning") in the thirty-ninth verse is the word's only positive use in the sūra.

Iṣbir ʿalā mā yaqūlūna wa'dhkur ʿabdanā Dāwūda dha'l-ayd, innahū awwāb · Innā sakhkharna'l-jibāla maʿahū yusabbiḥna bi'l-ʿashiyyi wa'l-ishrāq · Wa'ṭ-ṭayra maḥshūra, kullun lahū awwāb · Wa shadadnā mulkahū wa ātaynāhu'l-ḥikmata wa faṣla'l-khiṭāb

"Endure what they say, and remember our servant David, possessor of strength; he was one who turned back often. We made the mountains subservient with him: they gave praise at evening and at the rising of the sun. And the birds, gathered — all of them turning back to him. We made his kingdom firm, and gave him wisdom and the parting of speech."

It was tabulated above; here I complete it. In the sixth verse the leading men of Mecca had said to their own body wa'ṣbirū ʿalā ālihatikum. Here the same root, the same preposition, a different object: iṣbir ʿalā mā yaqūlūn.

And the difference in the object is worth recording as my own reading:

The same command occurred in the same wording in Qāf at 50/39: fa'ṣbir ʿalā mā yaqūlūn. The two sūras give the same command to the envoy in the same words. This is a repetition that can be verified.

And now the longest section of the sūra begins. Its structure rests on repetition:

The same command four times. And Solomon is not on this list — because he enters in the thirtieth verse as something given to David (wa wahabnā li-Dāwūda Sulaymān), and not by a separate command.

And the verb is from the backbone root of the sūra: ذ-ك-ر. As was tabulated above, the word occurs eight times in the sūra. In the first verse the Qurʾān was named dhi'dh-dhikr; here a command from the same root arrives; and in the forty-ninth verse the whole of what has been recounted will be named hādhā dhikr.

The sūra, that is, names its own section of accounts with its own opening epithet. This is a frame that can be verified.

This construct occurs four times in the sūra (17, 30 niʿma'l-ʿabd, 41, 44 niʿma'l-ʿabd) and appears once more in the eighty-third verse in the mouth of Iblīs: ʿibādaka minhumu'l-mukhlaṣīn.

What is to be recorded is this: in this sūra the prophets are first named servant, and only then is it said what was given to them. The order is the same each time:

I record this as my own reading: in the middle of a polemic — ten verses after the question "why was he chosen?" — the sūra defines prophethood as a servanthood. The other side saw an office; the text says a duty.

أَيْد — root أ-ي-د: power, strength, support. Ayyada — he supported, he strengthened; taʾyīd — support.

This word was treated in detail in al-Dhāriyāt at 51/47, and Ṣād 38/17 was used there as the decisive indication. The finding there was this:

"Ṣād 38/17 is a decisive indication, because there the word occurs without tanwīn and in a construct (dha'l-ayd), so there is no possibility of its being the plural of yad (hand) — it is plainly in the sense of 'strength'."

I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

What is to be added here is the word's relative within this sūra. In the forty-fifth verse this will come: uli'l-aydī wa'l-abṣār — "those possessed of hands and eyes". There the word is the plural of yad (hand), and I shall treat it in its own place. The two constructs look alike; they are not:

The difference between the two is visible in the writing: in verse 45 there is a yāʾ at the end (ٱلْأَيْدِى), in verse 17 there is not (ٱلْأَيْد).

The root أ-و-ب was treated in Qāf at 50/32. The note there: "Awwāb is on the faʿʿāl pattern: one who returns often… the word conveys not a single act of returning but the having made returning a habit." I rely on that.

What is particular to Ṣād is the frequency of the word: three times for three prophets (17 David, 30 Solomon, 44 Job), and once more in the nineteenth verse.

And as was recorded in al-Ghāshiya, in Qāf 50/32 the same epithet occurs as a general attribute: li-kulli awwābin ḥafīẓ. The epithet given to three prophets in Ṣād, that is, opens out to everyone in Qāf.

I record this as my own reading: all three prophets are named with the same single epithet. And the epithet has nothing to do with the kingdom, the strength or the patience given to them; it has to do with turning back. The sūra, that is, shows as the common point of three separate lives not what was obtained but the place that is returned to.

سَخَّرَ — root س-خ-ر. And the root has two branches; they were treated in al-Jāthiya and al-Zukhruf:

The common point of the two branches, as the lexicographers record it, is the putting of a thing to a task against its own will.

And both branches occur in this sūra: here sakhkharnā (taskhīr, 18 and 36), and in the sixty-third verse ittakhadhnāhum sukhriyyā (mockery). The same root, the one a favour and the other a fault.

سَبَّحَ — root س-ب-ح. Its concrete sense: to move swiftly and without hindrance through water or air. Sabaḥa — he swam. And tasbīḥ is to hold God far from all deficiency — its link with the picture of "unhindered passage" in the root: a thing's passing away from what does not befit it.

On the question of the praise of the mountains and the birds two attitudes are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

The two do not exclude one another and I do not impose a preference. The verse al-Isrāʾ 17/44 supports the first view from the text; while the verse's note here, maʿahū ("together with him"), may be pointing to the second.

بِٱلْعَشِىِّ وَٱلْإِشْرَاقِ — two hours are named: late afternoon, and the hour of the sun's rising.

إِشْرَاق — root ش-ر-ق: to rise, to shine. Sharq — the direction in which the sun rises. The verbal noun of Form IV: the sun's climbing and the spreading of its light — that is, the moment just after sunrise, when the light covers everything.

A similar pair was treated in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/55: bi'l-ʿashiyyi wa'l-ibkār — late afternoon and early morning. And the note there holds here too: "By naming the two extreme hours, what lies between them is taken in."

The two sūras use the same word (al-ʿashiyy), and the second word changes:

And the word al-ʿashiyy will occur once more in this sūra, at the thirty-first verse — this time as the hour at which Solomon's horses were brought before him. The same hour, two prophets, two separate scenes: in the one, praise; in the other, a delay. I record this as an observation; I shall come back to it below in its place.

مَحْشُورَة — root ح-ش-ر: to gather together, to drive and heap in one place. In the Qurʾān the word is used most often of the gathering at the Resurrection (ḥashr).

Here it is a passive participle: gathered, brought together. The birds come not of themselves but as things gathered.

كُلٌّ لَّهُۥٓ أَوَّابٌ — "all of them turning back to him."

To whom does the pronoun (lahū) refer? The exegetes differ:

I do not impose a preference. The second view rests on the picture of "coming back" in the root sense of the word: an echo answering a sound is also a kind of return.

شَدَّ — root ش-د-د: to bind a thing tightly, to draw it taut, to make it firm. Shadīd — firm, severe. Its concrete sense is the tightening of a knot.

And the object of the verb is mulk. What is given, that is, is not the kingdom itself — the kingdom was already there; what is given is the firmness of the kingdom.

Worth recording: in the eleventh verse the other side had been named mahzūm (caved in) — and the picture of the root ه-ز-م was the collapse of something emptied inside. Here the exact opposite: shadadnā — we drew tight, we made firm. The two roots are contraries of one another: the one, slackening and collapse; the other, tautening and holding.

I record this as an observation; the sūra does not itself stress the contrast.

And now we come to one of the most important terms in the sūra.

فَصْل — root ف-ص-ل. The root was treated in Fuṣṣilat at 41/3, and what was recorded there was this: "The concrete sense of the root: to separate two things from one another, to set a distance between them." I rely on that and do not repeat the analysis of the root.

In Fuṣṣilat the word was in Form II (tafṣīl — to separate a whole into its parts, to set out in detail). Here the verbal noun comes in its bare form: faṣl — to separate.

خِطَاب — root خ-ط-ب: to speak turning towards someone. Khuṭba — an address directed at a gathering; khiṭāb — speech directed at the one addressed. There is a turning at the root of the word: speech is aimed at a target.

Now the construct: faṣlu'l-khiṭāb — "the parting of speech". And the exegetes explain it in several ways:

The first view is the one most in accord with the sūra's own movement, and its ground is in the text: the next verse (21) opens a scene of litigation, and the twenty-sixth verse explicitly contains the command to judge (fa'ḥkum bayna'n-nāsi bi'l-ḥaqq). But this is an observation and not a preference; the other explanations are transmitted as well, and they do not exclude one another.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the concrete sense of the root: faṣl is to separate two things. Giving judgment is named in the verse not as an exercise of power but as an act of separating. The judge separates what has been mixed. And this is exactly what will not be possible to do in the next scene — David will judge having heard only one of two speeches; that is, without having taken one of the two things he is to separate into his hand.

And the word khiṭāb inside the construct will return in the twenty-third verse: the litigant will say wa ʿazzanī fi'l-khiṭāb — "he overbore me in speech."

Two words, three verses apart and from the same root. To the one has been given the capacity to part speech; the other complains of being overborne in speech. This is a verbal link that can be verified, and it plays a part in the setting of the scene.

Wa hal atāka nabaʾu'l-khaṣmi idh tasawwaru'l-miḥrāb · Idh dakhalū ʿalā Dāwūda fa-faziʿa minhum, qālū lā takhaf, khaṣmāni baghā baʿḍunā ʿalā baʿḍ, fa'ḥkum baynanā bi'l-ḥaqqi wa lā tushṭiṭ, wa'hdinā ilā sawāʾi'ṣ-ṣirāṭ

"Has the report of the litigants reached you? When they climbed the wall into the miḥrāb. When they came in upon David he started back from them. They said: 'Do not fear. We are two litigants; one of us has wronged the other. Judge between us with the truth, do not deal unjustly, and guide us to the middle of the way.'"

By the rule of Method, which is binding in this commentary, moral imputations drawn from reports of Israelite provenance are not entered into in the accounts of the prophets.

These verses are one of the places around which the largest body of reports has gathered in the classical literature of exegesis. Some of those reports ascribe to David acts unbefitting a prophet and read this account as the punishment for those acts.

My note is this, and it is plain:

1. The source of those reports is not the Qurʾān. There is not a single word in the wording of the verses that speaks of such an event. 2. A considerable body of the classical exegetes rejected these reports, giving as their ground the impeccability (ʿiṣma) of the prophets and the fact that the wording of the verse does not admit of that narrative. I record this in the language of "it is transmitted". 3. Those narratives will not be entered into in this commentary, and their details will not be given. To be silent where the text is silent is the attitude applied in al-Baqara at 2/35-36 to the species of the forbidden tree as well: "Where the text is silent, one must be silent."

What follows is limited to what the wording of the verses says, and no more.

It opens with the form of a question: hal atāka — "has it reached you?"

This pattern was treated in al-Ghāshiya, and Ṣād 38/21 was named there as one of its instances. I rely on that. The function of the pattern is not to ask for information; it is to gather attention and to announce in advance the weight of what is to be told.

And the object: nabaʾu'l-khaṣm — "the report of the litigants".

نَبَأ — root ن-ب-أ. It was treated in detail in al-Nabaʾ: not an ordinary piece of news but a great and weighty report that has consequences. The lexicographers define nabaʾ as "a report whose benefit is great and by which knowledge or a preponderant supposition is produced".

And this word will occur twice more in the sūra: 67 (huwa nabaʾun ʿaẓīm) and 88 (wa la-taʿlamunna nabaʾahū). All three occurrences turn on the hearing of something.

Root خ-ص-م: to contend, to go to law. The word is used for both singular and plural — which is why the verse's saying al-khaṣm (a singular form) and then tasawwarū (a plural verb) is not a mismatch. The lexicographers record this plainly: because khaṣm comes from the origin of a verbal noun, it does not change for number.

And in the twenty-second verse the dual comes: khaṣmāni — two litigants.

The root is among the sūra's weaving words; it was tabulated above (21, 22, 64, 69).

تَسَوَّرَ — root س-و-ر. And here the concrete sense of the word builds the whole scene.

سُور (sūr) — the wall that encircles a city or a building. The word was treated in al-Ḥadīd at 57/13 (fa-ḍuriba baynahum bi-sūrin lahū bāb — a wall with a gate in it is set between them).

تَسَوَّرَ — Form V: to get up onto the wall, to enter by going over the wall.

The verse, that is, describes a manner of entry, and the manner is out of the ordinary:

مِحْرَاب — root ح-ر-ب. And the root of the word is surprising: حَرْب — war. The lexicographers dwell on the link of miḥrāb with this root and several explanations are transmitted: the place where a person makes war on Satan or on his own soul; or the most protected, hardest-to-enter part of a building.

The word's use in the Qurʾān indicates a private chamber set apart for worship and retreat (Āl ʿImrān 3/37, 39; Maryam 19/11). The miḥrāb of the mosques of today is a later settled use of the word; it is not the sense in the verse.

What is to be recorded is this: the miḥrāb is the innermost, most protected place in a building. And the two litigants entered it not by the door but over the wall.

فَزِعَ — root ف-ز-ع. And the word differs from khawf (fear); the lexicographers record the difference:

Fazaʿ is not a stretch of time but an instant. It is the jolt a sound or a sight that comes without warning gives a person.

And the verse gives this with two words together: fa-faziʿa (he started back) and then the litigants' saying lā takhaf (do not fear). Two separate roots: the one tells what happened, the other the words that were spoken.

I record this as my own reading: the verse does not record David's reaction as a fault. That a man should start back when his miḥrāb is entered over the wall is the natural reaction being described. There is not one word in the verse that censures this reaction.

بَغَىٰ — root ب-غ-ي. The root was treated in al-Jāthiya and al-Ḥujurāt. Its concrete sense: to seek a thing, to want it; and from there: to want beyond one's bounds, to lay a hand on another's right.

The lexicographers record another branch of the root as well: baghā'l-jarḥ — the wound festered, it swelled. There is a picture of overflowing, of swelling in the root, that is: something that spills past its limit.

And the subject of the verb must be recorded: baghā baʿḍunā ʿalā baʿḍ — "one of us against the other".

Who it is, is not stated. In laying out the matter the litigants do not set themselves apart as parties: they say "one" and "the other". This is an impartial manner of presentation.

And the same verb will come back in the twenty-fourth verse — this time in David's mouth and as a general verdict: wa inna kathīran mina'l-khulaṭāʾi la-yabghī baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ. The same root, the same pattern (baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ), three verses later.

And now the litigants' request comes; it is made up of three parts, and all three must be recorded:

حَكَمَ — root ح-ك-م. Its concrete sense was treated in al-Baqara and Muḥammad: the root's original picture is the bit put into an animal's mouth (ḥakama) — the thing that keeps it from moving without order. A ruling, that is, is to hold a thing in its place, to draw its limit. Ḥikma is from the same root: to put a thing where it belongs.

And what was given to David in the twentieth verse was al-ḥikma. What is asked for in the twenty-second verse is fa'ḥkum — from the same root. This is a link between two verses that can be verified.

لَا تُشْطِطْ — root ش-ط-ط. It was treated in al-Jinn at 72/4, and this verse was explicitly named there. The note there: "Its concrete sense: to go far off, to go to excess, to spill past a limit. The most concrete residue of the root is geographical: شَطّ (shaṭṭ) — the bank of a river, its edge… The picture of the root, that is, is an edge: the place where a thing ends."

I rely on that.

What is to be added here is this: the two requests complete one another.

I record this as my own reading: the litigants ask two things of a judge — a centre (ḥaqq) and a limit (that he not commit shaṭaṭ). And these two will also be the two parts of the measure of judgment given to David in the twenty-sixth verse: bi'l-ḥaqq (the centre) and lā tattabiʿi'l-hawā (the direction not to be swerved into).

سَوَآءِ ٱلصِّرَٰطِ — root س-و-ي: to be even, to be level. Sawāʾ — the middle of a thing, the point where the two sides are equal.

And ṣirāṭ — root ص-ر-ط: a wide, open road. It was treated in al-Fātiḥa.

The construct: "the middle of the way". Not its edge, that is, but its middle. And this is the other face of the same picture as the request lā tushṭiṭ: the one says do not go to the edge, the other says bring us to the middle.

Inna hādhā akhī lahū tisʿun wa tisʿūna naʿjatan wa liya naʿjatun wāḥidatun fa-qāla akfilnīhā wa ʿazzanī fi'l-khiṭāb · Qāla laqad ẓalamaka bi-suʾāli naʿjatika ilā niʿājih, wa inna kathīran mina'l-khulaṭāʾi la-yabghī baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ, illa'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti wa qalīlun mā hum, wa ẓanna Dāwūdu annamā fatannāhu fa'staghfara rabbahū wa kharra rākiʿan wa anāb

"'This is my brother; he has ninety-nine ewes and I have one single ewe. He said, "Make her over to me," and he overbore me in speech.' David said: 'He has surely wronged you in asking for your ewe to add to his own ewes. Indeed most partners wrong one another, save those who believe and do righteous deeds — and how few they are.' And David understood that We were testing him; he asked forgiveness of his Lord, fell down bowing, and turned back."

The litigant lays out the matter, and the telling is short and concrete. It has three elements:

نَعْجَة — a ewe. Its plural is niʿāj. The word occurs four times in the scene (naʿjatan, naʿjatun, naʿjatika, niʿājihī) — that is, the same word four times in so short an account.

تِسْعٌ وَتِسْعُونَ — ninety-nine. And the choice of number is worth recording: not a round number, but one short of a hundred.

I record this as my own reading: the figure makes the logic of the demand visible. That a man who has ninety-nine should ask for the one cannot be explained by need. Had the number been a hundred, the idea of need would never have arisen; by choosing ninety-nine, it is intimated that the demand springs from the wish to complete. This is an interpretation; the verse does not state the motive.

أَكْفِلْنِيهَا — root ك-ف-ل. Its concrete sense: to take a thing upon oneself, to assume responsibility for it; to take someone under one's protection. Kafīl — one who takes on another's burden. Kifl — a portion, a share.

The verb is in Form IV and means "make her over to me, put her in my charge". The demand, that is, is not framed in the plain language of seizure; it is spoken in the language of protection and transfer.

This is worth recording: akfilnīhā is a courteous word. But the litigant at once adds a second thing.

عَزَّنِى — root ع-ز-ز. It was treated at the second verse as ʿizza: hardness, impenetrability.

When the verb is used transitively its sense is: he got the better of me, he beat me, he overbore me.

And the adverbial phrase: fi'l-khiṭāb — "in speech", "in the talking".

The second part of the complaint, that is, is not the demand itself but the way the demand was pressed:

And now the link with the twentieth verse is complete. It was tabulated above:

This is a shared wording that can be verified, and I rest my own reading on it: the suit is opened in exactly the field of the capacity given to David. A man overborne in speech comes to a man given the capacity to part speech. The matter told begins as a matter of a ewe, but the second half of the complaint is a matter of speech.

And now we come to the place in the verse that must be read with the greatest care.

David gives judgment. And the wording of the judgment is decisive: laqad ẓalamak — "he has surely wronged you." Reinforced twice, with lām + qad.

Now I set out what can be verified from the text:

The second line is the core of this account, and it rests entirely on the wording: there is not a single word in the verse about the second litigant's speaking.

And the form of David's sentence shows this further: the judgment contains no condition. It does not say "if it is as you have told it"; it says outright laqad ẓalamak.

The classical commentaries dwell on this point, and two attitudes are transmitted:

I convey both views and do not impose a preference. But this must be recorded: both views agree that the test has to do with the procedure of judgment. There is no wording in the verse that ties the test to any other subject.

And this principle of judicial procedure is among the settled maxims of the literature of Islamic law: a judge does not give judgment without hearing both sides. That this principle has been connected with this verse is transmitted in the classical sources. I do not enter into the legal detail.

خُلَطَاء — its singular khalīṭ. Root خ-ل-ط: to mix. Khalīṭ — one whose property has been mixed with another's, a partner. The lexicographers record that the word is used in particular of those whose flocks are mixed with another's.

The choice of word suits the scene: the suit is a suit about sheep, and khulaṭāʾ are precisely those who pasture their flocks together.

And David's sentence passes from a single event to a general verdict:

I record this as my own reading: the judgment is given in one sentence and generalised in three. And the fourth sentence (wa qalīlun mā hum — "and how few they are") is a sentence of regret.

And the particle mā here is of the same kind as the jundun mā of the eleventh verse — a particle conveying emphasis and feeling. There, belittlement; here, the stress on fewness.

And the expression la-yabghī baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ is the exact repetition of the wording the litigants used in the twenty-second verse (baghā baʿḍunā ʿalā baʿḍ). The same pattern, two verses apart: the one a complaint, the other a general verdict.

ظَنَّ — root ظ-ن-ن. The word works in two directions in Arabic: a weak supposition (ẓann) and a conviction close to certainty. The Qurʾān uses both. The context here requires the second — the verbs that follow (asking forgiveness, falling into prostration) are the outcome of a conviction, not of a hesitation.

This is why rendering the word as "understood" rather than "supposed" is the choice of the majority of the exegetes. The contrary view is transmitted as well; I do not impose a preference.

فَتَنَّٰهُ — root ف-ت-ن. And the concrete sense of the root was treated in al-Burūj and al-Dhāriyāt: to put gold into the fire and separate the pure from the dross. Fitna — that fire, that assay.

The picture of the root falls exactly into place here, and I record it as my own reading: fitna is not a punishment but an act of separation — the fire does not destroy the gold, it shows what is in it.

And there is a link of words here: in the twentieth verse David had been given faṣla'l-khiṭāb (the capacity to separate). In the twenty-fourth verse David himself is tried with a fitna — that is, with an act of separating. The two words come from different roots (ف-ص-ل and ف-ت-ن) but both do the work of separating. I give this as an observation; it is a link of sense, not of wording.

أَنَّمَا — "only", "nothing but". What he understands, that is, is this: what is happening is nothing but a test. The litigants, the suit, the ewe — all are part of a test.

Three verbs come in succession, and their order must be recorded:

خَرَّ — root خ-ر-ر: to fall from a height, to come down as if collapsing. This is in the sound of the word as well: harīr — the sound water makes as it runs. The verb tells not of a controlled bending but of a fall.

رَاكِعًا — root ر-ك-ع: to bend, to bow the back. This root was treated in al-Mursalāt at 77/48 and this verse was named there ("And he fell down bowing" — Ṣād 38/24). I rely on that.

And the coming of the two words together is dwelt on: kharra (to fall down) generally comes with sājidan (prostrating); here it comes with rākiʿan. The exegetes explain this by the wide sense of the word rukūʿ (submission) — as was recorded in the discussion of al-Mursalāt, the root is used for "submission in general" as well.

أَنَابَ — root ن-و-ب. It was treated in Qāf: "ināba is to return again and again to a place; nawba (a turn, work done by turns) is from the same root. In the root there is not a single act of returning but a regular coming back." I rely on that.

And in the seventeenth verse David had already been named awwāb. Here the verb of the same attribute comes: anāb. The attribute, that is, is announced first, and then shown at work.

In al-ʿAlaq at 96/19, when the prostrations of recitation were treated, this verse was named, and what was recorded there was this: "The disagreement is chiefly over two places: whether the prostration at Ṣād 38/24 is a prostration of recitation or a prostration of thanksgiving…"

I rely on that and do not enter into the legal detail. What is to be recorded is that there is a difference of view among the schools about the nature of the prostration in this verse.

Fa-ghafarnā lahū dhālik, wa inna lahū ʿindanā la-zulfā wa ḥusna maʾāb · Yā Dāwūdu innā jaʿalnāka khalīfatan fi'l-arḍi fa'ḥkum bayna'n-nāsi bi'l-ḥaqqi wa lā tattabiʿi'l-hawā fa-yuḍillaka ʿan sabīli'llāh, inna'lladhīna yaḍillūna ʿan sabīli'llāhi lahum ʿadhābun shadīdun bimā nasū yawma'l-ḥisāb

"We forgave him that. With Us he has a nearness and a good place of return. 'O David! We have made you a viceroy on the earth; so judge between people with the truth, and do not follow desire — it will lead you astray from the way of God. Those who go astray from the way of God have a severe punishment, because they forgot the Day of Reckoning.'"

غَفَرَ — root غ-ف-ر. Its concrete sense was treated in Muḥammad and al-Muddaththir: to cover a thing over, to close it. Mighfar is from the same root — the helmet that covers the head.

And the object must be recorded: dhālika — "that", "that thing".

An indefinite demonstrative is used. What was forgiven is not named.

I record this plainly: the verse does not say what was forgiven. To manufacture a content where it has not spoken is a thing that will not be done in this commentary. As was written in the note on method above, reports that fill this gap are transmitted in the classical commentaries; that they are of Israelite provenance and that a considerable body of the exegetes rejected them is also transmitted. I do not go into the details.

What can be drawn from the text is this, and it is limited: in the twenty-fourth verse it was said that there was a fitna (a test), that David understood it, that he asked forgiveness and turned back. The twenty-fifth verse announces that what was asked for was given.

And the construction matters: fa-ghafarnā — joined with fāʾ. In Arabic fāʾ conveys consequence and following without delay. The forgiveness, that is, comes directly on the heels of the turning back.

Root ز-ل-ف. It was treated in al-Takwīr and this verse was named there: "Zulfa — nearness, rank. Zulfā — nearness: 'For him there is a nearness with Us' (Ṣād 38/25)." I rely on that.

The concrete sense of the root: to draw near, to step forward. Muzdalifa is from the same root — the place of drawing near.

And the construct: ʿindanā la-zulfā — "a nearness with Us".

مَـَٔاب — root أ-و-ب. From the same root as the awwāb of the seventeenth verse. A noun of place: the place one returns and arrives at.

As was tabulated above, the word maʾāb occurs four times in the sūra (25, 40, 49, 55) and two of them are word for word the same:

The twenty-fifth and the fortieth verses are identical word for word. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text, and it closes the two sections on the prophets with the same sentence.

And in the forty-ninth verse the same construct opens out to an unnamed group: al-muttaqīn. I record this as my own reading: the sūra then ties what was given to two prophets to an attribute. What is recounted, that is, does not remain the privilege of two men; it is turned into a measure that can be carried.

خَلِيفَة — root خ-ل-ف: to come after, to take the place of. The word was treated in detail in al-Baqara at 2/30. I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

The difference between the use here and the one in al-Baqara must be recorded, and it can be verified:

I record this as my own reading: in al-Baqara the viceroyalty is announced as a position; in Ṣād it is given as a description of a duty. And the duty is stated in a single sentence: fa'ḥkum bayna'n-nāsi bi'l-ḥaqq.

In this verse, that is, the viceroyalty is identified with the work of judging. This is consistent with the whole subject of the sūra.

And now we come to the central sentence of the sūra.

In the twenty-second verse the litigants had said fa'ḥkum baynanā bi'l-ḥaqq. In the twenty-sixth verse God says fa'ḥkum bayna'n-nāsi bi'l-ḥaqq.

The only difference between the two sentences is the widening of the field of those addressed:

This is a verbal widening that can be verified, and I rest my own reading on it: what is lived through in a single suit turns four verses later into a general principle. The sūra does not give the rule in the abstract; it first makes an event happen, and then states the rule.

بِٱلْحَقِّ — and the qualification. The qualification bi'l-ḥaqq was treated in detail in al-Jāthiya at 45/22 and al-Aḥqāf at 46/3. I rely on that. What was recorded there was this: that the creation is bi'l-ḥaqq is a qualification placed on the creating itself — not a quality added afterwards.

The same qualification is placed here on judgment. And in the next verse (27) the opposite of the same word will come: bāṭilā.

Within three verses, that is, the same measure is used in two fields:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the adjacency of the two verses: the sūra names the measure of the judgment a man gives and the measure on which the universe is built with the same word. Judgment is required to be with ḥaqq, because creation is not with bāṭil.

هَوَىٰ — root ه-و-ي. It was treated in al-Jāthiya at 45/23, and the two branches of the root were given there on the basis of al-Najm: to fall downward; and desire, inclination. I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

The finding in the discussion of al-Jāthiya was this, and it connects here directly: there the man "who takes his hawā as his god" is described, and this was explained as "determining what to choose as a god according to one's own desire".

And in al-Nāziʿāt and al-Najm this verse (Ṣād 38/26) was explicitly named: "Do not follow hawā; it will lead you astray from the way of God."

What is to be added here is the construction of the sentence, and it is fine.

The verse does not say "do not follow your desire". ٱلْهَوَىٰ — definite and unpossessed: "do not follow desire". There is no pronoun.

I record this as my own reading: the word has not been personalised. What is forbidden is not David's desire but the use of desire as a measure. This lifts the rule out of being peculiar to one person.

And fa-yuḍillaka — "it will then lead you astray". Joined with fāʾ: the straying is the consequence of following hawā, not a separate event.

ضَلَّ — root ض-ل-ل: to leave the road, to be lost. And that the verb is attributed here to hawā must be recorded: what leads astray is not the person himself but the thing he follows. That is, hawā is described as something that gives direction — something that can be followed, and something that takes one somewhere when it is followed.

Joined with the "falling downward" branch of the root, this yields the following as my own reading: hawā takes a person somewhere — but the direction it goes is downward. The two branches of the word (falling / desire) build one single picture in this sentence.

نَسِىَ — root ن-س-ي: to forget; and to abandon, to disregard. The Qurʾān uses the word mostly in the second sense — not dropping out of knowledge, but not being taken into account.

And the chain the sentence sets up must be recorded:

The verse gives this chain in the reverse order: it states the punishment first and then its cause (bimā nasū). At the end of the sentence, that is, stands the starting point.

And yawmu'l-ḥisāb had occurred in the sixteenth verse — there the mockers wanted that day brought forward. Here the same day is named as forgotten by those who go astray. It was tabulated above.

I record this as my own reading: the two postures look opposed but come out at the same place. To ask mockingly for a thing to come is also not to take it into account. The demand in the sixteenth verse is another form of the forgetting in the twenty-sixth.

The stretch from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth verse is the most concrete part of the sūra, and it recounts a procedure of judgment.

Three things emerge from the text and are beyond dispute:

1. Judgment is bound to a measure: bi'l-ḥaqq. Not the judge's own conviction, but the truth itself. 2. What corrupts judgment is an inclination: ittibāʿu'l-hawā. Not a bribe or a pressure — the following of desire. The verse names the finest of the dangers: not a corrupter that comes from outside, but a leaning that comes from within. 3. And the ordering of verses twenty-three and twenty-four shows that giving judgment on one-sided knowledge is a matter of testing.

I record this as my own inference, and I give it not as a sermon but as an observation: what goes wrong in the account is not an ill intention. The judgment recounted is in all likelihood the right judgment — that a man with ninety-nine ewes should ask for the one is called ẓulm in the wording of the verse itself. What is tested is not the rightness of the outcome but the road by which it was reached.

And this distinction — between a right outcome and a right procedure — is not only a matter of adjudication. To settle on what one person has told you and decide, in any matter whatever, has the same structure. The sentence inna hādhā la-shayʾun yurād in the sixth verse of the sūra was built in exactly this way: the passage from a one-sided reading to a verdict.

This resemblance between the two scenes is a link I make; the sūra does not make it separately. But both are inside the same sūra, and what is missing in both is the same thing: the word of the other side.

Wa mā khalaqna'l-samāʾa wa'l-arḍa wa mā baynahumā bāṭilā, dhālika ẓannu'lladhīna kafarū, fa-waylun li'lladhīna kafarū mina'n-nār · Am najʿalu'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti ka'l-mufsidīna fi'l-arḍ, am najʿalu'l-muttaqīna ka'l-fujjār

"We did not create the heaven and the earth and what is between them in vain. That is the supposition of those who disbelieve. So woe to those who disbelieve, from the Fire! Or shall We treat those who believe and do righteous deeds like those who work corruption in the earth? Or shall We treat the God-fearing like the dissolute?"

The twenty-sixth verse ended with a measure of judgment (bi'l-ḥaqq). The twenty-seventh applies the same measure to the universe.

And the transition is silent: no conjunction comes between, no sign is given that the subject has changed. The moment the account of David ends, the ground of the creation comes.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the adjacency of the two verses: immediately after the verse that requires judgment to be given among people, the sūra says that the universe too was not built without judgment. The two measures are tied to the same place.

Root ب-ط-ل. Its concrete sense: a thing's going for nothing, remaining void, yielding no result. Bāṭil — that by which one arrives nowhere. The lexicographers count the word the opposite of ḥaqq.

And the word's grammatical place here must be recorded: bāṭilan is in the accusative, and the grammarians explain this in two ways:

Both explanations are transmitted and the sense is close. I do not impose a preference.

And the qualification bi'l-ḥaqq, treated in al-Jāthiya at 45/22 and al-Aḥqāf at 46/3, comes here in its negative. I rely on that.

Set the three verses side by side and what emerges can be verified:

The same sentence-frame, in three sūras in three different forms. al-Aḥqāf adds the term, al-Jāthiya the measure, and Ṣād gives it by negating the opposite.

I record this as my own reading: the choice of the negative pattern is fitting in this sūra, because Ṣād is a sūra of objections. The other side was rejecting something; the verse answers by rejecting a rejection. And it names that rejection at once: dhālika ẓannu'lladhīna kafarū.

And this sentence completes the diagnoses of the polemical part of the sūra.

In the eighth verse it was said bal hum fī shakkin min dhikrī — doubt. Here it says ẓann.

In the eighth verse, that is, irresolution; in the twenty-seventh, a conviction. And the content of the conviction is stated: that the universe has been built in vain.

I record this as my own reading: the verse describes denial not as a lack of knowledge but as an assumption. And the subject of the assumption is not God's existence — it is whether the universe has an outcome.

And in the twenty-fourth verse the same root was used of David: wa ẓanna Dāwūdu annamā fatannāh.

The same root, three verses apart, two opposite outcomes. I record this as an observation. The word itself is neither right nor wrong; what is decisive is what it is directed at.

And the twenty-eighth verse asks the same matter in the field of morals.

Two questions come in succession, and both begin with am najʿalu. The pairs compared are different:

I record this as my own reading: the first question is framed by a measure that looks outward (what one does on the earth), the second by a measure that looks inward (how one stands). The two together take in both a person's act and his posture.

فُجَّار — root ف-ج-ر. Its concrete sense: to split a thing open, to cleave a spring so that it gushes. Infijār — a bursting forth; fajr — the light that breaks out through the darkness of the night. And from there: to break through a limit, to acknowledge no measure.

This root was treated in al-Muṭaffifīn (kitāba'l-fujjāri la-fī sijjīn), and the "splitting" picture of the root was given there. I rely on that.

مُتَّقِين — root و-ق-ي: to guard oneself, to put something between oneself and a thing. The two words are exact opposites:

This opposition is drawn from the root senses the lexicographers record, and I give it as my own reading: the two words are not randomly chosen opposites; both describe a relation to a limit, in contrary directions.

The twenty-seventh verse says the universe is not in vain. The twenty-eighth asks whether two groups will be treated alike.

And the logical link between them is direct, and I record it as my own reading:

If the two groups arrived at the same outcome, what a person does would have no outcome. And a thing that has no outcome is bāṭil — that is, the very thing the twenty-seventh verse rejects.

The second verse, that is, is not the proof of the first but its application. That the universe is not void means that the moral distinction is real.

And the same link was made in al-Jāthiya at 45/22: there too the creation's being bi'l-ḥaqq was joined with the ground that "every soul may be recompensed for what it has earned". I rely on the note there: "The ground of the distinction is given not as a desire to punish but as a qualification placed on the creating itself."

Kitābun anzalnāhu ilayka mubārakun li-yaddabbarū āyātihī wa li-yatadhakkara ulu'l-albāb

"A blessed Book We have sent down to you — that they may ponder its verses and that those who have a kernel may take admonition."

This verse stands near the exact middle of the sūra, and it is a sentence of explanation: it says what the text in your hands is and what it was sent down for.

And its position must be recorded: verses twenty-one to twenty-six told an account; verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight laid down a principle; the twenty-ninth verse says how these are to be read.

The root was treated in Qāf at 50/9 and in al-Dukhān at 44/3. I rely on that.

The concrete sense of the root is worth recording, because it is surprising: بَرَكَ (baraka) — the camel's kneeling down, its settling and staying in a place. Birka — a pool, the place where water gathers and stands.

The picture of the root, that is, is a settling and a staying. Baraka — not first the increase of a thing but its remaining; the not drying up of the source of increase.

And mubārak is a passive participle: given blessing. The quality is not of itself, that is, but placed in it.

The Qurʾān uses this epithet of itself in several places (al-Anʿām 6/92, 155; al-Anbiyāʾ 21/50; al-Dukhān 44/3). What is particular to the use in Ṣād is that a ground follows immediately upon the epithet.

Root د-ب-ر. It was treated in detail in Muḥammad at 47/24, and this verse (Ṣād 38/29) was explicitly named there. I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

The summary of the findings there:

"The concrete sense of the root carries the whole weight of the word: the back, the back of a thing.… تَدَبُّر (tadabbur): to get behind a thing, to think about its end.… That is, tadabbur is not something that happens at a glance. The pattern of the word says that the work takes time and demands labour."

And in the discussion of Sūrat Muḥammad a particular note was entered for this verse:

"And Ṣād 38/29 is striking: there tadabbur is given as the ground of the Book's being sent down — li-yaddabbarū. The text, that is, ties its own reason for existing to this verb."

I rely on that note and add only two things here.

One: the difference of mood between the two sūras.

The same verb, at two different works in two sūras: in the one its absence is questioned, in the other it is set down as the reason for existing. This can be verified from the wording of the two verses.

Two: the difference of object. In Sūrat Muḥammad the object is al-Qurʾān (the whole); here it is āyātih (the parts).

I record this as my own reading: in Ṣād the object of tadabbur is the verses one by one. And joined with the root's picture of "getting behind", what comes out is this: it is asked that one get behind each verse separately — not a collective impression.

Two grounds in succession, both joined with lām. But their subjects differ:

I record this as my own reading: the first verb is a work and is asked of everyone; the second is an outcome and is tied to a particular attribute. That is, tadabbur is something anyone can do, and tadhakkur is its fruit.

أُو۟لُوا۟ ٱلْأَلْبَٰب — its singular lubb. And the concrete sense of the word must be recorded: لُبّ — the kernel of a thing, its inner part; the edible part inside the shell of a walnut or an almond.

The rendering "those of understanding" therefore falls short. Ulu'l-albāb means those who have a kernel — those who have got past the shell, who are full inside.

And the word will occur once more in this sūra, at the forty-third verse: wa dhikrā li-uli'l-albāb (at the end of the account of Job).

In both occurrences the same root (ذ-ك-ر) is named together with the same group. This is a repetition that can be verified.

I record this as my own reading: the twenty-ninth verse says of the Book as a whole that admonition is to be taken from it; the forty-third describes a single event with the same word. The accounts, that is, are instances of the function the Book describes for itself.

The ordering of the verse is worth recording: kitābun anzalnāhu ilayka mubārakun — the adjective comes after the verbal clause.

The ordinary order in Arabic would be "we sent down a blessed Book". Here comes first kitābun (indefinite — "a Book"), then anzalnāhu ilayk (a qualifying clause), then mubārak (a second adjective).

The grammarians explain this thus: the intervening clause brings the second adjective forward. The emphasis, that is, falls on mubārak.

And I record this as an observation: in the seventh verse the other side had said of this Book in hādhā illā ikhtilāq — "nothing but a fabrication." The twenty-ninth verse says three things about the same Book: it has been sent down, it is blessed, and it has a purpose. The objection is not answered directly; what the Book is, is stated, and the comparison is left to the reader.

Wa wahabnā li-Dāwūda Sulaymān, niʿma'l-ʿabd, innahū awwāb

"And We bestowed Solomon on David. How excellent a servant! He was one who turned back often."

The root و-ه-ب occurred in the ninth verse as al-Wahhāb and was treated there: to give without return.

It was tabulated above; here I complete it. This is the name's first actual answer within the sūra:

And what is given is not a kingdom or a capacity — it is a son.

I record this as my own reading: in the ninth verse the other side had been met with the question "are the treasuries of mercy with you?" The thirtieth verse shows that something from that treasury has in fact been given. And what is given is a thing of a kind a man cannot obtain by his own effort. This accords with the word's sense of "giving without return".

نِعْمَ — in Arabic a verb of praise (fiʿl al-madḥ): a verb that conveys praise and does not inflect. Its opposite is biʾsa (blame).

This pattern was treated in al-Mursalāt at 77/23 and this verse was named there: "And 'How excellent a servant' (Ṣād 38/30, 44) — niʿma'l-ʿabd." I rely on that.

And the pattern occurs four times in the sūra — twice in praise, twice in blame:

This is a placement that can be verified, and I record it as my own reading: the same grammatical pattern works in opposite directions in the two halves of the sūra. Two praises in the section on the prophets, two blames in the section on the Fire.

And the object of the praise must be recorded: al-ʿabd — the servant. Not the kingdom, not the wisdom, not the wind. The list of what was given to Solomon will come six verses later; the praise comes before what was given, and is built on a single word.

In the seventeenth verse for David, here for Solomon, in the forty-fourth for Job.

All three uses are on the same pattern: innahū awwāb. Word for word the same.

I record this as my own reading: the sūra introduces the three prophets by three different things — David by strength and judgment, Solomon by kingdom and rule, Job by affliction and patience. But it closes all three with the same sentence. What differs is what was given; what is shared is the returning.

Idh ʿuriḍa ʿalayhi bi'l-ʿashiyyi'ṣ-ṣāfinātu'l-jiyād · Fa-qāla innī aḥbabtu ḥubba'l-khayri ʿan dhikri rabbī ḥattā tawārat bi'l-ḥijāb · Ruddūhā ʿalayya, fa-ṭafiqa masḥan bi's-sūqi wa'l-aʿnāq

"When there were presented to him in the late afternoon the noble racing horses that stand poised on the tip of one hoof. He said: 'I have loved the love of the good out of (/for) the remembrance of my Lord' — until it was hidden behind the veil. 'Bring them back to me.' And he set to stroking/striking their legs and their necks."

These three verses are the place in the sūra over which there has been the greatest divergence. And the note at the twenty-first verse holds here too:

A great many reports have gathered around this scene in the classical commentaries, and some of them ascribe to Solomon acts unbefitting a prophet. Those narratives are not entered into in this commentary. It is transmitted that a considerable body of the classical exegetes rejected these reports.

Below only the wording of the verses will be dwelt on, the disagreement will be given in a table, and no preference will be imposed.

They are described with two words, and both are technical terms.

صَافِنَات — root ص-ف-ن. The lexicographers describe the word by a very distinct stance: صَفَنَ الفَرَسُ — the horse stood on three legs and set the fourth on the tip of its hoof.

This is a stance known in horsemanship, and it shows two things: that the animal is fresh (a tired horse plants all four legs) and that it is trained.

جِيَاد — its singular jawād. Root ج-و-د: to be good, to be generous. Jawād — both a generous man and a swift horse. The common point: the generous man does not hold back his hand when he gives, and the swift horse does not hold itself back when it runs.

The two epithets together, that is, say one single thing: these are not ordinary horses.

Some exegetes have also understood ṣāfināt not as "raising one foot" but as "drawn up in rows" (from the closeness of the roots ص-ف-ن and ص-ف-ف). Both explanations are transmitted.

And this word occurs for the second time in the sūra. In the eighteenth verse it was the hour at which the mountains gave praise together with David: bi'l-ʿashiyyi wa'l-ishrāq.

This is a verbal repetition that can be verified. The one who makes the link is I, and I record it as my own reading: the same hour, two prophets, two different occupations. The sūra does not interpret this further; it sets the two scenes side by side and leaves them.

The sentence is disputed on account of three words: aḥbabtu, al-khayr, and ʿan.

First the lexicon:

ٱلْخَيْر — root خ-ي-ر: that which is good, that which is preferred. And the word has a particular use in Arabic which the lexicographers record: al-khayr is used in the sense of horses. This is a settled use in the language.

عَنْ — in Arabic it basically conveys moving away: "from". But it is used in other works as well.

Now the table of the disagreement:

The first and third readings take it as the confession of a fault; the second as a justification.

I do not impose a preference. This much can be recorded, and it rests on the wording: there is not one word in the sentence conveying regret or a plea for forgiveness. In the thirty-fourth verse thumma anāb (then he turned back) will come, but that sentence follows a separate event (the throne and the body).

And aḥbabtu ḥubba — the verbal noun coming together with the verb conveys emphasis in Arabic: "I loved, and what a loving."

تَوَارَتْ — root و-ر-ي: to cover, to conceal. Form VI (tafāʿul): to hide oneself, to pass behind something.

حِجَاب — root ح-ج-ب: a veil, a barrier; the thing standing between. This word was treated in Fuṣṣilat at 41/5 (the other side's saying wa min bayninā wa baynika ḥijāb).

And the subject of the verb is not stated in the verse. This is the source of the disagreement:

I do not impose a preference. The two readings give the following verse different senses: on the first, what is meant by "bring them back" is the horses and the event takes place after sunset; on the second, the horses had gone off and are called back.

And this is the most disputed half-sentence in the sūra.

طَفِقَ — in Arabic it is among the verbs that convey "to begin, to set about a thing" (afʿāl al-shurūʿ). The word that follows states the work begun.

مَسْح — root م-س-ح. And the original sense of the root: to pass the hand over a thing, to stroke it, to wipe it. The wiping (masḥ) of the head in the ablution is from this root (al-Māʾida 5/6).

And the lexicographers record a second use of the root as well: masaḥahū bi'l-sayf — he struck him with the sword, he cut him. This use is derived from the picture of the sword passing over its target.

Now the table of the disagreement:

In this disagreement I certainly do not impose a preference, and I write my reason out plainly: the wording of the verse admits of all three readings and contains no indication that excludes any of them.

This much can be recorded:

• The original and common sense of the root supports the first view. The second sense is figurative and less used.
• The indication supporting the second view is the naming of the parts that are cut (sūq — legs; aʿnāq — necks).
• The indication supporting the first view is the command ruddūhā ʿalayya (bring them back to me): to have a thing brought back is an act of drawing near.

And I do not enter into the detailed narratives that have gathered around the second view in the classical commentaries; it is transmitted that the source of these narratives is report, and that they have been disputed among the exegetes.

سُوق — its singular sāq: the shank, the leg. أَعْنَاق — its singular ʿunuq: the neck.

I record this as an observation: the two parts are where the horse's two basic qualities reside — the leg carries the running, the neck the stance. The two epithets of the thirty-first verse (ṣāfināt — stance, jiyād — running) correspond exactly to these two parts. This is an equivalence of wording; I establish no ruling as to what it means.

Wa laqad fatannā Sulaymāna wa alqaynā ʿalā kursiyyihī jasadan thumma anāb · Qāla rabbi'ghfir lī wa hab lī mulkan lā yanbaghī li-aḥadin min baʿdī, innaka anta'l-Wahhāb

"And We tested Solomon too, and cast a body upon his throne; then he turned back. He said: 'My Lord! Forgive me, and bestow on me a kingdom that will not befit anyone after me. You are indeed the great giver.'"

The root ف-ت-ن was used of David in the twenty-fourth verse and was treated there: to put gold into the fire and separate out the pure.

And the two sentences must be compared:

This is a difference of construction that can be verified, and I record it as my own reading: in the account of David it is David who perceives the test; in the account of Solomon it is the text itself that announces the test to the reader. Two tellings give the same event from two different places.

There is no certain knowledge about what this sentence recounts, and I write that plainly.

A great many explanations are transmitted for this half-verse in the classical commentaries. These explanations:

• have no common ground;
• rest for the most part on report, and the soundness of the reports is disputed;
• some of them go back to narratives held to be of Israelite provenance.

The detail of those explanations is not entered into in this commentary, and no preference is made among them. The note entered in Qāf at 50/1 for the "Mount Qāf" explanation holds here too: to convey and to adopt are two different things, and an explanation with no ground is not elaborated even while it is being conveyed.

I keep within what the wording says:

كُرْسِىّ — root ك-ر-س: to pile a thing up and make it firm; and from there a throne, a seat. There is a fixedness and a being piled up at the root of the word.

جَسَد — root ج-س-د: a body, a frame. And the distinguishing side of the word is recorded by the lexicographers: jasad is a body without a soul. For a living body jism or badan is used; jasad conveys what is lifeless or motionless. The Qurʾān uses this word of the image of the calf as well (al-Aʿrāf 7/148; Ṭāhā 20/88 — ʿijlan jasadan lahū khuwār).

أَلْقَيْنَا — root ل-ق-ي. In Qāf the four different works of this root in Sūrat Qāf were tabulated. Form IV: to throw, to cast.

ثُمَّ أَنَابَ — thumma here conveys sequence and an interval: "then". And the verb is the very one used of David in the twenty-fourth verse: anāb.

The same word, at the knot of both accounts. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

The prayer is made up of two requests, and their order must be recorded:

Forgiveness comes first.

And a comparison with the account of David can be made:

The same root (غ-ف-ر) is at the knot of both accounts. And the root will come once more in the sūra, in the sixty-sixth verse, as a name: al-ʿAzīzu'l-Ghaffār.

This sentence calls for careful reading, because at first glance it looks like a request for a privilege.

لَا يَنۢبَغِى — root ب-غ-ي. And this is the very root that occurs in the twenty-second and twenty-fourth verses of the sūra (baghā, la-yabghī — to wrong).

Form VII (infiʿāl): inbaghā — to be fitting, to befit, to be suitable. And in the negative: lā yanbaghī — it does not befit, it is not fitting.

The relation between the two branches of the root must be recorded:

The same root, that is, conveys "to seek out of place" in the one and "to be in place" in the other. The common point is a measure of fittingness: baghy is to seek by going outside the measure; inbighāʾ is to be inside it.

And this is a weave that can be verified within the sūra:

The same root, in three occurrences, in two opposite directions.

Now I come to the meaning of the prayer, and I record the disagreement:

I do not impose a preference.

But an observation can be recorded, and it rests on the wording: the first request of the prayer is forgiveness, and its last sentence is innaka anta'l-Wahhāb. The request, that is, is enclosed by a qualification on both sides: before it a plea for pardon, after it the name of the giver.

And this note joins with the ninth verse of the sūra: there the other side was asked "are the treasuries of mercy with you?" Here a prophet asks, knowing that the treasury is not with him.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses use the same name: the question in the ninth verse was a question of authority. The prayer in the thirty-fifth verse is a prophet's answer to that question: the authority is not mine but Yours — and that is why I ask.

The difference between asking and laying claim stands between these two verses.

Fa-sakhkharnā lahu'r-rīḥa tajrī bi-amrihī rukhāʾan ḥaythu aṣāb · Wa'sh-shayāṭīna kulla bannāʾin wa ghawwāṣ · Wa ākharīna muqarranīna fi'l-aṣfād · Hādhā ʿaṭāʾunā fa'mnun aw amsik bi-ghayri ḥisāb · Wa inna lahū ʿindanā la-zulfā wa ḥusna maʾāb

"And We made the wind subservient to him: it ran at his command, gently, wherever he directed. And the satans too — every builder and diver — and others bound together in fetters. 'This is Our giving; so bestow or withhold — without reckoning.' And with Us he has a nearness and a good place of return."

The same verb (sakhkharnā) was used of David in the eighteenth verse: sakhkharna'l-jibāla maʿahū.

The difference between the two sentences lies in the particles, and it is fine:

This is a difference that can be verified, and I record it as my own reading: what is given to David is a work done together; what is given to Solomon is a power tied to command. Both are taskhīr; the form of the relation differs.

Root ر-خ-و: to be soft, to be slack. Rikhwa — slackness; rakhāʾ — breadth, plenty (a relative from the same root).

The choice of the word is worth recording. In the Qurʾān the wind is mostly named with force and violence (rīḥan ṣarṣarā — Fuṣṣilat 41/16; al-Qamar 54/19). Here the opposite epithet: rukhāʾ — gentle.

I record this as my own reading: this conveys that the power given is controlled. The wind is at his command, but not harsh. The power is given in a consistency that will not batter what it carries.

حَيْثُ أَصَابَ — root ص-و-ب: to hit a thing, to find the right target. Ṣawāb — that which hits the mark; muṣība — that which strikes (in the negative direction).

The phrase is rendered "wherever he wished"; but the root of the word is not "he wished" but "he hit the mark". The lexicographers record that in this use the verb aṣāba carries the sense "to aim at, to make for".

Two names of trades are given, and both are on the faʿʿāl pattern — that is, the pattern that conveys a trade:

I record this as an observation: two works, two opposite directions. One raises up, the other goes down. And both are works of extraction: the one takes stone from its place and sets it in a building, the other brings something up from the bottom of the sea.

غَاصَ — root غ-و-ص: to dive into water. The lexicographers record that the word is used in particular for bringing up pearls.

مُقَرَّنِين — root ق-ر-ن: to bind two things to one another, to bring them side by side. A passive participle of Form II: bound together.

The concrete sense of the root: to yoke two animals to the same yoke. Qarīn — the one bound alongside; this word was treated in Qāf at 50/23 and 27.

أَصْفَاد — its singular ṣafad. Root ص-ف-د: a tie, a chain, a shackle. The lexicographers describe the ṣafad as "a bond that ties the hands to the neck".

And three groups are counted:

I record this as my own reading: the power given is not only the power to make things serve but also the power to hold in check. Some of them work, some are held fast. There is an order inside the kingdom, that is: not everything is loose.

And now the answer to the prayer of the thirty-fifth verse comes.

عَطَاء — root ع-ط-و: to give, to hold out. Aʿṭā — he gave. The concrete sense of the root is handing a thing from hand to hand.

فَٱمْنُنْ — root م-ن-ن. And the word has two branches:

The sense here is the first: "give, bestow". The Qurʾān uses the second sense too, and forbids it (al-Baqara 2/264 — lā tubṭilū ṣadaqātikum bi'l-manni wa'l-adhā).

أَمْسِكْ — root م-س-ك: to hold, to keep in hand, not to let go.

The two commands are opposites: imnun (give) and amsik (withhold). And both are left free: "bestow or withhold."

بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ — "without reckoning". And the construct has been understood in two ways:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And as was tabulated above, this is one of the four occurrences of the word ḥisāb in the sūra, and the only positive one. In the sixteenth verse the day was wanted brought forward, in the twenty-sixth it had been forgotten, in the fifty-third it will be the address of a promise. Here, however, it is lifted.

I record this as an observation: the sūra's central word (reckoning) is suspended inside an authority given to a prophet. And this must be read together with the qualification placed on David in the twenty-sixth verse — there the authority to judge was bound to a measure (bi'l-ḥaqq, lā tattabiʿi'l-hawā); here the authority to give is left free.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the comparison of the two verses: two different authorities are given to two prophets, and the one is tightly bound, the other free. And the difference comes from whom the authority touches: a judgment touches another man's right, a gift comes out of one's own portion.

It is the exact repetition of the twenty-fifth verse. It was tabulated above.

And that the two accounts close with the same sentence must be recorded: the one after a test and a forgiveness, the other after a kingdom and an authority. What was given differs; the place arrived at is the same.

Wa'dhkur ʿabdanā Ayyūba idh nādā rabbahū annī massaniya'sh-shayṭānu bi-nuṣbin wa ʿadhāb · Urkuḍ bi-rijlika, hādhā mughtasalun bāridun wa sharāb · Wa wahabnā lahū ahlahū wa mithlahum maʿahum raḥmatan minnā wa dhikrā li-uli'l-albāb · Wa khudh bi-yadika ḍighthan fa'ḍrib bihī wa lā taḥnath, innā wajadnāhu ṣābirā, niʿma'l-ʿabd, innahū awwāb

"And remember our servant Job. When he called to his Lord: 'Satan has touched me with weariness and torment.' 'Strike the ground with your foot: here is a cool washing-place and a drink.' And We bestowed on him his family and the like of them with them — as a mercy from Us and an admonition for those who have a kernel. 'Take a handful of twigs in your hand, strike with it, and do not break your oath.' We found him patient. How excellent a servant! He was one who turned back often."

For the third time the sūra says wa'dhkur ʿabdanā. And what distinguishes this account from the earlier ones is that it begins not with what was given but with what was taken away.

I record this as my own reading: in the first two accounts a test came after what was given; in the third the test stands at the beginning. The sūra shows that the same epithet (awwāb) is the same in all three states.

نَادَىٰ — root ن-د-ي: to call in a loud voice. And this root occurred in the third verse: fa-nādaw wa-lāta ḥīna manāṣ — "they cried out, but it was no longer the hour of escape."

This is a shared wording that can be verified, and I record it as my own reading: the same verb in two places, with two opposite outcomes. What divides them is not the cry itself but its time. The third verse set up a question of hour; the forty-first shows the other face of that question.

مَسَّ — root م-س-س: to touch. And the distinguishing side of the word is its lightness: mass is to come into contact with a thing — not to strike, not to hit.

نُصْب — root ن-ص-ب. This word was treated in al-Ghāshiya at 88/3 and in al-Inshirāḥ, and this verse was named there: "Satan has touched me with weariness and torment" (Ṣād 38/41).

The concrete sense of the root: to set a thing up, to hold it upright. Naṣb — a standing stone; manṣib — the place where a person is set up. And from there: naṣab/nuṣb — to grow weary, exhaustion. The link the lexicographers make is this: standing upright for a long time wearies.

The word conveys not "pain", that is, but exhaustion.

The two words together take in two directions: the exhaustion within and the distress without.

And here there is a construction that must be read with care.

Job ascribes the affliction to Satan: massaniya'sh-shayṭān. But the one he calls to is his Lord: nādā rabbah.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the separation of the subjects of the sentence:

There is no reproach in the sentence, that is. Job calls to his Lord but does not ascribe the affliction to Him. And this prepares the verdict in the forty-fourth verse (innā wajadnāhu ṣābirā).

Satan's role here has been disputed in the classical commentaries, and the disagreement is real:

I convey all three and do not impose a preference. And in this discussion I do not enter into details resting on report — the kind of the illness, its duration, what befell his family; the verse says none of these things.

رَكَضَ — root ر-ك-ض. Its concrete sense: to strike with the foot, to kick. The lexicographers record that the word is used in particular for a rider's striking with his foot to spur his horse. From here comes the sense "to run, to go swiftly" as well (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/12 — idhā hum minhā yarkuḍūn).

And the character of the command must be recorded: an act is asked for.

I record this as my own reading: the answer is not a sentence of glad tidings but a command to move. A sick and exhausted man is told to strike the ground with his foot. The healing, that is, comes after the person's own movement.

And this is a pattern that has a parallel in the Qurʾān: Mary too is given a command — wa huzzī ilayki bi-jidhʿi'n-nakhlati tusāqiṭ ʿalayki ruṭaban janiyyā (Maryam 19/25): she is asked to shake the trunk of the palm towards herself. In both places a small act is asked for in a situation that looks impossible. This link is one I make; the verses do not refer to one another.

مُغْتَسَل — root غ-س-ل: to wash. A noun of place or of instrument of Form VIII: a place to wash in, or the thing one washes with (water).

بَارِد — root ب-ر-د: cold, cool.

And two uses are given: to wash and to drink.

I record this as an observation: in the forty-first verse the affliction was given with two words (nuṣb — exhaustion from within, ʿadhāb — distress from without). In the forty-second the answer comes in a pair as well: drinking and washing. Two words fall to two afflictions.

And the epithet bārid must be recorded: in the fifty-seventh verse of the sūra the drink given to those in the Fire will be ḥamīm (boiling water). Two drinks in the same sūra: the one cool, the other boiling. This is a contrast that can be verified from the text.

And the root و-ه-ب comes for the fourth and last time. It was tabulated above: al-Wahhāb (9) → wahabnā (30) → hab lī (35) → wahabnā (43).

وَمِثْلَهُم مَّعَهُمْ — "and the like of them with them".

The exegetes explain this expression in two ways:

I do not impose a preference.

رَحْمَةً مِّنَّا وَذِكْرَىٰ لِأُو۟لِى ٱلْأَلْبَٰبِ — and two grounds are given:

I record this as my own reading: the verse gives both the reason the event was lived and the reason it is told. And the second ground uses exactly the same words as the ground for the Book's being sent down in the twenty-ninth verse: wa li-yatadhakkara ulu'l-albāb. It was tabulated above.

ضِغْث — root ض-غ-ث. And the lexicographers describe the word thus: a bundle of mixed grass, twigs or stalks, as much as a hand can grasp. A handful. There is a mixedness and a being held together at the root of the word; from the same root aḍghāthu aḥlām — confused dreams (Yūsuf 12/44).

تَحْنَثْ — root ح-ن-ث. Its concrete sense: a sin, a grave offence; and the breaking of an oath. Ḥinth — to break an oath. The original sense at the root of the word is "a heavy burden, a sin", and it passed to this meaning because the breaking of an oath was counted a sin.

Now the disagreement. The verse gives a command but does not state the background of the command (what the oath was).

In this question I certainly do not impose a preference, and my reason is this: the verse does not state two of the three elements of the matter (the content of the oath and the one it concerns). Where the text is silent I am silent.

The only thing verifiable in the wording is this: there is an oath, it is asked that it not be broken, and the manner of its fulfilment has been made lighter.

I record this as an observation: the choice of the word ḍighth — a handful of thin twigs — conveys lightness. What is recounted in the verse, that is, is not the cancellation of an obligation but the lessening of its weight. The oath stands; the manner of carrying it changes.

And now the sūra's chain of patience closes. It was tabulated above; here I complete it.

Two commands and one verdict. And the form of the verdict must be recorded: innā wajadnāhu ṣābirā — "we found him patient."

وَجَدَ — root و-ج-د: to find. The verb is the pattern that announces the outcome of a test: something sought has been found where it was sought.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of verb: the verse does not say "he was patient"; it says "we found him patient." Patience, that is, is given not as something claimed but as something established after a testing.

And this must be read together with the forty-first verse. Job had complained — massaniya'sh-shayṭānu bi-nuṣbin wa ʿadhāb. To have spoken one's affliction, that is, is no bar to being found patient.

I record this plainly as my own inference, because it corrects a widespread misunderstanding: the patience the verse describes is not silence. Job speaks, takes his affliction to his Lord, receives an answer — and is found patient. No contradiction is set up between these two in the verse.

نِّعْمَ ٱلْعَبْدُ إِنَّهُۥٓ أَوَّابٌ — the exact repetition of the thirtieth verse. Two prophets (Solomon and Job) close with the same two sentences.

Wa'dhkur ʿibādanā Ibrāhīma wa Isḥāqa wa Yaʿqūba uli'l-aydī wa'l-abṣār · Innā akhlaṣnāhum bi-khāliṣatin dhikra'd-dār · Wa innahum ʿindanā la-mina'l-muṣṭafayna'l-akhyār

"And remember our servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — those possessed of hands and eyes. We purified them with a pure thing — the remembrance of the abode. With Us they are among the chosen, the best."

The sūra passes from three accounts told one by one to a list of names. And the transition must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading: the sūra drops the detail and quickens. And in doing so it announces that those not recounted belong to the same class. The matter, that is, is not the accounts themselves but the attribute the accounts display.

And ʿibādanā is plural — in the three previous places it was singular (ʿabdanā). This is a change of pattern that can be verified.

And this construct is one of the densest expressions in the sūra.

أَيْدِى — its singular yad: hand. Root ي-د-ي.

And it must not be confused with the dha'l-ayd of the seventeenth verse. It was tabulated above: there the root is أ-ي-د (strength), here ي-د-ي (hand). The difference is visible in the writing: here there is a yāʾ at the end.

أَبْصَار — its singular baṣar: sight, the eye. Root ب-ص-ر. It was treated in Qāf at 50/22 and in al-Mulk.

And the construct is figurative; the exegetes agree on this:

Some exegetes have read aydī here too as "strength" (the root أ-ي-د). The two readings meet in sense; I do not impose a preference.

Now I come to the work of the construct, and I record it as my own reading.

The naming of the two together sets up a completion: