Ṣād 38:1-3

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.