Ṣād 38:49-54

Hādhā dhikr, wa inna li'l-muttaqīna la-ḥusna maʾāb · Jannāti ʿadnin mufattaḥatan lahumu'l-abwāb · Muttakiʾīna fīhā yadʿūna fīhā bi-fākihatin kathīratin wa sharāb · Wa ʿindahum qāṣirātu'ṭ-ṭarfi atrāb · Hādhā mā tūʿadūna li-yawmi'l-ḥisāb · Inna hādhā la-rizqunā mā lahū min nafād

"This is a reminder. And for the God-fearing there is surely a good place of return: the gardens of ʿAdn, their gates opened wide to them. Reclining there, they call for abundant fruit and drink. Beside them are spouses of modest gaze, of like age. 'This is what you are promised for the Day of Reckoning.' This is Our provision; it has no exhausting."

Two words, and they change the whole structure of the sūra.

As was tabulated above, the root ذ-ك-ر is the backbone of the sūra. And here the root names thirty-two verses of narrative with a single word.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the ordering of these three occurrences: the sūra gives to a section within itself the name it gives to its own Book. The accounts, that is, turn out to have been told not to give information but to remind — and the forty-third verse had already said this (wa dhikrā li-uli'l-albāb).

And the word hādhā here is the first link of the "the demonstrative changes hands" strand tabulated above. In the fifth, sixth and seventh verses the other side had used hādhā to reject. From the forty-ninth verse onward the same word comes six times in the mouth of the text.

It was tabulated above: the same construct was used of David in the twenty-fifth verse and of Solomon in the fortieth. Here it opens out to a class.

And the difference must be recorded:

The notes ʿindanā (with Us) and zulfā (nearness) are absent here; ḥusna maʾāb stands exactly as it was.

I record this as an observation; it shows that what is peculiar to two prophets and what is open to everyone are kept apart within the text.

عَدْن — root ع-د-ن: to stay, to settle, not to leave a place. Maʿdin is from the same root — the place where a substance is found lodged in the earth.

ʿAdn, that is, is not a place-name but a quality: permanence.

This construct occurred in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/8 (jannāti ʿadnini'llatī waʿadtahum) and was there named together with spouses and children; the note in the discussion of al-Wāqiʿa was relied on. I rely on that.

فُتِّحَ — root ف-ت-ح: to open. Form II (tafʿīl) here conveys multiplicity: all the gates, opened one by one.

And the construction is dwelt on: mufattaḥatan lahumu'l-abwāb — "the gates being opened to them". The gates come at the end of the sentence.

I record this as my own reading: the sentence does not set up a scene of waiting or of asking leave. The gates have been opened beforehand. And this can be compared with the scene in the twenty-first verse: there two litigants entered a place by climbing the wall, because they could not enter by the door.

This link is one I make; the sūra does not make it separately. But the two scenes are inside the same sūra, and in both an entry is being recounted.

Root و-ك-أ: to lean on a thing, to recline. Form VIII: ittakaʾa — he reclined.

This word was treated in al-Wāqiʿa and al-Insān in descriptions of the Garden. I rely on that.

What is to be recorded is what the posture conveys: to recline is the posture of being safe and unhurried.

دَعَا — root د-ع-و: to call, to ask for.

And the choice of verb must be recorded: it does not say "it is given to them", it says "they ask". A state of demand, that is, is being described, not a passivity.

And two things are asked for: fākiha (fruit) and sharāb (drink).

فَاكِهَة — root ف-ك-ه. And the distinguishing side of the root is recorded by the lexicographers: from the same root fukāha — jesting, pleasant conversation. What makes the link is that both are not a basic need but a pleasure. Fruit is eaten not to fill the belly but for its taste.

I record this as my own reading: the things counted in the verse are not necessities. In the description of the Garden hunger is not being relieved; pleasantness is being named.

And the word sharāb had occurred in the forty-second verse too — the cool drink given to Job. This is a verbal repetition that can be verified.

This construct was treated in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/35-37, and this verse (Ṣād 38/52) was named there: "In Ṣād 38/52 the same word occurs again in a description of the Garden, and so it does in al-Nabaʾ 78/33. The word is settled in this context, that is." I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

The summary is this: قَاصِرَات — root ق-ص-ر: to shorten, to limit a thing. Ṭarf — the corner of the eye, the glance. The construct: those who have limited their glance — those, that is, whose eye is not on another.

أَتْرَاب — its singular tirb. Root ت-ر-ب — the same root as earth (turāb). The lexicographers make the link thus: those who grew up playing in the same dust at the same time — that is, those of like age.

The picture at the root of the word is having grown up together.

And there is an iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address) in the construction: from forty-nine to fifty-two the telling was in the third person (lahum, ʿindahum); in the fifty-third verse it turns suddenly to the second: tūʿadūn — "what you are promised".

I record this as my own reading: the scene being told stops being told and is set before the one addressed. And this stands at the very middle of the sūra's hādhā strand.

ٱلْحِسَاب — the fourth and last occurrence. It was tabulated above.

نَفَاد — root ن-ف-د: to be exhausted, to run out, to come to an end. Nafida'l-māʾ — the water ran out.

And the pattern of negation is strong: mā lahū min nafād — with min intervening. In Arabic this generalises the negation as to kind: "it has no exhausting whatever."

And that the word rizq was chosen must be recorded. Root ر-ز-ق: what is given to a living thing, what it takes benefit from. The original sense of the root is the giving of a portion.

I record this as an observation, and it is a link within the sūra: in the thirty-ninth verse it was said to Solomon hādhā ʿaṭāʾunā ("this is Our giving") and the note bi-ghayri ḥisāb (without reckoning) was entered. In the fifty-fourth verse it says hādhā la-rizqunā ("this is Our provision") and the note mā lahū min nafād (it has no exhausting) is entered.

The two sentences are on the same pattern (hādhā + a first-person plural possessive + a negative note of limit). This is an equivalence that can be verified from the text.