Ṣād 38:59-61

Hādhā fawjun muqtaḥimun maʿakum, lā marḥaban bihim, innahum ṣālu'n-nār · Qālū bal antum lā marḥaban bikum, antum qaddamtumūhu lanā, fa-biʾsa'l-qarār · Qālū rabbanā man qaddama lanā hādhā fa-zidhu ʿadhāban ḍiʿfan fi'n-nār

"'This is a company plunging in along with you. No welcome for them; they are the ones to enter the Fire.' They said: 'No — no welcome to you! It is you who sent this ahead for us. How evil a place to stay!' They said: 'Our Lord! Whoever sent this ahead for us, increase his punishment twofold in the Fire.'"

Who is speaking is not stated explicitly in the verse, and here is where the disagreement lies:

I do not impose a preference. But on all three views the structure of the scene is the same: a group arrives, the others do not want it, the arrivals answer back.

فَوْج — root ف-و-ج: a body moving together, a troop. The word occurs in al-Naṣr at 110/2 (yadkhulūna fī dīni'llāhi afwājā).

مُقْتَحِم — root ق-ح-م. And this word was treated in detail in al-Balad at 90/11. I rely on that and do not repeat it here.

The summary of the finding there:

"The concrete sense of the root: to plunge into a thing without thinking, without reckoning, with the eyes shut. To throw oneself into a dangerous place… The pattern: افتعال (iftiʿāl). In Arabic this pattern conveys that the act is done by the agent's own effort and taken upon himself. That is, iqtaḥama is not 'he plunged' but 'he threw himself into it by force'."

And this verse (Ṣād 38/59) had already been named in al-Balad: "of a company cast into Hell it is said 'this is a company plunging in along with you' (Ṣād 38/59); there too the word describes a mass being pushed into a place and plunging in."

In al-Balad the same root was used at a positive work: fa-la'qtaḥama'l-ʿaqaba — "he did not assault the steep pass." Here at a negative one.

The same verb, two opposite targets. I record this as an observation: the root itself is neither praise nor blame; what is decisive is where the headlong plunge goes.

مَرْحَبًا — root ر-ح-ب: to be wide, to be ample. Raḥb — a spacious place.

And the Arabic greeting marḥaban is exactly an expression of making room: "may you find a wide place", "there is room for you here." The Turkish greeting merhaba comes from this root and is in origin a sentence of hospitality.

Its negative says exactly the opposite: lā marḥaban bikum — "there is no room for you."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sense of the root: the first words in the scene of the Fire are a refusal of hospitality. And this can be read together with the second verse of the sūra: there those who disbelieve were described as being in fī ʿizzatin wa shiqāq (a rift). Shiqāq was the falling of two sides into separate halves. Here those same sides are splitting within themselves.

And this link between shiqāq and lā marḥaban is one I make; the sūra does not make it separately.

قَدَّمَ — root ق-د-م: to go forward, to put forward. Form II: to offer a thing forward, to send it ahead.

And the verb is used twice over in two verses: qaddamtumūhu (60), man qaddama (61).

I record this as my own reading: the subject of the dispute turns into a question of order — who did it first, who put it forward. And this can be compared with the al-malaʾ scene at the beginning of the sūra (6): there too the leading men went ahead and told those behind them, "walk on".

This link is one I make, and I give it as an observation about a pattern.

قَرَار — root ق-ر-ر: to stand, to settle, to be fixed in a place. Qarār — to become stable. Mustaqarr — the place settled in.

And the word is of the same family as al-mihād (bed) in the fifty-sixth verse of the sūra: both convey a place stayed in.

Both come with biʾsa. This is a repetition that can be verified.

And in the sixty-first verse a prayer is made: rabbanā.

I record this as my own reading: this is the first place in the scene of the Fire where God is called on. And the content of the call is not a request for escape but for another's punishment to be increased.

ضِعْف — root ض-ع-ف: a fold, a multiple; and weakness. The word has two branches and the lexicographers record this: ḍiʿf — the multiple of a thing; ḍaʿf — feebleness. The common point is a thing's being doubled or divided in two.

The scene of dispute in the Fire was treated in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/47-50, and a chain of three stages was tabulated there. I rely on that.

The table in Ghāfir was this:

Now I set the scenes of the two sūras side by side. This comparison can be verified from the text:

The difference between the two closes must be recorded, and I give it as my own reading:

Ghāfir closes the scene with the futility of what is done (the prayer). Ṣād closes the scene by confirming the reality of what happens: inna dhālika la-ḥaqq.

And this difference accords with the backbones of the two sūras:

• The backbone of Ghāfir is the root ج-د-ل (to dispute), and as was recorded there the sūra treated denial as "a posture of disputation". The scene shows that the dispute arrives nowhere.
• The backbone of Ṣād is judgment and ḥaqq. And the sixty-fourth verse describes the quarrel of those in the Fire as ḥaqq — that is, as something that will really happen.

One further note: in Ghāfir the dispute turns on the axis of status (the weak / the arrogant); in Ṣād on the axis of order (who put it forward first). This too accords with the difference between the polemical parts of the two sūras: in Ghāfir the matter was kibr (40/56), in Ṣād it is ʿizza and shiqāq (38/2).