Ṣād 38:77-85

Qāla fa'khruj minhā fa-innaka rajīm · Wa inna ʿalayka laʿnatī ilā yawmi'd-dīn · Qāla rabbi fa-anẓirnī ilā yawmi yubʿathūn · Qāla fa-innaka mina'l-munẓarīn · Ilā yawmi'l-waqti'l-maʿlūm · Qāla fa-bi-ʿizzatika la-ughwiyannahum ajmaʿīn · Illā ʿibādaka minhumu'l-mukhlaṣīn · Qāla fa'l-ḥaqqu wa'l-ḥaqqa aqūl · La-amlaʾanna jahannama minka wa mimman tabiʿaka minhum ajmaʿīn

"He said: 'Go out from there; you are driven away. And My curse is upon you until the Day of Judgment.' He said: 'My Lord! Then grant me respite until the day they are raised.' He said: 'You are among those granted respite — until the day of the known time.' He said: 'Then by Your might, I shall lead them all astray — save such of Your servants among them as are purified.' He said: 'This is the truth — and I speak the truth: I shall fill Hell with you and with those of them who follow you, all together.'"

In nine verses there are five turns of speech, and all of them open with qāla:

I record this as my own reading: exchanged speech had been seen twice before in the sūra — in the miḥrāb (21-26) and in the Fire (59-64). This is the third and the longest.

And setting the three scenes side by side, an order emerges:

I give this as an observation about the structure.

رَجِيم — root ر-ج-م: to stone, to throw stones. And from there: driven off, cast out by stoning.

The concrete sense of the word is a community's driving someone beyond its bounds by throwing stones. This is a form of exclusion known in old Arab society.

فَٱخْرُجْ مِنْهَا — "go out from there". To what does the pronoun (minhā) refer?

I do not impose a preference. On all three views what is recounted is a putting outside — and this accords with the picture in the word rajīm.

دِين — root د-ي-ن: debt, requital, judgment and submission. At the centre of the root is a relation of requital: dayn — a debt; dāna — he judged, he requited.

And yawmu'd-dīn — "the day of requital". This construct was treated in al-Fātiḥa.

أَنْظَرَ — root ن-ظ-ر. It occurred in the fifteenth verse as mā yanẓuru (they do not await): to look and to wait.

Form IV: anẓara — to grant someone a term, to allow him to wait. In the language of commerce: to defer a debt. The Qurʾān uses it in this sense too (al-Baqara 2/280 — fa-naẓiratun ilā maysara).

And the root's three occurrences in the sūra are worth recording:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is these three occurrences: the same root conveys a waiting at the beginning of the sūra and a respite at its end. And in the fifteenth verse those who wait were not asking for a term — Iblīs asks, and receives.

That Iblīs addresses Him as rabbi must be recorded. As was recorded in the discussion of al-Baqara, Iblīs does not deny God's existence; he speaks with Him, asks, and his request is granted. This dialogue in Ṣād is the plainest ground of that finding.

Iblīs asked ilā yawmi yubʿathūn (until the day they are raised). The answer was ilā yawmi'l-waqti'l-maʿlūm (until the day of the known time).

Are the two expressions the same? The exegetes differ:

I do not impose a preference.

This much rests on the wording and can be recorded: the two expressions are not given in the same words. The request is yawmi yubʿathūn, the answer yawmi'l-waqti'l-maʿlūm. And the second carries a note announcing who holds the knowledge: maʿlūm — known. By whom it is known is not stated.

And now we return to the second verse of the sūra. The ع-ز-ز strand was tabulated above; here I complete it.

Iblīs swears an oath. And what he swears by must be recorded: bi-ʿizzatika — "by Your might".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this distribution: Iblīs swears by the might of the being he defies. He uses the reality of what he rejects, that is, as the measure in his own oath.

And this is a further ground for the finding in the discussion of al-Baqara: "Iblīs assents to the whole list and yet stands on the other side."

And a link can be made with the second verse, and I give it as my own reading: in the second verse of the sūra those who disbelieve were described as fī ʿizzatin — with a resistance they supposed to be their own. In the eighty-second verse Iblīs knows where might lies, and swears by it. The difference between the two postures is not a difference of knowledge — it is a difference of doing or not doing what the known requires.

أَغْوَىٰ — root غ-و-ي: to go astray, to lose the way. Form IV: to lead astray. Ghayy — error, going far from the right road.

And the verb comes with a double emphasis: la-ughwiyanna — lām + the nūn of emphasis. This is the strongest pattern of an oath's answer in Arabic.

Iblīs puts an exception inside his own oath.

مُخْلَص — root خ-ل-ص. It was treated at the forty-sixth verse: to become pure, to be separated from one's dregs.

And the pattern is a passive participle: mukhlaṣ — purified, made pure. It differs from the active participle mukhliṣ (sincere, one who purifies himself):

A variant reading is transmitted: it is said the word is also read mukhliṣīn (active). Because I cannot state with certainty which imam held which preference, I give no names.

And a link can be made with the forty-sixth verse, and it is a link of wording:

The same root, the same family of patterns. I record this as my own reading: in the forty-sixth verse what the purifying consisted in was stated — dhikra'd-dār, the remembrance of the abode. In the eighty-third verse Iblīs concedes that those who bear that attribute are outside his own reach.

And the word ʿibādaka (Your servants) must be recorded. In the sūra the word ʿabd/ʿibād had been used of the prophets (17, 30, 41, 44, 45). Iblīs uses the same word.

And the sūra's chain of ḥaqq closes here. It was tabulated above.

The construction of the sentence has been disputed among the grammarians, and the disagreement is technical:

A variant reading is also transmitted: it is said the first word is read in the nominative (al-ḥaqqu) or in the accusative (al-ḥaqqa). Because I cannot state with certainty which imam held which preference, I give no names; the difference of sense is not great.

The sense is close on all three views and I do not impose a preference.

What is to be recorded is this: the word comes twice over. And in the sixty-fourth verse of the sūra the quarrel of those in the Fire had been described as la-ḥaqq. Now the last word too is framed with the same word.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sūra's ح-ق-ق chain: in the twenty-second verse two litigants had asked a man for judgment bi'l-ḥaqq. In the eighty-fourth verse the one who judges announces the quality of His own speech with the same word. The sūra names for its own speech, at the end, the measure it asked of man.

مَلَأَ — root م-ل-أ: to fill. And this root had occurred twice more in the sūra: al-malaʾ (6) and al-malaʾu'l-aʿlā (69) — "the company that fills".

The same root, three occurrences. I record this as an observation about a pattern; I am not claiming that the sūra sets up a deliberate play on words.

And the answering structure of the two oaths must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two sentences: Iblīs says "all of them" and enters an exception. The answering sentence, however, does not say "all" — it says mimman tabiʿaka: "of those who follow you".

The scope, that is, is not general as Iblīs claimed; it is tied to an act: tabiʿaka — to follow.

And this joins with the twenty-sixth verse of the sūra: there David was told wa lā tattabiʿi'l-hawā — the same root (ت-ب-ع).

This is a shared wording that can be verified, and I record it as my own reading: the sūra uses in the eighty-fifth verse, as a measure, the very act it forbade in the twenty-sixth. The verdict is tied not to who Iblīs is but to who follows him.