41. Sūrat Fuṣṣilat

Fifty-four verses. It is widely reported that it was revealed in the Meccan period. It takes its name from the word فُصِّلَتْ in the third verse: its verses have been made distinct, set apart from one another. The sūra is also known as Ḥā-mīm al-Sajda; there is a verse of prostration at verse 37.

It is the second of the seven sūras that open with Ḥā-mīm.

The backbone of the sūra is a problem of communication: the text arrives, but it does not get through. In the fifth verse the addressee describes this himself (our hearts are covered, there is a heaviness in our ears, there is a veil between us), and in the twenty-sixth verse it turns into a tactic (do not listen, make noise). The sūra gives both the description of this blockage and its solution — the solution will come in verse 34.

Ḥā-mīm · Tanzīlun mina'r-Raḥmāni'r-Raḥīm · Kitābun fuṣṣilat āyātuhū qurʾānan ʿarabiyyan li-qawmin yaʿlamūn · Bashīran wa nadhīran fa-aʿraḍa aktharuhum fa-hum lā yasmaʿūn

"Ḥā-mīm. A sending down from al-Raḥmān and al-Raḥīm. A Book whose verses have been made distinct: an Arabic Qurʾān for a people who know; as a bringer of good news and as a warner. But most of them turned away; they no longer hear."

The concrete sense of the root: to separate two things from one another, to put a distance between them. The root was analysed at several points in this corpus — in al-Mursalāt and al-Nabaʾ, in the context of yawmu'l-faṣl (the day of separation). I do not repeat it here.

The pattern here is Form II, and it changes the sense: tafṣīl — to divide a whole into its parts, to set it out in detail. For a text to be mufaṣṣal is for its subjects to have been separated from one another and their boundaries drawn.

That this word became the name of the sūra is worth recording: the name of the sūra is about the form of the Book, not its content. And this name will return in the forty-fourth verse inside an objection — law lā fuṣṣilat āyātuh.

In the other ḥā-mīm sūras this sentence has the form mina'llāhi'l-ʿazīzi'l-ḥakīm (from God, the Mighty, the Wise) — it occurred thus at al-Jāthiya 45/2 and al-Aḥqāf 46/2, and was treated there.

Here two names change: in place of al-ʿAzīz and al-Ḥakīm, al-Raḥmān and al-Raḥīm.

This is a difference that can be verified, and it fits the subject of the sūra. I record this as my own reading: the sūra is the sūra of a text that does not get through. In its first sentence the source of the text is named not by power but by mercy — that is, the failure to get through does not arise from the disposition of the sender.

Two fāʾs one after the other, and the order must be recorded: first aʿraḍa (he turned away), then lā yasmaʿūn (they do not hear).

That is, the not-hearing is set down as the consequence of the turning away — not as its cause. In Arabic the fāʾ conveys consequence and succession.

The reverse of this scene was treated at al-Jāthiya 45/8: there the type hears, and then resists. The two sūras describe two separate stages of the same matter: the one, hearing and then resisting; the other, resistance closing off hearing.

"They said: 'Our hearts are within coverings against that to which you call us; in our ears there is a heaviness, and between us and you there is a veil. So work; we too are working.'"

The other side describes its own condition, and it uses three words:

The root ك-ن-ن was analysed in al-Wāqiʿa (al-luʾluʾi'l-maknūn — the pearl kept hidden in its shell; kinān — a sheath). I do not repeat it here. The use here is turned around: there it was protection, here it is closedness.

The root و-ق-ر conveys weight (it occurred in Nūḥ and al-Dhāriyāt); waqār (gravity of bearing) is from this root too. The heaviness in the ear is the load that keeps the sound from entering.

The placement of the three obstacles is worth recording, and I give it as my own reading: one is inside (the heart), one is at the entrance (the ear), one is in between (the veil). That is, all three points of communication are described as closed.

And the most striking side of it is this: the one who says it is the other side itself. It states its own closedness not as a defect but as a declaration of position.

فَٱعْمَلْ إِنَّنَا عَٰمِلُونَ — "so work; we too are working." The argument is brought to an end, and it is proposed that the two sides go their separate ways. This is the calmest form of refusal: no quarrel, but a parting.

"Say: I am only a human being like you; it is revealed to me that your god is one God. So set yourselves straight towards Him, and ask His forgiveness."

In the fifth verse the other side had set a veil in between: wa min bayninā wa baynika ḥijāb — "between us and you there is a veil."

The sixth verse answers this, and the word of the answer is bashar: innamā anā basharun mithlukum — "I am only a human being like you."

I record this as my own reading; its ground is that the two verses come one after the other: the other side had made the distance between them its reason; the answer says that the distance is not between the parties. The difference is not between one human being and another — it is in the knowledge that comes. The clause yūḥā ilayya (it is revealed to me) is in the passive: the act is not his.

فَٱسْتَقِيمُوٓا۟ إِلَيْهِ — the root of istiqāma is ق-و-م; the analysis of the word was made at al-Baqara 2/255 and, in this corpus, at al-Aḥqāf 46/13.

ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يُؤْتُونَ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ — "those who do not give the zakāt."

Because this expression occurs in a sūra revealed in the Meccan period, two readings are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference, and I draw no legal conclusion.

أَجْرٌ غَيْرُ مَمْنُونٍ — "an uninterrupted reward". The root م-ن-ن: to cut off; and to reproach someone with a favour done. The same construction was treated in al-Tīn, and mann (reproaching with a favour) was analysed at al-Baqara 2/262-264. Both senses work here: a reward that is neither cut off nor thrown back in the face.

"Say: Do you really disbelieve in the One who created the earth in two days?… Then He turned to the heaven, which was smoke, and said to it and to the earth: 'Come, willingly or unwillingly.' They both said: 'We come willingly.'"

The relation between the durations named in these verses (two days, four days, two days) and the expression "six days" that occurs elsewhere in the Qurʾān has been debated in the classical commentaries. The principal explanation is that the four days are counted so as to include the two preceding days as well (sawāʾan li's-sāʾilīn — "exactly, for those who ask").

I transmit this as an explanation that is reported.

And per the method (Method) I draw the limit explicitly: the text does not state how long a duration the word "day" corresponds to here. I do not dress these verses in modern cosmology; I derive no model of the universe from the word "smoke", nor do I equate the days with geological ages. Such an equation would be making the text say what it does not say.

What the text says is this, and that much is what I record: creation is described as ordered and measured; not at one stroke, but in stages. And the last sentence lays down a judgement: dhālika taqdīru'l-ʿazīzi'l-ʿalīm — that is the measuring of the Mighty, the Knowing.

This sentence is a scene of speech, and the lexicographers generally record that it is figurative expression (tamthīl): a picture set up to show that there is no resistance in the face of the command.

A second reading is transmitted as well: that the expression is literal, and that its manner cannot be known. I transmit both explanations; I do not impose a preference.

But one detail of the word order works on either reading and is worth recording: the offer is presented with two options (ṭawʿan aw karhan), the answer comes with one: ataynā ṭāʾiʿīn — "we come willingly."

A one-directional answer to a two-option command. I record this as my own reading: the scene shows that the possibility of resistance was not in fact used. And what will be described through the rest of the sūra is precisely the human counterpart of this: the answer man gives to the same call was seen in the fifth verse.

"As for ʿĀd: they were arrogant in the land without right, and said 'Who is greater than us in power?'… As for Thamūd: We showed them the right way, but they preferred blindness to guidance."

The verse separates the two peoples with the ammā … wa ammā pattern, and makes a separate diagnosis for each:

The first is an error of comparison: they suppose themselves the strongest. The answer comes with the same word — a-wa-lam yaraw anna'llāha'lladhī khalaqahum huwa ashaddu minhum quwwatan. The verse does not change the measure; it carries the same measure through to the end.

The second is a matter of preference, and the verb must be recorded: istaḥabbū — Form X, root ح-ب-ب: to love, to prefer. That is, of Thamūd it is not said "they did not know"; it is said hadaynāhum — "We showed them the way." Then the preference comes.

I record this as an observation: in the fifth verse of the sūra the addressee had declared himself closed. Here it is shown, through the example of a people, that closedness can be a preference. A choice is made between ʿamā (blindness) and hudā (guidance) — and what is chosen is not seeing.

فِىٓ أَيَّامٍ نَّحِسَاتٍ — the word naḥisāt in this expression, used in the account of the destruction of ʿĀd, means "ill-omened, calamitous days". The same event occurred with the expression fī yawmi naḥsin mustamirr at al-Qamar 54/19, and was treated there. The two sūras use the same root; one says a single day, the other days.

A note per the method (Method): no ground for a belief in lucky and unlucky days is to be derived from this. The word qualifies particular days that befell that community; it lays down no general ruling about the calendar.

"On the day when the enemies of God are gathered to the Fire, they are all held together. When they reach it, their hearing, their eyes and their skins bear witness against them concerning what they used to do. They say to their skins: 'Why did you bear witness against us?' And they say: 'God, who gives speech to everything, gave us speech.'"

Three witnesses are named: the ear, the eye, the skin.

The triad ear–eye–heart was treated at al-Jāthiya 45/23 and at al-Aḥqāf 46/26. Here in third place there is not qalb (heart) but jild (skin).

This difference is worth recording, and I give it as my own reading: the heart is inside, and is identical with the person himself; the skin, by contrast, is a boundary — the outer surface of the body, the place that touches the world. In the scene of testimony the organ chosen is the one that touches the outside. And indeed the protest too is addressed to the skins: lima shahidtum ʿalaynā.

أَنطَقَنَا ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَنطَقَ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ — the answer takes the testimony out of the organs' own decision.

At al-Jāthiya 45/29 I treated the Book's being named with the verb yanṭiqu (it speaks) — there it was the record that spoke, here it is the body. The same root (ن-ط-ق), two separate witnesses in two sūras.

"This supposition of yours that you supposed about your Lord has destroyed you."

The cause is named plainly, and the word is ẓann.

I tabulated there that this word is the whole axis of al-Jāthiya (45/24 in hum illā yaẓunnūn, 45/32 in naẓunnu illā ẓannā). Here the same word is taken a step further: supposition is named not merely as a lack of knowledge but as a cause of destruction.

أَرْدَىٰ — root ر-د-ي: to fall from a height, to tumble and perish. Mardā — a precipice. The concrete picture in the word carries where supposition leads.

And the content of the supposition is given in the preceding verse: wa lākin ẓanantum anna'llāha lā yaʿlamu kathīran mimmā taʿmalūn — "you supposed that God does not know much of what you do." That is, the supposition is not about existence, but about whether one is known or not.

I record this as my own reading: the sūra carries the source of the defect back to before denial — to supposing oneself unseen. And the next sentence says this plainly: wa mā kuntum tastatirūna an yashhada ʿalaykum samʿukum — "you were not concealing yourselves"; that is, they had not even felt the need to hide.

"Even if they endure, the Fire is their dwelling; and even if they seek to win favour, this chance is not granted them."

يَسْتَعْتِبُوا۟ — root ع-ت-ب. The core the lexicographers give: to apologise in order to remove anger, to try to bring the other side round. Iʿtāb — to accept the apology and be satisfied; istiʿtāb — to seek that acceptance.

The concrete branch of the word is recorded as well: ʿataba, the threshold of a door and the step of a stair. The lexicographers explain the link with the picture of "the removal of an obstacle placed in between". I transmit this relation in the form in which the lexicographers establish it.

مَثْوًى — root ث-و-ي: to remain in a place, to reside. The word means "dwelling, the place where one stays" — not a temporary stopping-place.

The construction of the verse closes off both possibilities: enduring (yaṣbirū) and apologising (yastaʿtibū). I record this as an observation: this block of the sūra states, with a sentence that runs in two directions, that responsibility cannot be deferred — neither by bearing it out nor by turning back.

"We set upon them certain companions, and they made what was before them and what was behind them seem fair… Those who disbelieved said: 'Do not listen to this Qurʾān; make noise while it is being recited — perhaps you will drown it out.'"

This verse is the most concrete scene in the sūra, and it must be read together with the fifth verse.

What is described in the fifth verse as a condition turns, in the twenty-sixth verse, into something done. This is a development that can be verified within the sūra.

وَٱلْغَوْا۟ فِيهِ — the verb is from the root ل-غ-و: laghw — speech that is not counted, that goes to waste. The root was analysed in detail at al-Wāqiʿa 56/25 (including the use recorded by the lexicographers for the chirping of a bird, and its relation to lugha). I do not repeat it here.

The use here is worth recording: in al-Wāqiʿa laghw was the thing not found in the Garden. Here it is used as an instrument: making meaningless noise in order to drown out meaningful speech.

I record this as my own reading: the tactic is not to object — it is to prevent the thing being heard. That is, the argument is not entered into; the argument is not allowed to be set up. Laʿallakum taghlibūn — "perhaps you will drown it out": the word itself describes victory as superiority in sound.

قُرَنَآء — root ق-ر-ن: to bind two things side by side. Qarīn — the one who is continually beside another, the one who keeps company.

"Those who disbelieve say: 'Our Lord! Show us those two, of the jinn and of mankind, who led us astray; let us put them under our feet, so that they may be among the lowest.'"

The scene is built on a demand, and the content of the demand is worth recording: the person does not ask to change his own condition, but to see the one responsible and to crush him.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the verbs: arinā (show), najʿalhumā taḥta aqdāminā (let us put them under our feet), li-yakūnā mina'l-asfalīn (so that they may be among the lowest). None of the three verbs has to do with the person himself.

And this is directly connected with the twenty-fifth verse: there qarīns (those continually beside them) had been set upon them and had made what was before them and what was behind them seem fair. Now it is those qarīns whose showing is demanded.

مِنَ ٱلْجِنِّ وَٱلْإِنسِ — the two kinds are named together. The same pair had occurred at al-Aḥqāf 46/18 and was treated there.

One further side of the scene must be recorded: the demand is neither refused nor granted — no answer is given. The verse reports the request and leaves it. The next verse passes to another subject.

"Upon those who say 'Our Lord is God' and then stand straight, the angels descend: 'Do not fear, do not grieve; rejoice in the Garden you were promised.'"

The first half of the verse is word for word the same as al-Aḥqāf 46/13: inna'lladhīna qālū Rabbuna'llāhu thumma'staqāmū.

The particle thumma in this sentence was treated in the al-Aḥqāf section: there is a distance between the saying and the standing straight; saying happens in a moment, standing straight lasts. I rely on that treatment.

The continuations of the two sūras differ, and the difference is worth recording:

In al-Aḥqāf the absence of fear and grief is given as a statement; here the same two words are said as a command, from the mouths of the angels.

And this fits the communication axis of the sūra: in the fifth verse there were those who set a veil in between; here there is a coming down. Tatanazzalu — Form V, conveying repetition and continuity: not a single occurrence, but the state of being in descent.

نَحْنُ أَوْلِيَآؤُكُمْ فِى ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَفِى ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ — "we are your friends in the life of this world and in the hereafter." That is, what is promised does not belong to what comes after alone.

"Who is better in speech than one who calls to God, does righteous work, and says 'I am one of those who submit'? The good deed and the bad deed are not equal. Repel with what is better. Then the one between whom and you there is enmity becomes as though a warm friend."

The problem was set out in the twenty-sixth verse: the other side drowns out the voice. The thirty-fourth verse answers it — and the answer is not to raise the voice.

ٱدْفَعْ بِٱلَّتِى هِىَ أَحْسَنُ — dafʿ — root د-ف-ع: to push, to drive back. The same root was treated at al-Baqara 2/251 (wa lawlā dafʿu'llāhi'n-nāsa baʿḍahum bi-baʿḍ): the setting of a balance by forces limiting one another.

The difference here is worth recording: there dafʿ was a balance of forces; here "what is better" is shown as the instrument of the same verb. That is, the act of pushing remains; the instrument changes.

فَإِذَا ٱلَّذِى بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُۥ عَدَٰوَةٌ كَأَنَّهُۥ وَلِىٌّ حَمِيمٌ — the result is given by way of a comparison: ka-annahū — "as though".

This particle must be recorded, and I give it as my own reading: the verse does not say that the enmity will disappear; it says that the relation will be like friendship. The particle of comparison also draws the limit of the promise.

وَلِىٌّ حَمِيمٌ — the word ḥamīm is from the root ح-م-م, and the two branches of the root (boiling water / close friend) were treated in detail in al-Ḥāqqa; the boiling-water branch also occurred three times in al-Wāqiʿa. Here the friendship branch is used.

وَمَا يُلَقَّىٰهَآ إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ صَبَرُوا۟ وَمَا يُلَقَّىٰهَآ إِلَّا ذُو حَظٍّ عَظِيمٍ — "none are brought to this but those who have endured, and none are brought to it but the possessor of a great portion."

The same sentence twice, with two separate conditions. And the verb is passive: yulaqqāhā — "is brought to it". That is, this bearing is named not as a temperament that comes of itself but as something given.

وَإِمَّا يَنزَغَنَّكَ مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنِ نَزْغٌ فَٱسْتَعِذْ بِٱللَّهِ — the root ن-ز-غ occurs for the first time in this corpus here. The sense the lexicographers give: to prod, to jab, to come between and incite. Nazagha baynahum — he sowed discord between them.

The choice of the word works together with the preceding verse: to meet evil with good is hard work, and the sudden prod that comes in the midst of that hardship is named separately. Having given the counsel, the verse also says where that counsel will most likely crack.

"The night, the day, the sun and the moon are among His signs. Do not prostrate to the sun or to the moon; prostrate to God, who created them."

The construction of the verse must be recorded: first four things are named as āyāt (signs), then prostration to those signs is forbidden.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the sentence: a thing's being a sign does not make it something to be turned towards. A sign exists for the sake of what it points to. The logic used of the Book in the third verse of the sūra works here for the sky.

فَإِنِ ٱسْتَكْبَرُوا۟ فَٱلَّذِينَ عِندَ رَبِّكَ يُسَبِّحُونَ لَهُۥ بِٱلَّيْلِ وَٱلنَّهَارِ وَهُمْ لَا يَسْـَٔمُونَ — "if they are arrogant: those who are with your Lord glorify Him night and day, and they do not weary."

لَا يَسْـَٔمُونَ — root س-أ-م: to tire, to weary. Keep this word in mind: it will return in the forty-ninth verse, of man.

"That you see the earth with its neck bowed is also among His signs. When We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells."

خَٰشِعَة — root خ-ش-ع: to be lowered, to bow, the sinking of the voice. In the Qurʾān the word is generally used of man (humility in prayer, the falling of the eyes at the resurrection). Here it is given to dried-out soil.

اِهْتَزَّتْ وَرَبَتْ — ihtizāz (to tremble, to stir) and rabwa (to swell, to rise — root ر-ب-و; treated at al-Baqara 2/275 in the discussion of ribā).

The order of the three words sets up a process: collapsed → stirred → swollen. And the verse ties this directly to the proof: inna'lladhī aḥyāhā la-muḥyi'l-mawtā — "the one who gave it life will surely give life to the dead."

"Those who swerve aside concerning Our signs are not hidden from Us."

يُلْحِدُونَ — root ل-ح-د. The concrete sense: to hollow out a cavity towards the side of a pit. The laḥd is the niche opened not at the bottom of the grave but in its side wall (the one dug straight down is called shaqq or ḍarīḥ).

From this the sense of the word follows: not to go straight, but to swerve to the side. Ilḥād — to depart from what is straight.

The picture in the word is worth recording, and I give it as my own reading: the verse describes the defect in the face of the signs not as rejecting them but as shifting them aside. The text stays where it is; the direction is changed.

This fits the forty-fourth verse of the sūra: there it was shown that whichever option had been taken, an objection would be found. Ilḥād is something that can be done without objecting at all.

أَفَمَن يُلْقَىٰ فِى ٱلنَّارِ خَيْرٌ أَم مَّن يَأْتِىٓ ءَامِنًا يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ — and a question comes: the comparison is left open, the answer is not stated. The verse leaves the judgement to the reader himself.

"It is a mighty Book. Falsehood cannot come to it from before it or from behind it. It is a sending down from One wise, worthy of praise."

مِنۢ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَلَا مِنْ خَلْفِهِ — "from before it and from behind it". In Arabic this pair is used to cover all the directions of a thing.

The same pair had also occurred in verse 25 of this sūra — there the qarīns made what was before them and what was behind them seem fair. The same construction, in two different directions: the one the scope of the adorning, the other the scope of the protection. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

"Had We made it a Qurʾān in a foreign tongue, they would certainly have said: 'If only its verses had been made distinct! A foreign tongue, and an Arab?'"

The name of the sūra returns here: in the third verse it was said kitābun fuṣṣilat āyātuh; in the forty-fourth verse the same verb occurs inside an objection.

What the verse does is worth recording, and I give it as my own reading: a counterfactual situation is set up — "what would they have said had it been otherwise?" And the answer shows that the objection arises not from the content but from the disposition: whichever option had been taken, an objection to fit it would have been found.

وَهُوَ عَلَيْهِمْ عَمًى … فِىٓ ءَاذَانِهِمْ وَقْرٌ — and at the end of the verse the word of the fifth verse returns: waqr (the heaviness in the ear).

The same word forty verses apart, the one as a claim and the other as a judgement. In the end the sūra confirms what the other side said about itself — but with one difference: in the fifth verse it was an excuse, here it is a statement of fact.

And in the same sentence a counterpart is given for the other side as well: huwa li'lladhīna āmanū hudan wa shifāʾ — the same text: guidance and healing for the one, heaviness and blindness for the other. The text does not change; the place that receives it changes. This is the closing of the frame set up in verses 3–5 of the sūra.

"We gave Moses (Mūsā) the Book, and disagreement arose over it… Whoever does righteous work, it is for himself; whoever does evil, it is against himself. Your Lord is not one who wrongs His servants."

فَٱخْتُلِفَ فِيهِ — the verb is passive: who it was that fell into disagreement is not stated.

This is a line treated at several points in this corpus: al-Baqara 2/213 and 2/253, al-Jāthiya 45/17. All of them say the same thing: the disagreement arises after the Book has come. I rely on those treatments.

The function of the verse here is consolation: wa lawlā kalimatun sabaqat min Rabbika la-quḍiya baynahum — had a word not gone before, judgement would have been passed between them. That is, the delay is not indifference.

بِظَلَّٰمٍ لِّلْعَبِيدِ — ẓallām is an intensive form (faʿʿāl).

The lexicographers dwell on what the form does here, and two explanations are transmitted:

I transmit both explanations; I do not impose a preference. On either reading the ruling of the sentence comes out in the same place: the recompense is tied to the person's own deed — the preceding sentence had already said this in both directions.

"No fruit comes out of its sheath, and no female conceives or gives birth, save with His knowledge."

أَكْمَام — singular kimm: the sheath in which a fruit or a flower sits, the envelope of the bud. Root ك-م-م: to cover, to close over. The cuff of a garment — the opening at the sleeve — is linked to this root as well, and Turkish, which borrowed the word, ties its kem to the same root. English has no such link: husk and cuff are two unconnected words.

The word occurred at al-Raḥmān 55/11 (wa'n-nakhlu dhātu'l-akmām) and was treated there. I do not repeat it here.

The choice of the two examples is worth recording: the fruit's coming out of its sheath, and birth. Both describe a coming out from an enclosed place — and both become visible at the end of a process that is not seen.

I record this as my own reading: the verse describes the scope of the knowledge by way of the most hidden processes. And this stands exactly opposite the supposition in the twenty-second verse — there it had been supposed that "He does not know much of what we do".

"Man does not weary of asking for good. But when evil touches him, he becomes despairing and hopeless."

The word occurs for the second time in this sūra, and the two occurrences can be compared:

The same verb, two subjects. I record this as my own reading: not wearying is described in the verse not as a virtue but as a capacity. Man has that capacity — but it is used in asking. The difference lies not in the not-wearying but in the direction.

يَـُٔوس and قَنُوط — both are in the intensive form. ي-أ-س: to cut off hope. ق-ن-ط — the root occurs for the first time in this corpus here: the sense the lexicographers give is the complete severing of hope, the settling in of despondency.

The use of the two words together sets up a gradation, and the lexicographers generally give the difference between them thus: the one is the cutting off of hope, the other the outward showing of that state. I transmit this distinction in the form in which it is transmitted.

"When We bestow favour on man he turns away and draws his side aside; but when evil touches him, he prays at length and breadth."

نَـَٔا بِجَانِبِهِ — "he moved his side away": a bodily picture. Turning the shoulder, turning aside.

دُعَآءٍ عَرِيضٍ — ʿarīḍ: broad, wide. The choice of the word is striking: the abundance of the prayer is qualified not by "long" but by "wide".

I record this as an observation: ṭūl (length) would convey continuity; ʿarḍ (breadth) conveys spreading out. That is, the prayer does not deepen; it scatters in every direction. And this comes from the same body-language as naʾā bi-jānibih (drawing the side aside) at the beginning of the same verse.

"Say: And what if it is from God, and you have denied it? Who is further astray than one who is in a far-off breach?"

The verse does not set up a claim — it sets up a possibility. In kāna min ʿindi'llāh — "and what if it is?"

I record this as an observation about method: the addressee is not asked to accept the other's position; he is asked to take his own possibility into account. In the fifth verse of the sūra the other side had closed the argument (fa'ʿmal innanā ʿāmilūn — you work, we are working). This verse reopens the closed argument with a question.

شِقَاق — root ش-ق-ق: to split, to cleave in two. The root was treated at al-Qamar 54/1 (wa'nshaqqa'l-qamar) and in al-Inshiqāq. Shiqāq is the falling of two sides into separate halves.

And the adjective baʿīd (far): the breach not only exists, its distance too is great. The same adjective was treated at Qāf 50/3 (rajʿun baʿīd) — there those who denied counted the resurrection "far off". Here what is far off is their own condition.

"We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves, until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is witness over everything?"

آفاق — singular ufuq: the furthest limit sight reaches, the surroundings, the outer world. أنفس — the person himself, his inner world.

The pair sums up the whole order of proof in the sūra: in the third block the peoples that were destroyed (outer), in the twentieth verse the organs that bear witness (inner), in the thirty-seventh verse the sky (outer), in the forty-seventh verse birth (inner). The two fields had been used alternately throughout the sūra; here the two are named in a single sentence.

In the modern period this verse has been made the subject of a great many claims. Per the method (Method) I write it out plainly:

I derive from the verse no pointer to any particular scientific discovery, invention or historical event. There is no ground in the text for such a determination; the verse specifies neither a field nor a time.

More than one reading is transmitted in the classical commentaries as well:

I do not impose a preference.

And the verse's own closing is worth reading as a note: a-wa-lam yakfi bi-Rabbika annahū ʿalā kulli shayʾin shahīd — "Is it not enough that your Lord is witness over everything?"

I record this as my own reading: after the signs that are to be shown, the sentence puts a question to the search for proof itself. The sūra opened in the fifth verse with those who drew a veil, reported in the twenty-sixth verse those who drowned it out with noise, and showed in the forty-fourth verse that whichever option had been taken an objection would be found. The last question stands at the end of this chain: multiplying proofs changes nothing for one who does not want proof.

أَلَآ إِنَّهُم فِى مِرْيَةٍ مِّن لِّقَآءِ رَبِّهِمْ أَلَآ إِنَّهُۥ بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ مُّحِيطٌ — the sūra closes with two alā (take note).

مِرْيَة — root م-ر-ي: the concrete sense the lexicographers record is squeezing and pulling at an animal's udder to milk it; from this comes the sense of "to wrangle over a matter, to waver in doubt".

مُّحِيط — root ح-و-ط: to encompass, to surround. The root was treated at al-Baqara 2/255 (wa lā yuḥīṭūna bi-shayʾin min ʿilmih — man's not being able to encompass). Here the same root from the other side: He is the one who encompasses everything.

The last two words of the sūra complete the picture set up in its first five verses: there were those who set a veil in between. At the close it is announced that there is no place left to stay outside of.