al-Shūrā 42:33

In yashaʾ yuskini'r-rīḥa fa-yaẓlalna rawākida ʿalā ẓahrih; inna fī dhālika la-āyātin li-kulli ṣabbārin shakūr

"If He wills, He stills the wind, and they lie motionless on its back. In that are signs for every steadfast and thankful one."

The proof is built not on the ship's going but on its being able to stop.

And this is the same structure of proof recorded in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/65. It was written there:

"A person supposes the coming up of the crop to be his own work because it comes up every year. By recalling that its not coming up is also possible, the verse shows that the ordinary is no guarantee. The proof is built not against a miracle but against the taking of an order for a permanence."

In al-Shūrā the same structure: the ship goes because the wind blows. That the wind blows is no guarantee.

And the pattern in yashaʾ must be recorded: not law but in. In al-Wāqiʿa, law nashāʾu conveyed an unfulfilled condition; here in is used, and in conveys a possible condition. The stilling of the wind, that is, is not an unrealised possibility but a state that can occur.

Rākid — motionless, still. The root ر-ك-د: to stand, to stay fixed. In Arabic still water is called māʾun rākid.

The word is plural and comes in the feminine plural pattern (fa-yaẓlalna) — the ships are counted feminine, because the word jawār is feminine.

ʿAlā ẓahrihi — "on its back". The back of the sea. This is a settled usage in Arabic, and calling the surface of the sea a "back" makes the ship appear as a load that is carried.

I record this as my own reading: the word says that the ship does not go by itself. It is on the back of something; if the back moves it goes, if it stops it stops.

Both words are in intensive patterns:

The root ṣabr was treated in Qāf and al-Ḥujurāt: the root's original sense is to hold a thing in a place, to confine it; patience is holding the self upon a state.

The root shukr was treated at the twenty-third verse: to give much in return for little.

Why these two as a pair? The answer is in the verse itself, and I give it as my own reading:

The verse recounts two states: the ship's going and its stopping.

The two attributes, then, correspond to the two situations the verse recounts. And both are in a pattern of muchness: not once, but continually.

The same pair occurs in several other places in the Qurʾān (Ibrāhīm 14/5, Luqmān 31/31, Sabaʾ 34/19) and in all of them in the context of a sign. This is a verifiable fact.

And its link with the twenty-third verse: there shakūr was a name of God. Here it is an attribute of a human being. The same pattern, two parties — recorded in the section on the structure.