al-Dukhān 44:23-24

Fa-asri bi-ʿibādī laylan innakum muttabaʿūn · Wa'truki'l-baḥra rahwan, innahum jundun mughraqūn

"'Then set out with My servants by night; you will be pursued. And leave the sea as it is; they are an army to be drowned.'"

It comes with fāʾ: there is no gap between the prayer and the answer.

And the answer is not an announcement of destruction but a command for a movement. This completes the reading recorded at the twenty-second verse.

Root: س-ر-ي. It was treated in al-Fajr (wa'l-layli idhā yasr — "by the night as it passes"). The concrete sense: to travel by night, to journey by night. Isrāʾ — Form IV: to make travel by night.

And the root already contains the night. Why, then, is laylan said?

The lexicographers explain this in several ways, and all are transmitted:

I do not impose a preference. The second explanation, since it rests on the word's being indefinite, is the closest to the wording; I record this as an observation.

It was recorded above (at verse 18): the name the messenger uses and the name God uses are the same.

What is to be added here is the particle: asrā bi- — "he made travel with…", that is, he had them taken along. The command is to Moses, but the object belongs to the community: the messenger does not merely go, he takes.

A passive participle: "you are people who will be pursued". The root ت-ب-ع — to follow, to go after; it was treated in Qāf in the discussion of Tubbaʿ and in al-Mursalāt.

And its point is this: the pursuit is announced before it has begun.

I record this as my own reading: the sentence is not a warning but a piece of information. The departure is built not as a flight but as a movement whose outcome is known. It is said that they will be pursued, and it is also said what will be done afterwards (24). No frightening uncertainty, that is, is left.

Root: ت-ر-ك — to leave, to abandon, to leave as it is.

And now let us look at the two closest occurrences in the sūra — in two consecutive verses:

Two verses in succession, the same root, two opposite forms.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root of the two verses: one leaves by command, the other by having it taken from his hand. And the scale of what is left is inverted: the messenger leaves a sea, the others leave gardens, springs, crops, station and ease.

This root has not been treated anywhere else in this index, and it occurs only here in the Qurʾān. For this reason I give it in full.

The sense of the root recorded by the lexicographers divides into two branches, and the disagreement arises exactly from this:

The first branch — stillness, calm:

• رَهَا — it grew calm, it grew still.
• مَشَى رَهْوًا — he walked slowly, quietly.
• The sea's being rahw: without waves, still.

The second branch — openness, a gap:

• رَهْو — the hollow between two hills, a gap.
• الرَّهْوَاء — a wide, open plain.
• The sea's being rahw: in an opened, parted state, not closing.

And the lexicographers join the two branches thus: a gap that stays open is a gap that stays motionless. The shared idea: to stand untouched, as it is.

Now let us give the disagreement:

I do not impose a preference.

But an observation can be recorded, and its ground is the next clause: the verse continues innahum jundun mughraqūn — "they are an army to be drowned". For a drowning the sea must close. The second reading (leave it open) builds a direct ground for this outcome: the road is left open so that they may enter.

This is an observation, not a preference; the first reading too arrives at the same outcome indirectly.

A passive participle again: mughraqūn — "those who will be drowned".

And now we come to the most striking choice of narration in the sūra.

The sūra does not narrate the drowning.

In the twenty-fourth verse "they are an army to be drowned" is said; the twenty-fifth begins straight off with "how much they left behind". There is no event in between.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses. A similar observation was made in al-Qamar for Sūrat al-Qamar (that the drowning is never mentioned). In al-Dukhān the drowning is named as an attribute, not as an event.

And its effect is this: the sūra does not build the destruction as a scene. What it builds is the gap between the before of the destruction (an army) and its after (gardens left empty). And the reader crosses the gap himself.

جُنْد — the root ج-ن-د. Its concrete sense is explained by the lexicographers by way of "hard, stony ground"; from this jund — a body locked together and hardened: an army.

The choice of word is worth recording: the verse does not say "Pharaoh and his people", it says "an army". The other party, that is, is named here not as a group of belief but as a mass of force.

I give this as an observation.