al-Dukhān 44:40-42

Inna yawma'l-faṣli mīqātuhum ajmaʿīn · Yawma lā yughnī mawlan ʿan mawlan shayʾan wa lā hum yunṣarūn · Illā man raḥima'llāh, innahu huwa'l-ʿAzīzu'r-Raḥīm

"The day of separation is the appointed time of them all. A day when no protector will avail a protector anything, and they will not be helped. Save him on whom God has mercy. He is indeed the Mighty, the Merciful."

This link was recorded above (at verse 4) and is completed here.

In al-Mursalāt the difference between the two roots was given in a table, and I do not repeat it. The summary: farq opens a space between, faṣl gives a decisive verdict.

And al-Mursalāt and al-Dukhān make the same move: to build the oath or the opening with ف-ر-ق and to name the day with ف-ص-ل.

I present this as my own reading; the wording of the two sūras is verifiable.

And I record one further observation: the separating in the fourth verse is a night; the separating in the fortieth is named a day. The sūra places the two separations in two separate divisions of time.

The root occurred in al-Wāqiʿa, al-Mursalāt and al-Nabaʾ. Waqt — an appointed time. Mīqāt is on the mifʿāl pattern: the pattern that forms nouns of instrument or of place and time.

The word, that is, is not "a time" but "an appointed meeting point".

And another use of the word in the Qurʾān is worth recording: the term set for Moses' meeting with his Lord is also called a mīqāt (al-Aʿrāf 7/142, 7/143).

I give this as a record of wording: the word reports an appointment — the meeting of two parties at a set time.

أَجْمَعِينَ — emphasis. "All together". The word reinforces the pronoun in mīqātuhum.

And this reinforcement says something: the meeting is not optional. To those who say in the thirty-sixth verse "bring back our fathers", the fortieth speaks of a time of general assembly — in place of the single display asked for, a time that includes everyone.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses.

Root: و-ل-ي. It was treated in many sections (al-Baqara, al-Mumtaḥana, al-Ḥadīd); its concrete sense is nearness, adjacency. Walī — one who is near; walā — to come one after another.

And the most striking side of the word is this: mawlā in Arabic covers opposite positions at once.

The usages the lexicographers enumerate:

• A master — one who frees a slave.
• A freed slave — one who is freed.
• A cousin, a close relative.
• A friend, a helper.
• A neighbour, an ally.

The word, that is, can name both ends of a relation. The shared idea: nearness. Whoever is near to whom is that other's mawlā.

And now we come to the point of the verse — I give it as my own reading.

The verse uses the same word twice, on both sides: lā yughnī mawlan ʿan mawlan.

The expected expression would have been two different words — "a friend for a friend", "a master for a slave", "a kinsman for a kinsman". But the verse names both sides with the same word.

Its effect is this: the direction of the relation is left undefined. Who is above and who below, who protects and who is protected — it is not said. And because it is not said, the sentence closes off every direction at once.

This reading is mine; the word's multiplicity of sense and its occurring twice in the verse are verifiable data of the text.

And its sharing of a root with the fourteenth verse must be recorded: there tawallaw ʿanhu (they turned away from him) came from the same root. The name of the relation they turned away from, that is, and the name of the relation that will not avail on that day are bound to the same root. I give this as an observation about the wording.

The root was treated in many sections (al-Layl, al-Ḥāqqa, al-Ḍuḥā, al-Ghāshiya). Its concrete sense: to suffice, to leave no need. Ghinā — wealth: the ceasing of need. Mughnī — that which suffices.

And its negative use is settled in the Qurʾān: lā yughnī — "it is of no avail".

Shayʾan — "anything". Accusative and indefinite: an absolute negation. Not partly, then, but not at all.

The root ن-ص-ر: to help. And the verb is passive: "they will not be helped" — by whom they will not be helped is not said.

And the division of labour between the two clauses must be recorded — I give it as my own reading:

The first clause closes the known relations, the second the unknown. The result: all the channels of help.

And at exactly this point an exception comes.

The exegetes differ over the set from which the exception is drawn:

I do not impose a preference.

I record one observation, and it is not a preference: in all three readings the result arrives at the same place — after all the channels are closed, the one thing left open is not relations but mercy.

The pattern repeated in four places in the sūra occurs here for the second time (it occurred for the first time in the sixth verse).

ٱلْعَزِيز — the root ع-ز-ز. As recorded in al-Aḥqāf, the concrete core of the root is explained by the lexicographers by way of "hard and impassable ground": arḍ ʿazāz — hard ground that cannot be dug. From this ʿizza — imperviousness, invincibility.

And that the two names come together is worth recording: one reports unreachability, the other nearness. A similar observation was made in al-Aḥqāf for al-ʿAzīzu'l-Ḥakīm: power is not named on its own.

Now we come to the real record, and this is the most important preparation in the sūra.

In the forty-second verse the attribute al-ʿAzīz is given to God. Seven verses later, in the forty-ninth, the same attribute, in the same pattern, will be said of a human being — in mockery.

The grammatical structure of the two sentences is exactly the same: inna + a pronoun + the pronoun of separation + al-ʿazīz + a second attribute with the definite article.

I record this as a verifiable datum within the sūra. And what is interpretation is this, which I give as my own reading: the mockery of the forty-ninth verse would not be so sharp without the forty-second. The sūra first shows the real owner of the attribute, and then gives the same pattern to one who does not own it. I shall take it up at the forty-ninth verse.