al-Dukhān 44:43-44

Inna shajarata'z-zaqqūm · Ṭaʿāmu'l-athīm

"The tree of zaqqūm is the food of the sinner."

This word was treated in detail at al-Wāqiʿa 56/52 — including the disagreement over its root. I do not repeat it. The record there was this:

The lexicographers differ over its root, and the disagreement must not be concealed: | View | Explanation | |---|---| | An Arabic root | Tazaqqama — to swallow a thing by force, with revulsion | | The name of a known plant | Some lexicographers transmit that a bitter and poisonous plant in Arabia was called by this name | | Of foreign origin | The view that the word entered Arabic from outside is also transmitted | I issue no firm etymological ruling.

And in al-Wāqiʿa the word's three occurrences in the Qurʾān were also recorded: al-Ṣāffāt 37/62, al-Dukhān 44/43 and al-Wāqiʿa 56/52.

Now I treat what is peculiar to this place: the difference between al-Wāqiʿa and al-Dukhān.

The two sūras name the same tree and do two separate things. I give the difference in a table; the wording of the two texts is verifiable.

Three differences are worth recording, and I give all three as my own reading.

One — al-Wāqiʿa narrates an event, al-Dukhān gives a definition. In al-Wāqiʿa the verbs were chained with fāʾ, and this was recorded in al-Wāqiʿa: "the scene flows in four steps, without a break." In al-Dukhān there is no verb at all — the tree is defined as someone's food.

Two — al-Wāqiʿa names the tree by its effect, not by its eater; al-Dukhān by its eater. The sentence in al-Wāqiʿa is "they will fill their bellies with it"; the sentence in al-Dukhān is "it is the food of the sinner". al-Dukhān, that is, gives the tree by way of a relation of belonging: this food is that man's.

Three — and this is the most important difference: al-Dukhān speaks in the singular. In al-Wāqiʿa the address was plural and direct (innakum ayyuha'ḍ-ḍāllūn). In al-Dukhān there is a single person: al-athīm. And this singularity will continue as far as the forty-ninth verse — there too a single person will be addressed: dhuq innaka anta…

The scene of the Fire in al-Dukhān, that is, is not a scene of a crowd but a scene of a person.

The word is written in the muṣḥaf with an open tāʾ: شجرت. This is something seen in a few words in the orthography (rasm) of the muṣḥaf.

I record this only as a datum of writing; no meaning, reckoning or claim of a secret is drawn from it. The record entered in al-Baqara holds.

The root occurred in al-Qalam, al-Muṭaffifīn, al-Insān and al-Ḥujurāt.

Its concrete sense is given by the lexicographers thus: ithm — that which holds a man back from good, that which weighs him down. There is an idea of slowing, hindering in the root: nāqatun āthima — a camel that walks slowly. From this ithm — sin: a burden that makes going to what is good heavy.

And the pattern athīm: faʿīl, here conveying intensity — "deeply sunk in sin".

The word's other occurrences in the Qurʾān are worth recording, because it is always in the same company:

• "A hoarder of wealth, an aggressor, a sinner" — at al-Qalam 68/12, muʿallā mannāʿin li'l-khayri muʿtadin athīm.
• "Every aggressor, sinner" — at al-Muṭaffifīn 83/12, kulli muʿtadin athīm.

In both places the word occurs together with muʿtadī (an aggressor, one who exceeds the bound).

I record this as an observation about the wording: in the Qurʾān the word occurs in a company that describes not merely "one who commits a sin" but one who has made a habit of exceeding the bound. And the word musrif (one who exceeds the bound) used of Pharaoh in the thirty-first verse is in the same field.

Al-athīm has the definite article, and the article can be read in two ways:

I do not impose a preference.

But I enter a record, and it is required by Method: even on the second reading what the verse builds is an attribute. The principle recorded in Qāf and throughout this commentary works here too: what the verse describes is an attribute, and whoever bears that attribute is included in it.