al-Dukhān 44:55 commentary

44/55

يَدْعُونَ فِيهَا بِكُلِّ فَٰكِهَةٍ ءَامِنِينَ

Yadʿūna fīhā bi-kulli fākihatin āminīn

"There they call for every fruit, in safety."

يَدْعُونَ بِ — to call, to ask for

The root د-ع-و was treated above (at verse 22). Daʿā bi- — to ask for a thing, to call for it.

And the two occurrences within the sūra were recorded: Moses called upon his Lord (22), the muttaqīn call for fruit (55). The same root, two branches.

I add here a note on word order: the verb is imperfect (yadʿūna) — continuity. And fīhā comes between: "there" they call. The place of the asking, that is, is stressed.

بِكُلِّ فَٰكِهَةٍ — the scope

Kulli fākihatin — "every fruit". Kull + an indefinite: comprehensive.

The root ف-ك-ه was treated above (at verse 27) and al-Wāqiʿa was relied on. The record there: "In Arabic ṭaʿām (food) reports a necessity, fākiha a surplus. Fruit is not eaten in order to stay alive."

And its counterpart within the sūra was recorded above:

Verse	Expression	Who	What is missing
27	naʿmatin kānū fīhā fākihīn	The house of Pharaoh	Security
55	bi-kulli fākihatin āminīn	The muttaqīn	—

The difference between the two verses is a single word, and that word comes now.

ءَامِنِين — and the missing part of the favour

The root أ-م-ن; the fifth and last occurrence in the sūra.

And the word is a ḥāl: "being in safety".

Now we come to the real point, and I give it as my own reading.

After a list of favours is given, one more item is not added to the list — the condition of the list is added.

It may be seen thus: the list in verses twenty-five to twenty-seven was complete. There was a garden, there was water, there were crops, there was station, there was comfort, there was ease. The one thing missing was the knowledge of whether they would last.

And the greatest enemy of a favour lies not in the favour itself but in the mind of the one who has it: the possibility of its being cut off.

The verse puts exactly this at the end of the list of fruits: āminīn.

And this connects with the fifty-first verse:

Verse	Word	What it qualifies
51	maqāmin amīn	The place — the space one is in
55	*āminīn*	The person — the state of the one who is in it

The one is an attribute of the place, the other of the person.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: safety is established both outside and inside. The place is safe, and the one in it is safe too. These two are not the same thing — in a safe place there can also be someone who is afraid.