45. Sūrat al-Jāthiya

37 verses. It is widely reported that it was revealed in the Meccan period. It takes its name from the word جَاثِيَة in verse 28: kneeling.

The sūra is one of the seven that open with ḥā-mīm, and it stands immediately before al-Aḥqāf. What is seen when the two sūras are read together is one and the same question taken up from two different places: al-Aḥqāf opens with a demand for proof, al-Jāthiya opens by enumerating proofs.

The backbone of the sūra is a question about knowledge. The words repeated from beginning to end show this: yūqinūn, yaʿqilūn, ʿilm, ẓann, lā yaʿlamūn. The sūra treats denial as a claim to knowledge and asks what that claim rests on.

Ḥā-mīm · Tanzīlu'l-kitābi mina'llāhi'l-ʿazīzi'l-ḥakīm

"Ḥā-mīm. The sending down of this Book is from God, the Mighty, the Wise."

The note on the disconnected letters has already been entered elsewhere in this series (al-Baqara, Qāf, al-Aḥqāf): there is no certain knowledge about the meaning of these letters, many explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries, and none of them claims certainty. Claims resting on letter-and-number reckoning are not entered into, per the method (Method). I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is a verifiable fact: the second verse is word for word the same as the second verse of al-Aḥqāf (al-Aḥqāf 46/2).

The two sūras stand one after the other and open with the same sentence. In the section on al-Aḥqāf the construction of this sentence — the subject being a verbal noun, that is, the bringing forward not of the verb but of the act itself — was treated in detail. I rely on that treatment.

The difference is shown by the third verses: al-Aḥqāf, by saying that creation is bi'l-ḥaqq and with ajalin musammā, brings the term forward; al-Jāthiya, by saying that there are signs in the heavens and the earth, brings the proof forward. The same door is entered, and two different directions are taken.

Inna fi's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi la-āyātin li'l-muʾminīn · Wa fī khalqikum wa mā yabuththu min dābbatin āyātun li-qawmin yūqinūn · Wa'khtilāfi'l-layli wa'n-nahāri … āyātun li-qawmin yaʿqilūn

"In the heavens and the earth there are signs for those who believe. In your own creation, and in the moving creatures He scatters abroad, there are signs for those who know with certainty. In the alternation of night and day, in the provision God sends down from the sky with which He revives the earth after its death, and in the turning about of the winds, there are signs for those who use their reason."

The same pattern is repeated three times, and each time the addressee changes:

This is a structure that can be verified within the sūra: three verses, three sets of proof, three distinct attributes.

I record the following as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence: as the proofs come from the far to the near, the attribute of the addressee shifts from faith to certainty, and from there to the use of reason. That is, the verse is not setting up a hierarchy; it is saying that the same set of proofs can be entered by different doors. The sky says something to the one who believes; his own body, to the one who seeks certain knowledge; the order at work, to the one who puts his reason to use.

What the three have in common should also be recorded: all are named with the word āyāt — sign. Proof is set down not as a conclusion in itself but as something that points to something else.

بَثّ — root ب-ث-ث: to spread, to disperse, to scatter. The lexicographers record for the root the picture of "strewing something about".

دَآبَّة — root د-ب-ب: that which moves, that which crawls upon the earth. The word is not the name of a species; it means a moving creature. With this word the Qurʾān names living things by way of their movement.

I record this as an observation: the verse does not classify living creatures, it makes their being spread abroad the proof. What is named is not diversity but distribution.

The root ص-ر-ف: to turn, to make change direction. Form II conveys repetition and variation. The root was treated in al-Aḥqāf at 46/27 (wa ṣarrafna'l-āyāt).

That the same root is used in two places is worth recording: there the signs were being turned about and set forth again and again; here the winds are turned about. The changing of direction by the wind and the changing of direction by the exposition are named with the same verb.

"In what discourse, after God and His signs, will they believe?"

The block closes with a question, and the word of the question is ḥadīth — "discourse". The same word occurred in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/81 (a-fa-bi-hādha'l-ḥadīthi antum mudhinūn) and was treated there.

The logic of the question is this: across three verses the proofs were enumerated. If these are not enough, what will be? The question closes off the claim that proof is lacking.

Waylun li-kulli affākin athīm · Yasmaʿu āyāti'llāhi tutlā ʿalayhi thumma yuṣirru mustakbiran ka-an lam yasmaʿhā

"Woe to every fabricator of lies, every one sunk in sin! He hears the signs of God being recited to him, and then persists in arrogance as though he had not heard them at all."

At the centre of the verse there is a contradiction, and it is set out openly: yasmaʿu (he hears) … ka-an lam yasmaʿhā (as though he had not heard them).

The issue, then, is not that the sound fails to arrive. It arrives; then something happens. That something is named with two words:

The root ص-ر-ر was analysed in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/46 (to tie, to knot; ṣurra — a purse tied at the mouth; a sound that continues without a break). I do not repeat it here.

The comparison with the sequence in al-Wāqiʿa is worth recording: there the order was mutraf → persistence → speech — that is, abundance, resistance, denial. Here the order is hearing → persistence → self-magnification. The two sūras place the same act (iṣrār) at the centre, but one describes the cause and the other the moment.

أَفَّاك — root أ-ف-ك: to turn something from its direction, to overturn it. The word is on the faʿʿāl pattern: an intensive form — one who does it constantly and much. The root was treated in al-Aḥqāf at 46/11 and 46/28 (ifkun qadīm — ifkuhum).

وَإِذَا عَلِمَ مِنْ ءَايَٰتِنَا شَيْـًٔا ٱتَّخَذَهَا هُزُوًا — "and when he comes to know something of Our signs, he takes them in mockery."

This sentence is worth recording, because the verb is ʿalima — "he came to know". That is, the mockery does not come from ignorance; it comes after learning. The sūra's axis of knowledge appears here openly for the first time.

"It is God who has made the sea subservient to you, so that ships may run upon it by His command… And He has made subservient to you all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth, all of it, as a gift from Him."

The root carries two branches, and the lexicographers record them together: to make subservient, to set to a task, and to mock. The root was treated in al-Ḥāqqa and in al-Ḥujurāt at 49/11 (in its branch of mockery).

The branch here is the first, and the pattern is Form II: to arrange something in such a way that it is put into service.

What the word says and what it does not say must be kept apart — I record this as my own reading: taskhīr states not that man rules the sea but that the sea is so constituted that it can carry a ship. Buoyancy, the order of the winds, the shape of the coasts — none of these is man's work. Man's work is to build the ship.

This distinction is the very same line drawn in the four proofs at al-Wāqiʿa 56/58-72: man's share is granted, and the ground on which the outcome rests is set apart.

"Say to those who believe: let them forgive those who do not look for the days of God."

The placing of this verse in this block is striking. Before it, favours are enumerated; after it, it is said that everyone will meet his own deed (man ʿamila ṣāliḥan fa-li-nafsih). In the middle there is a command about conduct: forgiveness.

And the one addressed by the command and its object are distinct: those who believe are told to forgive those who do not believe.

أَيَّامَ ٱللَّهِ — "the days of God". It is transmitted that in the classical commentaries this construction is explained either as what befell communities in the past or as the day of reckoning. I transmit both explanations; I do not impose a preference.

I record this as my own reading: the verse does not forbid requital; it defers the ruling. The continuation of the sentence says as much: li-yajziya qawman bimā kānū yaksibūn — the one who will give the requital is another.

"We gave the Children of Israel the Book, the judgement and prophethood… They fell into disagreement only after knowledge had come to them, out of envy among themselves."

This expression has already been treated in two places in this series: al-Baqara 2/213 and 2/253. In all three the same thing is said: disagreement arises not from the absence of proof, but after it has come.

The difference lies in a single word: in al-Baqara bayyināt (clear proofs), here ʿilm (knowledge). This is a choice in keeping with the sūra's axis of knowledge, and it can be verified from the text.

بَغْي — root ب-غ-ي: to overstep the bound, to begrudge. The root was treated in al-Ḥujurāt at 49/9.

شَرِيعَة — root ش-ر-ع. The concrete sense recorded by the lexicographers is worth recording: sharīʿa is the path down which one goes to a river or a water source, the opening at which water is reached. Shāriʿ — an open road.

That the word carries this picture also describes the concept itself: before it is a body of regulations, it is a path opened in order to arrive somewhere. And the place it arrives at is named with water, that is, with life.

وَلَا تَتَّبِعْ أَهْوَآءَ ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ — and what is set opposite it: the hawā of those who do not know.

The opposition should be recorded: sharīʿa / ahwāʾ. One is an opened path, the other an inclination. And the attribute of the second group is lā yaʿlamūn — those who do not know. Once again the sūra ties the measure to knowledge.

هَٰذَا بَصَٰٓئِرُ لِلنَّاسِ — baṣāʾir is the plural of baṣīra: sight, insight. The Book is named not as "rules" but as "instruments of seeing".

"Do those who commit evil deeds suppose that We shall treat them like those who believe and do righteous deeds, that their life and their death shall be equal?"

The root is analysed here for the first time in this series.

The concrete sense: to wound, to cut open. Jurḥ — a wound. And from the same root comes jawāriḥ: birds of prey and — strikingly — the limbs of a person, that is, the hand, the foot, the eye.

The lexicographers make the connection thus: the limbs are called jawāriḥ because it is with them that gain is acquired; and ijtirāḥ likewise means "to earn, to acquire". The "wounding" branch of the root and the "earning" branch meet by way of the picture of hunting: the bird of prey earns by wounding.

I transmit this as a relation established by the lexicographers, not as a settled etymological ruling.

The choice of word is worth recording: for those who do evil the verse does not use the verb ʿamilū (they did) — it uses a verb that carries the sense of earning and of wounding. For the other side it says ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāt.

What the sentence rejects is that the two groups should be held equal both in life and in death.

There is disagreement over how this expression is to be understood:

All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

سَآءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ — "how evil is the judgement they make." And the verb is yaḥkumūn — to pass judgement. That is, what the other side does is named as a verdict. The sūra's axis of knowledge passes here onto the plane of judgement: the claim is not merely a claim to knowledge, it is a claim to a ruling.

وَخَلَقَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَلِتُجْزَىٰ كُلُّ نَفْسٍۭ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ — and the ground is given: creation is bi'l-ḥaqq. The same note was treated in al-Aḥqāf at 46/3 (illā bi'l-ḥaqqi wa ajalin musammā); I rely on that treatment. The ground of the distinction is given not as a desire to punish but as a stipulation set upon creation itself.

A-fa-raʾayta mani'ttakhadha ilāhahū hawāhu wa aḍallahu'llāhu ʿalā ʿilmin wa khatama ʿalā samʿihī wa qalbihī wa jaʿala ʿalā baṣarihī ghishāwatan

"Have you seen the one who has taken his own craving as his god? God has led him astray upon a knowledge, and has sealed his hearing and his heart, and laid a covering over his sight."

There are two words in the sentence, and which of them is the object is disputed among the lexicographers:

Both readings lie within the limits Arabic allows, and both are mentioned in the classical commentaries. I do not impose a preference.

The second reading is worth recording, because it says something finer: the person does not openly deify his desire; he chooses a god, but he makes the choice according to the direction of his desire. The first block of the sūra had enumerated the proofs; on this reading the issue is not the proof but the measure by which the proof is selected.

هَوَىٰ — root ه-و-ي: to fall downward; and desire, inclination. The two branches of the root and the relation between them were treated in detail in al-Najm (the verbal identity between idhā hawā in al-Najm 53/1 and ʿani'l-hawā in 53/3). I do not repeat it here.

Whose the expression ʿalā ʿilmin is, is disputed, and it must not be concealed:

Both readings are transmitted. The second reading is consistent with the sūra as a whole — in verse 8 the type who hears and resists, and in verse 9 the one who mocks after learning, had been described. I record this as a supporting indication, not as a preference.

خَتَمَ … وَجَعَلَ عَلَىٰ بَصَرِهِۦ غِشَٰوَةً — three organs are enumerated: hearing, heart, sight.

The same three had been enumerated in al-Aḥqāf at 46/26 (samʿan wa abṣāran wa afʾidatan) and were treated there: the instruments had been given, and had been of no use. Here the same three are named in their closed condition. The two sūras use the same list of organs in two different scenes.

And the verbs are different: hearing and heart are sealed (khatm — to stamp a seal and close), while over the sight a covering is laid (ghishāwa). What is closed at the entrance is distinguished from what is veiled in front.

"They said: Life is nothing but this life of ours in the world; we die and we live. Nothing destroys us but dahr. Yet they have no knowledge of this whatever; they only conjecture."

The verse conveys the other side's view exactly as it is, and it can be divided into three parts:

1. Life is only this — there is no other life 2. We die and we live — the generations succeed one another 3. Nothing destroys us but dahr — the cause is time

And the answer is given not to the content of the claim but to what it rests on: wa mā lahum bi-dhālika min ʿilm — "they have no knowledge of this."

This is the clearest observation about method in the sūra, and I record it as my own reading: the verse does not say "you are mistaken"; it says "you are not saying this on the basis of knowledge." That is, the other side's claim is treated as a claim to knowledge, and that attribute is taken from it.

In hum illā yaẓunnūn — "they only conjecture." The opposition between ẓann and ʿilm is the axis the sūra has been building from the start: in verse 4 yūqinūn (those who know with certainty), in 5 yaʿqilūn, in 20 yūqinūn, and here yaẓunnūn.

The word means "long time, the age that goes on". The root was treated in al-Insān at 76/1 (hal atā ʿala'l-insāni ḥīnun mina'd-dahr). I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is this: there the word occurred as a span, here it is named as an agent — "what destroys us".

I record this as an observation: the claim does not deny death; it charges death to time. That is, the observed fact (everyone dies) is correct; the cause assigned to it is what is being questioned. This meets the list of proofs in the sūra's first block at the very same point: the alternation of night and day was named there as a sign; here the same working is counted as an agent.

"And when Our signs are recited to them clearly, their only argument is to say: 'Bring back our forefathers, if you are truthful!'"

The construction of the sentence must be recorded: the verse names the words spoken as ḥujja (argument) — and limits it with illā: they have no other argument.

حُجَّة — root ح-ج-ج: to head towards a goal, to intend; and a word that binds the other party. The word's sense of "proof" comes from its dragging the opposing party to a certain place in a dispute.

I record this as my own reading: the verse does not begin by saying that what is said is not an argument; it counts it as an argument and reports it as such, and leaves its weakness before the reader. The demand is this: let the dead forefathers now be brought back.

This demand had occurred in the same form in al-Aḥqāf at 46/17 (fa'tū bi-ābāʾinā in kuntum ṣādiqīn) and was treated there: the objection is framed by choosing the hardest example.

قُلِ ٱللَّهُ يُحْيِيكُمْ ثُمَّ يُمِيتُكُمْ ثُمَّ يَجْمَعُكُمْ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ — and the answer does not meet the demand: it recalls the sequence.

Three verbs, joined by thumma: He gives life → He gives death → He gathers. In Arabic thumma conveys an interval; that is, there is time between the three verbs. The difference between what is demanded (bring them now) and what is announced (they are gathered at an appointed time) lies exactly in this particle.

The same answer had been given with the same word in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/49-50 (la-majmūʿūna ilā mīqāti yawmin maʿlūm) and was treated there: the gathering is tied not to a place but to a time.

Wa tarā kulla ummatin jāthiya · Kullu ummatin tudʿā ilā kitābihā · Hādhā kitābunā yanṭiqu ʿalaykum bi'l-ḥaqq · Innā kunnā nastansikhu mā kuntum taʿmalūn

"You will see every community kneeling. Every community will be called to its own book. 'This book of Ours speaks against you with the truth. We were having recorded what you were doing.'"

The root ج-ث-و — analysed here for the first time in this series.

The sense the lexicographers give: to fall upon the knees. Jathā — he knelt. From the root juthwa (a heap, a pile of stones) is also recorded.

This posture of sitting is worth recording: in Arab culture kneeling is the posture of waiting and of reckoning — in court, or the bearing of one who awaits a decision. It is not a posture of ease; it is the state of being ready to rise but not yet risen.

And the verse gives this state to every community — without distinction, all of them. The distinction will be made at the next step, when the books are opened.

The root ن-ط-ق: to speak, to express in sound.

The choice of verb is striking: the book does not "write" or "show", it speaks. And the particle is ʿalaykum — "against you". In Arabic ʿalā here conveys being to one's detriment.

I record this as my own reading: a document is normally read; the party reading it interprets it. The verse removes this intermediary: the document itself speaks. The distance between the document and whatever might be said about it is thereby closed.

The root occurs here for the first time in this series.

The senses of the root: to put one thing in the place of another (naskh), and to transfer a writing to another place (istinsākh — to make a copy of it). The word nuskha comes from here.

The pattern is Form X: nastansikh. The lexicographers record that the pattern here has the sense of "to have recorded, to have a copy made" — that is, the act is not direct but by way of having it written down.

The picture in the word is worth recording: the act is described as transferring what happens into a copy. The original is the life lived; the book is its copy. For this reason the book in verse 29 is set down not as a document brought in from outside but as a copy of what was lived.

"As for those who believe and do righteous deeds, their Lord admits them into His mercy… But to those who disbelieved: 'Were My signs not recited to you? And you made yourselves great.'"

No verdict is announced to the second group — a question is asked. And the content of the question is not a question about information: "were they not recited?"

This corresponds exactly to the eighth verse of the sūra: there the type had been described as yasmaʿu āyāti'llāhi tutlā ʿalayhi thumma yuṣirru mustakbiran. Here the same two elements return: being recited, and making oneself great.

The same two words twenty-three verses apart, one in the third person and one in the second. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text, and it shows that the reckoning is framed with exactly the same words as the diagnosis made at the head of the sūra.

The expression فِى رَحْمَتِهِۦ is also worth recording: the requital is named not with the name of a place but with an attribute — to be admitted into mercy. Compared with the places in al-Wāqiʿa where the descriptions of the Garden are enumerated object by object, the abstractness of the account here is a choice.

"When it was said to you, 'God's promise is true, and there is no doubt about the Hour', you said: 'We do not know what the Hour is; we hold no more than a conjecture, and we are not among those who know with certainty.'"

What is striking in the words the verse reports is this: the other side describes its own position correctly. In naẓunnu illā ẓannan wa mā naḥnu bi-mustayqinīn — "we conjecture, we do not know with certainty."

And this is the same as what was said about them in verse 24: in hum illā yaẓunnūn.

The same verdict, from two mouths. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

I record this as my own reading: the discussion of knowledge sustained throughout the sūra closes here. The other side says itself that it does not possess certain knowledge; and yet it issues a categorical verdict (mā hiya illā ḥayātuna'd-dunyā — 24). This is the inconsistency the verse displays: an absolute ruling issued on the basis of conjecture.

وَقِيلَ ٱلْيَوْمَ نَنسَىٰكُمْ كَمَا نَسِيتُمْ لِقَآءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَٰذَا — "today We forget you, just as you forgot the meeting of this day of yours."

The verb is framed reciprocally and equated by the particle kamā (just as). It is recorded in the classical commentaries that the nisyān here has the sense of abandoning, of paying no regard, and that forgetting is not in question with respect to God. I enter this note; the care for divine transcendence preserved elsewhere in this series for similar expressions holds here too.

"Praise belongs to God, Lord of the heavens, Lord of the earth, Lord of all beings. To Him belongs greatness in the heavens and the earth; He is the Mighty, the Wise."

In the close the word rabb is repeated three times: Lord of the heavens, Lord of the earth, Lord of all beings. The third already includes the first two — that is, the repetition is not there to add information but to widen the scope step by step.

ٱلْكِبْرِيَآء — root ك-ب-ر: greatness.

And the choice of the word ties back to the whole sūra: in the eighth verse the type who resists was characterised as mustakbiran (making himself great) — the same root.

The sūra closes by returning to its place the attribute man had taken upon himself. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text, and it is the cleanest ring in the sūra.

Throughout the sūra the words to do with knowledge are distributed in an order:

This distribution is too orderly to be counted an accident, and it shows that the sūra is built around a single question.