حمٓ · تَنزِيلُ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْحَكِيمِ · مَا خَلَقْنَا ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَآ إِلَّا بِٱلْحَقِّ وَأَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى
Ḥā-mīm · Tanzīlu'l-kitābi mina'llāhi'l-ʿazīzi'l-ḥakīm · Mā khalaqna's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa wa mā baynahumā illā bi'l-ḥaqqi wa ajalin musammā
"Ḥā-mīm. The sending down of this Book is from God, the Mighty, the Wise. We created the heavens, the earth and what is between them only in truth and for a determined term."
The general note on the disconnected letters has already been entered elsewhere in this commentary (al-Qalam and Qāf); I do not repeat it here. The summary is this: there is no certain knowledge about the meaning of these letters; many explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries and none of them makes a claim to certainty. Per the method (Method), claims resting on letter-and-number reckoning are not entered into.
What can be recorded is a fact of word order that can be verified: in almost every sūra that opens with ḥā-mīm, the Book is named right after the opening. So here too: the second verse begins with tanzīlu'l-kitāb.
The sentence is not built as "we sent down the Book." Its subject is a verbal noun: tanzīl — "the being sent down". That is, what is placed first is not the verb but the act itself.
I record this as an observation about the word order: at the centre of the sentence stands not the act but where the act comes from — mina'llāh. The sūra settles the source of the Book in its first sentence; for that is precisely what will be in dispute from the fourth verse on.
ٱلْعَزِيز — root ع-ز-ز: to be firm, unreachable, above others. The concrete core of the word's meaning is explained by the lexicographers by way of "hard, impassable ground". ٱلْحَكِيم — root ح-ك-م: to hold back and keep in place; the root's connection with ḥakama (the bit of a bridle) was treated in al-Baqara at 2/269.
That the two names come together is worth recording: one conveys power, the other right placement. Power is not named on its own.
| Qualification | What it conveys |
|---|---|
| بِٱلْحَقّ | Not in vain — upon a reality and a purpose |
| أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى | Not endless — with a term whose name has been set |
Together the two draw a limit. I record this as my own reading: before it enters the discussion of the hereafter, the sūra says that the universe has a term. The assumption that "everything will go on like this" is thereby removed at the very outset.
Musammā — passive participle: "named". The term is not merely determined; its name has been set — and who knows that name is not said. The same pattern was used in al-Wāqiʿa 56/50 for yawmin maʿlūm (a known day) and was treated there: not indeterminate, but closed to man.