Muḥammad 47:20

Wa yaqūlu'lladhīna āmanū law lā nuzzilat sūra; fa-idhā unzilat sūratun muḥkamatun wa dhukira fīha'l-qitālu raʾayta'lladhīna fī qulūbihim maraḍun yanẓurūna ilayka naẓara'l-maghshiyyi ʿalayhi mina'l-mawt; fa-awlā lahum

"Those who believe say: 'If only a sūra were sent down!' Then, when a firmly fixed sūra is sent down and fighting is mentioned in it, you see those in whose hearts is a disease looking at you with the look of one in a swoon at death. And that is what befits them."

This verse is one of the rare places that shows the difference of form I touched on at the second verse within a single sentence.

The distinction recorded in the classical sources is this: tanzīl (tafʿīl) announces a sending down piece by piece, gradually; inzāl (ifʿāl) a sending down all at once.

When this distinction is applied to this verse a reading like this comes out: what is wished for is a revelation continually coming down ("if only it kept being sent down"); what happens is a sūra that comes down as a whole.

I transmit this reading as an explanation found in the classical commentaries.

And I am obliged to enter a caveat: that this distinction is not applied consistently everywhere in the Qurʾān is stated in the sources themselves. Indeed this same sūra uses anzala in verse 9 and nazzala in verse 26, and no marked difference of meaning appears there.

For this reason I record the distinction as a possibility, not as a certainty.

لَوْلَا here announces urging (taḥḍīḍ, encouragement, insistent asking): "if only it were sent down!". It is said that with the imperfect it announces encouragement and with the perfect reproach (tawbīkh).

And note: who makes this wish? alladhīna āmanū — those who believe.

That is, this section of the sūra opens with a request from the believers. The request is legitimate: to want revelation to come down.

And then the request is granted. And exactly when it is granted, something becomes visible.

Root: ح-ك-م. And the primary sense of the root is not, as is often supposed, "to rule".

The primary sense the lexicographers record: مَنْع — to hold back, to restrain, to make firm.

And its concrete source is interesting: حَكَمَة — the bit put in a horse's mouth. The bit keeps the horse from going where it wants.

The family of meanings that comes out of this:

And a muḥkam sūra, by this root, is: a sūra with no slack in it, that cannot be shifted, that cannot be slid about.

The exegetes give two senses to the word muḥkama in this verse:

Both views are transmitted; I make no preference.

But I record an observation — it is my own reading: both senses look in the same direction, and both agree with the root's sense of "not taking slack". And this does a piece of work in the scene of the verse: a text that cannot be shifted brings out the one who wants to shift it. An ambiguous word allows everyone to interpret it as he pleases; a firmly fixed word does not. That is why the reaction becomes visible.

ٱلْقِتَال — root ق-ت-ل, the verbal noun of Form III (mufāʿala).

And the form matters. Form III announces reciprocity (mushāraka): the act being done mutually between two parties.

• قَتْل (qatl) — to kill. One-directional.
• قِتَال (qitāl) — mutual killing, fighting. Two-directional.

That is, the word carries in its own structure the fact that the other side is doing the same thing. Qitāl cannot be done alone.

And the second name of the sūra — as is transmitted — is exactly this word: Sūrat al-Qitāl. The word occurs only here in the sūra.

A detail of word order: the verb is passive — ذُكِرَ ("was mentioned"). Who mentioned it is not said. And there is the qualification fīhā (in it, in the sūra): fighting occurs as a subject mentioned inside the sūra, not as the subject of the sūra.

This is the picture at the centre of the verse, and it is built with a single word.

مَغْشِىّ عَلَيْهِ — root غ-ش-و/غ-ش-ي: to cover, to overlay, to envelop. From the same root غِشَاوَة (ghishāwa — a film, a covering; at al-Baqara 2/7 the film over the eyes), غَاشِيَة (ghāshiya — that which covers, that which envelops; the name of sūra 88, treated in al-Ghāshiya).

مَغْشِىّ عَلَيْهِ — "the one who has been covered over", that is, one who has fainted, whose consciousness has closed. The English that carries it exactly is "one who has passed out".

مِنَ ٱلْمَوْتِ — "from death". That is, this is not an ordinary fainting; it is the state of a person in the throes of death.

And the subject of the comparison is not the person but the look: naẓara'l-maghshiyyi ʿalayh — "a look like his look". An absolute object; the comparison attaches to the verb.

This is the same choice of word order as kamā taʾkulu'l-anʿām in verse 12: the comparison is made not to the person but to the act.

What, then, is the property of the look of a person in a swoon at death?

The description the lexicographers and the exegetes record is this: the eyes are open, fixed, unblinking; the movement of the eyeballs has stopped; the gaze is as if locked on one place. The one who looks is not seeing.

And this does its work exactly in the scene of the verse: those people are looking at the Prophet. They are in the gathering. Their eyes are on him. But what they see is not what is being said; it is their own end.

This reading — that the look is "frozen with fear" — I transmit from the explanation widely found in the classical commentaries.

And its link with the sixteenth verse is worth noting — it is my own reading:

The sūra makes the same diagnosis twice, by way of two organs: the act is performed, the outcome does not form.

مَرَض — root م-ر-ض: disease; and the definition the lexicographers give: a thing's departure from equilibrium (iʿtidāl), the spoiling of health.

And that the word comes indefinite is worth noting: مَّرَضٌ — "a disease". Indefinite. Unnamed.

This expression occurs twice in the sūra: 20 and 29 (am ḥasiba'lladhīna fī qulūbihim maraḍun). In both the same structure: fī qulūbihim maraḍun.

And the word order is inverted: the normal order would be maraḍun fī qulūbihim (subject + predicate). The verse brings the predicate forward: fī qulūbihim maraḍun.

In grammar this fronting announces ikhtiṣāṣ (particularisation) and the drawing of attention. That is, the emphasis falls on the place of the disease: the disease is in the heart.

And now we come to the two words at the end of the verse. This is one of the best-known disagreements over the pause (waqf) in the Qurʾān, and it changes the meaning directly.

أَوْلَىٰ لَهُمْ can be read in two ways, and the reading depends on where the pause is made:

Both readings are transmitted in the classical sources, and the marks of pause in the copies of the muṣḥaf reflect this disagreement.

I make no preference. The difference of meaning the two readings give is large: the first is an imprecation, the second an advice.

And the word awlā itself: the root is و-ل-ي — treated in the discussion of mawlā at verse 11. Awlā is an elative: "nearer, more deserving".

This too feeds the disagreement: the expression "more deserving" can mean both "deserving the punishment" and "what is more fitting for him". The word is open in both directions.

I record this much: the word awlā occurs in this construction in one other place in the Qurʾān — al-Qiyāma 75/34-35: "Awlā laka fa-awlā, thumma awlā laka fa-awlā" (treated in al-Qiyāma). The use there is in the direction of threat, and this appears to support the first reading.

But this is recorded as an indication, not as a preference; the same construction is not obliged to carry the same meaning in two places.