Qāf 50:17

Idh yatalaqqa'l-mutalaqqiyāni ʿani'l-yamīni wa ʿani'sh-shimāli qaʿīd

"When the two receivers receive — one seated on the right and one on the left."

We must begin with a question of word order. Idh in Arabic is an adverb of time and is expected to attach to a verb. Here there is no explicit verb.

The principal solutions the exegetes give:

The first and second solutions are close in sense and agree with the context. Whichever it is, the effect is the same: the knowing of the sixteenth verse and the recording of the seventeenth are read as the continuation of one sentence.

The order recorded in the fourth verse is repeated here, and this is a pattern that can be verified within the sūra:

In both places the record comes after the knowledge and in addition to it.

And the note set down in the fourth verse holds here too: for one who knows, keeping a record is not necessary. The one for whom the record is kept is the one about whom judgement will be given.

And the densest root of the sūra comes once more, this time with two of its derivatives at once.

Talaqqī — the tafaʿʿul form. Its concrete sense: to meet a thing, to go out before it and take it.

The primary sense of the root is "to meet" (liqāʾ). The tafaʿʿul form here adds intent and effort: not meeting by chance, but standing ready to meet.

• تَلَقَّى الشَّيْءَ — he took a thing (reaching out his hand), he received it.
• مُتَلَقِّي — one who meets and receives.
• تَلَقِّي الرُّكْبَان — to meet a caravan on the road before it enters the town (a well-known question in law).

The Qurʾān uses this verb of Adam (Ādam): "Adam received words from his Lord (fa-talaqqā)" (al-Baqara 2/37).

And the picture here is this: the word comes out of the mouth, and the two receivers meet it in the air.

The choice of word is striking. The verse does not say "writers" (kātibān) — although the Qurʾān uses that word elsewhere (kirāman kātibīn — al-Infiṭār 82/11). The verb chosen here describes the step before writing: taking.

In the section on al-Infiṭār this verse was already mentioned and set against that one. The finding there was this: "Together the two verses complete the description in al-Infiṭār: position (right and left), act (taking), and scope (speech)."

What is to be added here is the continuousness of the verb: yatalaqqā is in the imperfect — in the act of taking. Not a finished work but an ongoing one.

قَعِيد — root ق-ع-د. To sit. Qāʿid — one who sits; quʿūd — sitting; maqʿad — the place one sits.

Qaʿīd is on the faʿīl pattern and here means qāʿid (one who sits). The lexicographers also explain this pattern in the sense of "one who keeps at a task, who stays in that state".

And the state the word chooses matters: not standing, but seated.

I give this as my own reading: to sit is to have settled into waiting. The one standing may leave; the one seated is there to stay. The picture is not of a passing surveillance but of a settled waiting.

And ʿatīd (ready and waiting) in the next verse completes this picture: seated and ready.

There is a well-known question in the clause: ʿani'l-yamīni wa ʿani'sh-shimāli qaʿīd — "on the right and on the left, seated". The adjective comes singular, although two angels are spoken of.

The exegetes and grammarians explain this as follows:

All three explanations are transmitted and none excludes the others. The third is a consequence rather than a cause; but given the sound scheme of the sūra it is worth recording.