Qāf 50:37

Inna fī dhālika la-dhikrā li-man kāna lahū qalbun aw alqa's-samʿa wa huwa shahīd

"In that there is a reminder for whoever has a heart, or gives ear while he is present."

This verse is one of the Qurʾān's plainest statements about understanding, and it is built on a single particle: أَوْ (or).

Two conditions are named, and between them there is not "and" but "or":

1. Man kāna lahū qalb — one who has a heart. 2. Aw alqa's-samʿa wa huwa shahīd — or one who gives his ear while present.

Two separate doors, that is. Entering by one is enough.

Root: ق-ل-ب. This root was treated in the sections on al-Mulk and al-Inshiqāq. The note in al-Mulk was this:

"This is one of the most heavily laden roots in Arabic: to turn a thing over, to overturn it, to change its face. From the same root comes قَلْب (qalb) — and the heart is given this name because it is the thing that turns, changes, passes from state to state. Arabic has named the inner centre of a human being not as 'what is fixed' but as 'what is turned'."

And now let us look at what this does in this verse.

The expression "whoever has a heart" is odd at first sight. There is no human being without a heart.

But the word describes not the organ but the function the root describes: the thing that can turn.

The condition, then, is this, and I give it as my own reading: in order to understand, an inside that can be turned is required. The capacity of something to turn you.

And this is directly linked with the word munīb in the sūra: the root nawb also stated turning (8, 33). Three verses build the same idea with two different roots:

And that the thirty-third verse joins the two roots is striking: qalbin munīb — "a turning heart", that is, "a turning thing that turns".

I record this as an observation; all three occurrences stand in the text.

And the root ل-ق-ي comes for the fourth and last time in the sūra.

Ilqāʾ — to throw, to let go, to place. And here its object is hearing: alqa's-samʿa — "he threw / laid down his hearing".

The English "to give ear" is an exact counterpart, and it too is a verb of giving.

The picture in the word is this: the faculty of hearing is taken up and set down somewhere. Not hearing, that is, but directing one's hearing to a place.

And read together with the root's other uses in the sūra, the verb says something:

The only human being in the sūra who throws something with this root is in the thirty-seventh verse. And what he throws is his own attention.

I record this as my own reading; the four occurrences stand in the text, the comparison is mine.

And the condition is completed: giving the ear is not enough; one must be shahīd.

As was recorded above (at verse 21), at the centre of the root ش-ه-د is being present.

The expression says, that is: a person who has given his ear but whose mind is elsewhere does not meet this condition.

The exegetes explain shahīd here as follows: present in heart, attentive, not heedless. And this makes a direct contrast with ghafla in the twenty-second verse.

Both words stand on the axis of "being present": ghafla is having left no trace; shahāda is being there.

Now I come to the most important side of the verse, and I present this plainly as my own reading.

The two conditions named describe two different kinds of person:

And what the verse says is this: either one suffices.

It is worth saying why this matters.

Understanding is not the same in everyone. Before a text, a proof, a scene in nature, not everyone sees the same thing. If the only road were "whoever has a heart", understanding would be a matter of aptitude.

The second road sets aptitude aside and puts attention in its place. Whoever can give his ear and be there — whatever his understanding — is inside the door.

And attention, unlike aptitude, is something everyone can do. It is not something given to you but something you give.

I record this reading as my own reading. What stands in the text is the particle aw (or), and its showing that each of the two conditions suffices on its own.

And one more ring of the sūra closes.

In the eighth verse it was said of the plants and the sky: tabṣiratan wa dhikrā li-kulli ʿabdin munīb.

In the thirty-seventh verse the same word is used of history: la-dhikrā li-man kāna lahū qalb.

The two sections of proof in the sūra — nature (6-11) and history (12-14, 36) — are thus concluded with the same word.

And there is a difference: the eighth verse had two words (making-to-see + reminder), the thirty-seventh one (reminder).

I give this as my own reading, and there is a reasonable ground for it: nature is seen, history is not. What befell past generations can only be told and remembered. That tabṣira is in the eighth verse and not here, then, agrees with the kind of the proofs.