52. Sūrat al-Ṭūr

Forty-nine verses. It takes its name from the word ٱلطُّور in the first verse.

This sūra comes immediately after the preceding one (al-Dhāriyāt), and read together the two form a pair. Both open with an oath, both use the word wāqiʿ in the answer to the oath, both draw a tableau for the god-fearing, both count up the accusations levelled at the Prophet, and both close with a command to be patient.

But their openings are the reverse of one another. Al-Dhāriyāt's four oaths are sworn by things that move: the scatterers, the bearers, the runners, the distributors. Al-Ṭūr's five oaths are sworn by things that stand: a mountain, a book, a house, a roof, a sea.

This contrast may be coincidence; but the two sūras standing side by side and touching one another at many other points makes the comparison fruitful. Below I shall make this comparison both in the discussion of the oath and at the end of the sūra.

The sūra's second feature is the section running from the thirtieth verse to the forty-third. There fifteen questions come one after another and all of them begin with the same particle (أَمْ). This is one of the densest passages of reasoning in the Qurʾān, and the structure is itself a method: each door is closed one by one.

The basmala was treated in earlier sections and is not taken up again here; the verse numbers are counted without the basmala.

There is something close to agreement that it is Meccan. Manner and content support this: opening with an oath, short verse-endings, a scene of the hereafter, the addressee being named mukadhdhibīn (those who call it a lie), the accusations of kāhin / majnūn / shāʿir levelled at the Prophet being on the agenda, and the absence of legal content.

A small number of views are transmitted saying that the twenty-first verse (the joining of the offspring) is Medinan; this view is a minority one and I do not go into it.

What is seen in the table: the sūra's two longest sections are the tableau of the god-fearing (12 verses) and the series of questions (14 verses). Between them there is a single verse: the twenty-ninth.

That is, the sūra consists of two great blocks and a single verse separates them — and that verse is a command: fa-dhakkir (remind).

Wa'ṭ-Ṭūr · Wa kitābin masṭūr · Fī raqqin manshūr · Wa'l-bayti'l-maʿmūr · Wa's-saqfi'l-marfūʿ · Wa'l-baḥri'l-masjūr

"By the Ṭūr · and by a book written · on a parchment unrolled · and by the House frequented · and by the roof raised high · and by the sea filled…"

Three series of active participles have been treated in this commentary so far (al-ʿĀdiyāt 100/1-5, al-Mursalāt 77/1-5, al-Dhāriyāt 51/1-4). Al-Ṭūr's series resembles none of them, and the difference gathers into a single grammatical criterion.

And two of the differences are decisive.

One — all the connectives are wāw. In the other three series there was a fāʾ, and the fāʾ al-taʿqīb set up an unbroken succession; the series was therefore counted as a single oath (certainly in al-ʿĀdiyāt and al-Dhāriyāt, disputedly in al-Mursalāt).

Here there is no fāʾ at all. In grammar the wāw that comes between oaths mostly begins a new oath — this rule was recorded in the section on al-Mursalāt.

That is, there are five separate oaths in al-Ṭūr. Five separate objects, listed without any succession set up between them.

And this has a direct consequence: there is no relation of time among the five objects. In al-ʿĀdiyāt's series a scene was flowing; in al-Dhāriyāt's series an operation was advancing. Here nothing advances — five things stand side by side.

Two — the things sworn by are named.

In the other three series the question "what is being sworn by?" had been argued since the classical period and had closed in none of them. Here the situation is different: ṭūr is a mountain, kitāb is a book, bayt is a house, saqf is a roof, baḥr is a sea.

But the argument does not end — it only moves. In the other series it was asked "whom do these adjectives belong to?"; here it is asked "which one do these nouns point to?" Which mountain, which book, which house?

That is, the disagreement shifts from the genus to the particular.

And now the side that belongs to this series alone.

What the five objects have in common is that all of them are standing:

All five of the adjectives are passive participles. That is, all of them are passive: writ-ten, unroll-ed, kept in use, rais-ed, fill-ed.

And this is the exact reverse of the other three series. There the participles were active — running, blowing, scattering, bearing. Here no object is doing any work; work has been done to all of them.

And being passive requires an agent. This finding was made in the section on al-Mursalāt: the first word of the series (mursalāt — those sent) was passive, and this was recorded there: "This implies from the outset that there is a sender — already in the oath's first word."

In al-Ṭūr this is repeated five times. Five objects, five times, saying that there is someone behind them.

I record this as my own reading. But the pattern of the five adjectives was given one by one above and is not disputed.

And when the two neighbouring sūras are set side by side the table is this:

Two sūras doing the same work by two opposite roads.

Al-Dhāriyāt's oath showed this: something is carried and reaches its place — so too will the word arrive. Al-Ṭūr's oath shows this: something has been built and it stands — so too the judgement stands.

That is, one takes the process working as its proof, the other the structure being sound.

And the answers of the two sūras carry this distinction too:

• al-Dhāriyāt 51/5: innamā tūʿadūna la-ṣādiq — what is promised is true. It looks to future time.
• al-Ṭūr 52/7: inna ʿadhāba rabbika la-wāqiʿ — the punishment will come to pass. And immediately after: مَّا لَهُۥ مِن دَافِعٍ — "there is none to turn it back."

Al-Ṭūr's answer states an impossibility of being prevented; al-Dhāriyāt's a truthfulness.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras. The patterns and connectives were given one by one above and are not disputed; I make no claim of a deliberate design between the two sūras.

Root: ط-و-ر. Its concrete sense: the limit of a thing, its surround; and a stage, a phase.

• طَوْر — state, stage, degree. The Qurʾān uses this: "He created you in stages" (Nūḥ 71/14) — wa qad khalaqakum aṭwārā.
• طُور — mountain. Some of the lexicographers count the word as having passed into Arabic from another language; some tie it to the root's sense of "limit" — a mountain is what bounds a region. I do not enter this dispute and issue no definite ruling.

Which mountain? — the disagreement

The first view is stronger by a clear margin, and its ground is the Qurʾān's own usage: al-Ṭūr, with the definite article, points almost without exception in the Qurʾān to Moses' mountain.

And this was recorded in the section on al-Tīn: there ṭūri sīnīn was treated and the mountain's relation to revelation was set up.

I too take the first view as my basis. It is not binding.

And this has a consequence: if the first oath is by Sinai, then the series opens with a place of revelation. And the second oath will be by a book. That is, the first two oaths are the place of revelation and revelation itself.

كِتَاب — root ك-ت-ب: to write. And the concrete sense of the root must be dwelt on: kataba is in fact to join one thing to another, to sew, to bring together. Katība — an ordered military unit. Writing is the work of joining letters to one another.

This field was treated in the discussion of al-Qalam 68/1; I do not repeat it here.

مَسْطُور — root س-ط-ر: line, row, series. Saṭr — a line; misṭara — a ruler. And masṭūr means "written line by line".

Sūrat al-Qalam opened with the verb yasṭurūn (68/1) and that root is this root. That is, two sūras use the same verb in the context of an oath.

رَقّ — root ر-ق-ق: to become thin. Raqīq — thin. رَقّ — the thin hide written upon, parchment.

And the choice of the word is a historical record. In that period hide, papyrus, bone, wood and stone were used as writing material. Raqq is the most valuable and most durable of these: well-worked thin hide.

مَنشُور — root ن-ش-ر: to spread out, to open.

And this word was treated in the discussion of al-Takwīr 81/10: wa idhā'ṣ-ṣuḥufu nushirat — "when the pages are spread open". I do not repeat it here. The summary of the finding there: the verb is passive, it states a single completed act, and it is a link in that sūra's weave of "the opening of what was closed".

And the same root had occurred in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/52 as well (ṣuḥufan munashshara), and it was recorded there: "the pages will be opened in any case; what is demanded is that the opening be made ahead of its time and for the individual."

What is to be added here is the word's tense in this place.

That is, the parchment in al-Ṭūr is not something waiting to be opened; it is already open.

And this agrees with the logic of the oath: the oath is sworn by things that stand. Were an oath sworn by a closed book, the book's content would be unknown. That the oath is sworn by an open book stresses its readability.

I record this as my own reading; the patterns of the three usages were given above.

Which book? — the disagreement

All four views are transmitted in the classical sources and none is eliminated. The word has come indefinite — kitābin, "a book" — and the indefiniteness makes a preference difficult.

I do not impose a preference. But this can be recorded: that the first and second oaths stand side by side and that the two differ in definiteness (al-Ṭūr definite, kitābin indefinite) is striking. What is definite points to a single thing; what is indefinite leaves it open.

بَيْت — house. Root ب-ي-ت: to pass the night. Bāta — he spent the night. That is, "house" is at its root the place where the night is passed.

مَعْمُور — root ع-م-ر: to be long-lived, to be flourishing, to be brought to life.

• عُمْر — a lifetime.
• عِمَارَة — a building, construction.
• مَعْمُور — built up, brought to life, full.
• اِعْتِمَار / عُمْرَة — a visit; the visit outside the pilgrimage.

And the root's sense of "bringing to life" is decisive. A maʿmūr house is not merely a house that has been built; it is a house that is entered and lived in. The Qurʾān uses this explicitly: "Only those … keep up the mosques of God" (al-Tawba 9/18) — and there "keeping up" states use rather than the erecting of a building.

Which house? — the disagreement

Both views have been maintained in the classical sources. The first is rested on reports; because I cannot give the chain and source of the reports with certainty I write no name and no attribution, and I record this view as transmitted material, without going into its detail.

The second view's support from within the Qurʾān is more visible: the Qurʾān uses the word al-bayt with the definite article regularly for the Kaʿba.

I do not impose a preference. And I record this: the two views do not have to exclude one another; the Qurʾān's naming a thing with a counterpart both on earth and in heaven is an openness seen in other places too.

سَقْف — ceiling, roof. Root س-ق-ف.

مَرْفُوع — root ر-ف-ع: to raise, to lift. Rafʿ, rifʿa, marfūʿ are from the same root.

And that this construct has to do with the sky is all but undisputed, because the Qurʾān calls the sky a "roof" outright:

"We made the sky a guarded roof (saqfan maḥfūẓan)." (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/32)

This verse was cited in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/22 and a record was entered there: "The expression 'guarded roof' has a side that overlaps with present knowledge… I do not write this as a claim that the verse announces a scientific discovery; the verse does not speak of the atmosphere."

The same record holds here and I do not repeat it.

What is to be added here is the pattern of the adjective. Marfūʿ — passive: rais-ed. That is, the sky is not high of itself; it has been raised.

And at al-Dhāriyāt 51/47 the same idea had been given in the active pattern: wa's-samāʾa banaynāhā — "the sky, We built it". There the agent is stated; here it is not stated but the pattern requires one.

Two neighbouring sūras say the same thing in two voices. I record this as a comparison.

And the most disputed word in the series.

بَحْر — sea. Root ب-ح-ر; the lexicographers record that the root carries the idea of "breadth, splitting".

مَسْجُور — root س-ج-ر. And the lexicographers differ over the meaning of the root:

And al-Takwīr 81/6 is the centre of this dispute, because there the same root is used of the same object (the seas).

This verse was cited in the section on al-Takwīr and the expression wa'l-baḥri'l-masjūr was shown there for comparison.

What is to be added here is the tense of the two usages:

And the difference is decisive. In al-Takwīr the sea is named as something that will change; in al-Ṭūr it is named with an adjective as it now is.

Does this narrow the word's meaning here? In part. If masjūr states a present state, the sense "set ablaze" is strained for the sea as it now is. The sense "full" or "swollen" sits more easily.

But this is not certain, because explanations are also transmitted in the classical sources in which the verse is read as an oath looking to the scene of the resurrection.

I do not impose a preference. All three senses come out of the root and all three have been maintained in the classical sources.

This verse is made the subject of a "scientific miracle" claim in modern religious writing: an equation is set up between the sense "set ablaze" of the word masjūr and the volcanic fissures on the ocean floor (hydrothermal vents, mid-ocean ridges); or a link is made by way of water's being composed of hydrogen and oxygen, both of which burn or feed burning.

I do not build this claim, and I set out the grounds without repeating what was written in the discussions of al-Ṭāriq, al-ʿAlaq and al-Dhāriyāt 51/47:

One. The meaning of the word is already disputed. Three separate senses come out of the root and all three were maintained in the classical period. To lock a word whose meaning is unsettled onto a single modern phenomenon is not to resolve the disagreement but to ignore it.

Two. The operation is back to front: the modern knowledge is taken first, then room is made for it in the word.

Three. The verse's own work is another. This is an oath, and the answer to the oath is in the next verse: "The punishment of your Lord will surely come to pass." The sea stands here not as a source of information but as the object of an oath — something solid, vast, in nobody's hands.

Four. The rule of the method (Method): there is no hunting for scientific miracles. All three senses of the word are given and not diminished; but one of them is not selected and equated with a modern phenomenon.

Let us read the five objects together: mountain — book — house — roof — sea.

One thing in common appears at once: all are large and fixed. A mountain does not move from its place, a book does not change once it is written, a house stands, a roof stands, a sea stands.

And there is a direction in the ordering of the series:

The last two verses of the series set up an axis: what is above and what is below. Roof and sea are the two ends of the world.

I record this as an observation about word order; it is no claim of a deliberate arrangement.

And the link between the oath and its answer. The question asked in the sections on al-ʿĀdiyāt, al-Mursalāt and al-Dhāriyāt must be asked here too: why is the oath sworn by these five objects?

The answer is in the seventh and eighth verses: "The punishment of your Lord will surely come to pass; there is none to turn it back."

And the link may be this — and I record it as my own reading: what the five things sworn by have in common is that they are things nobody can change. Nobody can lift a mountain, nobody can make a written book unwritten, nobody can empty a sea.

And the answer too states an unchangeability: mā lahu min dāfiʿ — there is none to turn it back.

That is, the five oaths carry the shape of the answer: fixity.

In al-Mursalāt the link was "the logic of having been sent"; in al-Dhāriyāt "the logic of being carried and distributed"; in al-Ṭūr "the logic of having been built." What is built stands.

Inna ʿadhāba rabbika la-wāqiʿ · Mā lahu min dāfiʿ "The punishment of your Lord will surely come to pass. There is nothing that can turn it back."

Root: و-ق-ع. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Mursalāt 77/7; I do not repeat it here. Its summary: in Arabic the concrete sense of the verb "to come to pass" is to fall; a thing's happening is its falling upon you.

And the word occurs three times in three sūras, with three different subjects:

The three sentences are in the same pattern: inna + subject + the reinforcing lām + wāqiʿ.

And the subjects narrow steadily:

• al-Mursalāt: what is promised — its content is not stated, the widest.
• al-Dhāriyāt: the reckoning — the name of an event.
• al-Ṭūr: the punishment of your Lord — one face of the reckoning, and the most concrete.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the three texts. The identity of pattern among the three sentences is plain in the text.

And the construct "of your Lord" is striking. The verse does not say ʿadhāba'llāh (the punishment of God); it says رَبِّكَ — "your Lord". That is, the Prophet is being addressed and the punishment is ascribed to his Lord.

As was recorded in the sections on al-Fātiḥa and al-ʿĀdiyāt: Rabb is the name that carries ownership and nurture together. The ascription of punishment to this name says that punishment is not an arbitrary display of power but part of an order.

I record this as an observation about a name.

Root: د-ف-ع. Its concrete sense: to push, to push back, to drive away.

And this root is used in the Qurʾān in the sense of defence as well: "Had God not driven back some people by means of others…" (al-Baqara 2/251; al-Ḥajj 22/40) — wa lawlā dafʿu'llāhi.

The structure of the sentence sets up a restriction: mā lahu min dāfiʿ — and the min is redundant, present in a negative sentence for the sake of generalisation. In English it is met with "not any".

That is, the sentence leaves no exception.

And the presence of the second verse is interesting. The seventh verse had already said la-wāqiʿ — certainty had been stated. The eighth does not repeat this; it says something else.

Two verses close two separate objections. And this is the same technique seen at al-Dhāriyāt 51/5-6: there too a single judgement had been split in two, and the truth of the word and the occurrence of the event had each been guaranteed separately.

Two neighbouring sūras split their answers in the same way. I record this as a comparison.

And the second objection has a concrete counterpart. The ways people know for having a penalty prevented are well known: finding an intermediary, paying a ransom, escaping, taking shelter with someone powerful. The sūra will close all of these one by one in the verses that follow — particularly in the series of questions running from the thirty-fifth to the forty-third.

Yawma tamūru's-samāʾu mawrā · Wa tasīru'l-jibālu sayrā "The day the sky heaves with a heaving, and the mountains walk with a walking."

The two verses are exactly the same in structure:

The absolute object is the repetition of the verb's verbal noun for the sake of emphasis; it was treated in the section on al-Mursalāt. In English it is met with something like "it will heave and heave".

And the use of the same structure in both verses sets up a pairing: what happens in the sky and what happens on earth are named with the same pattern.

Note: both are active. The sky heaves, the mountains walk — nothing is being done to them, they themselves are moving.

And this sets up a contrast with the oath. The five oaths had been sworn by objects that stand and to which something has been done (passive participle). In the ninth and tenth verses the objects move and are in the active pattern.

That is, the sūra swears by things that stand and then says that they will move.

And this increases the force of the oath: the fixity of the things sworn by is beyond dispute; and on that day that fixity will end.

I record this as my own reading. But the difference of pattern between the two sections was given in a table above and is plain in the text.

Root: م-و-ر. And the lexicographers record several things about the meaning of the word:

• مَارَ — it went to and fro, it heaved, it surged.
• مَوْر — a thing's swift and irregular going back and forth; a swell.
• And one use of the root: the turning motion of dust or of water.

And the word occurs in one more place in the Qurʾān: "That day the sky heaves with a heaving" — this place; and the same root "We shall leave them that day surging against one another" (al-Kahf 18/99) — wa taraknā baʿḍahum yawmaʾidhin yamūju fī baʿḍ; no, the root there is م-و-ج (wave), it is not this root. The two roots must not be confused: م-و-ر (to heave) and م-و-ج (to surge) are separate roots.

I enter this record because the nearness of meaning between the two words is misleading.

And what does the sky's "heaving" mean? Several explanations are transmitted in the classical sources: its being moved from its place, its texture being spoiled, its order being scattered. I do not impose a preference.

But this can be recorded: the verbs the Qurʾān uses for the sky at the resurrection show a pattern, and they were gathered in several places in this commentary — inshaqqat (it split, al-Inshiqāq 84/1), furijat (it was parted, al-Mursalāt 77/9), kushiṭat (it was stripped off, al-Takwīr 81/11), infaṭarat (it was cleft, al-Infiṭār 82/1). In the section on al-Mursalāt the three verbs of splitting (farj, faṭr, shaqq) were compared.

ٱلْمَوْر adds something separate to this list: not splitting but heaving. That is, the sky is not being broken into pieces; its consistency is going.

And this sets up a contrast with the fifth verse of the sūra: there the sky was al-saqfu'l-marfūʿ — the raised roof. What makes a roof a roof is its being flat and fixed. A heaving roof ceases to be a roof.

I record this as a link within the sūra.

Root: س-ي-ر. To walk, to travel. Sayr, sayyāra (a travelling caravan / a planet), sīra (a person's walk, his life story) are from the same root.

And this verse has been cited twice in this commentary.

In the section on al-Qāriʿa the descriptions the Qurʾān uses of the mountains at the resurrection were given in a table and this verse was placed in the list. In the section on al-Ḥāqqa it was also recorded: "In the Qurʾān's scenes of the resurrection the mountains are generally transformed in place: they are made to walk (al-Ṭūr 52/10), they are scattered (Ṭāhā 20/105), they become like carded wool (al-Qāriʿa 101/5), they become dust (al-Wāqiʿa 56/6)."

And in the section on al-Nabaʾ a feature of this verse was recorded separately: "al-Ṭūr 52/10 was cited there… There the verb is active; here it is passive."

That is, at al-Nabaʾ 78/20 the mountains are suyyirat (they were made to walk — passive), at al-Ṭūr 52/10 tasīru (they walk — active).

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added here: the choice of the active pattern in this sūra agrees with the ninth verse. Both verses are active; both show the objects' own movement.

And the active pattern has a consequence: the walking of the mountains is presented not as a force applied from outside but as a change in the mountains' nature. A mountain that walks is no longer a mountain — because the definition of a mountain is that it does not move from its place.

I record this as my own reading.

And a ring with the first verse: the sūra opened by swearing by a mountain (wa'ṭ-Ṭūr). In the tenth verse the mountains walk.

The genus of the thing sworn by scatters ten verses later. I record this as a link within the sūra.

Fa-waylun yawmaʾidhin li'l-mukadhdhibīn · Alladhīna hum fī khawḍin yalʿabūn "So woe that day to those who call it a lie! Those who go on playing in a plunge."

The eleventh verse is almost word for word the refrain of al-Mursalāt.

This sentence was treated in detail in the section on al-Mursalāt: the word wayl, the fronting of yawmaʾidhin, the pattern mukadhdhibīn and the function of the repetition were given in a table. And its identity with al-Muṭaffifīn 83/10 was recorded there too.

I do not repeat it here. Two things are to be added here.

One — the work of the fāʾ. In al-Mursalāt the sentence had no connective; here there is a fāʾ at its head and this ties the sentence to the preceding one.

That is, the sentence is not an independent refrain; it is the consequence of the ninth and tenth verses (the sky heaves, the mountains walk). In English it is met with "and so, on that day".

Two — there is no repetition. In al-Mursalāt this sentence occurred ten times and divided the sūra. In al-Ṭūr it occurs once.

And this shows that the two sūras are built differently: al-Mursalāt was a text divided by a refrain; al-Ṭūr's division is made with something else — from the thirty-fifth verse onward, with the interrogative particle.

I record this as an observation about the structure.

Root: خ-و-ض. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/45; I do not repeat it here. The summary of the finding there: the concrete sense of khawḍ is to walk into water stirring up its mud, and the conclusion recorded in al-Muddaththir was "an empty occupation carried on together". And this verse was already cited in the section on al-Muddaththir.

And at al-Dhāriyāt 51/11 a word from the same field was treated: ghamra (water's covering over). There the two words were compared in a table: khawḍ is to go into (active, the person does it himself), ghamra is to stay inside (a state, the person is covered over).

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added here is the second verb.

يَلْعَبُونَ — root ل-ع-ب: to play, to amuse oneself. Luʿb — play. The Qurʾān qualifies the life of this world with this word: "The life of this world is only play and diversion" (al-Anʿām 6/32; al-ʿAnkabūt 29/64).

And the two words together set up a description:

That is, the sentence says this: there is a medium (muddy water) and in that medium a work is being done (play).

And the definition of play is decisive here. Play is seriousness without an outcome: the player spends real effort, but the effort he spends has no return outside the game.

The finding recorded for the word lahw in the section on al-Takāthur looks at this: "the matter is not the doing of an evil but the fastening of attention somewhere else."

And the word sāhūn (heedless) at al-Dhāriyāt 51/11 was in the same field.

Three words from three sūras together:

And the third is the hardest, because the person is occupied. A man standing idle can be told "you are standing idle"; a man playing cannot be — the man playing is working.

I record this as my own reading; the root meanings of the three words were given one by one in the relevant sections.

ٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ — a qualifying clause. This pattern was treated in the discussions of al-Māʿūn 107/5 and al-Maʿārij 70/22-34: the pronoun hum is not grammatically required; its addition is for specification and emphasis.

The state these two words describe is particularly visible today.

And the reason it is visible is that the description does not say "standing idle". Khawḍ is a movement, laʿb an occupation. Both consume time and attention; both tire.

What modern life produces most abundantly is exactly this: occupations that engage but do not accumulate. A person can read, watch, argue, write comments all day long — and at the end of the day may have nothing in hand. He has not been idle; but nothing has happened either.

And the real difficulty the verse records is this: a man standing idle knows he is standing idle. A man in a game does not, because the game looks serious — it has rules, it has a winner, it has excitement.

The diagnosis recorded for lahw in the section on al-Takāthur (attention changing place) and the one recorded for sāhūn at al-Dhāriyāt 51/11 (attention not being there) complete a series together with this third state: attention goes elsewhere, it is not there, and it fills with another work.

I record this as an application of the verse; the verse does not describe an age, it describes a state.

Yawma yudaʿʿūna ilā nāri jahannama daʿʿā · Hādhihi'n-nāru'llatī kuntum bihā tukadhdhibūn "The day they are shoved into the fire of Hell with a shoving. 'This is the fire you used to call a lie.'"

Root: د-ع-ع. This word was treated in the discussion of al-Māʿūn 107/2 and this verse was shown there as the indication that closed the matter. And it was cited in the discussions of al-ʿAlaq 96/18 and al-Muṭaffifīn too.

I do not repeat it here. What was recorded in al-Māʿūn: "Whatever verb the Qurʾān uses to describe people's being cast into Hell, it describes the treatment of the orphan with that same verb."

And the meaning of the root was given there: daʿʿ, a hard and humiliating shove — a driving back by brute force.

Two things are to be added here.

One — the absolute object. Yudaʿʿūna … daʿʿā — the verb reinforced with its own verbal noun. The same structure as in the ninth and tenth verses (mawrā, sayrā).

That is, the sūra uses this pattern three times and all three are in the scene of the resurrection: the sky heaves with a heaving, the mountains walk with a walking, they are shoved with a shoving.

The shared pattern of the three verses gives the three events at the same intensity.

Two — the passive pattern. Yudaʿʿūna — they are shoved. Who shoves them is not said.

And its counterpart in al-Māʿūn was active: yaduʿʿu'l-yatīm — he shoves the orphan, and the shover is identified.

The shover becomes the shoved. This finding was recorded in the section on al-ʿAlaq; I do not repeat it here.

And note the form of the scene: there is an act of pointing.

Hādhihi — "this here". The demonstrative pronoun refers to something standing in the middle, something seen.

And this is the same technique seen at al-Dhāriyāt 51/14: there too it had been said hādhā'lladhī kuntum bihī tastaʿjilūn — "this is what you kept asking to be hurried."

Two neighbouring sūras build the same scene with the same pronoun:

The two verbs state two different attitudes: one was saying "let it come then", the other was saying "there is no such thing". And the same thing is shown to both.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

كُنتُم بِهَا تُكَذِّبُونَ — the mood. Kuntum + imperfect: in Arabic this states continuance in the past. That is, not "you called it a lie once" but "you kept calling it a lie".

And تُكَذِّبُونَ is in Form II. This difference was treated in the discussion of al-Shams 91/11: kadhaba (Form I) is a person's own lying; kadhdhaba (Form II) is declaring what someone else has said to be a lie.

That is, the charge is not lying; it is counting what is said a lie.

A-fa-siḥrun hādhā am antum lā tubṣirūn "Is this magic, or is it you who do not see?"

The harshest sentence in the sūra. And it carries one of the strongest cross-links in this commentary.

In the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/24-25 the verdict a man gave at the end of a long process of deliberation was treated:

فَقَالَ إِنْ هَـٰذَآ إِلَّا سِحْرٌ يُؤْثَرُ — "He said: 'This is nothing but magic handed down.'"

And what was recorded there: that the restrictive pattern in … illā is one of the strongest patterns of limitation in Arabic; the analysis of the root siḥr; the two variant readings of the word yuʾthar; and an observation — "the most categorical sentences most often come after the longest hesitations."

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added here is the return of the word.

In this world a verdict was given: "this is magic."

In the hereafter a question is asked with the same word: "is this magic?"

And the force of the comparison is here: the word is handed back.

The man had used a word in this world and with that word had made the text void. Now the same word is put to him — but the object has changed. He had called revelation "magic"; now he is asked of the fire, "is this magic?"

And the logic of the question is this: magic is the deceiving of the eye — a thing that is not real appearing real. Then: is this fire you now see also a deception?

The question sets up a dead end. If he says "yes, magic", he has repeated what he said in this world but he is now inside the fire. If he says "no", he has admitted how easily his verdict in this world was framed.

I record this as my own reading. The wordings of the two verses were given above; that the word occurs in the two places is plain in the text.

And the second half of the sentence offers an alternative: "or is it you who do not see?"

This is the structure called muʿādala (balancing) in Arabic: أ … أَمْ — "is it this, or is it that?" Two options are offered and the one addressed is asked to choose.

And the two options are the counterparts of two accusations made in this world:

The second option is the first turned inside out. Counting a thing magic claims that the problem lies in the object. The question recalls that the problem may lie in the one who sees.

And this joins with the diagnosis this sūra and its neighbour set up. The same verb had occurred at al-Dhāriyāt 51/21: a-fa-lā tubṣirūn — "do you not see?" And there the proof had been shown "in yourselves".

The same verb, in two sūras, at two times. In this world it is asked "do you not see?"; on that day the same question is asked with its answer already settled.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

And the echo of the word siḥr within the sūra: in the twenty-ninth verse the accusations levelled at the Prophet will be counted (kāhin, majnūn), and in the thirtieth a third will be added (shāʿir). The word siḥr stands here at the very head of that chain of accusations — and the word sāḥir had occurred at al-Dhāriyāt 51/52.

Iṣlawhā fa'ṣbirū aw lā taṣbirū sawāʾun ʿalaykum; innamā tujzawna mā kuntum taʿmalūn "Enter it! Whether you are patient or not, it is one for you. You are only being repaid for what you used to do."

This verse was cited in the section on al-Nabaʾ and shown there as an example when it was recorded that the imperative mood can be used for rebuke, mockery or the carrying out of a sentence.

And the same use was treated in the discussions of al-Dhāriyāt 51/14 (dhūqū) and 51/43 (tamattaʿū).

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added here is the second half of the sentence.

And this is one of the most unusual sentences in the Qurʾān.

Both the positive and the negative of the same verb are commanded: "be patient or do not be patient."

In grammar this is not a command but a statement that there is no option. And the rest of the sentence says so plainly: sawāʾun ʿalaykum — "it is one for you."

The Qurʾān uses this pattern in other places too:

"It is one for them whether you warn them or do not warn them; they do not believe." (al-Baqara 2/6; Yāsīn 36/10) — sawāʾun ʿalayhim.

And al-Baqara 2/6 has been treated in this commentary. The finding recorded there: "the matter is not ignorance but the covering of what is known."

But there is a difference between the two usages and the difference matters:

And the second column is the heavier, because what is equated is the person's own inner attitude.

Patience serves a purpose in this world: it makes pain bearable, and though it does not shorten the term it makes it endurable. The verse says that this mechanism does not work there.

And the root of the word for patience explains this. Root: ص-ب-ر — its concrete sense is to hold a thing in a place, to confine, to bind. Ṣabr is holding oneself in.

And for holding oneself in to serve any purpose, the one held must be able to get free. For a person already held, holding himself in has no return.

I record this as my own reading; the meaning of the root is what the lexicographers record in common.

Root: س-و-ي. Its concrete sense: flatness, equivalence, two things being on the same level.

• سَوَاء — equal, matching; and the middle of a thing (sawāʾu'l-jaḥīm — the midst of the Blaze, al-Ṣāffāt 37/55).
• سَوَّىٰ — he set straight, he made even. This verb was treated in the discussions of al-Shams 91/7 and 91/14, and the contrast "the one who balances, then levels flat" was recorded there.
• ٱسْتَوَىٰ — he straightened up, he found his balance.

And the root's sense of "levelling" says something here.

If there is a difference between two options, the choice is meaningful. If the difference disappears, the choice disappears too — the options have been levelled flat.

And this is exactly what the verse says: the difference of height between being patient and not being patient has been erased.

And this is the reverse of the situation in this world. In this world there is a choice; and because the choice has a consequence the choice is meaningful. The sixteenth verse of the sūra speaks of a place where the consequence of choice has been removed.

I record this as an observation about a word.

And what the places where the Qurʾān uses this pattern have in common is worth recording: the expression sawāʾun ʿalayhim is used at al-Baqara 2/6 and Yāsīn 36/10 in this world, and what is equated there is the effect of the warning. At al-Ṭūr 52/16 it is used of that day, and what is equated is the effect of patience.

That is, the same pattern states at two times that two different things are without effect: the warning in this world, patience on that day.

And a relation can be set up between the two, and I record it as my own reading: the first equating prepares the second. Where the warning is left without effect, a situation arises in which patience too will in the end be without effect. The verse does not set up this link; it is a reading I draw from the two verses sharing the same pattern, and it is not binding.

And there is a contrast within the sūra: in the forty-eighth verse the Prophet will be told وَٱصْبِرْ — "be patient".

The same root, at the two ends of the sūra, with two opposite verdicts. In one patience serves no purpose, in the other it is commanded.

And what makes the difference is what the patience is towards. Patience towards the fire produces no outcome; patience towards the judgement is exercised under a watching over.

I record this as a link within the sūra.

جَزَاء — root ج-ز-ي: to give a return, to be equivalent. The word is used both for reward and for punishment; it is neutral. In Turkish the borrowed word ceza comes from this root, but its sense has narrowed to "punishment".

And innamā here is a particle of restriction: "only, no more than". That is, no more than that is being given.

This record says that the punishment is measured, and it is a regular emphasis of the Qurʾān: the return is the equivalent of what was done.

And mā kuntum taʿmalūn — "what you used to do". The verb ʿamal has been chosen, not kasb (to earn). The difference between the two words was recorded in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/38 and will meet us again below at 52/21.

Inna'l-muttaqīna fī jannātin wa naʿīm · Fākihīna bimā ātāhum rabbuhum wa waqāhum rabbuhum ʿadhāba'l-jaḥīm "The god-fearing are in gardens and bliss — delighting in what their Lord has given them. And their Lord has guarded them from the punishment of the Blaze."

The tableaux of the god-fearing in the two neighbouring sūras open with almost the same sentence:

The same pattern, two different words. And both use the expression mā ātāhum rabbuhum — word for word the same.

The difference is in the second word and it sets up a sequence: al-Dhāriyāt tells the taking, al-Ṭūr the result of the taking. One is an act, the other a state.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

Root: ف-ك-ه. And the root has two branches:

• فَاكِهَة — fruit. It occurs often in the Qurʾān's descriptions of the Garden; it is in the twenty-second verse of this sūra as well.
• فَكِهَ / تَفَكَّهَ — to be pleased, to take delight; and to converse and jest. فُكَاهَة — pleasant talk, jesting.

The lexicographers tie the two branches together: fruit is what lies beyond basic food — one lives without eating it. Conversation and jest are the same. I attribute this link to the lexicographers; I do not present it as a settled etymology.

And the choice of the word here is meaningful: the verse does not say fariḥīna (rejoicing) or masrūrīn (happy). It says فَاكِهِين — and the word states a contentment beyond need.

And the word occurs in a negative context in the Qurʾān too: "When they returned to their families they returned delighting" (al-Muṭaffifīn 83/31) — inqalabū fakihīn. This verse was treated in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn.

Setting the two usages side by side is instructive:

The same state, from two different sources. And the structure of "reversal" recorded in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn finds a further example here.

I record this as an observation about a word.

Root: و-ق-ي. And this is the same root as the word muttaqī.

The word order of the verse makes this visible:

inna'l-muttaqīna… — those who guard themselves wa waqāhum rabbuhum — their Lord guarded them

That is, the verse uses the same root twice with two different agents: first the people guard themselves (muttaqī — reflexive), then their Lord guards them (waqā — transitive).

And the order is meaningful: the person guards himself, then he is guarded. His own guarding is presented as the ground of his being guarded.

In the discussion of al-Baqara 2/2-3 it was recorded that this root means "to guard oneself by putting something in between". And the picture here does not show what is put in between; it shows only the two sides of the operation.

I record this as an observation about word order.

And rabbuhum is repeated twice: bimā ātāhum rabbuhum wa waqāhum rabbuhum. A pronoun would have sufficed. The repetition stresses that both acts come from the same source: the giver and the guarder are the same.

ٱلْجَحِيم — root ج-ح-م: fire's burning fiercely, glowing red. Jaḥīm is one of the names of Hell and its root states the intensity of the fire.

Kulū wa'shrabū hanīʾan bimā kuntum taʿmalūn · Muttakiʾīna ʿalā sururin maṣfūfa; wa zawwajnāhum bi-ḥūrin ʿīn "Eat and drink with relish, for what you used to do. Reclining on couches ranged in rows. And We paired them with wide-eyed companions."

When the two commands are set side by side the picture is plain:

16: iṣlawhā fa'ṣbirū aw lā taṣbirū — "enter it; whether you are patient or not, it is one." 19: kulū wa'shrabū hanīʾan — "eat and drink with relish."

Both are in the imperative, and neither is a real command. One is the carrying out of a sentence, the other a hospitality.

And the ground of both is given with the same words:

• 16: innamā tujzawna mā kuntum taʿmalūn
• 19: hanīʾan bimā kuntum taʿmalūn

Word for word the same expression. The same sentence becomes the ground of two opposite tableaux.

This is one of the Qurʾān's most economical moves: the measure of the two outcomes is one and the same. The difference is not in the outcome but in what enters the measure.

I record this as an observation about word order.

And this verse was cited in the section on al-Mursalāt: it was recorded there that al-Mursalāt 77/43 (kulū wa'shrabū hanīʾan bimā kuntum taʿmalūn) is word for word the same expression.

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added: the same sentence occurs in two neighbouring sūras and does the same work in both.

هَنِيٓـًٔا — root ه-ن-أ: wholesomeness, being without trouble or harm. Hanīʾ is what causes no discomfort when eaten, what has no aftermath. The English wholesome carries this sense: not what tastes good but what does no harm.

And the record the word makes is important: what is stressed is not the flavour of the food but the ease of what follows. Every eating and drinking in this world has an afterwards — satiety, heaviness, sickness, exhaustion. Hanīʾ removes these.

I record this as an observation about a word.

مُتَّكِئ — root و-ك-أ: to recline, to lean. Ittikāʾ is to sit leaning on something.

And this posture has a cultural sense. To eat reclining is, in that period, the posture of one who is not in a hurry, who is served, who is secure. To eat standing or sitting upright is the eating of a man with work to do.

سُرُر — the plural of sarīr: a couch, a throne, a raised place on which one sits. Root س-ر-ر, and the lexicographers relate it to surūr (joy) — the place one sits in gladness.

مَّصْفُوفَة — root ص-ف-ف: row, line. Ṣaff — a row. Maṣfūfa — ranged in rows.

And the adjective is a passive participle. The same pattern as in the sūra's oaths: something has been done to a thing.

And note what "being ranged" says. The couches are not scattered; they are in an order. That is, those seated can see one another, they face one another.

This prepares the twenty-fifth verse: wa aqbala baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍin yatasāʾalūn — "they turn to one another and ask."

That is, the arrangement of the couches is the ground of the conversation that will be set up later.

I record this as an observation about word order.

Root: ز-و-ج. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/49; I do not repeat it here. Its summary: zawj states one member of a pair.

The verb is in Form II: zawwaja — he paired, he brought one together with another.

حُور — root ح-و-ر. And the concrete sense of the root: whiteness; and the distinctness of the black of the eye against the white of it.

From the same root:

• حَوَارِيّ — an intimate friend, a helper. The Qurʾān uses this word for the helpers of Jesus (ʿĪsā) (Āl ʿImrān 3/52; al-Ṣaff 61/14). The lexicographers make the link by way of "purity, clearness".
• مُحَاوَرَة — talking with one another. The Qurʾān uses this (al-Kahf 18/34, 37; al-Mujādila 58/1).
• تَحْوِير — to whiten.

عِين — the plural of ʿaynāʾ; root ع-ي-ن (eye). ʿAynāʾ means wide-eyed.

That is, the construct is a description of the eye: the white and the black of it distinct, and large.

And this must be recorded: in Arabic poetry the large and distinct eye is the standard description of beauty; and the description is most often built with the likeness of a gazelle's eye. That is, the expression uses the settled language of beauty of that period.

A record about the language of the descriptions of the Garden. As has been recorded earlier in this commentary: in describing the Garden the Qurʾān uses things the one addressed knows and feels the lack of. A text can tell of something unknown only by way of something known.

And the general language of the descriptions of the Garden was treated in the section on al-Insān 76; I do not repeat it here.

I do not enter into a detailed discussion of this expression, because the matter is one that goes beyond the whole of the Qurʾān and the limits of this commentary; and because I cannot give most of the details transmitted in the classical sources with their chains, I do not convey them.

One observation about word order can be recorded: the verb comes with the plural of majesty (zawwajnāhum — We paired). That is, everything told in the tableau is something given; and this agrees with the record mā ātāhum rabbuhum in the eighteenth verse.

Wa'lladhīna āmanū wa'ttabaʿathum dhurriyyatuhum bi-īmānin alḥaqnā bihim dhurriyyatahum wa mā alatnāhum min ʿamalihim min shayʾ; kullu'mriʾin bimā kasaba rahīn "Those who believed and whose offspring followed them in faith — We joined their offspring to them; and We diminished nothing of their deeds. Every man is held in pledge for what he has earned."

The densest verse in the sūra and the one that must be read most carefully. Because in a single sentence it says two things at once, and at first sight the two look as though they cancel one another.

First half: The offspring are joined to those who went before. Second half: Every man is held in pledge for what he himself has earned.

The first half states a joining, the second a separating. How the relation between them is set up is the whole matter of the verse, and I shall take it up below.

Root: ل-ح-ق. Its concrete sense: to catch up, to come up from behind and reach, to be reunited.

• لَحِقَ — he caught up, he reached.
• أَلْحَقَ (Form IV) — he brought together, he joined, he attached.
• لَاحِق — one who comes later. In Turkish the borrowed word lahika ("an appendix") is from this root.

And the root's sense of "catching up from behind" gives the picture of the verse: those in front are in a place, and those behind are brought up to them.

And the verb is in Form IV and with the plural of majesty: alḥaqnā — "We joined". That is, the joining does not happen of itself; it is done.

This verse was cited in the section on al-Inshiqāq: it was shown there when the bringing together of families in the Garden was spoken of.

Root: أ-ل-ت. Its concrete sense: to diminish, to reduce, to cut short someone's due.

And the word occurs in one more place in the Qurʾān, in the same sense: "He will diminish nothing of your deeds" (al-Ḥujurāt 49/14) — lā yalitkum min aʿmālikum shayʾā.

The pattern mā … min shayʾin — the absolute negation seen several times above. The min is redundant and gives the sense "not any".

And whom the sentence looks at is disputed:

The first view is the more widespread and agrees with the sequence of pronouns: the subject of the sentence (alladhīna āmanū) is the generation of the fathers and the pronouns refer to it.

And on the first view the logic of the sentence is this: a privilege appears to have been given to a family. And the verse at once enters a record: this privilege was not given by taking anything from anyone.

That is, the joining is not a transfer. Nothing is subtracted from anyone's account.

I record this as an observation about word order; both views have been maintained in the classical sources and I do not impose a preference.

And the two most critical words in the verse.

The verse does not say: "their offspring followed them." It says: wa'ttabaʿathum dhurriyyatuhum bi-īmān — "their offspring followed them in faith."

That is, a record is entered. The joining is tied not to the tie of descent but to faith. The one who follows carries something as he follows.

And without this record the verse would say something else entirely: descent would be a privilege of itself.

And it is exactly here that al-Baqara 2/134 comes in.

In the section on al-Baqara 2/134 and 2/141 were treated and what was recorded there:

"The two passages do the same work: each comes immediately after the counting of a chain of descent and cuts the chain… What it says is plain: ancestors leave an inheritance, they do not leave a record. To come of Abraham's line does not write Abraham's deeds to a person's account. And the reverse holds too — 'you will not be asked about what they did', that is, the fault of one's forefathers is not loaded onto anyone's back either."

At first sight al-Ṭūr 52/21 looks as though it says the opposite: there the chain of descent is cut, here the offspring are joined.

But there is no contradiction, and the reason can be gathered under three heads.

One — the direction is different.

Al-Baqara 2/134 was answering a claim: "we are of the line of so-and-so, therefore we are saved." The answer: your account is yours.

Al-Ṭūr 52/21 is not answering a claim; it is stating a gift.

The difference between them is the difference between a demand and a bestowal. To ask for a thing as a right is one matter; to find it given is another.

Two — al-Ṭūr's own record already contains al-Baqara's ruling.

The record bi-īmān rejects exactly what al-Baqara rejects: the tie of descent alone is not enough; the faith of the one who follows is required too.

That is, the child who is joined is a person who would have been there in his own right in any case. The joining does not put him there; it settles him beside his father.

Three — and the verse's own last sentence seals this record.

Kullu'mriʾin bimā kasaba rahīn — "every man is held in pledge for what he has earned."

This sentence closes off the wrong conclusion that could be drawn from the first half of the verse.

And this is the same technique seen at al-Dhāriyāt 51/56-57: there too a ruling had been laid down and, immediately afterwards, the wrong conclusion that could be drawn from it had been closed off.

Two neighbouring sūras make the same move at the same place:

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

To sum up: the two texts agree and complete one another.

• al-Baqara 2/134: Descent gives nobody a record. Salvation is not transferable.
• al-Ṭūr 52/21: Those who are saved are kept together. But the one who is joined is joined by his own faith too, and everyone is bound to his own earning.

That is, al-Baqara speaks of right, al-Ṭūr of gift. And the gift does not take the place of the right.

Root: ر-ه-ن. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/38 and this verse was shown there for comparison. I do not repeat it here.

The summary of the findings there: rahn is the security left against a debt; the thing left in pledge does not return to its owner until the debt is paid; the verse puts man in this position; and the one who pledges and the thing pledged are the same person — the debtor has pledged himself against his debt.

And there the root kasb was treated as well, and the difference between "what it earned" (kasabat) and "what he did" (ʿamila) was recorded: the language of earning sets up a relation of debt and credit and joins with the word rahīna.

And a grammatical point was recorded in the section on al-Muddaththir too:

"There رَهِين (masculine), here رَهِينَة (with a tāʾ)."

And two explanations had been given in a table: agreement with the feminine (the subject nafs / imriʾ), and the difference between noun and adjective. No preference had been imposed.

What is to be added here is the difference of context between the two verses.

And the fourth row is decisive.

In al-Muddaththir the sentence was opening a section: the absolute ruling is laid down first (kullu nafsin), then the exception comes. And the finding recorded there: "the rule is to be held in pledge; release is the exception."

In al-Ṭūr the sentence closes a section: the gift is described first, then the rule is recalled. And there is no exception — because the exception was already described in the ten verses before the sentence.

That is, the two verses say the same rule from two different positions: one sets up the rule and adds its exception, the other describes the exception and recalls the rule.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two verses.

Root: م-ر-أ. Marʾ / imriʾ — a person, a man. Its feminine is marʾa (a woman).

And the choice of the word is striking. The verse could have said kullu nafsin (every soul) — al-Muddaththir says that. It says كُلُّ ٱمْرِئٍ.

Nafs states a living being; imriʾ states an individual. And because the context of the verse is family and descent, the "individual" side of the word does its work: immediately after a tableau of a family has been drawn, the single person is named as the unit.

I record this as an observation about a word.

This verse holds both sides of a tension at once, and the tension is the same today.

On one side: people do not live alone. There are families, traditions, communities; a person's belief and attitude most often come from those before him. The first half of the verse acknowledges this and says that the tie will be preserved in the hereafter as well.

On the other side: this tie is not a handing over. Nobody believes in another's place, nobody gives account in another's place.

And what the verse does is to hold the two side by side without deriving either from the other. It does not deny the tie; it does not count the tie sufficient.

I record this as an application of the verse.

Wa amdadnāhum bi-fākihatin wa laḥmin mimmā yashtahūn · Yatanāzaʿūna fīhā kaʾsan lā laghwun fīhā wa lā taʾthīm · Wa yaṭūfu ʿalayhim ghilmānun lahum ka-annahum luʾluʾun maknūn "And We supplied them abundantly with fruit and meat, of whatever they desire. There they pass a cup from hand to hand — in it there is no idle talk and no leading into sin. And boys of their own go round about them, like pearls kept hidden."

Root: م-د-د. To stretch, to draw out, to keep up. Madd — extension. Imdād (Form IV) — to supply continually, to give without the flow being cut.

This root was treated in the section on al-Inshiqāq and this verse was cited there. I do not repeat it here. Its summary: imdād is not a giving once; it is supplying without interruption.

And this side of the word joins with the record hanīʾan in the nineteenth verse: the food is both harmless and unending.

Root: ن-ز-ع. Its concrete sense: to pull out, to draw away.

This root was treated in the section on al-Nāziʿāt (al-nāziʿāt); I do not repeat it here.

تَنَازُع (Form VI) — to contend with one another, to pull a thing from one another. The Qurʾān uses this in a negative context: "Do not contend with one another, or your strength will go" (al-Anfāl 8/46) — wa lā tanāzaʿū.

And here the same word is used of the Garden.

The explanation of this in the classical sources is: the word here states not a quarrel but an exchange back and forth, almost a jesting; the cup passes from hand to hand.

And the rest of the verse supports this reading: lā laghwun fīhā wa lā taʾthīm — "in it there is no idle talk and no leading into sin."

That is, the word has been chosen with a deliberate tension and the tension is at once resolved. The two things that appear in this world when the cup goes round — empty talk and sin — are ruled out here.

I record this as an observation about word order.

لَغْو — root ل-غ-و: idle talk, meaningless speech. The Qurʾān regularly negates this in its descriptions of the Garden: "They hear no idle talk there" (Maryam 19/62; al-Wāqiʿa 56/25; al-Nabaʾ 78/35).

تَأْثِيم — root أ-ث-م: sin. Taʾthīm (Form II) — to lead another into sin. That is, the word states not a person's own sin but the dragging of another into sin.

And the two words together set up a pair:

That is, the two are the two degrees by which a gathering can be spoiled: harmless emptiness and harmful dragging. Both are removed.

غِلْمَان — the plural of ghulām. The word was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/28: a child, a youth.

لَّهُمْ — "belonging to them". A small construct, but the classical sources dwell on it: those who serve have been assigned to them.

كَأَنَّهُمْ لُؤْلُؤٌ مَّكْنُونٌ — "like pearls kept hidden".

لُؤْلُؤ — a pearl. مَكْنُون — root ك-ن-ن: to cover, to hide, to take under protection. Kināna — a quiver; maknūn — hidden, kept safe.

And how the likeness works: a hidden pearl is one no hand has touched, that has not been dusted, whose lustre has not been spoiled. A pearl is at its cleanest while it is inside the shell.

And the same likeness is used in another place in the Qurʾān: "like eggs kept guarded" (al-Ṣāffāt 37/49) — ka-annahunna bayḍun maknūn.

What the two likenesses have in common: a cleanness preserved by having stayed enclosed.

I record this as an observation about a word.

Wa aqbala baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍin yatasāʾalūn · Qālū innā kunnā qablu fī ahlinā mushfiqīn · Fa-manna'llāhu ʿalaynā wa waqānā ʿadhāba's-samūm · Innā kunnā min qablu nadʿūh; innahu huwa'l-Barru'r-Raḥīm "They turn to one another and ask. They say: 'Before this we used to go in fear among our people. Then God bestowed His favour upon us and guarded us from the punishment of the scorching wind. Before this we used to call upon Him. He is the Good, the Merciful.'"

Root: س-أ-ل. Form VI: asking one another.

This verb was treated in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/40-42 and it was recorded there: al-Nabaʾ opens with this verb (ʿamma yatasāʾalūn) and it was treated there as well. I do not repeat it here.

What was recorded in al-Muddaththir: the verse first says yatasāʾalūn — they ask one another; and the subject they ask about is ʿani'l-mujrimīn — about the guilty.

And the difference here lies exactly at this point.

And al-Ṭūr's difference is decisive: the conversation does not go outside.

In al-Muddaththir those in the Garden were directing the question at the guilty and the answer came from their mouths. Here a question is asked, but the answer is about their own past.

That is, three texts set up three separate conversations:

• al-Nabaʾ: In this world, about the future.
• al-Muddaththir: In the Garden, about others.
• al-Ṭūr: In the Garden, about themselves.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the three texts.

And the ground of the conversation was laid in the twentieth verse: sururin maṣfūfa — couches ranged in rows. To talk with one another one must sit facing one another.

أَقْبَلَ — this root was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/29: to turn to the front, to face towards.

And the choice of the verb states a movement: they were sitting, and now they have turned towards one another.

This is the moment a conversation begins. And the Qurʾān records it — that is, in the tableau of the Garden what comes after food and drink is talk.

I record this as an observation about word order.

Root: ش-ف-ق. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Maʿārij 70/27-28; I do not repeat it here. The summary of the finding there — and its link with al-Inshiqāq 84/16:

"The root ش-ف-ق: shafaq (neither day nor night) together with ishfāq (neither sheer fear nor security)."

That is, ishfāq is the middle state in which fear and hope are mixed; and the word takes its root from the colour of the twilight — the hour when day and night mingle into one another.

What is to be added here is where the record is placed.

In al-Maʿārij the word mushfiqūn had been tied to the punishment: min ʿadhābi rabbihim mushfiqūn — they go in fear of the punishment of their Lord.

In al-Ṭūr it has been tied to something else: fī ahlinā mushfiqīn — we used to go in fear "among our people".

And al-Ṭūr's record states a place.

Fī ahlinā — "among our people", that is, in our house, among those closest to us. The fear was lived not in a public place but in the nearest circle.

And this ties in with the twenty-first verse. There the joining of the offspring was told; here a state lived within that same line is told.

Setting the two verses side by side gives a picture:

21: The family is kept together. 26: Within the family a fear had been lived.

That is, the gift of the first verse can be related to the state of the second. I record this as my own reading; the verse sets up no cause and effect, and there are five verses between the two.

A second reading is transmitted in the classical sources as well: fī ahlinā can also be understood as "about our people" — that is, they went in fear not for themselves but for the outcome of those close to them. This reading is possible too and I do not impose a preference.

Root: م-ن-ن. And the root has two branches, and both are at work in the Qurʾān:

• مَنّ — to give without return, to bestow a favour. Minna is from the same root.
• مَنّ — to throw what one has given in the other's face. The Qurʾān forbids this: "Do not void your alms by reproach…" (al-Baqara 2/264).
• And a concrete use of the root: to cut, to diminish. Ajrun ghayru mamnūn — an unbroken reward (al-Qalam 68/3; Fuṣṣilat 41/8; al-Inshiqāq 84/25).

This root was treated in the discussion of al-Qalam 68/3; I do not repeat it here.

And here the verb is ascribed to God — that is, the branch of "giving without return" is at work. And the ones who say it are those in the Garden themselves.

And the order of the sentences is striking:

26: We used to go in fear. — their own doing 27: God bestowed His favour on us. — what is given 28: We used to call upon Him. — their own doing

That is, their own deeds and the favour given are interleaved and the favour is set in the middle. Those in the Garden count up what they themselves did, but they put the favour in between.

I record this as an observation about word order.

عَذَابَ ٱلسَّمُوم — root س-م-م: pore, hole; and poison. سَمُوم — the scorching hot wind that works its way into the pores.

And the word names a phenomenon known in the desert: the waterless, very hot wind that dries a person out. The Qurʾān uses this for the punishment of Hell (here and al-Wāqiʿa 56/42).

And note: the word is the name of a wind. At al-Dhāriyāt 51/41 the destruction of ʿĀd had been told with al-rīḥa'l-ʿaqīm (the barren wind). Two neighbouring sūras describe two punishments with two different words for wind.

I record this as an observation about a word.

ٱلْبَرّ — root ب-ر-ر. And this name was cited in the section on al-Infiṭār and this verse was shown there.

The concrete sense of the root: dry land, dry ground (barr, the opposite of the sea). And the lexicographers tie it to the moral sense by way of the idea of "breadth": birr — goodness, generosity, acting largely.

The Qurʾān defines the word birr: at al-Baqara 2/177 what birr is is set out at length — and that verse has been referred to in many places in this commentary.

And the name al-Barr occurs only here in the Qurʾān. That is, this is a name belonging to this sūra.

رَحِيم — root ر-ح-م: the womb. This root was analysed in the section on al-Fātiḥa; I do not repeat it here.

And the two names standing together agrees with the context of the sentence: those in the Garden are speaking of a favour (fa-manna'llāhu ʿalaynā), and they name the source of the favour with two names.

Fa-dhakkir fa-mā anta bi-niʿmati rabbika bi-kāhinin wa lā majnūn "So remind! By the favour of your Lord you are neither a soothsayer nor one possessed."

The turning point of the sūra. The single verse standing between the two great sections.

And this verse must be compared word by word with al-Qalam 68/2.

The construct in the middle is word for word the same. And in the section on al-Qalam the point of word order in this construct was treated; I do not repeat it here. What was recorded there: the sentence could have been framed as "mā anta bi-majnūn" and that would have sufficed; the entry of bi-niʿmati rabbika in between is an addition.

And the root of majnūn was analysed there too: ج-ن-ن — to cover; and "the majnūn is a person whose speech does not come from himself — he is the mouth of a jinn."

What is to be added here is the addition of the second accusation.

This accusation was treated in the discussion of al-Ḥāqqa 69/41-43; I do not repeat it here. The summary of the findings there:

"It was accepted that the soothsayer of the age of ignorance had a jinn or a satan as helper, that he brought what he had heard from the sky, and that the soothsayer conveyed this in a rhymed, cadenced, closed language… the one addressed had a ready category to hand in which he could place the Qurʾān. Someone who speaks in rhyme and gives news of the unseen — that is a soothsayer."

And it was recorded there that al-Ḥāqqa took up the accusations of poet and soothsayer, that is, that it rejected human sources.

And this verse was already cited in the section on al-Inshirāḥ: when the inventory of the epithets attributed to the Prophet was given, al-Ṭūr 52/29 and al-Dhāriyāt 51/52 were shown for sāḥir and kāhin.

What is to be added here is why the two accusations stand together.

And the answer stands in the finding recorded in the section on al-Qalam: "The majnūn is a person whose speech does not come from himself — he is the mouth of a jinn."

That is, the two accusations look to the same place: both tie the source of the speech to a jinn.

And the two accusations are two degrees of the same claim: one counts the person an expert, the other a victim. What they share is that the speech is not his.

And a comparison with the pair seen at al-Dhāriyāt 51/39 and 51/52 (sāḥir / majnūn) is instructive:

And al-Dhāriyāt's pair was contradictory — I showed this in the section on al-Dhāriyāt in the discussions of 51/8 and 51/39. Al-Ṭūr's pair is consistent.

That is, two sūras take two different pairs of accusations, and the two are rejected in different ways.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

Root: ذ-ك-ر. And the place of the command within the sūra is decisive.

The verse comes immediately after the tableau of the god-fearing and stands immediately before the series of questions. That is, what separates the two sections is a command.

And the same command was at al-Dhāriyāt 51/55: wa dhakkir fa-inna'dh-dhikrā tanfaʿu'l-muʾminīn.

The two sūras give the same command and support it with two different things. Al-Dhāriyāt states the benefit of the command; al-Ṭūr defends who it is that gives it.

And al-Ṭūr's order is meaningful: first the command (fa-dhakkir), then the defence. That is, the reminding is commanded not after the accusations have been cleared away but while the accusations continue.

I record this as an observation about word order.

And the link with al-Aʿlā 87/9: there it is fa-dhakkir in nafaʿati'dh-dhikrā — with a condition attached. This comparison was made in the section on al-Dhāriyāt; I do not repeat it here.

Am yaqūlūna shāʿirun natarabbaṣu bihī rayba'l-manūn · Qul tarabbaṣū fa-innī maʿakum mina'l-mutarabbiṣīn "Or do they say, 'a poet; we are waiting for the stroke of time to fall on him'? Say: 'Wait; I too am with you among those who wait.'"

And the sūra's series of questions begins here.

أَمْ is used in two ways in Arabic:

In the fifteenth verse there was the first type: a-fa-siḥrun hādhā am antum lā tubṣirūn — together with a hamza.

From the thirtieth verse onward the second type begins: each am stands on its own.

And the working of the munqaṭiʿa determines the tone of the verse. This particle does two things at once: it drops the preceding possibility (bal) and asks a new one (hamza). In English it is met with "or is it that…?"

That is, each am closes one door and opens the next.

And this is the whole logic of the series. I shall gather it in a table below.

This accusation was treated in the discussion of al-Ḥāqqa 69/41; I do not repeat it here. The summary of the finding there: شَاعِر — the exact sense of the word is one who feels, one who perceives (root ش-ع-ر: to feel, to become aware; shuʿūr is from the same root). The poet is the person who notices what the ordinary man does not.

And in al-Ḥāqqa a reading was attempted about why the poet accusation is answered with tuʾminūn (you believe) and the soothsayer accusation with tadhakkarūn (you reflect), and it was stated that it was not attributed to any classical exegete.

What is to be added here: in al-Ṭūr the poet accusation does not come alone; it comes together with an expectation.

And this construct is one of the most settled expressions of the poetry of the age of ignorance.

رَيْب — root ر-ي-ب: doubt, misgiving; and what causes unease. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/2 (lā rayba fīh); I do not repeat it here.

And rayb here means not "doubt" but "the uncertain calamity that time brings". The lexicographers record this use: raybu'd-dahr — the blows of time.

مَنُون — root م-ن-ن. And above, in the discussion of 52/27, the three branches of this root were given: favour, reproach, and cutting / diminishing.

And manūn comes from the third branch: the cutter, the diminisher. The word is used in two senses:

The two senses do not exclude one another and the lexicographers record both.

And now the root's two occurrences within the sūra side by side:

52/27: fa-manna'llāhu ʿalaynā — God bestowed His favour on us. 52/30: rayba'l-manūn — the stroke of the cutter.

The same root, three verses apart, in two opposite branches. In one it is given, in the other it is cut off.

I record this as my own reading. Both branches of the root are what the lexicographers record; that the two words occur in the same sūra is plain in the text; it is no claim of a deliberate arrangement.

And the ajrun ghayru mamnūn (unbroken reward) of al-Qalam 68/3 is from the same root and was treated in the section on al-Qalam. That is, the root stands in three places in three positions: a reward that is not cut, a favour that is not cut, a time that cuts.

And it is necessary to see what is being said.

The one addressed is not putting forward a thesis. He is announcing a strategy: "this is a poet; let us wait, time will deal with him."

That is, they refuse the argument. Instead of refuting the word, they wait for the death of the one who says it.

And there is an assumption behind this: a word ends when the one who says it dies. This assumption arises from counting the word a poet's word — because a poet's word is personal and goes with the person.

And the answer does not dispute the assumption; it accepts the strategy: qul tarabbaṣū fa-innī maʿakum mina'l-mutarabbiṣīn — "wait; I too am among those who wait."

This is a move the Qurʾān often uses and it was recorded in this commentary in the sections on al-Kāfirūn and al-Ḍuḥā: the reply is given without entering into the content of the claim.

And the fine point here must be seen: the answer does not say "no, your waiting is in vain." It says "I too am waiting."

That is, both sides are content to wait. The difference is in what they are waiting for — and that is not said.

تَرَبُّص — root ر-ب-ص: to wait, to watch, to expect a thing to happen. Form V states the continuance of the act.

And the word occurs three times in the verse, in three patterns: natarabbaṣu (a verb, of them), tarabbaṣū (an imperative), al-mutarabbiṣīn (an active participle, plural).

The same root three times in a row. This is a technique in Arabic and shows that the answer is given with the other side's own word.

I record this as an observation about word order.

The strategy in the thirtieth verse is an attitude with a concrete historical counterpart and it must be dwelt on separately.

The roads that could be taken in Mecca for making a word ineffective were limited, and the Qurʾān itself records all of them:

And the last is the least costly.

To refute a word takes effort; to wait for the owner of a word to die takes nothing. And one must see that in that period this was a reasonable calculation: in Mecca the continuance of a movement depended on the person who had begun it being alive. In the tribal order, when a person died the ties around him would scatter.

And the finding recorded in this commentary in the section on al-Inshirāḥ looks at this: the epithets attributed to the Prophet were "not random insults; they are the standard ways in that culture of making a person's word void."

Waiting too is one of those ways — and it is the only "polite" one: it accuses nobody, it claims nothing, it only asks for time.

And in the section on al-Kawthar the same expectation was treated with another word.

There the word abtar was taken up and this was recorded: the word means cut off in one's line, and the accusation carries the sense "nothing will come after this man".

Two accusations make the same calculation:

And the answers of the two sūras are built in a similar way: neither enters into the content of the objection. The finding recorded in the section on al-Kawthar — "changing the measure without disputing the accusation of deficiency" — finds a further example here.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

This strategy is not an item of history; it is an attitude still at work.

The cheapest road in the hand of a person who does not agree with a view is to assume that the view will die out of itself: "a passing enthusiasm", "it will be forgotten after a while", "the new generation will not care about it". This looks like an objection but is not one — it is a prediction.

And the word treated in this commentary at al-Dhāriyāt 51/10 sits exactly here: kharrāṣ — one who speaks by guesswork instead of knowledge.

Waiting to see what will become of a word cannot take the place of arguing about what the word is. And the answer of the verse says this too: the waiting is not rejected, but it is shown that waiting does not count as an answer — because the other side is content to wait as well.

I record this as an application.

Am taʾmuruhum aḥlāmuhum bi-hādhā; am hum qawmun ṭāghūn · Am yaqūlūna taqawwalah; bal lā yuʾminūn · Fal-yaʾtū bi-ḥadīthin mithlihī in kānū ṣādiqīn "Or do their minds command them to this? Or are they an overweening people? Or do they say, 'he made it up'? No — they do not believe. Then let them bring a discourse like it, if they are truthful."

Root: ح-ل-م. And three branches of the root stand together in Arabic:

And the link the lexicographers record: ḥilm is the name of the mind that holds itself in when angered. In this branch of the word, intellect is named as "the capacity to be patient".

Which sense in the verse? — two readings:

The first is the more widespread. And both are transmitted in the classical sources.

And the question carries a mockery: in Quraysh's own culture intelligence and gravity (ḥilm) were a praised quality; the elders of the tribe were named with this epithet. The question gives that epithet back: "so is it your minds that tell you this?"

And the second am gives the answer: am hum qawmun ṭāghūn — "or are they an overweening people?"

That is, two options are offered and the second is made to be chosen. And this is the same structure seen at al-Dhāriyāt 51/53:

al-Dhāriyāt 51/53: atawāṣaw bih; bal hum qawmun ṭāghūn al-Ṭūr 52/32: am taʾmuruhum aḥlāmuhum bi-hādhā; am hum qawmun ṭāghūn

Two neighbouring sūras use the same sentence: qawmun ṭāghūn — an overweening people. Word for word the same expression.

And both do the same work: a question is asked, the possibilities are put through an elimination, and the cause is given as a state.

The difference is in the particle:

Al-Ṭūr gives even the answer in the form of a question. This is the general technique of the series and I shall take it up below.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

The root طَاغُون was treated in the discussion of al-Shams 91/11; I do not repeat it here. Its summary: ط-غ-ي, the swelling and overflowing of water — to pass the limit.

Root: ق-و-ل. And the work Form تَفَعُّل does here is decisive.

Qāla — he said. تَقَوَّلَ — to make as though one had said what one did not say, to fabricate, to produce speech out of oneself.

And this root was treated in the discussion of al-Ḥāqqa 69/44. What was recorded there: al-Ḥāqqa built the dispute over the source of the speech around the root ق-و-ل — qawlu rasūl (40), qawli shāʿir (41), qawli kāhin (42), taqawwala and al-aqāwīl (44). And it was stated there that the possibility of fabrication was explicitly turned into a scenario.

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added: al-Ṭūr uses the same root and closes the same possibility — but by another road.

Al-Ḥāqqa stated a consequence (had he made it up, this would have followed). Al-Ṭūr makes a challenge.

And the second half of the thirty-third verse is the key to the whole series of questions.

The sūra asked three times: is it their minds? overweeningness? do they say he made it up?

And now, in the middle of the series, an answer is given with bal: bal lā yuʾminūn — "no, they do not believe."

بَلْ is the particle of iḍrāb — it was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/53: it drops the preceding judgement and puts another in its place.

And the form of the answer given is striking. The answer is not a ground; it is a finding. It does not say "they say this for such-and-such a reason"; it says "they do not believe."

That is, the text says this: the grounds they produce (poet, fabrication) are not the cause but the consequence. First there is the not believing, then the ground comes.

And this is exactly the same as the finding recorded in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/18-25:

"the eight steps of denial; the verdict is the eighth: the frowning of the face, the turning of the back and the arrogance come before the verdict. The decision was made first, the ground produced afterwards."

Two texts make the same diagnosis. Al-Muddaththir showed it through one man, in a sequence of eight steps. Al-Ṭūr says the same thing in a single sentence.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two texts.

And this verse was cited in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/23. What was recorded there: the Qurʾān makes this challenge in more than one place, at different scales — bring a discourse (al-Ṭūr 52/34), bring ten sūras (Hūd 11/13), bring one sūra (al-Baqara 2/23; Yūnus 10/38). And a record was entered there: "since the order of revelation of these sūras is not known with certainty, the chronological construction of the form 'much was demanded first, then it was reduced to little' is an assumption."

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added here is the choice of the word.

The verse does not say sūra, nor qurʾān. It says حَدِيث.

Root: ح-د-ث. Its concrete sense: to be new, to come into being afterwards. Ḥādith — what comes into being afterwards; ḥudūth — coming to be; ḥadīth — both "new" and "speech, report".

And the word's carrying the sense of "new" widens the scope of the challenge: what is asked for is not a particular literary form but a discourse. Any discourse at all.

This is wider than the demand for "a sūra" in al-Baqara: a sūra requires a form, a ḥadīth does not.

I record this as an observation about a word; I build no claim of a chronological ordering and the record made in al-Baqara holds.

And this must be recorded: the challenge is the direct counterpart of the accusation in the thirty-third verse (fabrication). If a human being can make it up, another human being can make it up too. The demand comes out of the logic of the claim itself.

إِن كَانُوا۟ صَٰدِقِينَ — "if they are truthful". The conditional clause ties the demand to the claim: the demand is made of the one who makes the claim.

Am khuliqū min ghayri shayʾin am humu'l-khāliqūn · Am khalaqu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ; bal lā yūqinūn "Or were they created out of nothing? Or are they themselves the creators? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? No — they do not attain certainty."

One of the densest pieces of reasoning in the Qurʾān. And it is not complete unless the two verses are read together.

The thirty-fifth verse asks two questions and the questions leave a third implicit.

Let us open up the sentences:

The first question: am khuliqū min ghayri shayʾin — "were they created out of nothing?"

The second question: am humu'l-khāliqūn — "or are they themselves the creators?"

And to see the logic one must first ask this: does man exist? The one addressed says yes to this — he does not dispute his own existence.

Then a question arises: where did this existence come from?

And logically there are three possibilities:

The verse puts the first two as questions and does not mention the third at all.

And this is the technique itself: the third possibility is not stated, because the impossibility of the first two already leaves it standing. Its not being stated requires the reader to arrive at it himself.

I record this as a reading drawn from the structure of the verse. But that two questions are asked and the third is not is plain in the text; and in the classical sources it is common for this verse to be read as a proof.

Min ghayri shayʾin — "out of nothing".

Several explanations of how the construct is understood are transmitted in the classical sources:

The first two explanations are the more widespread and both serve the same logic: existence without a cause.

And why is it impossible? The verse does not argue this — it only asks. And the question's being asked as a question states that the answer is not worth giving: istifhām inkārī.

But one thing must be recorded and I offer it as my own reading: the verse does not refute this possibility, it mentions it. And the reason it is content to mention it may be this: the one addressed does not defend this possibility in any case. Quraysh had the idea of a god; what was in dispute was not the existence of a creator but the reality of the hereafter.

That is, the question does not refute a thesis the one addressed defends; it recalls to him his own admission.

Am humu'l-khāliqūn — "or are they themselves the creators?"

And the impossibility of this possibility is clearer: for a thing to create itself, it must exist at the moment of creating. A thing that exists has no need to be created.

The verse does not argue this either. But the word order of the sentence carries an emphasis: humu'l-khāliqūn — a nominal sentence, and the predicate is definite (al-khāliqūn).

In Arabic the predicate's coming definite states restriction (ḥaṣr): "are they the creators?" — that is, are they the owners of the work of creating?

I record this as an observation about word order.

And the thirty-sixth verse enlarges the argument in scale.

35: Did you create yourselves? 36: Well then, did you create the heavens and the earth?

The second question is more easily rejected than the first — and it is put there for precisely that reason.

A man may claim some uncertainty about his own existence. He cannot about the heavens and the earth: he knows they existed before him.

That is, the series of questions moves from what is hardest for the one addressed to reject towards what is easiest, and makes the rejection certain.

I record this as my own reading.

And bal comes for the second time in the series.

33: bal lā yuʾminūn — they do not believe. 36: bal lā yūqinūn — they do not attain certainty.

The two sentences are in the same pattern but from different roots (أ-م-ن / ي-ق-ن).

And the position of the two answers is meaningful.

The bal in the thirty-third verse was closing the questions about the speech: is it a poet, is it the mind, is it fabrication? The answer: they do not believe.

The bal in the thirty-sixth is closing the questions about existence: without cause, themselves, did they create the heavens? The answer: they do not attain certainty.

That is, two different lacks are placed in two different fields: faith in the face of the speech, certainty in the face of existence.

I record this as an observation about word order.

And the root yaqīn was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/20 (li'l-mūqinīn) and analysed in the section on al-Takāthur. I do not repeat it here. Its summary: yaqīn is a kind of knowledge — not a quantity of it.

And two neighbouring sūras use the same root in opposite directions:

al-Dhāriyāt 51/20: āyātun li'l-mūqinīn — there are signs for those who attain certainty. al-Ṭūr 52/36: bal lā yūqinūn — they do not attain certainty.

Al-Dhāriyāt describes the receiver of the sign; al-Ṭūr establishes the lack of the receiver.

I record this as a comparison.

I do not drown this argument in philosophical terms, and I must write the reason.

This verse has been made the subject of wide debates in the history of philosophy and kalām; and those debates have produced their own terms. But the verse itself uses no term.

What the verse does is simple and requires no technical knowledge: it asks where an existing thing came from, mentions two impossible answers, and does not state the third.

And this is a piece of reasoning any person can follow. To fit the verse out with terms carries it into a field of specialisation — and makes it do exactly what it does not do.

The record made in the section on al-ʿAlaq holds here in another field: "To load a verse with knowledge that requires specialisation takes it out of the reader's hands."

And one record more: whether the verse is a "demonstration" is a separate discussion. The verse does not explicitly maintain the third possibility; it asks two possibilities and leaves off. To load this structure with a logical necessity would be to load it with more than it does.

I write this as a record about method.

Am ʿindahum khazāʾinu rabbika am humu'l-muṣayṭirūn "Or are the treasuries of your Lord with them? Or are they the ones who hold everything in hand?"

This verse was cited in the section on al-Ghāshiya. I do not repeat it here.

Root: خ-ز-ن. To hide, to store up, to lay in. Khizāna — a store, a treasury. Khāzin — a treasurer. In Turkish the borrowed words hazine and hazne are from this root.

And the centre of the root is "to hide" — that is, a treasury is what has been stored up and kept under control.

The Qurʾān ascribes this word regularly to God: "The treasuries of everything are with Us alone" (al-Ḥijr 15/21).

And the subject of the question: the distribution of provision and of favour. That is, the question implies: is it you who decide to whom the revelation shall be given?

This is the counterpart of an objection the Qurʾān states plainly elsewhere: "Is it they who apportion the mercy of your Lord?" (al-Zukhruf 43/32).

Root: س-ط-ر. And this is an interesting point: the word is from the same root as the masṭūr of the sūra's second verse.

I recorded it above in the discussion of 52/2: س-ط-ر — line, row, series.

And the link of the word muṣayṭir with this root is made by the lexicographers thus: one who orders a thing line by line, who records it, who keeps it under control. That is, mastery is associated with the keeping of records.

I attribute this explanation to the lexicographers; I do not present it as a settled etymology.

And the word occurs in one more place in the Qurʾān: "You are not a tyrant (muṣayṭir) over them" (al-Ghāshiya 88/22) — and it was treated in the section on al-Ghāshiya.

Setting the two usages side by side is instructive:

When the two verses are read together: the mastery is neither with the prophet nor with the deniers.

I record this as a comparison.

And the repetition of the root within the sūra:

52/2: kitābin masṭūr — a book written line by line. 52/37: humu'l-muṣayṭirūn — those who keep the record and rule.

The same root, at the two ends of the sūra. In one, what has been written; in the other, the authority of the one who writes.

I record this as my own reading. That the two words come from the same root is what the lexicographers record; it is I who set up the relation between them, and it is no claim of a deliberate arrangement.

A note on the spelling: the word is of a form that could be written in the codex with either a sīn or a ṣād, and different readings are transmitted on this. Because I cannot give the differences of reading with certainty I write no name and no attribution; it makes no difference to the meaning.

Am lahum sullamun yastamiʿūna fīh; fal-yaʾti mustamiʿuhum bi-sulṭānin mubīn "Or have they a ladder on which they climb up and listen? Then let their listener bring a clear authority."

Root: س-ل-م. And it is striking: the same root as salām, islām, taslīm.

The link the lexicographers record: سُلَّم — a ladder; what brings a person up in safety. I attribute this explanation to the lexicographers; I do not present it as a settled etymology.

And the word's other use in the Qurʾān confirms this: "If you could seek out a tunnel into the earth or a ladder into the sky…" (al-Anʿām 6/35) — there too the word occurs as a means of climbing to the sky.

And to understand what the question is one must go back to the section on Sūrat al-Jinn.

What was treated in the discussion of al-Jinn 72/9; I do not repeat it here. Its summary:

"We used to sit there in places to listen. But now whoever listens finds a flame waiting for him." (72/9)

And what was recorded there: مَقَاعِد (places to sit) and لِلسَّمْع (in order to listen) were analysed; it was stated that the lām conveys purpose and that the aim of the sitting was to get knowledge. And a comparison was made with istamaʿa (to give ear) in the first verse of that sūra, and it was recorded that the same root is used for two separate kinds of listening: "one permitted, one not. The first leads to guidance, the second finds a flame."

And the verses about the guarding of the sky had been gathered there (al-Ḥijr 15/16-18; al-Ṣāffāt 37/6-10).

And al-Ṭūr 52/38 uses the same verb: يَسْتَمِعُونَ — istamaʿa.

What is to be added here is that the question adds something new.

What was told in Sūrat al-Jinn was the jinn's listening to the sky. In al-Ṭūr the question is put to human beings: have you such a ladder?

And al-Ṭūr's demand asks for something different from what Sūrat al-Jinn tells.

In Sūrat al-Jinn the stealing of knowledge was told. In al-Ṭūr, if the knowledge has been received, its being shown is demanded: fal-yaʾti mustamiʿuhum bi-sulṭānin mubīn.

That is, the question is this: if you reject the hereafter, where did you get this knowledge? From above? Then bring it.

And the word sulṭān was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/38 (bi-sulṭānin mubīn, of Moses); I do not repeat it here. Its summary: the word means both proof and authority, and its root is "to overcome".

And two neighbouring sūras use the same construct:

al-Dhāriyāt 51/38: bi-sulṭānin mubīn was given to Moses. al-Ṭūr 52/38: bi-sulṭānin mubīn is demanded of the deniers.

In one the proof has been given, in the other it is asked for. I record this as a comparison.

And this question is the plainest example of the series' general method.

The knowledge of a person who speaks with certainty on a matter rests either on observation or on report. The hereafter cannot be known by observation — it has not yet happened. Then report remains.

And report can come only from above. The question makes this concrete: have you a ladder?

The concreteness of the image of the ladder carries the mocking side of the question. But the mockery does not weaken the argument — on the contrary, it makes visible what the claim requires.

I record this as an observation about word order.

Am lahu'l-banātu wa lakumu'l-banūn · Am tasʾaluhum ajran fa-hum min maghramin muthqalūn · Am ʿindahumu'l-ghaybu fa-hum yaktubūn · Am yurīdūna kaydā; fa'lladhīna kafarū humu'l-makīdūn · Am lahum ilāhun ghayru'llāh; subḥāna'llāhi ʿammā yushrikūn

"Or are the daughters His and the sons yours? Or do you ask them a wage, so that they are weighed down with a debt? Or is the unseen with them, so that they write it down? Or do they intend a plot? Those who disbelieve are themselves the ones plotted against. Or have they a god other than God? Glory be to God, far above what they associate with Him."

This question touches a contradiction within the culture of the one addressed.

That in the Arabia of the age of ignorance the angels were counted the daughters of God is recorded by the Qurʾān (al-Najm 53/27; al-Naḥl 16/57; al-Ṣāffāt 37/149-153). And in the same society the birth of a daughter was counted a disgrace — al-Naḥl 16/58-59 tells this in detail, and it was treated in this commentary in the discussion of the mawʾūda (the girl buried alive) at al-Takwīr 81/8-9.

That is, the question shows an inconsistency: you give to Him what you do not want for yourselves.

And the word order stresses this: lahu'l-banāt wa lakumu'l-banūn — two sides and two objects, set opposite one another.

A record is needed: the verse does not accept the worthlessness of the girl child; it uses the addressee's own admission against him. This is a technique the Qurʾān often uses: speaking with the other side's own measure.

And the Qurʾān's real ruling about the girl child explicitly rejects that admission — at al-Takwīr 81/8-9 it is stated that the girl buried alive will be asked for an account.

أَجْر — root أ-ج-ر: the return for a work, a wage.

And this question touches the shared word of the prophets. In the Qurʾān the prophets say regularly: "I ask you no wage for this" (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/109, 127, 145, 164, 180; Yūnus 10/72; Hūd 11/29, 51).

That is, the question eliminates a possibility: could the cause of the resistance be a material burden? No, because there is no demand.

مَغْرَم — root غ-ر-م: a debt, a load that must be paid; and a loss. Gharāma (which survives in Turkish in the expression garameten) is from the same root.

مُّثْقَلُون — root ث-ق-ل: weight. This root was treated in the discussions of al-Muzzammil 73/5, al-Zilzāl 99/2 and al-Qāriʿa 101/6, and its three positions were given there in a table; I do not repeat it here.

What is to be added here: the word stands in a fourth position — the weight carried is neither a deed nor a word; it is a debt.

غَيْب — root غ-ي-ب: what is hidden, what is absent. Ghayba — absence. The word is used regularly in the Qurʾān for "knowledge man cannot reach".

And the second half of the question is striking: fa-hum yaktubūn — "so that they write it down?"

That is, the question has two stages: is the knowledge of the unseen with you, and is it you who record it?

And the second stage passes from knowledge to authority. To write is more than to know: the one who writes is the one who keeps the record and therefore determines.

And this joins with the word muṣayṭir in the thirty-seventh verse — as I recorded there, the lexicographers associate that word with the keeping of records.

And a further ring with the sūra's second verse: kitābin masṭūr — a book written.

The sūra opens by swearing by a written book and thirty-nine verses later asks "is it you who write?"

I record this as my own reading; that the three words occur in the sūra is plain in the text, and it is I who set up the relation between them.

كَيْد — root ك-ي-د: a hidden plan, a trap, a stratagem.

This root was treated in the discussion of al-Ṭāriq 86/15-16; I do not repeat it here. The summary of the finding there: the Qurʾān uses the same word for both sides, and this is a reversal.

And the word order here carries the same technique:

am yurīdūna kaydā — do they intend a plot? fa'lladhīna kafarū humu'l-makīdūn — those who disbelieve are themselves the ones plotted against.

The same root in two patterns: a verbal noun (kayd) and a passive participle (makīdūn — those against whom the plot is worked).

And the passive participle pattern is decisive: the one who sets the trap becomes the object of the trap.

This is the structure of "reversal" recorded in many places in this commentary, and it was gathered separately in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn.

And in the second half there is a change of mood: the question ends and the sentence passes into the indicative. That is, for the first time in the series a question is answered by a judgement that follows immediately.

I record this as an observation about word order.

Am lahum ilāhun ghayru'llāh — "or have they a god other than God?"

And the last question of the series leaves the most fundamental question to the very end.

And the place where the series ends is not a question but a glorification: subḥāna'llāhi ʿammā yushrikūn.

سُبْحَان — root س-ب-ح. This root was treated in the discussions of al-Naṣr 110/3 and al-Muzzammil 73/7; I do not repeat it here. Its summary: the concrete sense of the root is to swim in water or in air, to move swiftly through a medium; its link with glorification is a relation the lexicographers set up, not a settled etymological ruling.

And the pattern subḥāna is an absolute object and depends on an omitted verb: usabbiḥu subḥāna'llāh.

عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ — ʿan + mā. And the particle ʿan states distance: "He is far from what they associate with Him."

And the series' closing with a glorification shows where the fifteen questions arrive. The questions do not arrive at a conclusion — they arrive at a declaring free of all defect (tanzīh). That is, at the end of the series there is not a sentence of judgement but a sentence of stance.

I record this as an observation about word order.

And now the section must be taken as a whole.

From the thirtieth verse to the forty-third the particle أَمْ occurs fifteen times, in twelve verses.

And within the series there are two verses and neither is a question:

• 31: qul tarabbaṣū — a command (the answer to verse 30).
• 34: fal-yaʾtū bi-ḥadīthin mithlihī — a challenge (the answer to verse 33).

That is, the series is not exactly flat: the first two questions are answered, the rest flow on unanswered.

And the fifteen questions are distributed over four separate fields:

And the four fields set up a sequence: first the source of the speech, then the source of existence, then the source of knowledge, then the causes of the conduct.

That is, the series moves from outside inward: from what is said to the condition of the one who says it.

I record this as my own reading.

And the structure is itself a method.

There are two ways of refuting a claim:

• Setting up a counter-thesis: saying "no, the truth is this".
• Closing the possibilities: eliminating one by one every explanation that could be given.

Al-Ṭūr does the second. And across fifteen questions no positive thesis is set up at all — only doors are closed.

And this method has two features:

One — it makes the one addressed speak. A person who is asked a question must answer; and every answer produces a commitment. A person who says "no, we did not create the heavens" has admitted something.

Two — the conclusion is not stated. The series does not close with a judgement; it closes with a glorification. That is, the reader is expected to draw his own inference.

And there was a small example of this method at al-Dhāriyāt 51/53: "did they enjoin this on one another? No, they are an overweening people." There there were two possibilities and one of them fell because it was ridiculous.

Al-Ṭūr applies the same method fifteen times. I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras, and I had set up the same link in the section on al-Dhāriyāt too.

This method works as a form of argument today too and it teaches something.

The most common way of objecting to a view is to advance a counter-view. But this turns the argument into a matter of choosing between two claims.

The method that builds the series is different: it counts up what the other side's own position requires and asks about each of them. This does not require the defending of a thesis — it only makes visible the load the claim has to carry.

And this is why it is meaningful that most of the questions in the series are concrete: a ladder, a treasury, a wage, a ledger. Instead of an abstract objection, what is asked for is the concrete thing the claim requires.

I record this as an application.

Wa in yaraw kisfan mina's-samāʾi sāqiṭan yaqūlū saḥābun markūm "If they saw a piece falling from the sky they would say, 'clouds heaped up.'"

And this verse comes after the fifteen questions and makes an observation.

Through the questions proofs were demanded, possibilities were closed. Now the text says this: even if a proof came, the outcome would not change.

كِسْف — root ك-س-ف: to cut a thing, to break it in pieces. Kisf — a piece, a cut-off portion. (In Turkish the borrowed word küsuf — a solar eclipse — is counted from the same root; the lexicographers make the link by way of "the cutting off of the light". I attribute this explanation to the lexicographers.)

سَاقِط — root س-ق-ط: to fall. An active participle: falling.

سَحَابٌ مَّرْكُوم — سَحَاب a cloud (root س-ح-ب: to drag, to draw — a cloud is what is dragged across the sky). مَرْكُوم — root ر-ك-م: to heap one upon another. Rukām — a heap.

And markūm is again a passive participle — the same pattern as in the sūra's oaths.

And the fineness of what is said must be seen.

The verse does not say: "even if they saw a proof they would deny it." It says: they would interpret what they saw as something else.

That is, denial is described not as a rejection but as a renaming. The falling piece is called "cloud"; the event stays where it is, its name changes.

And this joins with the fifteenth verse of the sūra: a-fa-siḥrun hādhā — "is this magic?" There too the fire, although seen, could be named "magic".

The two verses show the same mechanism:

And the verdict "this is magic" at al-Muddaththir 74/24 is the third example of this mechanism.

I record this as my own reading; the wordings of the three texts were given above and in the relevant sections.

And the Qurʾān records this attitude in another place too: "Even if We opened for them a gate in the sky and they kept climbing up through it, they would still say, 'our eyes have been dazzled; rather, we are a people bewitched'" (al-Ḥijr 15/14-15).

This verse is almost a word-for-word expansion of al-Ṭūr 52/44 and uses the same two elements: something from the sky and a renaming.

The mechanism this verse describes — making what is seen ineffective by renaming it — is something observable today too and requires no religious context.

A person who meets a datum that runs against a conviction has three roads before him: to change his conviction, to reject the datum, or to name the datum as something else. The third is the cheapest, because it sacrifices neither the conviction nor the datum — it only changes the datum's name.

And the verse presents this not as an exception but as the expected outcome: "if they saw a piece falling from the sky…" — that is, even in the most extraordinary case.

This has a consequence and it agrees with the sūra's own logic: if the matter is not the insufficiency of the proof, then offering more proof is not the solution. And one verse later the sūra says exactly this: fa-dharhum — leave them.

That is, the command in the forty-fifth verse is the consequence of the observation in the forty-fourth. That the piling up of proof must stop at some point follows not from the worthlessness of proof but from the problem lying elsewhere.

I record this as my own reading; the succession of the two verses is plain in the text.

Fa-dharhum ḥattā yulāqū yawmahumu'lladhī fīhi yuṣʿaqūn · Yawma lā yughnī ʿanhum kayduhum shayʾan wa lā hum yunṣarūn · Wa inna li'lladhīna ẓalamū ʿadhāban dūna dhālika wa lākinna aktharahum lā yaʿlamūn "So leave them — until they meet their day, on which they will be struck down. The day their plotting will avail them nothing and they will not be helped. And for those who do wrong there is a punishment before that one; but most of them do not know."

Root: و-ذ-ر. A feature of this root was recorded in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/42: in Arabic the perfect conjugation is not used; only the imperfect and the imperative patterns are at work.

And this command was treated in the section on al-Maʿārij: there the two commands of that sūra (fa'ṣbir and fa-dharhum) were set side by side and this was recorded: "both come out of the same acceptance — the outcome is not in your hands."

And in the discussions of al-Muzzammil 73/11 and al-Muddaththir 74/11 the pattern dharnī was treated: "the reckoning is taken out of the addressee's hands."

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added here is the place of the command within the sūra.

The sūra gives two commands and they run in opposite directions:

29: fa-dhakkir — remind. 45: fa-dharhum — leave them.

And between the two there are fifteen questions.

That is, the order is this: remind → close every possibility → leave them.

This is the reversed form of the pair seen at al-Dhāriyāt 51/54-55 (fa-tawalla ʿanhum + wa dhakkir):

The two sūras give the same two commands and change the order. I record this as a comparison; I do not claim that the two sūras were deliberately built this way.

And al-Ṭūr's order carries a logic: the leaving comes after the proofs have been exhausted. That is, the command "leave them" is not a giving up; it is the work being finished.

Root: ص-ع-ق. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/44 (al-ṣāʿiqa, the destruction of Thamūd); I do not repeat it here. Its summary: at the centre of the root there is being struck by a violent sound, falling and lying still.

And two neighbouring sūras use the same root at two different times:

Al-Dhāriyāt gives an example from history; al-Ṭūr places the same word in the future of the one addressed.

I record this as a comparison.

And the construct "their day" is the same as the last verse of al-Dhāriyāt:

al-Dhāriyāt 51/60: min yawmihimu'lladhī yūʿadūn — from their day which they are promised. al-Ṭūr 52/45: yawmahumu'lladhī fīhi yuṣʿaqūn — their day on which they will be struck down.

Almost word for word the same construct. In both, the day is ascribed to them.

In the section on al-Dhāriyāt I recorded the function of this ascription: "the day is no longer a general event but a personal appointment."

And that the two sūras use this construct in the same position (near the close) is striking. I record this as a comparison.

Root: غ-ن-ي. Wealth, freedom from need. Aghnā — it availed, it met the need.

This root was treated in the discussions of al-ʿAlaq 96/6-7 and al-Layl 92/8, 11 (istaghnā); I do not repeat it here. Its summary: "the source of overweening is not wealth but the supposition of needing nothing."

And the word kayd comes back from the forty-second verse. Two verses apart:

42: am yurīdūna kaydā 46: lā yughnī ʿanhum kayduhum shayʾā

The forty-second verse had said that the plot turns back on itself; the forty-sixth says that the same plot is of no use.

The two sentences say two separate things: one that the plot returns to its owner, the other that it serves no purpose at all.

I record this as an observation about word order.

And this verse is one of the least discussed and most noteworthy in the sūra.

Wa inna li'lladhīna ẓalamū ʿadhāban dūna dhālika — "for those who do wrong there is a punishment before / other than this one."

دُون — in Arabic it can state three separate things and all of them have been argued here:

All three explanations are transmitted in the classical sources and they do not exclude one another: it is widely said that a punishment coming in this world or occurring in the grave is meant.

I do not impose a preference.

And the most interesting place in the verse is its last sentence: wa lākinna aktharahum lā yaʿlamūn — "but most of them do not know."

And note what this sentence says. The verse speaks of a punishment and then says immediately that this punishment is not noticed.

That is, what is spoken of is not a visible catastrophe. Had it been visible it would have been known.

I record this as an observation about word order; the verse does not say what the punishment is, and I propose no content for it either.

And there is a link within the sūra: the twelfth verse had described the one addressed as fī khawḍin yalʿabūn — playing in a plunge. And what was recorded for khawḍ in the section on al-Muddaththir: churning about in muddy water.

When the two verses are read together a reading becomes possible and I record it as my own reading: the speaking of a punishment that is not noticed and the speaking of an occupation that is not noticed may be looking in the same direction. But the verse does not say this and this is an inference; it is not binding.

Wa'ṣbir li-ḥukmi rabbika fa-innaka bi-aʿyuninā; wa sabbiḥ bi-ḥamdi rabbika ḥīna taqūm · Wa mina'l-layli fa-sabbiḥhu wa idbāra'n-nujūm "And be patient for the judgement of your Lord; you are before Our eyes. And glorify your Lord with praise when you rise. And in part of the night glorify Him, and when the stars withdraw."

I set up this link above in the discussion of 52/16; I do not repeat it here. Its summary: the sūra uses the same root at its two ends with two opposite rulings — patience towards the fire is of no use, patience towards the judgement is commanded.

What is to be added here is the choice of the particle.

Iṣbir li-ḥukmi rabbik — with the particle لِ.

And this distinction was treated in the discussion of al-Muzzammil 73/10 and al-Muddaththir 74/7 and it was recorded there:

"the same verb iṣbir, two particles: ʿalā states the subject of the patience, li its address."

That is, the lām here gives the address of the patience: be patient for your Lord's judgement.

And this may also carry the sense not of "endure the judgement" but of "wait until the judgement is given" — because the word can be used both of a judgement given and of a judgement to be given.

Both readings are transmitted in the classical sources and I do not impose a preference.

And the link with the thirty-first verse: there it had been said tarabbaṣū (wait) and the Prophet had been counted among those who wait. The command to be patient in the forty-eighth verse gives that waiting its name.

I record this as a link within the sūra.

Root: ع-ي-ن — eye. Aʿyun is the plural of ʿayn.

And the construct is of the form "you are within Our eyes" and in Arabic it states watching over and protection. The Qurʾān uses it in another place too: "Build the ship before Our eyes" (Hūd 11/37; al-Muʾminūn 23/27) — iṣnaʿi'l-fulka bi-aʿyuninā.

And the Qurʾān uses the same idea of Moses as well: "so that you might be reared before My eye" (Ṭāhā 20/39) — wa li-tuṣnaʿa ʿalā ʿaynī.

That is, the expression is not a surveillance but a protection. The English "under our eye" carries the same doubleness: both watched and looked after.

And a comparison with the finding recorded in the section on al-Ṭāriq is instructive: there 86/4 (over him there is a watcher) was treated and modern surveillance was discussed as what it says to the present.

The two verses state two different kinds of watching:

The same field of the root, two opposite feelings. And what makes the difference is the context.

I record this as a comparison.

And this expression was treated in the discussion of al-Naṣr 110/3. I do not repeat it here. The summary of the findings there:

• سَبِّحْ — glorification; the concrete sense of the root (to swim) and its link with tanzīh were given and attributed to the lexicographers.
• بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ — the particle bāʾ states accompaniment or state: the glorification's being done together with praise. And what was recorded there: "The two together build a complete two-sided expression: 'He is far from all deficiency' + 'praise belongs to Him.'"

What is to be added here is the difference between the two verses.

Al-Naṣr ties it to an event; al-Ṭūr to a time.

And the report recorded in the section on al-Naṣr — that after the sūra came down the Prophet repeated certain words much in his bowing and prostration — was given there and I do not repeat it.

And what this expression means is disputed:

All four views are transmitted in the classical sources. And in some sources it is associated with particular supplications; because I cannot give the chains of these reports with certainty I do not go into their detail.

I do not impose a preference. But this can be recorded: the word has come unrestricted, and the lack of restriction makes all four readings possible at once.

And the link with al-Muzzammil: there the command was qumi'l-layl — "rise for the night". Here ḥīna taqūm — "when you rise". The same root (ق-و-م), two different patterns.

And the forty-ninth verse names the night explicitly: wa mina'l-layli fa-sabbiḥh.

The rising by night was treated in the discussion of al-Muzzammil 73/2-4 and the night of the god-fearing was taken up in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/17-18; I do not repeat them here.

And when the three texts are read together:

Three texts name the same hour in three different moods. I record this as a comparison.

Root: د-ب-ر. The back, to turn one's back. Idbār — withdrawing, turning one's back and going.

This root was treated in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/23 and 74/33 and it was recorded there:

"أَدْبَرَ with two subjects: a man's turning his back opens on to denial, the night's withdrawing opens on to the morning."

And here there is a third subject: the stars.

Idbāru'n-nujūm — the withdrawing of the stars, that is, close to morning, the hour when the stars fade and disappear.

That is, the sūra names the hour before dawn — but without giving the hour's name, describing it by something that happens in the sky.

And the same hour had been named at al-Dhāriyāt 51/18: wa bi'l-asḥāri hum yastaghfirūn.

Two neighbouring sūras name the same hour by two different roads. I record this as a comparison.

And the sūra ends with a picture of the sky.

The sūra opened with an oath by a mountain (52/1) and closes with the withdrawing of the stars (52/49). The first is the highest thing on earth, the second the farthest thing in the sky.

And between the two ends stand all the objects of the sūra's oaths: mountain, book, house, roof, sea.

I record this as an observation about word order; it is no claim of a deliberate arrangement.

The verse-endings of the forty-nine verses form marked groups:

And what the table shows: the first eight verses are a separate region of sound.

The section of the oath ends in -ūr (Ṭūr, masṭūr, manshūr, maʿmūr, marfūʿ, masjūr) — six verses, almost the same sound. And the verses of the answer (wāqiʿ, dāfiʿ) close without breaking that sound.

Then the sound changes and through the rest of the sūra it stays in the -ūn / -īn / -m region.

The observation recorded in the sections on al-ʿĀdiyāt, al-Māʿūn and al-Dhāriyāt — "the sound changes where the subject changes" — is at work here too: the section of the oath has its own sound, the rest flows on in a shared one.

And in the fourteen-verse region of the question series the sound is especially tight: almost all of the fifteen questions end in -ūn. This builds the repetitive structure of the series in sound as well.

I record this as an observation about sound; it is no theological claim.

Three things are seen in the table:

One — the centre of the sūra is a command. The twenty-ninth verse stands exactly in the middle of the two great sections and is a single verse.

Two — the sūra closes with three commands: fa-dharhum (45), iṣbir (48), sabbiḥ (48-49). And all three are to the Prophet.

Three — there is a conversation in the section of the god-fearing (26-28) and that conversation is the sūra's only direct quotation. That is, the sūra gives someone the floor once, and those it gives it to are the people of the Garden.

I record this as an observation about word order.

When we read the sūra as a whole the structure that emerges is this — and I record it as my own reading:

Thesis: The punishment of your Lord will come to pass and cannot be prevented (7-8).

Proof: An oath by five fixed things — what has been built stands (1-6).

Scene: On that day what was fixed moves (9-10).

Two outcomes: Those who call it a lie (11-16) and the god-fearing (17-28) — and the measure of the two is given with the same sentence (bimā kuntum taʿmalūn).

Command: Remind — and you are neither a soothsayer nor one possessed (29).

Elimination: Fifteen questions; every possibility closed one by one (30-43).

Conclusion: Even if a proof came the outcome would not change, because the matter is not in the proof (44).

Close: Leave them, be patient, glorify (45-49).

And at the centre of the argument stands this: the text does not defend a thesis; it closes the possibilities and leaves the conclusion to the reader himself.

I recorded the links set up between the two sūras one by one above. Here I gather them.

And what the table shows is this: the two sūras handle the same subjects but almost every time from a different angle.

The most marked contrast is at the opening: one swears by things that move, the other by things that stand. And the two oaths build two different proofs: the process works and the structure is sound.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras. The wordings in the table stand in the text; I build no claim of a deliberate design, and I make no claim of a chronology regarding the arrangement of the codex either — the caution recorded for the sequence al-Zilzāl–al-ʿĀdiyāt–al-Qāriʿa holds here too.

• Which the objects sworn by are is disputed. For al-Ṭūr the Sinai reading was taken as the basis and its ground (usage within the Qurʾān) was given; it is not binding. For kitāb, al-baytu'l-maʿmūr and al-baḥru'l-masjūr no preference was imposed.
• The view about al-baytu'l-maʿmūr that rests on report was recorded without going into its detail and without name or attribution, because I cannot give its chain and source with certainty.
• No scientific interpretation was made of the word masjūr and the ground was written. All three senses of the word were given and not diminished.
• The reading that the five oaths state "standing" and al-Dhāriyāt's state "movement" is my own; the patterns were given one by one, and no claim of a deliberate design was built.
• The demonstration that 52/21 does not contradict al-Baqara 2/134 is my own; it was grounded under three heads and the wordings of the verses were given.
• Whom the sentence mā alatnāhum in 52/21 looks at is disputed; two views were given and no preference was imposed.
• The two readings of the construct fī ahlinā in 52/26 were given and no preference was imposed. And it was stated that the link set up with 52/21 is an inference.
• The two senses of the word aḥlām in 52/32 were given; the first was recorded as the widespread one.
• The argument in 52/35 was not drowned in philosophical terms and it was written that this is a choice of method. A burden of logical demonstration was moreover not loaded onto the verse, and the ground for this was recorded.
• It was recorded that there are differing transmissions about the spelling and reading of the word muṣayṭirūn in 52/37; because the differences of reading cannot be given with certainty no name and no attribution were written. The word's link with the root س-ط-ر was attributed to the lexicographers.
• Three explanations of dūna dhālika in 52/47 were given and no preference was imposed; no content was proposed as to what the punishment is.
• The link set up between 52/47 and 52/12 is an inference and it was stated that it is not binding.
• The four views about ḥīna taqūm in 52/48 were given and no preference was imposed. The reports associating it with particular supplications were not gone into in detail, because I cannot give their chains.
• The links of sense set up by the lexicographers in the roots sullam, saḥāb, ḥilm, manūn, kisf and fākiha were conveyed with attribution to the lexicographers, not as settled etymological rulings. The same record holds for the relation of the root subḥān with the sense "to swim", and the same caution had been kept in the section on al-Naṣr.
• The readings about the repetitions of roots within the sūra (masṭūr / muṣayṭirūn, manna / manūn, the two ends of ṣabr, the two occurrences of kayd) are my own; they were not presented as a claim of a deliberate arrangement.
• The table comparing al-Dhāriyāt and al-Ṭūr is my own; it was not claimed that the two sūras were deliberately built this way, and no construction was made about the order of revelation.
• No attribution was made by name to any authority of the readings, to any exegete or to any hadith source; only indications from within the Qurʾān and the root meanings commonly recorded by the lexicographers were used.