al-Ṭūr 52:1-6 — Five oaths

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.