al-Ṭūr 52:25-28

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.