al-Ṭūr 52:39-43 — The questions continue

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.