al-Najm 53:23

In hiya illā asmāʾun sammaytumūhā antum wa ābāʾukum mā anzala'llāhu bihā min sulṭān · In yattabiʿūna illā'l-ẓanna wa mā tahwa'l-anfus · Wa laqad jāʾahum min rabbihimu'l-hudā "They are nothing but names you and your fathers have given; God has sent down no authority for them. They follow nothing but supposition and what the souls crave. And guidance has come to them from their Lord."

The longest verse of the sūra, and the close of the section of proof. There are three separate sentences and each does a separate job.

Root: س-م-و. This root has occurred in several places in this commentary (al-Dhāriyāt, Nūḥ, al-Infiṭār, al-Inshiqāq).

The semantic field of the root is worth dwelling on:

• ٱسْم (ism) — a name.
• سَمَاء (samāʾ) — the sky; سَمَا — it rose high.
• سَامٍ / سَامِي — high.

The majority of the lexicographers attach the noun to this root and their explanation is: a name is what raises a thing, what lifts it out from among the rest and makes it visible. A thing without a name is inside the heap; the moment it is named it is set apart.

A minority attach the noun to the root و-س-م (to brand, to mark); wasm — a brand, sima — a mark. I make no choice between the two derivations; both have been defended in the sources and both come out at the same place: a name is a mark of distinction.

The verse repeats the pattern of the fourth verse:

Verse 4: in هُوَ illā waḥyun yūḥā — "It is nothing but a revelation revealed." Verse 23: in هِيَ illā asmāʾun sammaytumūhā — "They are nothing but names."

The same pattern (إن … إلا); only the pronoun has changed: هو → هي.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra. And the contrast between the two verses is this:

The structure of the two sentences is the same as well: a noun + a verb from the same root. Waḥyun yūḥā (a revelation — is revealed); asmāʾun sammaytumūhā (names — you have named).

This is a pattern of emphasis in Arabic and it does the same work in both places: it confirms the content of the word by the verb.

But their results are diametrically opposite. In the first the agent of the verb is not stated and the passive pattern points upward. In the second the agent is stressed twice: sammaytumū-hā antum wa ābāʾukum — the tum pronoun inside the verb was not enough, and أَنتُم (you) has been added besides.

Such repetition of the pronoun is a strong emphasis in Arabic. The sentence says: the ones who gave these names are no one else, precisely you.

This principle was treated in the section al-Mujādala, and precisely this verse was used there as evidence. The note there:

This principle is the Qurʾān's general stance on false realities built with language. To give a thing a name does not make it that thing. The same logic is seen elsewhere: for the names given to the idols, "They are nothing but names you and your fathers have given" (al-Najm 53/23); for those who counted usury as trade, "They said: trade is just like usury" (al-Baqara 2/275) — and the verse refuses that equation. What this says to the present is entirely concrete: giving a practice a new name does not change it. Naming orders perception, not reality.

The section on al-Mujādala pointed to this verse; I complete the connection here and add one detail.

The verse does not say "you named them wrongly"; it says "you named them".

The difference matters. Had it said "you gave a wrong name", it would have implied that a right name could exist. The verse points at the act itself: the operation of giving a name does not prove that there is something there to be named.

And this is a finding about the everyday working of language. When the human mind hears a name it assumes there is something answering to it; because for the great majority of names this is true. When "camel" is said, there is a camel. A name works like the sign of an existence.

The verse cuts this automatic assumption. A name is a mark a person places; the existence of the mark does not require the existence of what is marked.

سُلْطَان — root س-ل-ط. The concrete sense of the root: the power of disposal over a thing, mastery. Sallaṭa — he set upon, he loosed against; salīṭ — sharp-tongued, and also oil (olive oil — that which "masters" burning).

The word سُلْطَان occurs in the Qurʾān in two senses: 1. Proof, evidence, warrant. What gives force to a claim. 2. Authority, power.

The sense here is the first, and the ground is the verb: anzala — He did not send down. What is sent down is a proof; power is not sent down.

And the choice of the word is worth recording. It could have said burhān (a decisive proof) or bayyina (a clear evidence). It says sulṭān — and in its root lies mastery.

The sentence says, that is: these names have no force that binds you. A proof, once accepted, sets up an authority over a person; these names carry no such authority.

مِن سُلْطَٰنٍ — the particle min is here pleonastic (added for emphasis) and generalises the negation: "no proof of any kind". Not even a weak proof, that is.

And the same pattern, a third time in the same verse: in yattabiʿūna illā'l-ẓann.

ظَنّ — root ظ-ن-ن. The sense of the root: a conviction that is not certain, a supposition, a surmise.

In Arabic ẓann is a neutral word, and this matters: it is used both for "a weak surmise" and for "a strong conviction". The Qurʾān uses it in both directions:

• Positively: "Those who know with certainty that they will meet their Lord" (al-Baqara 2/46: yaẓunnūna annahum mulāqū rabbihim). Here ẓann is in the sense of firm conviction.
• Negatively: as in this verse, a conviction that is not knowledge.

The word questions, then, not the strength of a conviction but its ground. A conviction may be very strong and still be ẓann — for what makes something ẓann is not how firmly it is believed but what it rests on.

And the sūra will say this explicitly five verses later:

Verse 28: wa mā lahum bihi min ʿilm; in yattabiʿūna illā'l-ẓanna; wa inna'l-ẓanna lā yughnī mina'l-ḥaqqi shayʾā "They have no knowledge of it; they follow nothing but supposition. And supposition avails nothing against the truth."

The same sentence (in yattabiʿūna illā'l-ẓann) is repeated twice in the sūra, five verses apart — and the second time a ruling is added. This is the text's own marker and leaves nothing to be read into it.

Root: ه-و-ي. The root the sūra has carried from the beginning comes here for the third time.

تَهْوَى — an imperfect verb: "it craves, it draws."

Now go back to the third verse:

Verse 3: wa mā yanṭiqu ʿani ٱلْهَوَىٰ — the messenger does not speak out of craving. Verse 23: wa mā تَهْوَى ٱلْأَنفُس — they follow what the souls crave.

The same root, the same sūra, in two opposed positions. One is refused, the other set down as a diagnosis.

And this completes the sūra's argument about knowledge. The verse counts two sources: ẓann and hawā.

And this pairing is the exact counterpart of the pairing in the second verse:

What the sūra negates about the messenger in the second verse, it affirms about those addressed in the twenty-third.

I record this as my own reading. The word and root data are the text's; comparing the two verses in a table and counting the symmetry between them deliberate is my inference.

The last sentence of the verse gives no information; it closes off an excuse.

"And guidance has come to them from their Lord."

That is: their following supposition is not because they had nothing else in hand. The alternative came and stands there.

ٱلْهُدَىٰ — root ه-د-ي. This root was treated in the section on al-Fātiḥa (ihdina'l-ṣirāṭa'l-mustaqīm); I do not repeat it. The summary: the concrete sense of the root is to show the way, to go in front.

And that the word comes definite (al-hudā) matters: not "a guidance" but "the guidance" — the known one, the one that has come, the one in hand.

The word order of the sentence carries an emphasis too: min rabbihim (from their Lord) has been inserted between. The source of the guidance is the one who is also their Lord. In the same verse there are beings whose names were counted daughters of God; and the sentence names the real source by the name Rabb — the one who nurtures, who brings up.