أَمْ لَمْ يُنَبَّأْ بِمَا فِى صُحُفِ مُوسَىٰ · وَإِبْرَٰهِيمَ ٱلَّذِى وَفَّىٰٓ
Am lam yunabbaʾ bimā fī ṣuḥufi Mūsā · Wa Ibrāhīma'lladhī waffā "Or has he not been told of what is in the scrolls of Moses? And of Abraham, who fulfilled?"
And these two verses are the sūra's most important building block — because the whole of the seventeen verses that follow is the answer to this question.
The section running from the thirty-eighth verse to the fifty-fourth is not a series of independent sentences. All of them explain the mā in the expression بِمَا فِى صُحُفِ; they are أَنَّ / أَنْ clauses.
"Or has he not been told of what is in the scrolls — namely these: that no bearer of burdens bears the burden of another, that man shall have only what he strives for, that his striving will be seen, that he will be requited for it in full, that the final end is to his Lord, that it is He who makes to laugh and to weep…"
| # | Verse | Clause | Pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 38 | allā taziru wāziratun wizra ukhrā | أَن لَّا |
| 2 | 39 | wa an laysa li'l-insāni illā mā saʿā | وَأَن |
| 3 | 40 | wa anna saʿyahu sawfa yurā | وَأَنَّ |
| 4 | 42 | wa anna ilā rabbika'l-muntahā | وَأَنَّ |
| 5 | 43 | wa annahu huwa aḍḥaka wa abkā | وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ |
| 6 | 44 | wa annahu huwa amāta wa aḥyā | وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ |
| 7 | 45 | wa annahu khalaqa'l-zawjayn | وَأَنَّهُ |
| 8 | 47 | wa anna ʿalayhi'l-nashʾata'l-ukhrā | وَأَنَّ |
| 9 | 48 | wa annahu huwa aghnā wa aqnā | وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ |
| 10 | 49 | wa annahu huwa rabbu'l-Shiʿrā | وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ |
| 11 | 50 | wa annahu ahlaka ʿĀdani'l-ūlā | وَأَنَّهُ |
And this is the most important finding in the word order. If it is not seen, these verses are read wrongly.
For taken one by one these verses stand like independent rulings. Yet the text presents them as a list — and the heading of the list is: "what is written in the ancient scrolls."
The sūra says, that is: these principles are not new. They were in the scrolls given to Moses and in the scrolls of Abraham as well.
نَبَّأَ — root ن-ب-أ. Nabaʾ — an important piece of news. This root was analysed in full in the section al-Nabaʾ; I do not repeat it. The summary: a nabaʾ is not ordinary news (khabar) but great news that produces consequences.
The question asks, then, not about the man's ignorance but whether the knowledge has reached him. And the interrogative pattern (am… lam) is one in which the expected answer in Arabic is "no, he has been told".
The two questions count two sources of knowledge: direct seeing, and communication. And both are refused — the first because it is impossible, the second because it has already taken place.
No excuse is left to the man, then: he has neither his own witnessing nor the claim of not having received the communication.
This word was treated in the section al-Bayyina and put to work in the sections al-Aʿlā and al-Takwīr. I do not repeat it; the summary: the root ص-ح-ف, a flat surface written upon; muṣḥaf is from the same root — that whose pages have been gathered together.
In the section on al-Aʿlā a table of the three uses in the Qurʾān was given, and precisely this verse stood there in the first category:
| Category | Example |
|---|---|
| Earlier revelations | al-Aʿlā 87/19; al-Najm 53/36-37 |
| Records of deeds | al-Takwīr 81/10 |
| The Qurʾān itself | al-Bayyina 98/2; ʿAbasa 80/13-14 |
The same two names come side by side once more in the Qurʾān, and there the order is reversed. In al-Aʿlā: Abraham, then Moses. In al-Najm: Moses, then Abraham. I say nothing definite about the reason for this difference. The verse-ending may be a factor — since all the verses of al-Aʿlā end in -ā, Mūsā has to come last. The verse-ending of al-Najm is different.
As recorded above in the section "The structure of the sūra", all the verses of al-Najm from 1 to 56 also end on the -ā sound. Both sūras use the same verse-ending, that is — and both Mūsā and waffā fit that sound.
In al-Najm, then, the order cannot be explained by the requirement of the verse-ending. Since both names suit the rhyme, the order may have been chosen for another reason.
I offer a possibility and do not present it as a definite claim: Ibrāhīm's coming last makes it possible to attach a qualifying clause to it — alladhī waffā. Such a qualifier, had it been placed in the middle of the sentence, would have broken the flow. The name with the qualifier may have been put last.
This does not close the question raised in the section on al-Aʿlā; but I record that the "verse-ending" possibility offered there does not work for al-Najm. A definite cause is still not given.
Root: و-ف-ي. Concrete sense: to be complete, to be without deficiency, to give a thing in full measure.
- وَفَاء (wafāʾ) — fulfilling a promise completely.
- أَوْفَىٰ (awfā) — he measured in full, he gave without deficiency. The Qurʾān: "Give full measure" (al-Anʿām 6/152: awfu'l-kayl).
- تَوَفَّىٰ (tawaffā) — he took in full; and from there "decease" — the taking of the soul without remainder. The word wafāt thus means not "diminishing" but "being taken in full".
- أَوْفَى (awfā) as an elative: "the most complete" — and this will occur at verse 41 of this sūra: al-jazāʾa'l-awfā.
وَفَّىٰ — Form II (tafʿīl), and the doubling of this form conveys in Arabic repetition, multiplicity and comprehensiveness (this finding was given in detail in the section al-Takwīr).
Verse 37: Ibrāhīma'lladhī وَفَّىٰ — "Abraham, who fulfilled completely" Verse 41: al-jazāʾa'l-أَوْفَىٰ — "the most complete requital"
A complete fulfilment on the human side, a complete payment on the side of requital. The same root, in the same section, at two ends.
What he fulfilled is not stated, and this resembles the technique of leaving indeterminate that the sūra has used from the beginning. Various explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries (the commands given to him, the trials, the delivery of the message). I make no choice, because the verse gives no object.
But an observation about word order can be recorded, and it is my own reading: the first item that comes immediately after is that no one bears the burden of another (38). After a man "who did his own part in full" is named, that is, it is said that "no one bears another's burden." The two are two faces of one principle: everyone carries his own share, and Abraham carried his share in full.
I do not claim that the text establishes this connection; that the two verses stand side by side is data of the text.