al-Najm 53:59-61

A-fa-min hādha'l-ḥadīthi taʿjabūn · Wa taḍḥakūna wa lā tabkūn · Wa antum sāmidūn "Do you then marvel at this discourse? And you laugh and do not weep. And you are heedless."

The verse-ending breaks a second time: it passes from the -a sound to the -ūn sound. Three verses in succession end on the same sound, and the one addressed becomes plural again.

Root: ح-د-ث. Concrete sense: to be new, to come about afterwards. Ḥadīth — new; and from there speech, news (what is newly said).

This word was treated in the section al-Mursalāt and precisely this verse was given as an example:

The Qurʾān's use of this word for itself is seen in several places: - "God has sent down the best of discourse." (al-Zumar 39/23) — aḥsana'l-ḥadīth. - "Do you marvel at this discourse?" (al-Najm 53/59) — a-fa-min hādha'l-ḥadīth.

And the choice of the word here is worth recording. It could have said Qurʾān, waḥy, kitāb. It says حَدِيث — the plainest, most neutral word: discourse.

I record this as an observation: the verse names the thing they marvel at as they see it. For them it is a "discourse". And the verse accepts that naming and builds the question upon it.

Root: ع-ج-ب. ʿAjab — astonishment; ʿajīb — astonishing; iʿjāb — being pleased and filled with admiration.

And there is a fronting in the word order: a-fa-min hādha'l-ḥadīthi taʿjabūn — "is it at this discourse that you marvel?"

The prepositional phrase has been brought forward. As recorded above, this conveys restriction or emphasis. That is: with so much to marvel at, is this what you marvel at?

And the meaning of the question comes out when it is read together with the list of the preceding block. What was counted from the forty-third verse to the fifty-third: making to laugh, making to weep, giving death, giving life, bringing a human being out of a drop, taking the second bringing-forth upon Himself, being the Lord of the stars, destroying peoples.

All of these were counted and the one addressed did not marvel. The one thing he marvels at: a discourse.

I record this as my own reading; the order of the verses and the fronting are data of the text.

This link was made above in the section on verses 43-44; I complete it here.

Verse 43: wa annahu huwa أَضْحَكَ وَأَبْكَىٰ Verse 60: وَتَضْحَكُونَ وَلَا تَبْكُونَ

The same two roots, seventeen verses apart. And the difference is in two places:

And the work of the imperfect matters here: taḍḥakūn — "you are laughing, you keep laughing." In Arabic the imperfect conveys continuance and repetition. Not a single laugh, that is, but a state.

What the verse establishes is this, and I record it as my own reading:

Two responses were given to man — one for joy, one for sorrow. The forty-third verse says that both come from the same source. The sixtieth records that the one addressed uses only one of these two responses.

And this is not a criticism of morals but a criticism of response. The verse does not say "you are wicked"; it says "you are responding wrongly to the news given." To laugh in the face of a warning shows that the response itself has been corrupted.

The repetition of the roots is data of the text and can be counted; the interpretation of a "broken balance" is mine.

Root: س-م-د. And this root occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

And there is a real disagreement:

All these views are in the sources and I make no choice.

But this can be recorded: all four describe a state of immobility or of not changing direction. Heedlessness, pride, amusement and standing still — what is common to all of them is that there is no change of position in the face of the news.

And its place in the word order supports this: the verse is built with wa antum (a nominal sentence). In Arabic a nominal sentence conveys continuance and fixity; a verbal sentence, occurrence and change. The end of the three-verse series passes, that is, from an act to a state.

I record this as an observation; the difference of sentence type is a grammatical datum.