al-Qamar 54:20

Tanziʿu'l-nāsa ka-annahum aʿjāzu nakhlin munqaʿir "Tearing people out as though they were the trunks of uprooted palms."

In al-Ḥāqqa this verse was treated in detail in comparison with al-Ḥāqqa 69/7. What was given there and I shall not repeat:

• That the word أَعْجَاز comes from the root ع-ج-ز and means the trunk of a palm tree; and that the root's relation to the branch meaning incapacity is transmitted as ascribed to the lexicographers.
• Why the choice of نَخْل is meaningful: the palm is Arabia's tallest, most enduring tree, at the centre of the economy; the tree of permanence and of wealth.
• That the two verses show two moments of the same event: al-Qamar in the middle of it (while the wind blows), al-Ḥāqqa at the end of it (after the wind has passed).
• That the verb تَنزِعُ comes from the root ن-ز-ع and that the same root is used at al-Maʿārij 70/16 (nazzāʿatan li'l-shawā). That link was taken up in al-Maʿārij.
• The table of differences between خَاوِيَة (hollow) in al-Ḥāqqa and مُنقَعِر (torn up by the roots) here.

Below I give only the three things not taken up in the section on al-Ḥāqqa.

Root: ق-ع-ر. And this root was not taken up in the section on al-Ḥāqqa.

Its concrete sense: the very bottom of a thing, its base. Qaʿru'l-biʾr — the bottom of a well. Qaʿru'l-ināʾ — the bottom of a vessel. Qaʿīr — one whose bottom is deep.

The verb is on the pattern إِنْفِعَال (Form VII): inqaʿara — it broke away from its base, it was torn out together with its foundation. Its active participle is munqaʿir.

And this is exactly what the word says: the tree is not broken, it comes out from its base.

The difference matters, and it can be seen:

The picture the verse gives, then, is not of a fallen tree but of a tree taken out of its place. Its bond with the soil severed, trunk and root together in the air.

This must be read together with the khāwiya of al-Ḥāqqa, and the two words together give a complete description: al-Qamar says the root has broken away, al-Ḥāqqa says the inside was hollow. What was torn out from outside was already empty inside.

I record this joining as my own reading.

And Form VII conveys the middle sense here too — for the fourth time in this sūra: inshaqqa (1), munhamir (11), munqaʿir (20), and below, not muḥtaẓir but a similar structure. The sūra names everything that undergoes an outside action with this form. The moon was split, the water was released, the tree was torn out — none of the three of itself.

I record this as an observation about the pattern, and it can be verified.

The verb is imperfect, among the perfect verbs around it: arsalnā (perfect) — tanziʿu (imperfect).

The same technique was there in verse fourteen: ḥamalnāhu (perfect) — tajrī (imperfect).

The same work is done in both places: while the narrative advances in the past, a single scene is drawn into the present. For a moment the reader steps inside the event.

And note what the two scenes are: one is rescue (the ship running), the other destruction (the wind tearing out). The sūra brings both to life with the same choice of tense.

I record this as my own reading; the tenses of the two verbs are data of the text.

The verse does not say "them", it says "people" — and the word is definite (al-nās).

This is not a generalisation; the context is the people of ʿĀd. But the choice of word is worth recording: instead of the name of the people, the name of the species is used. The wind tears out not "ʿĀd" but "people".

I record this as my own reading: the choice of word enlarges the asymmetry in the scene. What stand opposite one another are named not a wind and a people but a wind and man.