al-Qamar 54:33-34

Kadhdhabat qawmu Lūṭin bi'l-nudhur — innā arsalnā ʿalayhim ḥāṣiban illā āla Lūṭin; najjaynāhum bi-saḥar "The people of Lot too denied the warnings. We sent against them a stone-hurling wind — except the family of Lot; them We saved at daybreak."

This account differs from the other three at one point: the description of the punishment comes before the description of the offence.

Verse thirty-four gives the punishment (ḥāṣib), verse thirty-seven gives the offence (rāwadūhu ʿan ḍayfih). The order, that is, has been built in reverse.

In the other three accounts the order was always the same: denial → (offence) → punishment. Here: denial → punishment → rescue → warning → offence → punishment again.

I record this as my own reading: this break appears to have to do with the intervention of the sentence about the rescue (34-35). To relate those who were saved, the sūra must first state the destruction; a rescue can only be related as an exception within a destruction. This is already visible in the grammar of verse thirty-four: the particle illā (except).

Root: ح-ص-ب. Its concrete sense: gravel, small stones. Ḥaṣbāʾ — pebbles.

This word was treated in al-Mulk and this verse was cited there: "We sent against them a stone-hurling wind (al-Qamar 54/34) — about the people of Lot." The section on al-Mulk also gave in tabular form the contrast between a threat coming from the sky (ḥāṣib) and one coming from the earth (yakhsifa). I do not repeat these.

Two things are to be added here.

One — the form of the word. Ḥāṣib is an active participle: "hurling gravel". The word names not the wind but the work the wind does. Rendered into English as "a rain of stones", the agent's movement is lost.

Two — the root's second use. The same root occurs once more in the Qurʾān, in a completely different place:

"You and what you worship besides God are the fuel of Hell (ḥaṣabu jahannam)." (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/98)

There ḥaṣab is what is thrown into the fire. The root names both the thrown stone and the thrown fuel. The common core: being thrown.

I record this as a datum of the language.

The Qurʾān relates the destruction of the people of Lot with other words in other sūras and I do not repeat them here; in al-Ḥāqqa al-muʾtafikāt (the overturned cities) was treated in detail and it was recorded there that the Qurʾān does not give the names of the cities. That note holds here too.

آل — its root, according to the majority of the lexicographers, is أ-و-ل (awl — to return, to arrive); according to some it is a transformation of the word ahl. I issue no definite ruling.

The sense of the word: someone's circle, his household, those attached to him. It is not mere blood kinship; it conveys attachment.

And this word occurs twice in the sūra — and the two occurrences look at one another:

The same word at the two ends of what befell two peoples. One names those attached to a prophet, the other those attached to a tyrant.

I record this as my own reading. The wording of the two verses is verifiable data of the text; setting the two opposite one another is my reading.

And the word's sense of "attachment" is functional here: elsewhere the Qurʾān says that Lot's wife was not saved (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/32-33; al-Taḥrīm 66/10 — treated in al-Taḥrīm). Āl here, then, is not determined by blood. It is possible to be in the same household and stay outside the list.

Root: ن-ج-و. Its concrete sense: to bring a thing up to a high place, to set it apart. Najwa — high ground the floodwaters do not reach. And from this to be saved: to rise above and away from danger.

From the same root najwā (a secret conversation — treated in al-Mujādala): the setting apart of a conversation from the group.

The verb is on the pattern of Form II (tafʿīl): najjā — he saved. Here that form conveys both transitivity and multiplicity (number, thoroughness).

Root: س-ح-ر, treated at verse two, where it was recorded that the two words (سِحْر / سَحَر) come from the same root.

سَحَر — the last part of the night, the time just before dawn. The darkest and quietest hour of the night.

The word was treated in al-Dhāriyāt, and al-Dhāriyāt 51/18 was cited there: wa bi'l-asḥāri hum yastaghfirūn — "and in the hours before dawn they seek forgiveness."

A grammatical detail. The word here is indefinite and carries tanwīn: bi-saḥarin. There is a nicety the lexicographers record: when the saḥar of a particular day is meant, the word saḥar becomes diptote and takes no tanwīn (saḥarā); when an unspecified daybreak is meant, it takes tanwīn. I transmit this nicety as ascribed to the lexicographers; I do not claim that it works absolutely everywhere.

If it holds, then what the verse says is "at a daybreak"; no particular date is spoken of.

And now verse thirty-four must be read together with verse thirty-eight, because both give an hour:

Between the two events there is about an hour.

The rescue takes place a short time before the destruction — and the two times are neighbours. Saḥar is the last slice of the night, bukra the first slice of the day. Between them is sunrise.

I record this as my own reading. The senses of the two words are lexical data; the wording of the two verses is data of the text; the temporal relation between them is my inference.

And this is something the sūra does elsewhere too: it gives durations. The ṣarṣar lasted seven nights and eight days (the information al-Ḥāqqa gives); the ṣayḥa was a single instant (31); the flood came from two waters (11-12); the people of Lot were taken at a morning hour (38). The sūra gives events with their hours — and in verse fifty it will say where this comes from: ka-lamḥin bi'l-baṣar.