al-Qamar 54:50

Wa mā amrunā illā wāḥidatun ka-lamḥin bi'l-baṣar "And Our command is but one, like the blink of an eye."

وَاحِدَة is a feminine adjective, but the word amr is masculine.

The reason is that the qualified noun has been elided: the adjective belongs to an unstated feminine noun. Two supplyings are transmitted:

I do not impose a preference. Both are recorded and they make no practical difference: the command is either a single word or a single time; on both supplyings what is described is indivisibility.

And the word joins with ṣayḥatan wāḥidatan in verse thirty-one. As I recorded under that verse above: the destruction of Thamūd came by a single sound; verse fifty says that this is the rule.

In al-Ḥāqqa it was recorded that the same word (wāḥida) occurs twice in al-Ḥāqqa and carries the difference of speed between the two sections of that sūra (nafkhatun wāḥida, dakkatan wāḥida). It does the same job in al-Qamar.

لَمْح — Root: ل-م-ح. And this root occurs in only two places in the Qurʾān: here and at al-Naḥl 16/77.

Its concrete sense: a quick look, a glance from the corner of the eye, a glimpse. Lamaḥa — he glanced. Lamḥa — the moment of a single look. Lamḥatu'l-baṣar — the time the eye takes to open and close.

And another branch of the root: لَمَحَ — it gleamed, it flashed. In sound it is close to ل-م-ع (lamʿ, a gleam). I do not speak with certainty about the relation between the two roots; I draw no meaning from closeness in sound.

And what must be dwelt on here is what the unit of measure is.

The verse does not use a unit of time. There is no second, no instant, no abstract span. The measure used is a bodily movement: the opening and closing of the eye.

The reason lies in language itself and is a general fact: in older languages the shortest measures of duration are taken from the body's fastest movements. In English, "in the blink of an eye", "in a heartbeat"; in Arabic, lamḥu'l-baṣar, ṭarfatu ʿayn (the blink of an eye). When there is no instrument of measure, the unit of measure is the body.

This is an observation about language and I record it as such; I do not claim that the verse intends it.

And the organ chosen matters, and I record this as my own reading. Throughout the sūra the eye is a recurring organ:

The eye in five separate verses. And the five in five separate roles: the sign of abasement, the source of water, the expression of protection, the target of punishment, and the measure of time.

I record this as an observation about the distribution of a word; the count can be verified.

The Qurʾān uses this expression once more, and the wording is not exactly the same:

"The matter of the Hour is like the blink of an eye, or nearer." (al-Naḥl 16/77 — ka-lamḥi'l-baṣari aw huwa aqrab) "Our command… like the blink of an eye." (al-Qamar 54/50 — ka-lamḥin bi'l-baṣari)

The difference is in one letter:

Annexation makes the glance belong to the eye: the eye's lamḥa. The bāʾ, on the other hand, gives the eye the function of an instrument: a lamḥa done with the eye.

The difference is small and does not spoil the sense; but I record it, because in this commentary differences of wording are recorded. On the second construction the eye is not the owner of the movement but its instrument.

In al-Nāziʿāt this verse was cited: "And Our command is but one, like the blink of an eye (al-Qamar 54/50)."

Verses forty-nine and fifty build a pair together, and the two sides of the pair are these:

The measure, that is, is in the object, not in the command. What is created is measured; the act of creating is indivisible and without duration.

I record this as my own reading and I draw this conclusion: the events related in the sūra's four accounts — the flood, the wind, the cry, the stones — were events with durations and measures. Verses forty-nine and fifty say where those measures come from, and add that the source itself is without measure.