al-Qamar 54:51

Wa-laqad ahlaknā ashyāʿakum fa-hal min muddakir "And We have destroyed your likes. Is there anyone who will remember?"

This is the sixth and last occurrence of the question fa-hal min muddakir in the sūra. And it differs from the earlier ones at one point.

In five occurrences there was no pronoun of address; in the sixth there is.

This was the observation I recorded in the section "The refrain of al-Raḥmān and the refrain of al-Qamar" above: al-Raḥmān's question pointed at the addressee (Rabbi-kumā, tukadhdhibā-n), al-Qamar's was asked into the open.

And towards its close the sūra closes that difference. In the last occurrence the question is no longer asked into the open; the addressee is inside the sentence.

I record this as my own reading. The wording of the six occurrences is verifiable data of the text; the reading "at the close the sūra brings the addressee into the sentence" is mine.

Root: ش-ي-ع. Its concrete sense: to spread, to disperse, to go in every direction. Shāʿa'l-khabaru — the news spread. Shuyūʿ — spreading (the Turkish şuyû bulmak, "to become widely known", is from this).

And from this the second sense: a group that follows behind someone, a party of adherents. Shīʿa — a group that follows a person and acts with him. Its plurals are أَشْيَاع and شِيَع.

Its uses in the Qurʾān show the field of the word:

• "He had divided them into factions (shiyaʿan)" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/4) — about Pharaoh's people.
• "Those who split up their religion and became factions…" (al-Anʿām 6/159; al-Rūm 30/32).
• "As was done before with their likes…" (Sabaʾ 34/54 — ka-mā fuʿila bi-ashyāʿihim min qabl).

The choice of the word is worth recording, and it does two things.

One — it ties the peoples to the addressee. The verse does not say "we destroyed those before them"; it says "your ashyāʿ." The protagonists of the four accounts, that is, are counted as belonging to the addressee's own group.

Two — it does not specify the kind of tie. A shīʿa is not a bond of descent; it is a bond of acting together. What is said to the addressee, that is, is not "they are your forefathers" but "they are those who behaved as you do".

And this accords with the principle recorded in Method: the tie is established not by identity but by quality.

I record this as my own reading. The sense of the root is a datum of the language; the reading "a tie of quality" that I draw from it is mine.

Root: ه-ل-ك. Halaka — he perished, he was destroyed. Ahlaka (Form IV) — he destroyed.

In al-Ḥāqqa the passive use of this root (uhlikū — they were destroyed) was treated, and it was recorded that the passive, by concealing the agent, brings the event forward.

In al-Qamar the verb is active and the agent is explicit: ahlaknā — "We destroyed."

This fits the general bearing of the two sūras. In al-Qamar the agent is always explicit: arsalnā (19, 31, 34), fataḥnā and fajjarnā (11-12), ḥamalnā (13), ṭamasnā (37), akhadhnā (42), najjaynā (34), ahlaknā (51), khalaqnā (49), yassarnā (17, 22, 32, 40). The sūra uses a first-person plural verb in close to fifteen places.

I record this as an observation from counting; the verbs can be verified.