al-Wāqiʿa 56:10-12

Wa'l-sābiqūna'l-sābiqūn · Ulāʾika'l-muqarrabūn · Fī jannāti'n-naʿīm "And those who go ahead, those who go ahead! They are the ones brought near. In the gardens of bliss."

The third group. And note: no mā question is asked for this group.

The first two groups were named with "what are they!" and left unanswered — their answers were deferred to the tables of verses 27 and 41. The third group comes with no question at all, straight to the answer: ulāʾika'l-muqarrabūn.

Two of the three, that is, are named with a question and one with a definition.

I interpret this as my own reading: the sūra defers the two groups it asks about and does not defer the third. And this fits the order of the tables — because this is the group whose description begins at verse 12. No question was asked, because the answer comes at once.

Root: س-ب-ق. This root was treated in the section on al-Baqara 2/148, and the core recorded there was this:

"فَٱسْتَبِقُوا۟ ٱلْخَيْرَٰتِ — root س-ب-ق: to get ahead in a race. It is the word used of horse-racing; sābiq (the one in front) and musābaqa are from the same root."

And a table was given there: takāthur (the race that is censured), tanāfus (the race that is commanded), istibāq (the race that is commanded). The conclusion there was this, and it is taken as the ground here:

"The Qurʾān does not forbid racing; it changes what the race is about. The desire in man to get ahead is treated not as a defect to be torn out but as an energy whose direction is to be set."

And the measure added there will work here too: good is not a divisible thing; one person's doing much good does not lessen another's share, and therefore this race produces no conflict.

Now we come to what al-Baqara did not give.

In al-Baqara istibāq was a command: "race". Here the same root has become a noun: al-sābiqūn — "those who go ahead". The result of the commanded act, that is, has become the name of a group.

This is a striking transformation:

The last row matters. In al-Baqara what the race was about was stated: good works. In al-Wāqiʿa the object is not stated — it says only "those who go ahead".

The dropping of the object conveys generalisation in Arabic. This has been recorded several times already in this commentary (yurāʾūn at al-Māʿūn 107/6, jamaʿa at al-Maʿārij 70/18). Its effect here is this: what the going-ahead is about is not specified, because al-Baqara has already specified it. The word is now an attribute in its own right.

I record this as my own reading; the difference of pattern between the two verses is, for its part, a datum of the text.

In the section on al-Nāziʿāt the root was already listed and this verse was mentioned there; it was moreover recorded that the word sābiq is used within the classification at Fāṭir 35/32. I do not repeat it.

One of the most discussed repetitions in the Qurʾān. There are three solutions:

The logic of the first solution is this: in Arabic, repeating a word as the predicate of itself conveys either the impossibility of defining the thing or its being well known. English has its like: "Business is business." That is, "the only equivalent of this word is itself".

The second solution is the most widespread in the classical sources, and its ground is in the text: the next verse begins with ulāʾika, which in Arabic is a settled sign that the predicate has come. The same structure was present in the eighth and ninth verses (subject + a predicate clause).

I state my preference — the second solution; it is not binding. My ground is that verse 11 begins with ulāʾika and that the sūra uses this structure (a noun + ulāʾika) in a pattern seen at al-Balad 90/18 as well.

But the first solution should not be dropped altogether either, because it adds something to the sense: the repetition implies that going ahead has a single criterion. The sūra does not say "those who do good works" or "those who worship much"; it says only "those who are in front". The criterion is not stated.

There is one thing more, and it is in the text itself.

The verse consists of two words and the two are the same. Up to this point the sūra has consistently framed two-winged clauses: khāfiḍa rāfiʿa; rujjat rajjā; bussat bassā; aṣḥābu'l-maymana mā aṣḥābu'l-maymana.

The saying of the word twice, that is, fits the sūra's general rhythm. From the beginning the sūra works by doubling its words.

I record this as an observation, not as a proof.

Root: ق-ر-ب. To be near. From the same root: qurb (nearness), qarīb (near), aqribāʾ (relatives), qurbān (what brings near, an offering), taqrīb (a bringing near).

Pattern: a passive participle of Form II. Muqarrab — "brought near". Passive.

And this is the point not to be missed. The word is not "those who draw near" (al-mutaqarribūn or al-qāribūn) but "those who are brought near".

There is a change of subject, that is, between the tenth verse and the eleventh:

The act is theirs, the outcome is not. The running is man's, the being brought near is God's.

This is the same structure as was recorded for muṭahhara in the sections on al-Bayyina and ʿAbasa, and the measure recorded there applies here exactly: "The pages do not earn their own worth… All three operations are done from outside." So here too: the person races, and the bringing near comes from outside.

And the intensive value of Form II is at work as well: taqrīb is not a single act but a full and comprehensive bringing near.

This word was treated twice in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn (83/21 and 83/28), and two things were recorded there:

1. The muqarrabūn bear witness to the book of the abrār (83/21) — that is, they are separate from them and in a position above them. 2. The muqarrabūn drink of tasnīm itself; the abrār drink of it mixed into raḥīq (83/27-28). "The same water reaches two groups in two different ways: to the one as a mixture, to the other pure."

And in the section on al-Insān a third link was made:

The first three words of al-Insān 76/6 are identical with al-Muṭaffifīn 83/28 — عَيْنًا يَشْرَبُ بِهَا — only the subject changes:

Now the third sūra is in our hands and the link is completed.

Three sūras name the same group, and each looks at it from a different side:

And what al-Wāqiʿa adds is the one thing absent from the other two sūras: how these people came to that position.

Al-Muṭaffifīn described them by where they stand. Al-Insān described them by whose they are. Al-Wāqiʿa describes them by what they did: they went ahead.

Three sūras, that is, answer three questions: where are they, whose are they, what did they do.

I record this link as a verifiable datum of wording: in three sūras muqarrabūn / ʿibādu'llāh point to the same group, and in two of them the wordings coincide exactly. The division into three questions is my own reading.

In descriptions of the Garden the expected words would be reward, station, degree. The sūra chooses the word of distance.

And this fits what was set up at the sūra's beginning: the third verse said khāfiḍa rāfiʿa — abasing, exalting. From the start, that is, the sūra sets up a vertical axis. Muqarrab is the name of the place reached on that axis.

And there is this too: nearness is not a countable reward. A garden has a measure, a recompense has an amount; nearness has no amount. In describing the highest group the sūra chooses the one thing that cannot be measured.

I record this as my own reading.

The root جَنَّة was treated in the section on al-Baqara 2/25: ج-ن-ن, to cover, to conceal. The conclusion recorded there is this, and it is taken as the ground here: "the word janna carries both the sense 'a garden that covers with its greenery' and the sense 'what is hidden from sight'. What is promised is, by definition, what cannot now be seen."

It comes in the plural: jannāt. The Qurʾān uses "garden" in both the singular and the plural. One reading of the plural is a multiplicity of ranks; another is that what belongs to each person is counted separately. I make no firm preference, because the text does not explain.

ٱلنَّعِيم — root: ن-ع-م. This root was tabulated with its vowellings in the section on al-Muzzammil 73/11 (niʿma / naʿma / nuʿmā), and the main matter there was the sense of naʿma as "a state of affluence".

The word here is different: نَعِيم (naʿīm), on the faʿīl metre — abundance, a state of unbroken favour.

And the construction is not adjectival but a genitive construct: jannātu'n-naʿīm — "the gardens of bliss". The gardens are not qualified by an attribute, that is; they are made to belong to something. The gardens belong to bliss.

And this construction returns at the end of the sūra: wa jannātu naʿīm (89) — there indefinite. One of the rings within the sūra.

One further note: Sūrat al-Takāthur, a sūra of eight verses, chose ٱلنَّعِيم as its last word — and there favour was the thing for which an account will be demanded. Here the same word is the thing given.

The same word, two sides in two sūras: what is asked about and what is given. I record this as an observation about wording.