al-Wāqiʿa 56:75-80

Fa-lā uqsimu bi-mawāqiʿi'n-nujūm · Wa innahu la-qasamun law taʿlamūna ʿaẓīm · Innahu la-qurʾānun karīm · Fī kitābin maknūn · Lā yamassuhu illa'l-muṭahharūn · Tanzīlun min rabbi'l-ʿālamīn

"No! I swear by the places of the stars — and this, did you but know, is a great oath — that it is surely a noble Qurʾān, in a book kept hidden. None but the purified touch it. A sending down from the Lord of all the worlds."

The second block was sealed at the seventy-fourth verse. The third block opens with an oath and will run to the end of the sūra (96).

The subject of the block differs from the first and the second: the first was a table of the hereafter, the second the proofs from nature. The third begins from the text itself: from what this speech is.

This pattern occurs in many places in the Qurʾān and the lexicographers differ over the lā at its head. This disagreement has been treated earlier in the series — al-Qiyāma, al-Takwīr, al-Balad and al-Ḥāqqa — I do not repeat it. The principal views recorded there: that lā is a redundant particle come for emphasis; that it is a rebuttal of something said before; or that it is an opening that increases the greatness of the oath.

The word of the oath is worth recording: mawāqiʿ, root و-ق-ع.

This is the root of the sūra's name and of its first verse: idhā waqaʿati'l-wāqiʿa — "when the event comes to pass". The analysis of the root was made in the section on the first verse: to fall, to come down to the ground, to come to pass.

The same root seventy-five verses apart, at the two ends of the sūra. This is a repetition verifiable from the text.

I record as my own reading: the sūra opened with a wuqūʿ — with something falling into its place. Now an oath is sworn by the mawāqiʿ of the stars — by things standing in their proper places. The same root: in one place the breaking of an order, in another the order itself.

Nujūm — root ن-ج-م. The root was analysed in al-Ṭāriq and al-Raḥmān: a star; and a plant's coming up out of the ground (najm is also a stemless plant — al-Raḥmān 55/6). I do not repeat it.

But a third branch of the root should be mentioned here, and the context calls for it: the lexicographers record that the word nujūm is also used in the sense of "instalments, portions paid piece by piece" (a debt being paid in nujūm).

For this reason a second reading of the verse is transmitted in the classical exegeses: mawāqiʿu'n-nujūm, the times at which the Qurʾān came down piece by piece. This reading rests on the fact that the verses immediately following speak of the Qurʾān.

Both readings are transmitted. I impose no preference; I record this much: the second reading is supported in terms of word order, because it makes a direct connection with the subject of verses 77-80.

It is not common in the Qurʾān for a comment on the oath itself to follow an oath. Here it is done: "this, did you but know, is a great oath."

Law taʿlamūn — "did you but know". It comes into the middle of the sentence, between the attribute and what it qualifies (la-qasamun … ʿaẓīm). In Arabic this interposition (iʿtirāḍ) increases the emphasis.

And what it says is plain: the greatness of the oath depends on what is sworn by being known. Had it been known what the places of the stars mean, the weight of the oath would have been understood.

I record this as an observation and draw its limit too: the verse says that the hearer's knowledge is deficient. I draw no conclusion from this such as "modern astronomy is meant" — per the method (Method) such a claim is groundless. What the verse says is that knowledge is deficient; it has not specified which knowledge.

This is the answer to the oath: innahu la-qurʾānun karīm.

Qurʾān — root ق-ر-أ: to read, to gather. That the word carries both the sense "what is read" and "what is brought together" was treated in al-ʿAlaq (iqraʾ).

The attribute karīm — and it occurs here for the second time in this sūra. In the forty-fourth verse it was said of the shade of the men of the left lā bāridin wa lā karīm; I recorded that return there.

The same attribute is denied in one place and affirmed in another. And the sense the lexicographers give for karīm, "the useful specimen of its own kind", works in both places: the one a shade that does not give the benefit expected of it, the other the useful one among speeches.

Maknūn — root ك-ن-ن: to cover, to conceal, to keep within a case. The root was analysed in the twenty-third verse of this sūra: ka-amthāli'l-luʾluʾi'l-maknūn — like a pearl kept in its shell.

The same word, in the same sūra, fifty-five verses apart. This is a repetition verifiable from the text.

I record as my own reading: the pearl's being maknūn conveyed untouchedness and unspoiledness. The use of the same word for the book calls up the same two things: untouched and unspoiled. And the next verse will speak of touching in any case.

There are two separate debates over this verse. Both must be given separately.

The first debate — is the sentence a statement or a prohibition:

The wording is closer to the first reading (the verb is lā yamassu, in the indicative; had it been a prohibition, lā yamsashu would have been expected). I record this as a grammatical observation, not as a ruling.

The second debate — who al-muṭahharūn are and to what the pronoun hu belongs:

All three views are found in the classical exegeses.

The pattern muṭahharūn is counted an indication and must be recorded: the word is a passive participle (purified), not mutaṭahhirūn (those who purify themselves). The purifying appears to have been done to them, that is, not by them. Those who maintain the first view rest on this pattern.

I impose no preference and, per the method (Method), I issue no legal ruling. The question of touching the codex without ritual purity is a question of law; the schools differ on it, and this verse's place in that debate is itself disputed. What is relayed here is the linguistic and exegetical side of the verse.

From the seventy-seventh verse to the eightieth four statements are ranged one after another:

The ordering works not from above downward but from inside outward, and the last verse closes by naming the source.

Tanzīl — root ن-ز-ل, a verbal noun of Form II. And this root has occurred earlier in the sūra: in the fifty-sixth verse, nuzuluhum (their welcome). It will return once more in the ninety-third verse of the sūra. The root's three occurrences within the sūra use the word's two separate branches of meaning (sending down / hospitality to a guest).

Min rabbi'l-ʿālamīn — the same expression as in the second verse of al-Fātiḥa. The analysis of the root and of the construction was made in al-Fātiḥa; I do not repeat it.