al-Anʿām 6:162-165 — The closing of the sūra

Qul inna ṣalātī wa nusukī wa maḥyāya wa mamātī li'llāhi rabbi'l-ʿālamīn · Lā sharīka lah wa bi-dhālika umirtu wa ana awwalu'l-muslimīn

"Say: 'My prayer, my rite of sacrifice, my living and my dying belong to God, the Lord of all the worlds. He has no partner. This I was commanded, and I am the first of those who submit.'"

Four things are counted, and their order is worth recording:

I record this as my own reading: the list moves from the narrow (prayer) to the wide (life), and from there to what is not in one's hands (death). And all four are bound by a single construct: li'llāhi rabbi'l-ʿālamīn.

The و-ز-ر principle was treated in six places in the index: al-Najm 53/38, al-Zumar 39/7, Fāṭir 35/18, Luqmān 31/33, al-ʿAnkabūt 29/12-13, al-Isrāʾ 17/15. This is the seventh link.

And what al-Anʿām adds must be recorded: a sentence comes before the principle — wa lā taksibu kullu nafsin illā ʿalayhā. That is, that the earning too and the burden too belong to the person is said twice in the same verse.

"It is He who made you successors on the earth, and raised some of you above others in degrees, in order to try you by what He has given you."

خَلَٰٓئِف — treated at Fāṭir 35/39, and it was recorded there: succession is not a privilege but a charge whose outcome belongs to the person. I rely on that treatment.

And the last sentence is worth recording: li-yabluwakum fī mā ātākum — "in order to try you by what He has given you."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sūra as a whole: the sūra described the prohibitions people laid down themselves (136-140), the shares they invented themselves and the superiorities they set up themselves. At the close it is said that the difference of degree which really exists is an instrument of trial — that is, the difference is not denied, its function is stated.

And the same structure was treated at al-Kahf 18/7 (innā jaʿalnā mā ʿala'l-arḍi zīnatan lahā li-nabluwahum ayyuhum aḥsanu ʿamalā). The two sūras set up the same sentence: what is given is an instrument of trial.