al-Jumuʿa 62:2

Huwa'lladhī baʿatha fi'l-ummiyyīna rasūlan minhum yatlū ʿalayhim āyātihi wa yuzakkīhim wa yuʿallimuhumu'l-kitāba wa'l-ḥikmata wa in kānū min qablu la-fī ḍalālin mubīn

"It is He who sent among the ummiyyūn a messenger from among themselves: he recites to them His verses, purifies them, and teaches them the Book and wisdom. Yet before that they were in a manifest straying."

The skeleton of the sentence is this:

• One perfect verb: baʿatha (he sent) — a single, completed event.
• Three imperfect verbs: yatlū (he recites), yuzakkī (he purifies), yuʿallimu (he teaches) — continuing, repeated works.

The difference of form states a programme. The sending happens once; the work of the one sent is continuous. And the three imperfect verbs stand in the position of an attribute to the word rasūlan — that is, messengerhood is defined by these three works. The messenger is described not as "one who brings a piece of news" but as "one who does these three things".

This verse does not stand alone in the Qurʾān. Nearly the same expression occurs in four places, and the differences between them are instructive:

Two things appear at once.

First: al-Jumuʿa 62/2 and Āl ʿImrān 3/164 are, closing sentence included, almost word for word the same. The difference lies in two places: 3/164 says "to the believers" and qualifies the messenger as min anfusihim (from their own selves); 62/2 says "among the ummiyyūn" and qualifies him as minhum (from among them). The same sentence is built with two different descriptions of the addressee.

Second — and this is the real matter: at al-Baqara 2/129 the order is different. There teaching comes before purifying. In the other three places purifying comes before teaching.

This difference has been noticed in the classical commentaries and dwelt upon. Al-Baqara 2/129 is a prayer — it is Abraham's request. The other three are the report of what has come to pass.

The reading that follows is this: the one who asks voices the matter in the naturally expected order (first one is taught, then one is purified); the coming to pass happens in another order (first one is purified, then taught). This is an explanation voiced in the classical sources; it is not presented as a definite ruling.

But why should the order in which it came to pass be this way? It is worth thinking about, because the claim is a serious one.

To teach is to put knowledge into a vessel. The condition of the vessel determines what the thing put into it will become. A clean thing put into a dirty vessel does not stay clean — and knowledge is the same: right knowledge taken up with a corrupt intention produces a corrupt result. The fifth verse of the sūra is exactly the example of this: the Torah was given, and it was not carried. There is no defect in the thing given; the defect is in the receiver.

For this reason, when the order is purifying → teaching, a claim about priority emerges: knowledge is not carried if its carrier is not ready.

And if one looks closely, this is the whole argument of the sūra. The fifth verse shows how an unpurified carrier carries the book: on its back.

I add this as my own reading: this ordering is not an order of time but an order of priority. In the verse all three verbs are imperfect; that is, all three go on at the same time. It is not being said "let this finish first, then let that begin". What is being said is: the two run together, and one is the condition of the other.

The word أُمِّيّ was treated at al-Baqara 2/78; I do not repeat the finding recorded there: the root is أ-م-م (mother), its classical explanation "remaining in the state in which he was born of his mother", that is, a person who has not learnt to read and write; in its context in al-Baqara it means specifically one who does not know the Book.

What needs to be added here is the function of the word in this verse.

Five verses later Sūrat al-Jumuʿa will speak of "those who were laden with the Torah". That is, a contrast is being built within the sūra:

This contrast settles the meaning of the word here: ummī is used not as a belittling epithet meaning "ignorant" but in the sense "one to whom a book has not previously been given", as a technical marking of position. The verse is not counting up a deficiency; it is describing a starting point.

Indeed the end of the verse says this plainly: wa in kānū min qablu la-fī ḍalālin mubīn — "before that they were in a manifest straying." That is, the place from which the start was made is being recorded. And this record, combined with the next verse's expression "others of them who have not yet joined them", comes to mean this: the condition of this call is not to possess a prior accumulation.

There is a disagreement about the scope of the word, and it would not be right to conceal it:

In my judgement the first reading comes first in this verse, because the contrast the verse builds has to do not with literacy but with possession of a book. This preference is not binding.

A note of two words, but one of the most loaded places in the verse.

Minhum — "from among them". The messenger does not come from outside; he comes out from within the addressees. This is something the Qurʾān regularly emphasises in its account of the sending of prophets, and it has two sides:

1. It closes off excuse. It cannot be said, "someone unlike us came; he does not understand us." 2. It establishes an example. That what is asked to be done can be done is shown through someone living in the same conditions.

At Āl ʿImrān 3/164, in the same place, it says min anfusihim (from their own selves) — a still closer expression. The minhum in al-Jumuʿa is more neutral, more in the sense of "from the same community".

There is this too: rasūlan came indefinite. Not "al-Rasūl" but "a messenger". In Arabic this can be used to introduce and to magnify a word (taʿẓīm), and it is also used to state the kind. Here, because three adjectival clauses follow it, the indefiniteness is natural: it is the indefinite that is fit to take an attribute. That is, the leaving of the word indefinite is in order that it may be defined by the three verbs that follow immediately. Who the messenger is, is said not by a name but by a work.

The root ت-ل-و was treated in the section on Sūrat al-Bayyina (98/2); the finding is recalled here without being repeated, because it is particularly important in this verse:

The primary sense of the root is not to read but to come after, to follow, to go along behind. Talāhu — he followed him. Al-tālī — the one who comes after. Arabic also has qirāʾa for "reading" (root ق-ر-أ: to gather, to bring together — to gather letters and make a word). The difference between the two: qirāʾa emphasises gathering, tilāwa following.

Now put this knowledge inside the verse.

The messenger's first work is tilāwa — that is, in the logic of the word itself, "going after the verses". Not to voice the text but to walk behind it. The word carries within it the reciter's being subject to the text: the one who recites is not the one in front but the one who comes behind.

And precisely for this reason this word stands in direct conflict with the fifth verse of the sūra. The man described there carries the book — that is, he has taken it behind him and himself gone in front. The direction has been reversed. Tilāwa is to go behind the text; ḥaml is to carry the text behind.

This link is not forced; it issues from the meanings of the words themselves and stands as a contrast built between two verses of the sūra.

عَلَيْهِمْ — "to them". The verb comes with the particle ʿalā. This particle states a descent from above; what is recited is given not across to the other side but downward from above. In the Qurʾān the coming of the verb tilāwa with this particle is regular.

آيَاتِهِ — "His verses". The root أ-ي-ي: sign, mark, token. An āya is a sign that exists not for itself but for what it points to. Like a road sign: one looks at the sign but does not stop at the sign. The choosing of this word here completes what tilāwa is: to go after the signs.

The root ز-ك-و was treated in detail at al-Shams 91/9 and seen with its concrete counterpart at al-Layl 92/18; I do not repeat it here. The summary is this: beneath the root there lie two senses at once and they are inseparable — cleanness and growth. From the same root comes zakāt; property, when a portion of it is taken out, is both cleansed and increased. For this reason to render tazkiya only as "to cleanse" leaves it half done: to purify and thereby to make grow.

As was recorded in the section on al-Shams, there the verb was reflexive: man zakkāhā — "whoever purifies it (his own self)". The agent was man himself.

Here the agent changes. Yuzakkīhim — the messenger purifies them.

This change produces a real tension, and it would not be right to skip it. In the section on al-Shams too there was an objection recorded: elsewhere the Qurʾān appears to forbid purifying the self ("do not claim purity for your souls", al-Najm 53/32). Now here purification comes as the act of another.

The solution is found by looking at to whom the verb is ascribed:

That is, what is forbidden is not the effort of purification but the claim to be purified. These are two different acts: one is to work, the other is to pass a verdict about oneself.

But how does the messenger purify? The text itself gives no answer to this question, and one must not invent one. Two things, however, can be said from the context:

First, the word order of the verse itself has placed purifying between tilāwa and taʿlīm. That is, purifying is a work standing between reciting and teaching. This position shows that it is neither a pure transfer of information nor a ceremony independent of knowledge.

Second, the "growth" sense of the root must not be forgotten. Tazkiya is not a diminishing. It is done by something's being taken out, but its result is increase. At al-Layl 92/18 this was made concrete as "who gives his wealth, in order to be purified". That is, the clearest example of tazkiya within the Qurʾān is putting something out of one's hand.

When we combine this with the next item, the last verse of the sūra looks different: what was asked of the community that ran to the caravan was exactly to put something out of their hand — to let a caravan go.

يُعَلِّمُ — the root ع-ل-م. The tafʿīl form here states transitivity and gradualness: not a transfer at one stroke but teaching step by step.

الْكِتَاب — the root ك-ت-ب: its primary sense is to sew together, to join. In Arabic this root is used for sewing leather as well. Writing has taken this name because it attaches and binds letters to one another. That is, kitāb, in the logic of the word itself, is "that which has been bound together" — the gathered state of what was scattered.

الْحِكْمَة — the root recorded at the first verse is at work here: ح-ك-م, to prevent, to bridle; ḥakama, the horse's bit.

The meaning of the two objects is therefore this: that which is bound (the book) and that which binds (wisdom). One is the text itself, the other the work the text does in a person.

In the classical exegesis there is a wide disagreement about what ḥikma is: the sunna, jurisprudence, grasping the subtleties of the verses, the capacity to judge rightly, the joining of knowledge with action. I adopt no preference among these views, because the root of the word already gives their common denominator: that which binds knowledge to behaviour. Whichever view is taken, wisdom is not outside the text but the text's counterpart in the person.

And this completes the word order of the verse: the book is taught, and wisdom is taught too. That is, the giving of the text is not counted sufficient; that which holds the text must be given as well. What will be seen in the fifth verse is exactly the lack of this second thing. The donkey carries the book — the book is there, the bit is not.

إِنْ here is not a particle of negation; it is the structure called mukhaffafa min al-thaqīla — its origin is inna, it has been lightened, and the لَ (the distinguishing lām) that comes at the head of its predicate makes this plain. That is, the sentence is not negative but an emphasised affirmative: "they were indeed, before that, in a manifest straying."

ضَلَال — the root ض-ل-ل: to lose the way, to go astray. The concrete sense of the word is to lose the track in the desert. Note: ḍalāl is not "to do evil" but "not to know where one is going". At the centre of the root there stands not immorality but directionlessness.

مُبِين — the root ب-ي-ن: the space between two things, separation. In the ifʿāl form (abāna) it becomes "to distinguish, to make plain". Mubīn is an active participle that can mean both "that which is plain" and "that which makes plain".

That it should say "a manifest straying" here enters an interesting caveat: the straying was not hidden. It could be seen. Combined with the first word of the second verse, this completes the picture: the situation was evident, and the intervention came upon that evident situation.

The practical counterpart of the order. The side of the verse that works most is the placing of purifying before teaching. Its counterpart today has to do directly with education: if, before a piece of knowledge is transmitted, no question is asked about the condition of the place that knowledge is going to, the transmission is not reliable. The same knowledge yields different results in different intentions. This holds in religious education as much as in every kind of specialist training — technical competence is not a good independent of the condition of the person who will use it.

The direction of tilāwa. The sense of "going after" the text puts in question, today more than anything, the relation established with a text. When a text is read, two things can happen: the reader goes after the text, or he drags the text after himself. The word itself says the first. The second can be done too — but then what is being done is not called tilāwa.