al-Mulk 67:19

A-wa-lam yaraw ila'l-ṭayri fawqahum ṣāffātin wa yaqbiḍn, mā yumsikuhunna illa'l-raḥmān, innahu bi-kulli shayʾin baṣīr "Have they not looked at the birds above them, spreading their wings and closing them? None holds them up but the Merciful. He sees everything."

In the discussion of al-Ghāshiya the patterns hal atā and a-lam tara were compared. The finding there: a-lam tara obliges the one addressed to accept the event; the only thing opened to discussion is its detail.

Here the pattern is plural and in the third person: a-wa-lam yaraw — "have they not seen?" That is, the one addressed is not spoken to directly; he is mentioned as a third person. This is a distance repeated in this part of the sūra.

And the verb is raʾā (to see), not naẓara (to look). In al-Ghāshiya naẓara was used and the finding there was: the flaw is not failing to see but failing to look. Here raʾā is used and comes with the preposition ilā: yaraw ilā. In Arabic this construction adds the sense "to look towards a thing, to fix one's eye on it" — that is, not mere seeing but turning towards.

Root: ط-ي-ر. To fly. Ṭayr is a collective noun: flying things, the bird kind.

The Qurʾān frames this verse in almost the same way in another place:

"Have they not seen the birds made subject in the open sky? None holds them up but God." (al-Naḥl 16/79)

Comparing the two verses is instructive:

Two differences stand out. The first is distance: al-Naḥl says "the open of the sky", al-Mulk says "above them" — that is, near, visible, there when you raise your head. The second is detail: al-Naḥl gives the bird's state with a general word (made subject), al-Mulk describes the movement of the wing.

Sūrat al-Mulk gives the same proof more closely and in more detail. This agrees with the sūra's general method: what is abstract is brought down to the concrete.

This is the most striking place in the verse and a place the classical exegetes dwelt on.

Two words, in two different grammatical categories:

• صَافَّات — an active participle, plural. "Those spreading their wings" — it conveys a state.
• يَقْبِضْنَ — a verb, imperfect. "They close" — it conveys an action.

In Arabic the active participle conveys continuity and fixity, while the verb conveys renewal and intermittent repetition. This is a known distinction of grammar.

And the verse has applied this distinction to the flight of the bird:

That is, the wing's being open is given as the base state, and its closing as the movement that intervenes.

This description fits the real structure of a bird's flight. In birds flying long distances gliding (wing open) is the dominant state; the beat is intermittent and costs energy. Keeping the wing open is the default, closing it is the intervention.

Here one must be careful, and per the method I enter the reservation: I do not present this as a scientific miracle. The flight of birds was something observable in the seventh century as well; no unknown information is being given in the verse. What is said is plainer and stronger: the categories the grammar has chosen fit the structure of what is observed. This is a fineness of language, not a claim of discovery.

And the conjunction wāw itself carries a fine point: between ṣāffātin and yaqbiḍn there is a wāw, that is, the two states are joined to each other yet not placed in the same category. The sentence is grammatically a little rough — a noun is joined to a verb. The classical grammarians explain this by saying "the verbal clause is in the position of a circumstantial accusative". The roughness produces the intended meaning itself.

أَمْسَكَ — root م-س-ك. To hold, to keep in hand, not to let go. Misk is not from the same root; but imsāk (holding, abstaining from food and drink in fasting) is.

The choice of verb is striking. The verse does not say "the one who lifts them", "who makes them fly", "who drives them in the air". It says "the one who holds them".

The difference is this: to lift is to apply a force; to hold is to prevent a fall. That is, the bird's flying is told not as an achievement but its not falling as a being held.

This changes the outlook of the verse, as my own reading: the ordinary state is falling; flying is the exception. And the exception continues thanks to a holding.

The same verb is used in the Qurʾān for the standing of the heavens and the earth as well — the continuance of the universe is told as a "holding". The example of the bird is a visible instance of that great holding.

And illa'l-raḥmān: this name again. In the third verse the owner of the creating, here the owner of the holding. The sūra insistently mentions the disputed name together with acts.

And the sūra's chain of looking is completed here.

In the third and fourth verses the human being's gaze was sent out and came back exhausted. In the nineteenth verse people are again told "have they not seen?" And at the end of the verse the real seer is mentioned: baṣīr.

That is, after showing the limit of the human being's gaze, the sūra names the gaze that has no limit. The same root (b-ṣ-r), with two different subjects.

And there is this too: the verse does not say "He knows everything" (ʿalīm), it says "He sees everything" (baṣīr). Because the subject is seeing, the attribute of seeing was chosen. This is a typical example of the Qurʾān's verse-endings being chosen in accord with the context.

The finding recorded in the discussion of al-Ghāshiya holds here too: what is seen most becomes what is looked at least. There the example was the camel; here it is the bird.

And the bird is even more familiar than the camel. Even someone living in a city sees dozens of birds a day and looks at none of them.

What the verse does is to turn something not looked at into a proof. And the strength of the proof lies precisely in its ordinariness: had an extraordinary event been the proof, it would have been unrepeatable. The bird flies every day.

A second aspect: the idea of "being held".

The verse tells flying not as an achievement but as a being held. This outlook can be applied to a person's own life as well — and when it is applied it is uncomfortable.

A person's staying on his feet, his health, his work going on, his relationships continuing: all of these are generally told in the language of success. The language of the verse is different: these are a state of not falling, and not falling requires a holding.

The difference between the two languages changes how a person looks at himself. In one there is a position won; in the other a permission being maintained.