al-Mulk 67:20-21

Amman hādha'lladhī huwa jundun lakum yanṣurukum min dūni'l-raḥmān, ini'l-kāfirūna illā fī ghurūr — amman hādha'lladhī yarzuqukum in amsaka rizqah, bal lajjū fī ʿutuwwin wa nufūr "Or who is this army of yours that is to help you apart from the Merciful? The deniers are in nothing but delusion. Or who is this that is to provide for you, if He withholds His provision? No — they persist in hardness and shying away."

The two verses begin with the same pattern: أَمَّنْ هَٰذَا ٱلَّذِى — "or who is this?"

The pattern consists of three parts and each part has a function:

• أَمْ — "or"; it sets a second possibility against the preceding one.
• مَنْ — "who"; the question.
• هَٰذَا ٱلَّذِى — "this that"; a demonstrative.

The third is the real fine point. Hādhā (this) is a demonstrative, and pointing requires that there be something there to point at. The verse points at something that is not there: "this army of yours" — where is it, then?

This is a pattern of mocking interrogation in Arabic. The closest English is the expression "and where is this friend of yours?" — the speaker knows there is nobody there.

And the two verses' being framed with the same pattern turns them into a single question: protection and feeding. The two basic things a master provides for his slave, a patron for his dependant, a state for its citizen. The verse asks whom these two things come from.

جُنْد — root ج-ن-د. A gathered military force, an army, a troop. Its plural is junūd.

And its coming in the singular is striking: jundun — an army. Not "your armies".

One more point of grammar: although jund is a collective noun, it is pointed at with hādhā (this, singular) and then yanṣurukum (he helps you — a singular verb) follows. That is, the army has been set up as a single entity.

نَصَرَ — root ن-ص-ر. To help — but in Arabic this word describes help that comes to someone in a tight place. Naṣr is support against an enemy. The English "help" is broader; naṣr is narrower and carries the smell of war.

مِّن دُونِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ — "apart from the Merciful"

The word dūn in Arabic means both "below" and "apart from, short of". Min dūni'llāh is one of the constructions the Qurʾān uses most often, and it describes associating partners with God: those held short of God.

And again al-Raḥmān. The third use.

The pattern إِنْ… إِلَّا conveys restriction in Arabic: "only and only". That is, not "they are in delusion" but "they are in nothing but delusion."

غُرُور — root غ-ر-ر. And the concrete sense of the root is interesting: ghirr — inexperienced, raw, easily taken in. Ghurra — the most visible, brightest face of a thing; the white blaze on a horse's forehead. Gharra — he deceived; he showed the bright face and hid the inside.

That is, in this Arabic root being deceived is a matter of appearance: the deceiver does not lie; he only shows the bright face.

In the discussion of al-Infiṭār this root was taken up in the verse "mā gharraka bi-rabbika'l-karīm" (what deceived you about your generous Lord?). The use here is on the same line: nobody told them "you have a protector"; they looked at the bright face and supposed it themselves.

And now one of the finest internal links of the sūra.

In the preceding verse (19) the one who holds the birds in the air was mentioned: mā yumsikuhunna illa'l-raḥmān. The verb: أَمْسَكَ.

In this verse the same verb comes: in amsaka rizqah — "if He withholds His provision".

The same verb, two verses apart, with two opposite results. Holding is in one place holding up, in another withholding. Both are the work of the same hand.

I record this as a datum of the text; the contrast I set up between them is my own reading. But the two verses' being so close and the verb's being the same is striking.

And the order between the two questions is meaningful too: first the army (protection), then the provision (feeding). The possibility of an army requires an enemy; the possibility of provision does not. That is, the second question is nearer and more unavoidable. The sūra comes down from threat to need — and in the thirtieth verse this descent will reach water.

Root: ل-ج-ج. And the concrete sense of the root is depth: لُجَّة (lujja) — the deep part of the sea, the open water. Lujjiyy — belonging to the deep sea. It occurs in the Qurʾān: "like darknesses in a deep sea" (this expression is used around al-Nūr 24/40).

And the verb lajja: to plunge into a matter and persist in it, not to come out.

The picture of the word is this: someone who has gone into deep water. He has moved away from the shore; to go back requires swimming, and to go on requires swimming too. And he chooses to go on.

The English "obstinacy" does not quite give this. Obstinacy is an attitude; lajāj is a position — a place entered and stayed in.

The verse uses the preposition fī (in): lajjū fī ʿutuwwin wa nufūr. That is, hardness and shying away are described as a place entered into. The root's sense of "depth", joined with the preposition, fits exactly.

Root: ع-ت-و. To overstep the limit, to run wild, to be arrogant.

And the concrete sense of the root is instructive: ʿatā al-ʿūdu — the branch dried out, hardened, and no longer bends. A green branch flexes; a dried branch does not flex, it only breaks.

That is, ʿutuww is having lost one's flexibility. Running wild is described here not as an excess but as a hardening.

In the discussion of al-Fajr the root ṭughyān was treated: there running wild was described as an overflowing (water going out of its vessel). The two words give the same phenomenon in two different pictures:

One is an excess of movement, the other a deficiency of movement. The Qurʾān describes running wild from two different directions and the two do not contradict: what has overflowed does not return to the vessel, the dried branch no longer bends. The common outcome: irreversibility.

Root: ن-ف-ر. And the proper place of the root is animals: nafara'l-dābba — the animal took fright and bolted. A horse or camel that starts and springs away at a sudden sound.

Its derivatives: nafīr (the call to go out to war — springing from one's place), nafar (a group that goes out on some business), tanfīr (to frighten away).

And now see the link within the sūra — this is one of the finest internal links of the sūra and I record it as my own reading:

In the fifteenth verse the earth was dhalūl: tamed, docile, not shying.

In the twenty-first verse the human being is in nufūr: frightened, bolting.

The sūra compares the two sides in the same animal language: the inanimate has submitted, the intelligent shies and bolts.

The support for this reading in the text is that both words are found in the same sūra and in the same field of meaning. The contrast I set up is an interpretation; the roots of the words are data.

And the order of the three is meaningful too:

1. لجّوا — they plunged into the deep (position) 2. عتوّ — they hardened (state) 3. نفور — they took fright and bolted (movement)

First the place entered, then the rigidity acquired there, then flight from everything that approaches. The order describes a psychology: a person who settles firmly into a position hardens, and the one who has hardened takes fright at everything that might shake him.

And the interesting side of shying is this: the animal that shies is not a coward; it looks for the danger in the wrong place. So it is in the verse too: what is fled from is the Merciful.