al-Qalam 68:10-13

Wa lā tuṭiʿ kulla ḥallāfin mahīn — hammāzin mashshāʾin bi-namīm — mannāʿin li'l-khayri muʿtadin athīm — ʿutullin baʿda dhālika zanīm "And do not yield to any of these: the great swearer, the contemptible; the constant faultfinder, the one who goes about carrying tales; the withholder of good, the aggressor, the sinner; the coarse, and beyond that the base-born."

The most concentrated portrait of a person in the Qurʾān. Nine attributes, four verses, a single breath.

First the construction of the sentence has to be looked at. In the eighth verse it was said "do not obey those who deny" — plural. In the tenth verse the text moves to the singular: كُلَّ حَلَّافٍ — "any great swearer".

The word كُلّ was treated in the discussion of al-Humaza; the note there was this: kull is singular in form and plural in sense; and it indicates not a person but a type.

And the principle stated in the discussion of al-Humaza holds here too and needs repeating: "to take up the text and fit other people into the description, and to pass judgement on them, is to commit the very act the sūra describes."

This caution is especially necessary for this portrait, because a list of nine attributes invites a person to fit his acquaintances into it. The sūra does not want this; it is describing a type.

And all nine attributes are indefinite: ḥallāfin, mahīnin, hammāzin… Not one of them carries the definite article. So it is not "that man" but "someone of this kind".

Five of the nine attributes are in the intensive form, and this determines the character of the portrait:

The faʿʿāl pattern in Arabic conveys a trade: ḥaddād (blacksmith), najjār (carpenter), khabbāz (baker). So an attribute on this pattern points to the man who does the thing regularly.

The finding recorded in the discussion of al-Humaza for the fuʿala pattern holds here as well: "the pattern conveys that the behaviour has settled into the personality, has become a way of looking. Not the one who does the act, but the one who has become the act."

The faʿʿāl pattern does the same work by another route: it turns the behaviour into a trade.

The most striking thing about this portrait is that the attributes are not strung together at random. The order follows a movement, and I offer this as my own reading:

The movement is this: it begins in speech, passes to the hand, then descends inward, and finally arrives at origin.

That is, the portrait is built from the outside inwards: first what is seen (his speech), then what is done (his behaviour), then what is (his nature), and at the end where he came from (his lineage).

A similar structure was identified in the discussion of al-Fajr — there it was recorded that four verbs "descend from outside inwards" and this conclusion was reached: "The Qurʾān generally builds its diagnosis in this way: it starts from the visible act and descends to the source."

The portrait in al-Qalam follows the same method but with a longer ladder.

Root: ح-ل-ف. To swear, to take an oath. Ḥalf — an oath; ḥilf — a pact, an alliance (a binding by oath). Pacts such as the ḥilf al-fuḍūl of the age before Islam came from this root.

And why is this the first attribute?

There is a reason for swearing a great deal: one's word is not trusted.

A man whose word is accepted has no need of oaths. The oath is a support summoned to carry a load the word cannot carry. And the more often the support is summoned, the weaker the word is understood to be.

So the first attribute says the man's trustworthiness without saying it directly. It does not say "liar"; it says "great swearer". The result is the same, the route finer.

The Qurʾān makes this observation elsewhere too: using an oath as a shield is named among the qualities of the hypocrites.

And that this should be the portrait's first attribute connects it with the preceding verse (9): there was a desire for compromise there. Offers of compromise generally come in words, and a word requires trustworthiness. With its first attribute the portrait says what the word of the type who brings the offer is worth. I record this link as my own reading.

Root: م-ه-ن. And the sense of the root moves back and forth between service and lowliness: mihna — trade, craft, service (the Turkish word mihnet is from this root); mahīn — lowly, worthless, feeble.

The Qurʾān uses this word in one place very strikingly: of the fluid from which the human being is created it says māʾin mahīn (a fluid held of no account) (al-Sajda 32/8; a similar expression at al-Mursalāt 77/20). So the word means "counted as worthless".

And its placement here is meaningful: the second attribute of the man who tries to gain weight by swearing is worthlessness. That is, the reason for the effort is stated.

One further reading is possible, and both occur in the classical sources:

The first reading is the widespread one and suits the pattern (mahīn is an adjective carrying a passive-participle sense). I prefer it; it is not binding.

Root: ه-م-ز. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Humaza (104/1); I do not repeat it here. In summary of the finding there: "Its original sense in the lexicon is to press, to squeeze, to break, to prod. To bear down on something and crush it. The name of the letter hamza in the Arabic alphabet also comes from here."

And this verse was already named in the discussion of al-Humaza: "'The great faultfinder, the carrier of tales' (al-Qalam 68/11). Hammāz — again in the intensive pattern, from the same root, and again within the portrait of a person."

Now I make good on that note. Two sūras name the same act in two different patterns:

Both are intensive patterns and both say the same thing. The difference lies in the second attribute set beside each: in al-Humaza another form of belittling (lamz), in al-Qalam the carrying of belittlement (namīma).

So al-Humaza widens the belittling, while al-Qalam sets it in motion.

And the conclusion recorded in the discussion of al-Humaza holds here too: "The common ground of the two words is the act itself — belittling someone — and the difference lies in the instruments of that act."

The construction has to be resolved word by word.

مَشَّاء — root م-ش-ي. To walk. In the faʿʿāl pattern: one who walks a great deal.

نَمِيم — root ن-م-م. And the concrete sense of the root is interesting: namma — to spread the scent or the trace of a thing; to bring out and spread a piece of news. Namīma — carrying a word one has heard from one person to another in order to damage a relationship. In English it is rendered "talebearing" or "backbiting".

From the same root come namnam (fine traces in sand) and — as the lexicographers record — namla (ant): the ant is said to have been given this name because it moves constantly and leaves a trail. I transmit this derivation as the lexicographers transmit it; it carries no claim to certainty.

And now the picture of the construction: mashshāʾin bi-namīm — one who walks a great deal, carrying tales.

Note the verb the expression chooses: to walk.

The verse does not say "carrier of words"; it says "one who walks with words". At the centre of the act, then, is not speaking but movement.

This catches the mechanics of talebearing, and I write it as my own reading: talebearing is not a conversation but a haulage. A word is taken from one place and carried to another. And carrying takes labour — one goes, one waits, one watches for the right moment.

The faʿʿāl pattern turns that labour into a trade: the man does this for a living.

A link within the sūra, as my own reading: in the discussion of al-Mulk it was seen that the verb mashy distinguishes two ways of walking (67/22 — face down and upright). Here there is a third: the walk that carries tales. The same verb, three different moral positions.

مَنَّاع — root م-ن-ع. Treated in the discussion of al-Māʿūn (107/7); I do not repeat it here. In summary of the finding there: "manʿ is the withholding of something that has been asked for. That is, there is a request. If no one asked, there is no 'withholding'."

This finding operates directly here: withholding requires a request. So the man in the portrait stands facing someone who is asking him for something.

And the pattern is faʿʿāl: he has made withholding his trade.

خَيْر — good. The word's use in the Qurʾān is broad and includes the sense of property. This was recorded in the discussion of al-Fajr: "The Qurʾān also uses the word khayr for property (al-Baqara 2/180: 'if he leaves behind some good')." The ḥubb al-khayr of al-ʿĀdiyāt 100/8 is likewise love of property.

So mannāʿ li'l-khayr can be understood in two ways, and both occur in the classical sources:

The second reading is broader and fits the sense of manʿ better — because manʿ is not "not to give" but "to prevent". For miserliness Arabic has the word bukhl, and the Qurʾān uses it.

My preference is toward the second reading; it is not binding. The two do not exclude one another: the man who does not give is discomfited by the man who does.

And this builds a bridge to the garden narrative. In the narrative the intention of the garden's owners is exactly this: "Let no poor man enter it today upon you" (68/24). So the counterpart of the verb manʿ in the narrative is an instance of the attribute in the portrait.

I record this link as my own reading; but that the two sections stand in the same sūra and describe the same behaviour is a datum of the text.

The link with al-Māʿūn and al-Fajr. In the discussion of al-Māʿūn it was treated how the threshold is lowered step by step: not feeding but urging, then merely a loan. In the discussion of al-Fajr the same two groups (the orphan and the poor) were named.

What the three sūras have in common is this: all of them set withholding up as a matter of belief. In al-Māʿūn the man who denies the religion repels the orphan; in al-Fajr the love of wealth is named together with denial of the day of reckoning; in al-Qalam the man who denies the revelation withholds the good.

These two words were treated in the discussion of al-Muṭaffifīn (83/12), and the link with Sūrat al-Qalam was already made there. The note there was this:

"مَنَّاعٍ لِّلْخَيْرِ مُعْتَدٍ أَثِيمٍ (al-Qalam 68/12) — 'the withholder of good, the aggressor, the sinner.' That is, the phrase muʿtadin athīm occurs in two places in the Qurʾān and both are inside the portrait of a person."

I record their roots briefly and pass on:

مُعْتَد — root ع-د-و. To go beyond the limit, to cross the boundary, to act with enmity. ʿAduww — enemy; ʿudwān — aggression. In Form VIII (iʿtadā): to cross the boundary knowingly.

أَثِيم — root أ-ث-م. Sin. And the concrete sense of the root is heaviness and slowness: the lexicographers explain the verb athima as "to lag behind, to grow heavy". So sin, at the root of the word, is what weighs a person down and leaves him behind.

The faʿīl pattern: settled, become a disposition.

The order of the two words is meaningful: first the act (muʿtad — one who crosses the boundary), then the state (athīm — sinner). What is done, and what the doing leaves in the person.

Root: ع-ت-ل. And on the concrete sense of the word the lexicographers give several closely related descriptions:

• Coarse, harsh, hard-natured. One who does not soften.
• Heavily built, strong. A bully.
• Gluttonous. One who eats a great deal. (This sense is recorded in some sources.)
• One who drags off. The verb ʿatala means "to seize a man by the collar and drag him"; the Qurʾān uses it: "Seize him and drag him into the midst of the Fire" (al-Dukhān 44/47 — faʿtilūhu).

The last sense is the most concrete use of the root and explains the others: ʿutull is a man with brute force enough to drag another, and with no scruple about using it.

And it must not be confused with the root ʿutuww (ع-ت-و) treated in the discussion of al-Mulk — the final letters differ; they are separate roots. But the family of meaning is close: both carry hardness and unbendingness. I record this as an association, not as a claim of derivation.

Its pattern, fuʿull, is a heavy pattern little used in Arabic, and the sound itself suits the sense of the word: two ḍammas and a doubled lām — a heavy, blocked sound in the mouth.

The ninth and last attribute. And before it there is a note: بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ — "after all this", "and beyond that".

The function of this note has been debated:

I incline to the third view, and the ground is this: all eight attributes are things the man does or is. Zanīm, on the other hand — whatever its sense — concerns the man's position. The note baʿda dhālika may be signalling that the category has changed.

This is a preference, and it is not binding.

Root: ز-ن-م. And on the sense of the word the lexicographers give several descriptions; all of them converge at one point.

Concrete senses:

• زَنَمَة (zanama) — the piece of flesh hanging from a sheep's or goat's ear; or the mark/notch made in an animal's ear. A brand made so that the animal may be known in the flock.
• زَنِيم (zanīm) — one who has joined a group later, who is not of that lineage by origin; one who has been attached.
• دَعِيّ (daʿiyy) is counted a synonym: one whose parentage is uncertain, who is ascribed to a lineage but is not of it.

The common idea is this: to be attached to a place one does not belong to. So too is the piece of flesh on the ear — it is part of the body but has no function; it dangles.

Now great care is needed here, and the rule written into the method comes into play.

There are explanations that give the word the sense "born illegitimate", and these are recorded in the classical sources. I record this explanation as a possibility, but I do not dwell on it, and I write the ground plainly:

The Qurʾān condemns no one for his birth. How a person was born is not his act, and the Qurʾān does not call to account for what is not an act. This is the foundation of the Qurʾān's understanding of responsibility.

For this reason I understand the function of the word in its context as follows, as my own reading: zanīm describes the man's position in society — one who seems to belong somewhere but in fact does not, one who is attached, who has fastened on.

And this reading is consistent with the portrait as a whole:

All the attributes of the man in the portrait gather around an anxiety about position:

• He swears a great deal — so that his word will be accepted.
• He carries tales — to gain a place by carrying information.
• He finds fault — to rise by lowering someone else.

These are behaviours a man whose place is secure would not need. And the ninth attribute states the reason: the man is attached.

I offer this reading as my own inference, not as a classical transmission. The concrete sense of the word (the marked animal joined later to the flock) is a datum; the link I make with the portrait is interpretation.

One further note: the word's sense of mark or brand sets up an echo with sa-nasimuhu (we shall brand him) in the sixteenth verse. The branded animal, the nose to be branded. Two words in the same sūra, three verses apart. I record this as an observation.