al-Qalam 68:44-47

Fa-dharnī wa man yukadhdhibu bi-hādhā'l-ḥadīth, sa-nastadrijuhum min ḥaythu lā yaʿlamūn — wa umlī lahum, inna kaydī matīn — am tasʾaluhum ajran fa-hum min maghramin muthqalūn — am ʿindahumu'l-ghaybu fa-hum yaktubūn "Leave Me and the one who denies this discourse. We shall draw them on by degrees, from where they do not know. I give them respite; My plan is firm. Or are you asking them for a fee, so that they are weighed down by a debt? Or is the unseen with them, so that they write from it?"

Root: و-ذ-ر. To leave, to abandon. And this verb has an interesting property: its perfect is not used — one does not say wadhara in Arabic; taraka is used instead. Only the imperative and imperfect forms survive.

And the expression itself is an idiom in Arabic: dharnī wa fulānan — "leave me alone with him."

Its sense: "do not get involved; this is between him and Me."

And the picture the sentence produces, as my own reading: the Prophet is under a burden — persuading those he addresses, saving them. The verse takes that burden away.

This runs along the same line as the finding recorded in the discussion of al-Ghāshiya: "You are only a reminder; you are not one who compels them" (88/21-22) and "their reckoning is Ours" (88/26). The finding there was: "not being a controller is not a deficiency but an exemption."

Sūrat al-Qalam grants the same exemption by a command: leave it.

هَٰذَا ٱلْحَدِيث — "this discourse".

حَدِيث — root ح-د-ث. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Ghāshiya (88/1); I do not repeat it here. In summary of the finding there: "the original sense of the root is to be new, to come about afterwards… From here it passed to 'word, news, account' — because news is the transmitting of what is new."

And the second finding recorded there operates here in particular: "ḥadīth is not a heavy word like 'book' or 'revelation'. It belongs to the spoken language, an everyday word."

And now a contrast, as my own reading: in the fifteenth verse the denier called the Qurʾān asāṭīr al-awwalīn — the writings of "the ancients". In the forty-fourth verse the Qurʾān calls itself hādhā'l-ḥadīth — "this new discourse".

The two words are exact opposites and they name the same thing. The claim is "this is old"; the answer is "this is new."

I record this as my own reading; but that two words with opposite senses are used of the same object in the same sūra is a datum of the text.

The sūra's most technical concept. Root: د-ر-ج.

The concrete sense of the root: a step, a degree, a rung. Daraja — a step; daraja (verb) — to advance step by step, to climb by stages. Durj — a small box (things put in it by stages). Idrāj — to insert one thing inside another.

In Form X (istadraja): to draw someone towards oneself by degrees, to catch him by bringing him nearer step by step.

And the picture of the word is this: the hunter brings the quarry closer without startling it. At every step the quarry feels safe, because no single step looks dangerous. The danger is in the sum of the steps.

مِّنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ — "from where they do not know".

This note completes the definition of being drawn on: the person does not know he is being drawn. If he knew, it would not be a drawing-on at all.

And from here comes the most uncomfortable side of the concept: being drawn on does not feel like a bad thing. Matters go well, opportunities increase, no obstacle appears.

This link was already made in the discussion of al-Layl, and the note there was this:

"There is a counterpart to this within the Qurʾān: 'Those who deny Our verses We shall draw on by degrees, from where they do not know' (al-Aʿrāf 7/182; similarly at al-Qalam 68/44). There too the punishment is described not as an obstruction but as a flow."

Now I make good on that note and set the two texts side by side:

The two texts are almost word for word the same.

I record this as a datum; I make no claim that there is a deliberate reference from one sūra to the other — the note made for a similar overlap in the discussion of al-Muṭaffifīn holds here as well.

And the principal finding in the discussion of al-Layl gives the heart of the concept:

"The form of the punishment is not the closing of the road but the opening of it… The miser is not made to find miserliness harder — he is made to find it easier… And the fine point here is this: the person does not experience it as a punishment. On the contrary, he experiences it as relief."

Being drawn on by degrees is the name of that principle.

And the last sentence in the discussion of al-Layl is worth repeating here: "both directions grow easier with time — and growing easier is no proof that the direction taken is the right one."

Root: م-ل-و / م-ل-ي. To give a long span, to allow ample time. Malā — a long time; malawān — night and day.

And from the same root comes imlāʾ — to dictate a text. The Turkish word imlâ comes from here.

The relation between the two senses is explained by the lexicographers thus: to dictate is to speak to another while allowing him time — to speak slowly so that he can write.

And this sets up an echo with the sūra's opening with the pen, as my own reading: the same root means both "to give respite" and "to dictate". The sūra began with writing; here respite is named by a word from the same root as dictation.

I record this as an observation about the word; I make no claim that the verse intends the association.

The function of the respite: giving a person time does two things at once — it opens a possibility of repentance and it makes the outcome heavier. The Qurʾān sets up this doubleness elsewhere too.

This sentence is uncomfortable, and the source of the discomfort is the translation.

كَيْد — root ك-ي-د. And the sense of the root is hidden planning, taking measures without letting them be sensed. It is rendered into English as "plot, scheme, guile", and these renderings load the word with a negative moral charge.

In Arabic kayd is not necessarily evil. The Qurʾān shows this plainly: in the narrative of Joseph, the plan laid in order to keep his brother back is named kayd, and that plan is one God taught: "Thus did We teach Joseph a plan" (the expression kidnā li-Yūsuf occurs in the frame of Yūsuf 12/76).

So kayd holds no "injustice" in the word itself; it holds concealment.

And the logic of its use in the verse is this, as my own reading: the other side lays hidden plans (the sūra has related whisperings, desires for compromise, efforts at entrapment). The verse answers by using the same word: you have your plan, and I have mine.

The Qurʾān often uses this matching of language: the other side's act comes back in the same word. An instance of this was recorded in the discussion of al-Humaza (the verb nabz).

مَتِين — root م-ت-ن. And the concrete sense of the root is the back, the firm and thick part: matn — the back of a thing, its body; and from there "firmness". In Turkish the same root yields both metin ("firm") and metin ("the main body of a work"); English covers these two senses with two unconnected words.

So kaydī matīn — "My plan is one whose back is sound", that is, it does not collapse, it does not break.

And the sūra asks two more questions. These questions are the continuation of the am series that ran between verses thirty-seven and forty-one.

The logic of the question: there may be reasonable grounds for people to refuse an invitation. The verse eliminates them one by one.

The first reasonable ground: cost. If a price is being asked in return for the invitation, refusing it is intelligible.

مَغْرَم — root غ-ر-م. A debt that must be paid, compensation, loss. Gharīm — a debtor; ghurm — loss. And from the same root comes gharām — a passion that will not let a person go, that clings; the Qurʾān uses this for the punishment as well.

The common idea of the root: a burden that clings and will not let go.

مُّثْقَلُون — root ث-ق-ل. Weight. Thiql — weight, a load. Muthqal — left under a heavy load.

And the answer itself is not in the sentence — because everyone knows it. The Prophet was asking no fee. The Qurʾān says this plainly in many places.

So the question is rhetorical, and it says this: you have no reasonable ground for refusing. This is free.

The second reasonable ground: counter-knowledge. If they have better information in hand, refusing is intelligible.

غَيْب — root غ-ي-ب. The unseen, what cannot be reached by the senses. Treated in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/3.

فَهُمْ يَكْتُبُونَ — "so that they write from it?"

And here is the loveliest turn in the sūra, as my own reading.

The first verse: wa mā yasṭurūn — by what they write. The forty-seventh verse: fa-hum yaktubūn — do they write?

The sūra opens with a pen and closes its examination by asking the other side, "have you a pen too?"

And the question takes aim at the source of the claim: the one who rejects the revelation must, in rejecting it, be relying on some knowledge. Where does that knowledge come from? Does he see the unseen and write it down?

So the verse says this: denial too is a claim to knowledge, and the source of that claim is asked for as well.

This is the sharpest logical stroke in the sūra and it holds for today as well: to claim that something does not exist requires a ground just as much as claiming that it does. An absence of knowledge does not establish a negative judgement either.

And the sūra's three words for writing are completed here:

Exactly such a table was set up in the discussion of al-Muṭaffifīn and this note was made: "I offer this as my own reading. That the three roots occur in the sūra is a datum of the text; the contrast I make between them is an interpretation." The same note holds here.