al-Ḥāqqa 69:41-43

Wa mā huwa bi-qawli shāʿir; qalīlan mā tuʾminūn · Wa lā bi-qawli kāhin; qalīlan mā tadhakkarūn · Tanzīlun min rabbi'l-ʿālamīn "It is not the speech of a poet — how little you believe! Nor the speech of a soothsayer — how little you reflect! It is a sending down from the Lord of all the worlds."

The accusations levelled at the Qurʾān are recorded in the Qurʾān itself and fall under four headings: siḥr (sorcery), shiʿr (poetry), kihāna (soothsaying), junūn (madness). In the sections on al-Takwīr and al-Inshirāḥ it was recorded that this is a method of categorisation: "they are the standard ways, in that culture, of invalidating a person's speech — instead of disputing what is said, classifying the one who says it."

Al-Ḥāqqa takes up two of them: poet and soothsayer.

Root: ش-ع-ر. And the concrete sense of the root is not to write poetry: shaʿara — to feel, to sense, to arrive at a fine awareness.

• شُعُور — feeling, sensation, awareness. "They do not realise" (lā yashʿurūn) is an expression the Qurʾān uses often.
• شَعْر — a hair. The lexicographers' explanation: a hair is the extreme of fineness; and shuʿūr is the finest state of perception. I transmit this explanation; I do not present it as a settled etymological judgement.
• شَاعِر — a poet. The exact sense of the word: one who feels, one who senses.

In Arabic, that is, a poet is one who notices what others do not notice. Mastery of speech comes second; the first quality is perception.

And this changes the character of the accusation.

In pre-Islamic Arabia the poet was not an entertainer who spoke ornate words. He was the spokesman of the tribe, its memory, an instrument of war. And it was commonly held that a poet had a jinn companion: the poetry was said to him by that being.

The accusation "poet", that is, said two things: (a) the speech is beautiful but comes out of the man himself (the fruit of intuition, of inspiration); (b) behind it there is an unseen being.

The Qurʾān records and rejects this accusation elsewhere as well:

• "No, they said: 'A jumble of dreams; no, he has invented it; no, he is a poet.'" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/5)
• "We did not teach him poetry, nor would it befit him. It is only a reminder and a clear Qurʾān." (Yā-Sīn 36/69)

Yā-Sīn 36/69 is especially important, because the rejection there is twofold: "We did not teach" (a rejection of the source) and "it would not befit" (a rejection of the quality).

Root: ك-ه-ن. Kihāna — the claim to bring news from the unseen.

The historical background of this notion was treated in detail in the section on al-Takwīr 81/25. What was recorded there:

• It was held that the pre-Islamic soothsayer had a jinn or satan companion, that he brought what it had overheard from the sky, and that he conveyed this in rhymed, cadenced, obscure speech.
• "the hearer had ready to hand a category in which he could place the Qurʾān. Someone who speaks in rhyme and brings news from the unseen — that is a soothsayer."
• Al-Takwīr's method: "it does not deny the category, it enumerates the qualities of the channel."

I do not repeat it.

What is to be added here is why these two accusations in particular.

The subject of the sūra is the verification of a piece of news. And the hearer has ready to hand two categories with which to account for someone who brings news from the unseen:

The two categories cover the two directions from which the speech might be accounted for: either it came out of the man, or it came from outside him but through an illegitimate channel.

By rejecting both, the sūra opens a third place, and it names that place in the forty-third verse: tanzīl.

I record this as my own reading. The historical content of the two categories is recorded in the sources; the dividing of the two as "inner/outer" is mine.

Grammar. Qalīlan is in the accusative, and the grammarians count it either as the attribute of an omitted verbal noun (īmānan qalīlan — a little faith) or as an adverb of time (zamanan qalīlan — a little time). مَا is redundant, for emphasis.

Sense. In Arabic the pattern "qalīlan mā" conveys absence more than fewness. It is like the English "little do you believe" or "you do not believe at all". In linguistics this is called understatement: little is said and much is meant.

Both readings are transmitted in the classical sources: that they really do believe a little, or that they do not believe at all. It makes no practical difference to the sense.

And here is the real question: the two accusations are answered with two different verbs.

This pairing may not be arbitrary, and I shall attempt a reading of it — as my own reading and without presenting it as certain.

That the accusation of poetry is answered with "faith": the distinguishing feature of poetry is that it makes no claim to be true. Poetry may be beautiful, may be moving, may even be profound; but a poet gives you no report, he offers a description. One does not "believe" a poet's words — one admires them.

To count the speech poetry, that is, is to remove the obligation of faith towards it. And the verse recalls precisely that obligation: "how little you believe."

That the accusation of soothsaying is answered with "reflection": the soothsayer's speech is obscure, cadenced, many-meaninged. One does not reflect on a soothsayer's words; one interprets them, and generally after the event. The worth of a soothsayer's word is known when it comes true.

To count the speech soothsaying, that is, is to make it something that is not to be thought about. And the verse recalls precisely thinking: "how little you reflect."

I record this reading as an attempt; I ascribe it to no classical exegete and do not present it as certain. The datum I record, which is beyond dispute, is that two different verbs are used in the two verses.

The root ذ-ك-ر occurs three times in this sūra, and the three fall one in each of the sūra's three parts:

The sūra gives a reminder (12), says that it is not remembered (42), and repeats that it is a reminder all the same (48).

And the two tadhkiras explain one another: the first is a historical event, the second a text. By naming the two with the same word, the sūra says that they do the same work.

I record this as a weave of words within the sūra; the three occurrences can be counted in the text.

تَنزِيل — Root: ن-ز-ل. Nazala — to come down. تَنزِيل is the verbal noun of Form II.

And the pattern carries meaning. Arabic has two verbal nouns from the same root, and a distinction between them is recorded in the classical sources:

This distinction is widely transmitted in the classical sources; whether it holds absolutely everywhere is disputed, and I do not present it as a rule. But that the pattern chosen here is tanzīl accords with the Qurʾān's own manner of descent: the text came down not at one time but according to events, over years.

A verbal noun in place of a passive participle. The verse does not say "munazzalun" (sent down); it makes the verbal noun itself the predicate: "it is a sending down." In Arabic this use of the verbal noun conveys intensification — as though the object had become the act itself.

مِّن رَّبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ. The particle min conveys a point of origin: where it came from is stated.

And the choice of title is meaningful. As was recorded in the section on al-Takwīr, ذِى ٱلْعَرْش (the Lord of the Throne) was chosen there because the subject was a chain of authority.

Here رَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ is chosen. This construction was treated in detail in the section on al-Fātiḥa; I do not repeat it. What must be recorded is that the construction conveys scope: the Lord of all the worlds.

And this pairs with the oath of the thirty-eighth verse: the oath was by everything you see and do not see — that is, by all the worlds. The verse now gives the Lord of those worlds as the source.

What is sworn by and what is given as the source are of the same scope.

I record this as my own reading. The comprehensiveness of the two expressions is, for its part, plain in the text.

And Sūrat al-Takwīr ended with the same construction: "unless God, the Lord of all the worlds, wills…" (81/29). In the section on al-Takwīr this was recorded as a closing link made with al-Fātiḥa. Two sūras end the same defence with the same title.