al-Aʿrāf 7:180-181

Wa li'llāhi'l-asmāʾu'l-ḥusnā fa'dʿūhu bihā, wa dharu'lladhīna yulḥidūna fī asmāʾih, sa-yujzawna mā kānū yaʿmalūn · Wa mimman khalaqnā ummatun yahdūna bi'l-ḥaqqi wa bihī yaʿdilūn

"To God belong the most beautiful names; so call upon Him by them. And leave those who twist His names aside. They will be recompensed for what they used to do. · And among those We created there is a community who guide by the truth and by it do justice."

The phrase was treated at 59/24 in al-Ḥashr and named again at 20/8 in Ṭāhā. I rely on those treatments. A summary of what was recorded there:

Lahū has been brought forward, and in Arabic the fronting of the predicate states ḥaṣr (restriction) — "the most beautiful names belong to Him alone". And ḥusnā is the feminine elative of aḥsan: not "beautiful names" but "the most beautiful names".

And it was counted at 20/8 in Ṭāhā: the phrase occurs in four places in the Qurʾān — al-Aʿrāf 7/180, al-Isrāʾ 17/110, Ṭāhā 20/8, al-Ḥashr 59/24. This verse is one of those four.

Two things belong here.

One — al-Aʿrāf is the only one of the four occurrences that carries a command.

This is a countable datum and is read from the construction of the four verses.

Two — the relation between 17/110 in al-Isrāʾ and al-Aʿrāf 7/180 must be recorded. It was recorded in al-Isrāʾ, and I rely on that treatment:

In al-Isrāʾ a dispute is being closed — ayyan mā tadʿū fa-lahu'l-asmāʾu'l-ḥusnā: the verse does not equate two names, it says that both go to the same place. And the ground is kept wide: the names are not two but many.

In al-Aʿrāf, however, the same sentence does not close a dispute; it gives a command for use: fa'dʿūhu bihā — "call upon Him by them".

And the place of the command in the sūra must be recorded: the sūra had given a command to pray in the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth verses (udʿū rabbakum taḍarruʿan wa khufyatan; wa'dʿūhu khawfan wa ṭamaʿā). The hundred and eightieth is the third command to pray, and this time it says by what one is to pray.

Three commands, three different determinations. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as an observation.

The root ل-ح-د: to swerve to one side, to leave the straight and slide sideways. And laḥd (the niche hollowed out in the side of a grave) is from the same root — the picture in the root: not going straight but opening out to the side.

A variant reading is transmitted: yulḥidūna (Form IV) and yalḥadūna (Form I). The difference in sense is slight.

And the particle fī must be recorded: the swerving takes place within the names. That is, the names are not abandoned; a slippage in the use of the names is stated.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the particle. This connects with the seventy-first verse of the sūra: there Hūd had named what the other side held as asmāʾin sammaytumūhā antum wa ābāʾukum. The same word (asmāʾ), in two different directions: one names that are given by men, the other names that are given by God.

And the command dharū must be recorded: wa dharu'lladhīna yulḥidūna fī asmāʾih — "leave them". The command is not a command to dispute but a command to withdraw. And this lies on the same line as the command wa aʿriḍ ʿani'l-jāhilīn in the hundred and ninety-ninth verse of the sūra.

This verse is word for word identical with the hundred and fifty-ninth; the only difference is in the set to which the sentence is attached. It was tabulated in the section on the structure and treated at verse 159. I do not repeat it.

The one thing that belongs here is the verse's place in this block, and I record it as my own reading, and it is not binding; its ground is the order of the two verses: the hundred and eightieth verse names those who twist the names; the hundred and eighty-first names, immediately afterwards, a community that guides by the truth. Every time, the sūra sets a note of division beside a negative finding. And this has been done four times through the sūra (159, 162, 168, 181).