al-Aʿrāf 7:57-58

Wa huwa'lladhī yursilu'r-riyāḥa bushran bayna yaday raḥmatih, ḥattā idhā aqallat saḥāban thiqālan suqnāhu li-baladin mayyitin fa-anzalnā bihi'l-māʾa fa-akhrajnā bihī min kulli'th-thamarāt, kadhālika nukhriju'l-mawtā laʿallakum tadhakkarūn · Wa'l-baladu'ṭ-ṭayyibu yakhruju nabātuhū bi-idhni rabbih, wa'lladhī khabutha lā yakhruju illā nakidā, kadhālika nuṣarrifu'l-āyāti li-qawmin yashkurūn

"It is He who sends the winds as bearers of good news before His mercy. Then, when they have taken up heavy clouds, We drive them to a dead land and send down water by them, and by it bring forth every kind of fruit. So too do We bring forth the dead — perhaps you will take it to heart. · The good land brings forth its plants by the leave of its Lord; but that which is bad brings forth nothing but a stunted growth. Thus do We turn the signs about for a people who give thanks."

بَيْنَ يَدَىْ — word for word "between his two hands"; in Arabic it is an idiom meaning "before him, ahead of him". The rain is named raḥma (mercy), and the wind is the good news that goes before it.

A note on the variant reading: for the word bushran the readings nushran (scattering), nushuran and nashran are also transmitted. The difference affects the meaning: on the first reading the wind is a bearer of good news, on the others a scatterer, a disperser. Both senses accord with the picture of the verse; I do not impose a preference.

There are two shifts in the verse, and both must be recorded.

One — the person changes: the sentence begins with huwa'lladhī yursilu (third person), then becomes suqnāhu … fa-anzalnā … fa-akhrajnā (first person plural). This is the technique called iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address) in Arabic, and it was treated in many places in the index.

I record this as an observation about word order: the shift comes exactly at the point where the verb turns into direct intervention — the wind "is sent", but of the cloud it is said "We drove it".

Two — the number changes: saḥāban thiqālan (heavy clouds, plural adjective) is said, and immediately after it suqnā-hu (it, singular). The lexicographers explain this by the fact that the word saḥāb can count both as a collective noun and as a plural.

أَقَلَّتْ — the root ق-ل-ل: fewness; in Form IV it gives the sense to lift a thing, to take up a load. The lexicographers tie this sense to the picture of "finding a load light and lifting it". That is, the wind carries the heavy cloud as though it were a light load.

I give this as a note about the word, and its ground is the meeting of the root's two senses in the same pattern: the verse sets thiqālan (heavy) and aqallat (lifted lightly) side by side. This is a contrast that can be read from the text.

The verse passes from an observation to a conclusion, and the particle of transition is kadhālika (thus).

And that the verb is the same must be recorded: fa-akhrajnā bihī min kulli'th-thamarāt → kadhālika nukhriju'l-mawtā. The same verb, two objects.

I record this as an observation about word order: the proof is built not by a likeness but by repeating the same verb. And this connects with the twenty-fifth verse of the sūra: wa minhā tukhrajūn. The same root, the same work.

The fifty-eighth verse is one of the densest likenesses in the Qurʾān, and it must be read together with the observation treated at 13/4 in al-Raʿd.

What was recorded at 13/4 in al-Raʿd was this, and I rely on it:

The conclusion recorded there was this: the same soil, the same water, even the same root — and yet a different fruit; that is, the difference does not lie in the means that come from outside.

Now I set the two verses side by side, and the difference can be read from the text:

This is a difference that can be verified from the two texts, and I record the following as my own reading: al-Raʿd shows the difference within the same ground; al-Aʿrāf shows the difference in the ground itself. Read together, two separate questions are answered: why those who receive the same means diverge (al-Raʿd), and why what is received does not yield the same result (al-Aʿrāf). This is an explanation, not a ruling.

The root ط-ي-ب: to be pleasant, clean, good; and to be fertile. Baladun ṭayyib — according to the lexicographers, a land both pleasant and fertile.

The root خ-ب-ث: to be bad, foul, corrupt. The two roots regularly form an opposed pair in the Qurʾān.

And the pattern of the terms is worth recording, and this is a point of word order:

The expected construction would be wa'l-baladu'l-khabīth; the verse does not build it that way.

I record this as my own reading and it is not binding; its ground is the difference of pattern: the good soil is named by an adjective, the bad soil by a verb. An adjective states a condition, a verb states a becoming. In the second a process is intimated. The text does not explain this; the difference of pattern, however, is a countable datum.

And on the second side the word balad is not repeated: wa'lladhī khabutha — "that which is bad". The naming is left incomplete.

The root ن-ك-د: unfruitfulness, giving with difficulty and little. The lexicographers explain the word as "giving with hardship, in small amounts and grudgingly"; biʾrun nakidun — a well whose water comes up with difficulty.

The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān. This is a countable datum.

And there is a nicety to be recorded: the verse does not say "nothing comes forth". Lā yakhruju illā nakidā — with the particle of exception: something does come forth, but it is stunted.

I record this as an observation about word order: in the likeness the second side is not drawn as wholly barren. There is an output; its measure is low.

A point of word order must be recorded: the qualification bi-idhni rabbih is placed only on the first side. On the second side there is no such qualification.

The text does not say the reason for this. Several explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries (that the qualification is placed on the good side to state that what comes forth is not of itself; or that a single qualification looks to both sides at once). I impose no preference and build no ruling; that the qualification stands on only one side is a datum that can be read from the text, and I write that much.

The root ص-ر-ف had occurred at the forty-seventh verse (ṣurifat abṣāruhum); here it comes in Form II, and as was recorded at 46/27 in al-Aḥqāf, it states repetition and variation: the telling of the same thing by different routes and from different faces. I rely on that treatment.

And the root's three occurrences in the sūra can be gathered in a table:

One root, three different works. This is a distribution that can be verified within the sūra.

And the closing of the fifty-eighth verse is li-qawmin yashkurūn. The tenth verse had ended with qalīlan mā tashkurūn. The sūra comes from where it stated the littleness of thanks to naming a people who give thanks. I record this as an observation.