al-Maʿārij 70:17-18

Tadʿū man adbara wa tawallā · Wa jamaʿa fa-awʿā "It calls the one who turned his back and turned away; who gathered and hoarded."

And this is one of the most startling verbs in the sūra.

The fire is depicted not as an object but as a calling subject. Tadʿū — "it calls, it summons."

The reversal is here. In the world there was a messenger who called, and the man called turned his back. On that day the fire calls, and the one called is the same man.

And the verb is from the same root: د-ع-و. The Qurʾān names the Prophet's work with this root: "one who calls to God" (Fuṣṣilat 41/33 — daʿā ila'llāh); "God's caller" (al-Aḥqāf 46/31 — dāʿiya'llāh).

So two calls, one root. The man did not answer the first call; he does not have to answer the second — because the second call takes him away.

I record this as my own reading. The two uses of the root are plain in the Qurʾān.

A note on the reading. Some exegetes take the verb tadʿū as figurative: not "it calls" but "it draws to itself", "it merits". Others hold to its plain sense. I do not enter this discussion; on either reading the verse's work within the sūra is the same: to say whom the fire takes.

The verse sets up two groups with four verbs, and the groups are separated by conjunctions:

And the link between the two groups is وَ as well.

So the verse counts two offences: an attitude and a behaviour. And this is the same as the structure of the thirty-third and thirty-fourth verses of the preceding sūra:

Two neighbouring sūras set the same measure in two verses each. In al-Ḥāqqa, not believing and not urging others to give; in al-Maʿārij, turning away and gathering and hiding.

And the difference is this: al-Ḥāqqa counts with negative verbs, al-Maʿārij with positive ones. Al-Ḥāqqa says "he did not do"; al-Maʿārij says "he did". The same man, from two different angles.

I record this as my own reading. The structures of the two verses are in the text.

أَدْبَرَ — Root: د-ب-ر. Dubur — the back, the rear. أَدْبَرَ (ifʿāl) — he turned his back, he turned around. From the same root, tadbīr (thinking through the end of a matter), dābir (what remains behind), adbār (backs).

تَوَلَّىٰ — Root: و-ل-ي. Walī — one who is near, a friend, a protector; walāya. تَوَلَّىٰ (tafaʿʿul) carries two senses: he turned away and he took charge, he undertook. An interesting contronymy: the same verb can convey both turning towards and turning away. Context decides.

Why are the two verbs side by side? They are close in meaning but not identical:

• أَدْبَرَ — a movement of the body: turning one's back. Physical.
• تَوَلَّىٰ — a change of orientation: breaking off interest, turning in another direction. A matter of will.

So one conveys the movement, the other the decision.

This pair is established in the Qurʾān, and it has occurred several times in this commentary:

• "Then he turned his back and grew proud." (al-Muddaththir 74/23 — adbara wa'stakbara)
• "But he denied and turned away." (al-Qiyāma 75/32; al-ʿAlaq 96/13 — kadhdhaba wa tawallā)
• "None will enter it but the most wretched, who denies and turns away." (al-Layl 92/16)

Al-Layl 92/16 is particularly close, because there too the one who will enter the fire is described and the same verb is used.

The two densest words in the sūra, and they have been mentioned earlier in this commentary.

In the section on al-Humaza 104/2 this verse was already used, and there the following was recorded:

"He gathered and hid it in a vessel." (al-Maʿārij 70/18) — "A sentence of two words, and of the same structure as al-Humaza 104/2: a verb of gathering followed by a verb of keeping. There too what is told is not what is done with the wealth but what is not done."

And in the section on al-Inshiqāq 84/23, when the root و-ع-ي was treated, this verse was given as the example of أَوْعَىٰ.

I repeat neither. There are three things to add here.

Let me open out the comparison framed in the section on al-Humaza a little, since it was recorded there that the two verses are of the same structure but their differences were not taken up:

The most telling row is the second.

What was recorded in the section on al-Humaza was this: "ʿaddada is not 'he counted' but 'he kept counting'… it is acquired once and counted continually." And: "if you are counting something over and over, you are not using it."

In al-Maʿārij there is no repetition. Awʿā is in the ifʿāl form and conveys a completed act: he put it in a vessel and closed the lid.

So the man in al-Humaza opens his wealth: he counts it, looks at it, counts it again. The man in al-Maʿārij closes his wealth: he puts it in a vessel and leaves it there.

Two different relationships: one is in constant contact with his wealth, the other has taken his wealth out of sight. But both meet in the same place — the wealth is not used.

I record this as my own reading. The functions of the two patterns are recognised in Arabic; the interpretation of the comparison is my own.

And this is the most important feature of the verse.

Al-Humaza says "مَالًا": he gathered wealth. Al-Maʿārij says nothing at all. Both verbs are without object: jamaʿa fa-awʿā — "he gathered, he put it in a vessel."

In Arabic the dropping of the object is called ḥadhf al-mafʿūl, and one of its functions is generalisation: when a verb loses its object it opens onto every object.

This technique has been recorded twice before in this commentary:

• In the section on al-Māʿūn 107/6: "The verb does not say 'to whom they make a display'… In al-Māʿūn the dropping of the object widens the scope: not to a particular audience, but to whoever is looking."
• In the section on al-Shams 91/11: "when the object is dropped the verb becomes general."

The same technique is at work here. The verse does not say "he gathered wealth"; it says "he gathered".

And the consequence is this: it does not matter what was gathered. It may be wealth, it may be knowledge, it may be opportunity, it may be relationships, it may be standing. The verb waits for its object, and the reader supplies his own.

I record this as my own reading. The function of the technique is recognised in Arabic and has been recorded twice in this commentary.

And now the link that joins three sections of this commentary.

A table was framed in the section on al-Ḥāqqa, and it is completed here:

Three verses, one root, three vessels.

And the finding recorded in the section on al-Inshiqāq explains all three at once: "the vessel is not empty, it is only not full of the right thing. It is not that a person takes nothing in; he takes something else in."

The root is in itself neither positive nor negative. Waʿy is "to take within". Its value depends on what is taken in.

And the measure recorded for mabthūth in the section on al-Qāriʿa holds here too: "the word is not in itself negative… whether scatteredness is good or bad depends on what is scattered."

And two neighbouring sūras use this root at the two ends: in al-Ḥāqqa the ear takes in the reminder; in al-Maʿārij the hand takes in the wealth. Both are vessels, and both were filled.

I record this as my own reading. The shared root of the three verses is a linguistic datum beyond dispute; the interpretation that the three form a weave, and that they stand at two ends in two neighbouring sūras, is my own.

The object having been left unsaid opens the verse directly onto the present.

"He gathered and put it in a vessel" — a sentence without an object. And in the life of today, the things gathered and put in vessels have gone well beyond wealth: content saved but never watched, books bought but never read, opportunity accumulated but never used, a network of relations built but never worked.

What they have in common is this: all of them are inside a vessel, and none of them is in circulation.

The verse's measure is not having; it is the lid being shut. And, as recorded in the section on al-Māʿūn, the question is: "what do you hold that would cost you nothing to give to someone, and are you giving it?"