al-Maʿārij 70:22-23

Illa'l-muṣallīn · Alladhīna hum ʿalā ṣalātihim dāʾimūn "Except those who pray — those who are constant in their prayer."

إِلَّا is the particle of exception. And the type of the exception here settles the question of the diagnosis.

The grammarians distinguish connected (muttaṣil) and disconnected (munqaṭiʿ) exception:

• Connected: what is excepted is in fact within that kind. "The people came, except Zayd" — Zayd too is a person.
• Disconnected: what is excepted is not of that kind.

The exception here is connected, and its being accepted as such yields an important consequence: those who pray were also created halūʿ.

That is, the sūra does not mark off a different kind of human being. It says that some among people of the same constitution have come out of that constitution.

And this turns the thirteen-verse list into a way out: the list counts the ways of coming out of being halūʿ.

I record this as a reading; that the exception is connected is widely accepted in grammar.

The word was treated in detail in the section on al-Māʿūn 107/4. I do not repeat it; in summary:

• Muṣallī is "one who performs the ṣalāt"; an active participle of the tafʿīl form. Root ص-ل-و.
• There are various views on the primary sense of the root; the widespread one is supplication. Another explanation ties it to the word ṣalawān (the two bones at the base of the back) and says it comes from the movement of bending in the bow.
• And the linguistic point transmitted there: "in horse races the horse that comes second is called muṣallī — because its head comes close to the ṣalawān of the horse in front of it… muṣallī, in the most concrete state of the word, means 'the one coming right behind, following, going in another's track'."

One qualification. In the preceding sūra (al-Ḥāqqa 69/31) the verb صَلُّوهُ occurred, and that is from the root ص-ل-ي: to cast into the fire. The two roots are distinct, and this distinction was recorded plainly in the section on al-Aʿlā 87/12-15. I draw no meaning from this similarity of sound.

And now the link this sūra makes with al-Māʿūn.

In the section on al-Māʿūn the following was recorded, and stressed plainly because it is the most misunderstood point of that sūra: the wayl in al-Māʿūn 107/4 is directed not at those who pray but at a state of prayer qualified by the attribute in the fifth verse.

And there the two sūras were compared:

The conclusion recorded in the section on al-Māʿūn was this: "The two verses use the same pattern, and the only difference is the particle… This opposition within the Qurʾān itself is the strongest indication that ʿan cannot mean 'within' here."

I do not repeat this. But I can complete the table — because the Qurʾān uses this pattern with a third particle as well.

In Sūrat al-Muʾminūn the same structure occurs with a third particle:

"Those who are humble in their prayer." (al-Muʾminūn 23/2 — alladhīna hum fī ṣalātihim khāshiʿūn)

Now let us set the three verses together:

Three particles, three positions.

In the table framed in the section on al-Māʿūn there were two particles, and this was recorded there: "Had the verse said 'fī ṣalātihim sāhūn' — 'heedless within their prayer' — the sense would have been entirely different."

And al-Muʾminūn 23/2 frames exactly that sentence — but with khāshiʿūn, not sāhūn. That is, the Qurʾān uses the particle fī too, and when it does, it speaks of the state inside the prayer.

The picture that emerges when the three verses are read together is this: prayer can be assessed from three distinct places — the distance from it (ʿan), its interior (fī), and attachment to it (ʿalā). The Qurʾān names all three with distinct particles.

I record this as my own reading. The wordings of the three verses are data that can be verified; the two-particle table from the section on al-Māʿūn is taken from there and the third link is added here.

Root: د-و-م. Dāma — it lasted, it continued, it became permanent. Dawām, mudāwama and dāʾiman are from the same root.

The concrete usage of the word is interesting and gives rise to two readings. In Arabic ٱلْمَاءُ ٱلدَّائِم means standing water, water that does not flow. So the root carries the sense of "remaining motionless" as much as of "continuing".

And this yields two readings of the verse:

Both have been defended in the classical sources. And the two do not conflict; one concerns time, the other state.

In my judgement both fit the text and there is no evidence requiring a choice between them. I do not impose a preference.

But the second reading gains something when compared with the last item of the list — because the list will close with prayer, and there a different word will be used.

دَآئِمُون is an active participle, not a verb. And the sentence is a nominal sentence.

This distinction was recorded in the section on al-Māʿūn: "In Arabic this conveys fixity and continuity. That is, not 'they are sometimes heedless' but 'being heedless is their state.' Not a passing condition but a settled attribute."

The same measure works here in the positive direction: dāʾimūn is not a passing state but a settled attribute.

And this will set up a contrast with the last item of the list. I shall return to it when its turn comes.

As recorded in the section on al-Māʿūn, the hum here is not grammatically necessary: it could have been alladhīna ʿalā ṣalātihim dāʾimūn. Its addition is for specification and emphasis: "these, precisely these."

And this pronoun will be repeated six times in the list. Between verses 22 and 34 of the sūra the pattern ٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ occurs in six places (23, 27, 29, 32, 33, 34); in two places the pronoun is dropped (24 and 26).

This distribution is worth noting, and I shall return to it when its turn comes: the two items where the pronoun drops are items of two different kinds within the list.