al-Jinn 72:14

Wa annā minna'l-muslimūna wa minna'l-qāsiṭūn, fa-man aslama fa-ulāʾika taḥarraw rashadā

"And that: among us are those who have submitted, and among us are those who deviate from the truth. Those who have submitted are the ones who have sought out and found what is right."

This verse is the second and definitive form of verse 11:

Three verses apart the same distinction is made twice. What has changed? In the three intervening verses the jinn related their own experience: they came to understand that they cannot escape (12), they heard the guidance and believed (13). The distinction sharpens only after that relating.

And there is a further grammatical difference: in verse 11, kunnā (we were) — the past. Here, minnā (among us) — the present. That is, the dividedness existed in the past and exists now too; but now the sides have been named.

Root س-ل-م: to be sound, to be free of defect, to be delivered. From the same root salām (peace), silm (peace), salīm (sound, without defect), taslīm.

Muslim is the active participle of the ifʿāl form (aslama): one who hands himself over. In the core of the word two ideas join — soundness and submission. To give a thing over to the other party complete, without defect, sound.

The word's use here must be dwelt on. The jinn name themselves muslimūn. This accords with the word's wide use in the Qurʾān: the Qurʾān uses the words islām and muslim of the prophets before it and their communities too (of Abraham: "He was a ḥanīf, a muslim" — Āl ʿImrān 3/67; Joseph's prayer: "take me as a muslim" — Yūsuf 12/101).

The most interesting word of the sūra, and one of the cleanest instances of the Arabic matter of the aḍdād.

Root ق-س-ط. And from this root two words derive whose senses are exact opposites of one another:

• قاسط (qāsiṭ) — one who deviates from the truth, who wrongs, who corrupts a share.
• مقسط (muqsiṭ) — one who acts justly, who renders what is due.

The same root, opposite senses. How can this be?

A root's carrying two opposite senses is called in Arabic aḍdād, and it is a subject the lexicographers have discussed at length. In some instances the explanation is hard; but in this instance the explanation is clear and rests on the pattern.

The difference is in the verb's form:

And the function of the ifʿāl form here is called in grammar the hamza of privation: to take away, to remove the sense of the root.

That is:

qasaṭa = he stinted, he deviated → aqsaṭa = he removed the stinting, he did away with the deviation → he acted justly.

This is a known function of the ifʿāl form, and there are other instances: shakā (he complained) → ashkā (he removed his complaint); ʿajama (he found a thing's speech unintelligible) → aʿjama (he took away its unintelligibility by pointing it).

The opposition, then, is not random but regular. The root carries a single sense — deviation, the corrupting of a share — and the ifʿāl form serves to do away with that sense. The two words say the same thing: the one the act, the other the removal of the act.

And there is a third word: قِسْط (qisṭ) — a share, a portion; and from there justice. It is widespread in the Qurʾān: "Establish the weighing with justice (bi'l-qisṭ)" (al-Raḥmān 55/9); "Give full measure and weight with justice (bi'l-qisṭ)" (al-Anʿām 6/152).

And of those God loves: "God loves those who act justly (al-muqsiṭīn)" (al-Māʾida 5/42; also the same expression at al-Ḥujurāt 49/9 and al-Mumtaḥina 60/8).

Now the picture is complete:

The word occurs in the Qurʾān only in this sūra — twice, in two consecutive verses.

The choice of the word qāsiṭ describes deviation in the language of justice. It does not say "unbeliever", does not say "transgressor", does not say "wrongdoer". It says one who corrupts a share.

The meaning of this is: not giving God His due is named as a matter of measure. Faith is spoken of in the language of the balance.

And this joins with the preceding verse. In verse 13 it was said that the believer will not fear bakhs (being given short) — again the language of the balance. Now in verse 14 the other party is named those who corrupt a share.

The two verses together, that is, set up this: the reckoning has two sides. The believer does not fear being given short; the qāsiṭ is the one who gives short what should be given.

Word order. The condition begins with man (singular), the answer comes with ulāʾika (plural). In Arabic this transition is ordinary: man is singular in wording and plural in sense.

Its effect is this: the ruling is given to individual persons (whoever submits), but the result is named as a community (those are the ones). Submission is an individual decision; its result is joining a group.

Root ح-ر-ي. And the word occurs in the Qurʾān only here.

The concrete sense of the root: to seek out the most fitting, the most correct, the most apt of a thing. Ḥarā — to be worthy, to be fitting. Ḥariyyun bi-kadhā — a settled expression in the sense "he is worthy of such".

تحرّى (taḥarrā) is in the tafaʿʿul form, and this form conveys in Arabic effort and gradualness: to obtain a thing step by step, with labour.

The explanation in the classical lexicons joins two elements:

1. To seek — deliberately, attentively, to try to find the most fitting. 2. To hit the mark — to find the thing sought.

Taḥarrī, then, is not "he sought" but "he sought out and hit the mark". A verb that contains its result.

There is a residue of the word in Turkish: in legal language "tahkikat ve taharri" — investigation and inquiry. The word passed there from this root.

The choice of this verb in this verse bears directly on the sūra's concern with knowledge. The verse does not say "those who submitted found rushd"; it says "they sought it out and found it". Submission, that is, is named not as a passive acceptance but as the outcome of a search.

And this fits exactly the process the jinn related at the head of the sūra: they listened (1), they assessed what it does (2), they believed (2). Search, assessment, decision — three stages.

The word has returned again. Its third occurrence in the sūra:

• In verse 2: where the text takes one — "it guides to rushd".
• In verse 10: what God may intend — "did their Lord intend rushd for them?"
• In verse 14: what the one who submits reaches — "they sought out and found rushd".

Three verses, three stages: what is shown → what is intended → what is reached. The word traces an orbit through the sūra, and its last occurrence (21) will be in the mouth of the Prophet.