al-Jinn 72:16

Wa an lawi'staqāmū ʿala'ṭ-ṭarīqati la-asqaynāhum māʾan ghadaqā

"And that: if they had gone straight upon that road, We would have given them abundant water to drink."

Verses 16 and 17 are a single sentence divided in two. The first gives the promise, the second gives the reason for the promise. Because the reason is unexpected, the division of the verses is meaningful too: the reader hears good news in verse 16 and learns in verse 17 what the good news is.

Root ق-و-م: to stand up, to rise, to be upright. The distribution of this root in the Qurʾān was taken up in the sections on al-Fātiḥa, al-Bayyina and al-Takwīr; the chain set up there was this: mustaqīm (the attribute of the road) → iqāma (the act of prayer) → qayyima (the character of the religion) → yastaqīm (the act of the person).

اسْتَقَامَ is in the istifʿāl form and here conveys steadiness, continuity and remaining on the line. The Turkish istikamet comes from here and carries both senses at once: direction and uprightness. That reflects the word's state in Arabic well.

The conjugation of the verb is past tense + the conditional particle law. Law conveys in Arabic an unrealised condition: "if it had been so — but it was not." So the sentence relates not an offer but a counterfact: this road was not taken; had it been taken, this would have followed.

There are parallels of this pattern in the Qurʾān, and all of them set up the same structure:

• "Had the people of those towns believed and been mindful, We would have opened upon them blessings from the heaven and the earth" (al-Aʿrāf 7/96).
• "Had they upheld the Torah and the Gospel and what was sent down to them from their Lord, they would have eaten from above them and from beneath their feet" (al-Māʾida 5/66).

All three verses set up the same equation: uprightness → material abundance.

And a fourth is in the preceding sūra. Noah offers his people exactly this equation: "Ask forgiveness of your Lord… He will send the heaven upon you in abundant rain, and support you with wealth and sons, and make for you gardens and rivers" (Nūḥ 71/10-12). In the discussion of Noah it was treated that these verses set up a social, conditional and unguaranteed link, and are not a formula for wealth.

Set side by side, the two sūras make the second half of the equation visible. Sūrat Nūḥ gives the promise; Sūrat al-Jinn names the promise. In Nūḥ it is not said what the water is — it is presented as a blessing. Here, one verse later, that same water will be called a fitna. Unless the two sūras are read together, the one looks too optimistic and the other too dark.

The word returns from verse 11 — but changed:

The same word five verses apart, in exactly the opposite form. The jinn had described themselves as "separate roads"; now "that road" is named.

This is another confirmation of the finding in the section on al-Fātiḥa: one road, many turnings. The Qurʾān names deviation with the plural, the right way with the singular.

The definite article (al-) also sets up a restriction. The word does not say "a road", it says "that road" — the road the addressee knows, that needs no describing. Which road it is is not said, because there is no need to say: it is what the sūra has been relating from the start.

The particle "upon" (ʿalā) is meaningful too. In the sections on al-Fātiḥa and al-Baqara the function of this particle was taken up: ʿalā conveys being on top, standing firmly — "ʿalā hudan min Rabbihim" (al-Baqara 2/5). For going astray, fī (inside) is used. Here too rightness comes with ʿalā: to stand upon the road.

أَسْقَىٰ, in the ifʿāl form: to give to drink, to water — not to give water but to satisfy with water. The lexicographers record a distinction between saqā and asqā in Arabic: asqā is closer to providing continuous and abundant water (irrigating a piece of land, giving access to a spring).

غَدَقًا — root غ-د-ق: water's being abundant, copious and uninterrupted. Ghadiqa — the water became abundant. Ghaydāq — very abundant.

The word occurs in the Qurʾān only here.

That what is promised should be water is no accident and has to do with the addressee's world.

In Arabia water is not the measure of prosperity but prosperity itself. The existence of a settlement depends on water; caravan roads are drawn by water points; the strength of a tribe is measured by the wells and springs it holds. In the geography where the Qurʾān came down, the expression "abundant water" means, in today's language, "plenty, prosperity, economic expansion".

The Qurʾān sets up this link elsewhere too: the cutting off of rain is the sign of straitness, the abundance of rain the sign of blessing.

That is, the verse does not promise an abstract spiritual reward. It speaks of a worldly, measurable, tangible abundance. And this prepares the surprise of the next verse.