رَّبُّ ٱلْمَشْرِقِ وَٱلْمَغْرِبِ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ فَٱتَّخِذْهُ وَكِيلًا
Rabbu'l-mashriqi wa'l-maghribi lā ilāha illā huwa fa'ttakhidhhu wakīlā "The Lord of the east and the west — there is no god but He. So take Him as trustee."
مَشْرِق is from the root ش-ر-ق; مَغْرِب is from the root غ-ر-ب. Both are on the pattern مَفْعِل, and in Arabic this pattern forms a noun of place: the place of rising, the place of setting.
- شَرَقَ (sharaqa) — it rose (of the sun). Sharq, ishrāq, mushrik (this last word is from a different root — ش-ر-ك — and should not be confused with it).
- غَرَبَ (gharaba) — it set, it went far off. Gharb, ghurba (the state of being far away), gharīb (one who comes from far off, a stranger).
In Turkish the borrowed words "gurbet" and "garip" come from this root — and the link between the two is direct: the place where the sun sets is the direction of distance.
The sentence opens with a construct, and the attribute chosen is surprising: the Lord is introduced as the Lord of the east and the west.
It could have said "the Lord of the heavens and the earth". It could have said "the Lord of all the worlds". It did not.
That is, the sūra has been speaking of divisions of time from the start. And what determines night and day is exactly rising and setting.
The sentence does this: it shows the addressee the owner of that stretch of time whose measure he is commanded to set. The one asked to divide the night is reminded who divides the night.
| Pattern | Where | What it conveys |
|---|---|---|
| Singular — al-mashriq wa'l-maghrib | al-Baqara 2/115, 2/142, 2/177, 2/258; al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/28; al-Muzzammil 73/9 | Two directions; the whole of the directions |
| Dual — al-mashriqayn wa'l-maghribayn | al-Raḥmān 55/17 | Two risings, two settings |
| Plural — al-mashāriq wa'l-maghārib | al-Maʿārij 70/40; also rabbu'l-mashāriq — al-Ṣāffāt 37/5 | A great number of points of rising and setting |
The dual and plural readings are explained in the classical sources as follows: the sun rises and sets each day from a different point on the horizon; over the course of the year these points shift. The dual is read as pointing to the extremes of summer and winter; the plural to all the points in between.
This explanation rests on an observable fact — the shifting of the sun's point of rising along the horizon over the year is something that can be followed with the naked eye and has been followed in many cultures throughout history. I do not present it as a "scientific miracle"; for a community that sees the horizon every day in the desert it is an observation requiring no special knowledge.
What I record here is simpler: that the Qurʾān uses the same construct in three separate numbers shows that the number was not chosen at random.
This is one of the most repeated sentences in the Qurʾān, and its structure is the same as the stance treated in al-Ikhlāṣ: first the denial, then the exception.
And its function here is to prepare the next command. The command will be: "take Him as trustee." To take someone as trustee is a verb of choice — it is chosen. The sentence that comes in between states that this choice has no alternative.
So the sequence is: introduction → making single → command. Before the command, the ground of the command is laid.
Root: و-ك-ل. Its concrete sense: to refer a matter to another, to leave it to him, to trust him and hand it over.
- وَكِيل (wakīl) — the one to whom a matter is left, who is set to do the work. On the faʿīl pattern; it can carry both the active sense (the one who does the work) and the passive (the one to whom it is referred).
- تَوَكُّل (tawakkul) — leaving a matter, referring it. Form V — again a work the person does himself.
- تَوْكِيل (tawkīl) — appointing an agent. The legal vekâlet ("power of attorney") in Turkish comes from this branch.
It is important to see the concrete ground of the word: wakīl is a commercial and legal word. It is the person someone leaves in his place in a matter at which he cannot himself be present. In a trading city like Mecca this word was one everyone knew, an everyday word.
The verb is اتَّخَذَ (ittakhadha), from the root أ-خ-ذ, in Form VIII. Its meaning: to take for oneself, to choose for oneself, to adopt.
Form VIII, as recorded in al-Balad, conveys that the act is performed by the person's own effort and taken upon himself.
And this says something about the sūra's view of the human will: rising in the night was commanded, being cut off was commanded, now taking a trustee is commanded. All three are works the addressee is to do.
In Turkish, the borrowed word tevekkül is most often paired with inaction: letting go, not interfering, leaving things to take their course.
The ground of the word in Arabic does not support this. When a merchant leaves his business to a person he has appointed as agent, he has not abandoned the business; he has left the business to someone. Agency is not the disappearance of the work but the binding of responsibility to one person.
And the place where this verse stands confirms it: the sentence stands in the middle of four commands. Before it, rising in the night and being cut off were commanded; after it, patience and parting will be commanded. That is, the command "take Him as trustee" is placed not in a gap where no work is done but in the middle of the commands.
I record this reading as my own inference. But this too must be added: in the classical literature of theology and Sufism there are detailed discussions of the degrees of tawakkul, and they do not all converge in one direction. I do not enter that discussion here; I confine myself to recording the linguistic ground of the word.