al-Muddaththir 74:2-7 — Seven commands

Qum fa-andhir / Wa rabbaka fa-kabbir / Wa thiyābaka fa-ṭahhir / Wa'l-rujza fa'hjur / Wa lā tamnun tastakthir / Wa li-rabbika fa'ṣbir

"Rise and warn. Magnify your Lord. Purify your garments. Forsake the filth. Do not cast up a favour, counting it much. And be patient for your Lord."

The densest sequence of commands in the Qurʾān. Seven commands in six verses; all of them short, all of them sharp, all of them bound with a fāʾ.

Before taking the commands one by one, one must look at the sequence itself.

And the frame of the sequence is striking: the third verse begins with rabbaka, the seventh verse ends with li-rabbika. Both are turned towards the Lord; the three commands in between (garments, filth, casting up a favour) stand between these two.

That is, the sequence sets up a frame: turning to God — personal and social order — turning to God again.

I record this classification as my own reading.

In four verses (3, 4, 5, 7) the same word order is repeated, and in Arabic this is a meaningful choice:

• Wa rabbaka fa-kabbir — "your Lord, magnify Him" (the normal order would be fa-kabbir rabbaka)
• Wa thiyābaka fa-ṭahhir — "your garments, purify them"
• Wa al-rujza fa'hjur — "the filth, forsake it"
• Wa li-rabbika fa'ṣbir — "for your Lord, be patient"

The object (or the prepositional phrase) has been drawn in front of the verb — and, as was treated in al-Ikhlāṣ and al-Inshirāḥ, in Arabic an element brought forward from its normal place gains emphasis and most often ḥaṣr (restriction).

The sense becomes this: magnify only your Lord. Be patient only for your Lord.

And the فَ that comes between marks this fronting: the fāʾ that follows a fronted element shows that the sentence has entered a structure resembling a conditional — "as for your Lord: magnify Him."

This is the single grammatical move repeated in four of the sequence. In the second verse no element is brought forward (qum fa-anḏir); and in the sixth verse (wa lā tamnun tastakthir) there is a prohibition, and the structure changes.

The choice itself is beyond dispute; the conclusion to be drawn from it (ḥaṣr) is widely treated in the classical sources.

Qum fa-andhir "Rise and warn."

One of the shortest two-command sentences in the Qurʾān: two words.

As recorded in al-Muzzammil 73/2: the ق-و-م root conveys both levelness and upright standing; the main place of the root is al-Fātiḥa and al-Baqara.

And that the two sūras begin with the same command is the most concrete datum of the link between them:

The same verb, two opposite directions. The one to solitude, the other to the crowd.

And an observation — as my own reading: an order can be set up between the two commands. The rising at night was preparation (73/5: "We shall soon cast upon you a heavy word"); here there is the going out. But because the order of revelation of the two sūras is not certain, I do not present this ordering as a claim about chronology. The logical order of texts does not have to be the same as their historical order.

Root: ن-ذ-ر. Its concrete sense: to give notice of a danger beforehand.

And the most important property of the root in Arabic is this: inzār is not to frighten; it is to give notice. That what is given notice of should be frightening is a separate matter.

Derivatives:

• نَذِير (nadhīr) — warner. One of the most frequently used attributes of the Prophet in the Qurʾān.
• إِنذَار (indhār) — warning.
• نَذْر (nadhr) — a vow. The Turkish word nezir / adak ("votive offering") comes from this root; the link is "to promise beforehand, to give notice beforehand".
• نُذُر (nudhur) — warners; or warnings.

And there is a distinction the lexicographers record:

The two are most often mentioned together in the Qurʾān: bashīran wa nadhīrā (al-Baqara 2/119; al-Aʿrāf 7/188; Sabaʾ 34/28; Fuṣṣilat 41/4).

Here there is only inzār. This agrees with the period the sūra belongs to, and with its tone.

This is the most striking side of the verse.

Fa-andhir — "warn". Whom? It is not said. With what? It is not said. About what? It is not said.

And the same structure was treated in al-ʿAlaq: in the first revelation the command iqraʾ was given no object either, and there it was discussed together with the two readings of the expression mā anā bi-qāriʾ.

That is, in the texts of the Qurʾān's earliest period both commands come without an object: read and warn.

The effect of this is that the command remains without limit. Had an object been put in, the command would have been defined and completable — had it said "warn these people", the business would have been over once they were warned.

I record this reading as my own inference; the text does not say why it withholds the object.

One further record: in the later portions of the Qurʾān the addressee of the inzār is determined by degrees — "Warn your nearest kinsfolk" (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/214); "that you may warn the mother of cities and those around it" (al-Anʿām 6/92; al-Shūrā 42/7); "to all mankind" (Sabaʾ 34/28). But here, in the first command, there is no limit at all.

The فَ between qum and andhir conveys sequence and cause: rise, and so warn.

That is, the work of warning requires standing up. It cannot be done lying down.

And this must be read together with the first verse. The addressee was someone wrapped in his covering. Now two things are asked of him, and both are the opposite of covering oneself: to rise (horizontal → vertical) and to warn (silence → sound).

The first three words of the sūra draw a movement: covered → upright → sounding.

Wa rabbaka fa-kabbir "Magnify your Lord."

Root: ك-ب-ر. To be great, to grow.

كَبَّرَ is in the tafʿīl form, and its sense here is to count great, to declare the greatness of — not to make great. In Arabic this form sometimes gives the sense "to reckon a thing so, to describe it so" (ṣaghgharahu — he counted it small; kadhdhabahu — he counted it a lie).

That is, the command is not "make your Lord great" but "acknowledge and declare your Lord's greatness". The greatness is already there; what falls to the servant is to accept it and to state it.

Derivatives and relatives:

• أَكْبَر (akbar) — greater / greatest. The word in the expression Allāhu akbar.
• كِبْر (kibr) — self-magnifying, seeing oneself as great. The Turkish word kibir ("pride") is from this.
• ٱسْتَكْبَرَ (istakbara) — the istifʿāl form: to give oneself airs of greatness, to ascribe greatness to oneself.
• كَبِيرَة (kabīra) — a grave sin.

And this breadth of the root sets up a weave within the sūra.

In the third verse the addressee is told kabbir (magnify your Lord). In the twenty-third verse, of the denier, it will be said wa'stakbara (he grew proud).

The same root, two opposite directions:

This weave stands within the sūra and can be observed. I do not claim that it is a deliberate design, but it needs to be recorded.

It is often said in the classical sources that this verse is counted the ground of the opening takbīr of the ritual prayer (takbīrat al-iḥrām). This is a juristic inference; the wording of the verse says nothing about the prayer, and I issue no ruling here.

What can be recorded is this: the command asks for an act that can be declared. Kabbir is a work done with the tongue.

An observation — as my own reading.

The first command was turned outward: warn. The second command is turned upward: magnify.

And the order could have been reversed. But as it stands it says something: the work of warning is bound immediately afterwards to a declaration of source. The one who warns declares from whom the warning comes.

If the source of the warning is not declared, the one who warns is speaking on his own account — and then the weight of the warning is only as great as his own weight.

I do not rest this inference on the text; it is an interpretation I draw from the order of the two commands.

Wa thiyābaka fa-ṭahhir "Purify your garments."

The most disputed verse of the sūra, and a place that requires a table of views.

Root: ث-و-ب. And the concrete sense of the root is not "garment": to turn, to come back, to revert to one's origin.

• ثَابَ (thāba) — he turned back, he came back.
• مَثَابَة (mathāba) — a place one comes back to. In the Qurʾān: "We made the House a place of return (mathābatan) for people, and a security" (al-Baqara 2/125).
• ثَوَاب (thawāb) — requital, reward. That is, "reward" is what comes back to the person. This word, alive in Turkish as sevap, carries the centre of the root.
• مَثُوبَة (mathūba) — requital. al-Baqara 2/103.
• ثَوْب (thawb), plural ثِيَاب — garment.

Why, then, is "garment" from this root? The explanation the lexicographers give is this: thread is what has been returned to the state designed for it — raw fibre attains, by being woven, the form expected of it. Thawb is what has been "returned to its origin".

I ascribe this explanation to the lexicographers; I do not present it as a definite etymological ruling. But it needs recording, because that the words thawāb (requital) and thiyāb (garments) should be from the same root is striking in itself.

The places where the word occurs help in the reading of the verse:

• "…and they wrapped themselves in their garments" (Nūḥ 71/7) — wa'staghshaw thiyābahum. The people of Noah put their fingers in their ears so as not to hear, and wrap themselves in their garments.
• "For those who disbelieve, garments of fire have been cut out" (al-Ḥajj 22/19).
• "Upon them are garments of fine green silk and of heavy brocade" (al-Insān 76/21).
• "There is no fault in them if they lay aside their garments…" (al-Nūr 24/60) — concerning elderly women.

And the first example is worth dwelling on.

At Nūḥ 71/7 a community wraps itself in its garments so as not to hear. At al-Muddaththir 74/1 a person is called while wrapped in his covering, and is commanded to rise.

The same family of verbs, two opposite outcomes: the one keeps the closing up going, the other is brought out of the closing up.

I record this link as my own reading; I do not claim that there is a reference between the two verses.

Root: ط-ه-ر. The concrete sense of this root, its pattern and its use in the Qurʾān were treated in detail in al-Bayyina (ṣuḥufan muṭahhara); ʿAbasa refers to that place as well. I do not repeat it.

The core recorded there was this: the root conveys cleanness, being far from filth; the tafʿīl form (ṭahhara) conveys intensification and repetition — "to clean thoroughly, from beginning to end"; and muṭahhara is a passive participle — "not clean, but cleaned".

And a note entered there looks directly at this place: "Ṭahāra is in Islam primarily a bodily and legal category — ablution, the major washing, purification from impurity. The use of this word for a text is a transfer of category."

In al-Bayyina the category was transferred to a text. Could the reverse be the case here — is the category being transferred from the body to character? That is exactly the discussion.

All of these occur in the classical sources. I impose no preference, and this is what the method (Method) requires — because the text does not make the distinction.

What can be said from the text itself. Three observations:

1. The verse gives no indication of metaphor. That is, the literal sense is not closed off. 2. But the context does not close off the metaphor either. The scale of the commands around it (warn, magnify, be patient) is large; a command about the cleanness of clothing stands narrow among them. This is the support the metaphorical reading takes from the context. 3. And the third, perhaps the most important: the two do not exclude one another. A command may work in both the literal and the metaphorical sense; and the idiomatic use of Arabic already unites the two.

The third observation is my own reading.

One further record: most of the classical commentaries do not settle on a single sense in this verse, and set several explanations side by side. That is, the disagreement itself is a state of affairs accepted in the tradition.

An observation — as my own reading.

In the sequence of commands this is the first command turned towards the addressee himself. Before it there were commands turned outward (warn) and upward (magnify).

And its position seems meaningful: the person going out to the work of warning is told to look at his own state. The order is: you called outwards, you declared the source, now look at what is on you.

I do not rest this reading on the text; it is an interpretation I draw from the ordering.

Wa'l-rujza fa'hjur "Forsake the filth."

Root: ر-ج-ز. Two fields of meaning are recorded in the dictionaries:

1. Trembling, shaking, irregular movement. Rajaz is a weakness and trembling in a camel's hind legs; the animal walks unevenly.

2. Punishment, filth, uncleanness.

The link the lexicographers set up: punishment is what shakes a person and disorders him. I do not present this link as a definite ruling.

Also from the same root, رَجَز (rajaz) — the name of a metre in Arabic poetry; it is said to take its name from the short, repeated movement of its rhythm. I record this as a piece of information; I set up no connection with the verse.

The word generally occurs in the Qurʾān in the sense of punishment:

• "We sent down upon the wrongdoers a punishment (rijz) from the sky" (al-Baqara 2/59; similarly al-Aʿrāf 7/162).
• "When the punishment (al-rijz) fell upon them…" (al-Aʿrāf 7/134-135).
• "…and to remove from you the filth of Satan (rijza'l-shayṭān)" (al-Anfāl 8/11).

In the last example the sense shifts towards "filth".

And there is a near word that must not be confused with it: رِجْس (rijs) — filth, uncleanness. In the Qurʾān it is used of wine, gambling, sacrificial stones and divining arrows (al-Māʾida 5/90).

The two words are separated in writing by a single letter (ز / س) and their fields of meaning overlap. Some of the lexicographers count the two related; I record this as a possibility.

There is a variant reading in this word, and it must be transmitted:

In the widespread printed muṣḥaf (the transmission of Ḥafṣ) it is read with ḍamma: ٱلرُّجْز.

It is said in the classical sources that the two readings largely unite the meaning: what is asked to be forsaken, whether it be "filth" or "what leads to punishment", points to the same thing.

I give no definite list as to which reading belongs to which imām.

The verse gives its object as definite (al-rujz) but does not describe it. The classical explanations:

I impose no preference. All four occur in the classical sources and they do not exclude one another.

Root: ه-ج-ر. The concrete sense of this root and its derivatives (hijra, muhājir, hujr) were treated in al-Muzzammil 73/10; I do not repeat them.

As was recorded there, the use of the root in the Qurʾān runs in two directions: the leaving of a place and the leaving of a relationship.

Here there is a third object: an attitude.

Three separate leavings. And that the two sūras should use the same root with two different objects is one of the most concrete data of the link between them.

And there is a difference that must be recorded: in al-Muzzammil the leaving was qualified as jamīl (beautiful) — because what was left was persons. Here there is no qualification — because what is left is an attitude. There is no such thing as parting "beautifully" from an attitude.

I record this distinction as my own reading.

Wa lā tamnun tastakthir "Do not cast up a favour, counting it much."

The shortest and the most disputed verse of the sūra. Two words, and the relation between them left indefinite.

Root: م-ن-ن. And this root carries in Arabic two senses that come close to being each other's opposite:

1. To do good, to bestow, to grant a favour.

• مَنَّ عَلَيْهِ — he showed him kindness.
• مِنَّة (minna) — favour, bounty.
• ٱلْمَنَّان (al-Mannān) — the one who bestows abundantly.
• ٱلْمَنّ (al-mann) — the food sent down to the Children of Israel. "We sent down upon you the manna (al-manna) and the quails" (al-Baqara 2/57; al-Aʿrāf 7/160; Ṭāhā 20/80). This too is a bestowal.

2. To cast up a kindness, to throw what one has given in another's face.

• مَنَّ عَلَيْهِ بِعَطَائِهِ — he cast up in his face what he had given.

And the Qurʾān openly forbids this second sense and sets a measure:

• "Those who spend their wealth in the way of God and then do not follow what they have spent with reproach (mannan) and hurt…" (al-Baqara 2/262).
• "O you who believe! Do not cancel your acts of charity with reproach and hurt" (al-Baqara 2/264).

The last verse is important: casting up a favour cancels the charity. That is, the act is not counted as done. What was given is not taken back, but the record is erased.

From the same root مَمْنُون (passive participle) occurs in the Qurʾān in the negative: ajrun ghayru mamnūn — "an uninterrupted / unreproached reward."

Its places: al-Tīn 95/6, al-Inshiqāq 84/25, Fuṣṣilat 41/8.

And the expression has two readings, and both come out of the root:

This expression was treated in al-Tīn and al-Inshiqāq; I do not repeat it.

But this link needs to be made: the requital God gives is ghayru mamnūn — not cast up in one's face. And what is commanded of the addressee here is the same: lā tamnun — do not cast up a favour.

That is, the measure is shared. I record this link as my own reading; I do not claim that there is a reference between the verses.

Root: ك-ث-ر. Abundance. And in al-Takāthur the takāthur (boasting in abundance) form of this root was treated.

ٱسْتَكْثَرَ — in the istifʿāl form. This form has two basic functions, and both are possible here:

1. Request: to ask for a thing. Istaghfara — to ask forgiveness. 2. Counting / finding: to reckon a thing so. Istaḥsana — to find beautiful.

That is, tastakthir means either "you ask for more of it" or "you find it much".

And the position of this word in the sentence is left indefinite as well: is it the circumstantial qualifier of the verb lā tamnun (stating a state), or is it its ground?

The first three of these are seriously defended in the classical sources. I impose no preference.

But I wish to record this: all three readings come out at the same place. What is forbidden is the turning of a kindness done into a debt owed to the one who did it — whether before the one who receives it (1 and 2) or before God (3).

This joining is my own reading.

In the sequence of commands this is the single prohibition. The other six are commands.

And its position is striking: after the commands to warn, to magnify, to purify and to forsake; before the command to be patient.

An observation, as my own reading: when all the commands in the sequence have been carried out, an accumulation appears — works done, hardships borne, labour spent. And the natural risk of that accumulation is that it should become, in the eyes of the one who owns it, a debt owed to him.

The prohibition seems to be placed at exactly this point: do not turn the sum of the works you have done into a ledger of accounts.

I do not rest this on the text; it is an interpretation I draw from its position in the sequence.

Wa li-rabbika fa'ṣbir "And be patient for your Lord."

The last command of the sequence.

Root: ص-ب-ر. Its concrete sense — to hold, to hold back, to confine — and the point that patience is not a passive enduring but an active work of holding, were treated in al-Baqara 2/45. I do not repeat them.

And the real point here lies in the particle.

Let us set the commands to patience of the two sūras side by side:

The same verb, two different particles, two different questions.

• ʿAlā says what is to be borne patiently: what they say.
• Li says why it is to be borne patiently: for your Lord.

And when the two are joined a complete description appears: what, and why.

I record this comparison as my own reading; I do not claim that the two verses were built to complete one another, but that the verb is the same and the particle different is an observable datum.

The letter لِ carries several senses in Arabic: possession, cause, purpose, specification.

The explanations given here in the classical commentaries:

1. Purpose: be patient for your Lord's good pleasure. 2. Cause: be patient because your Lord has commanded it. 3. Specification (ḥaṣr): be patient for your Lord alone — not for any other cause.

The third reading rests on the fronted prepositional phrase conveying ḥaṣr, and was recorded above (in the section on the structure of the sequence).

And what the third reading opens up is important. Patience can be exercised for other causes too: for reputation, for the sake of having shown endurance, to establish superiority over the other side, to prove something to oneself.

The verse makes the address of patience single — just as the address of taking a guardian was made single in al-Muzzammil 73/9.

I record this as my own reading.

Seven commands are done. And the last command regulates the consequence of the first.

Qum fa-andhir — rise and warn. This command will have a consequence: there will be opposition, there will be mockery, friction will arise. The rest of the sūra recounts exactly this.

And the last command of the sequence is a preparation for that consequence: fa'ṣbir.

That is, the sequence commands a work, and closes by setting an attitude against the difficulty that work will produce.

This reading is my own inference; the text does not set up this link openly.

A general assessment.

The order is this: coming out of the covering (1) → rising (2) → warning (2) → magnifying (3) → purifying (4) → forsaking (5) → not casting up a favour (6) → patience (7).

And there is an observable order in the sequence:

And note: there is no command in the sequence to "teach", to "explain" or to "bring proof". Everything listed after the command to warn has to do with the warner himself.

This observation is my own inference. But it can be observed: six of the seven commands regulate not the addressees of the work but the one who does the work.