al-Insān 76:13-14

Muttakiʾīna fīhā ʿala'l-arāʾik, lā yarawna fīhā shamsan wa lā zamharīrā · Wa dāniyatan ʿalayhim ẓilāluhā wa dhullilat quṭūfuhā tadhlīlā "There they recline upon couches; they see there neither a burning sun nor a freezing cold. Its shades have come near over them, and its clusters of fruit have been made to bow low."

Root: و-ك-أ. Form VIII: ٱتَّكَأَ — to lean on something, to recline, to let one's weight down somewhere. From the same root muttakaʾ — a support, a place to lean on.

What the word states is not a posture but a condition of safety. One who reclines is one who is not thinking of going anywhere; he has set his weight down. In that world, to eat standing or squatting was the condition of the traveller and of the man in a hurry; to eat reclining was the condition of a man at home.

Singular: أَرِيكَة. Root: أ-ر-ك. This word was treated in the discussion of al-Muṭaffifīn 83/23. I summarise the finding there: an arīka is a couch with a curtain or covering drawn over it, canopied and shaded — not an ordinary cushion but a sheltered and ornamented seat. It is also recorded that the word has been connected with the arāk tree, but that derivation is not certain. In the Qurʾān the word occurs only in descriptions of the garden.

And in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn a comparison was made; now we are at the other end of that comparison.

There this was recorded: the Qurʾān mentions this object elsewhere with the verb مُتَّكِئِين (reclining); al-Muṭaffifīn 83/23 puts in its place يَنظُرُون (they look), because the whole matter of that sūra is seeing. And this very verse — al-Insān 76/13 — was cited as the example.

That is, two sūras use the same object and choose different verbs:

In al-Muṭaffifīn the abrār look, because that sūra is the sūra of mocking glances. In al-Insān the abrār recline, because this sūra is the sūra of people who held themselves back, who grew tired, who gave. The reward of the one who has grown tired is somewhere to lean.

I record this as my own reading; the difference of verb in the two verses and the ground set up in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn are in the text.

زَمْهَرِير — a quadriliteral root (ز-م-ه-ر), and it occurs only here in the Qurʾān. Its meaning: severe cold, freezing frost.

The pair the verse sets up is the climate of that world. In the desert the day has two enemies and both come within the same day: the burning sun of the daytime, the freezing cold of the night. The difference of temperature is the hardest fact of the day in the desert.

In describing the garden the verse adds nothing; it takes away two things. And the two things it takes away are two things counted in the addressee's life as antidotes to one another: from the sun you flee to the shade, from the cold to the fire. The verse removes both at once — that is, it leaves nothing to flee to.

A point about the verb: the verse does not say "they do not feel", it says "they do not see" (lā yarawna). Cold is not seen. In Arabic the use of the verb raʾā in the sense of "to encounter, to come upon" is common, and it has that sense here. But the choice of word does something: the two extremes cease to be something felt and become something not seen. They are not present.

Root: د-ن-و. And this root was treated in the discussions of al-Baqara 2/4 and 2/61. The finding there was this: the root carries together the senses to be near and to be low; from the same root comes دُنْيَا — the name of this life is "the near one". And the language was delivering a verdict: what is near and what is low are named with the same word.

What is peculiar to this passage is this: the same root is here on the positive side.

Dāniyatan — the shades have drawn near to them. In al-Baqara nearness was a fault (preferring what can be touched); here nearness is a favour (the shade being within reach).

There is no contradiction, because the subject of the nearness changes. In al-Baqara what was near was the thing preferred — man was leaving the far and choosing the near. Here what is near is the thing given; no one is making a choice.

I record this as my own reading; the shared root and the finding in al-Baqara stand where they are.

ظِلَال — shades. Root ظ-ل-ل: shade, to be shaded. In a desert climate shade is not a comfort but a condition of survival. The Qurʾān mentions shade often in describing the garden, and this is exactly why — it is what the addressee looks for most.

قُطُوف — its singular is قِطْف: a cluster of fruit that is picked. Root: ق-ط-ف — to pluck, to gather, to harvest.

ذُلِّلَتْ — root: ذ-ل-ل. Its concrete sense: to be lowered, to bow, to become docile. Its derivatives:

• ذَلِيل (dhalīl) — brought low, despised.
• ذُلّ (dhull) — lowering, submission.
• ذَلُول (dhalūl) — a trained animal, used to the yoke. A docile mount.

And this last derivative occurs in the story of the cow in Sūrat al-Baqara. In that story, treated in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/67-71, one item of the description narrowed down by questions was this: لَّا ذَلُولٌ تُثِيرُ ٱلْأَرْضَ — a cow "not broken to the yoke, that has not ploughed the field".

Setting the two usages side by side shows what the root does:

The verb in the verse is passive and of the tafʿīl form: dhullilat — "was made to bow", and the pattern states intensity. Then comes the absolute object: tadhlīlā — emphasis.

The picture the word chooses is this: the fruit does not stand high on the branch; it comes down towards the person. And the word chosen is not "was made easy" (yussirat) but "was made to bow" (dhullilat). That is, a taming has taken place — the fruit's resistance has been removed.

And this, together with the thirteenth verse, sets up a single idea. The place a reclining person cannot reach is the place to which the shade and the fruit come. The verses describe a place where the abrār do not have to move.

The opposite of this stood at the beginning of the sūra: in the eighth verse these people were carrying the food they themselves loved to someone else. The hand that gives no longer even reaches out.

I record this as my own reading.