وَيُسْقَوْنَ فِيهَا كَأْسًا كَانَ مِزَاجُهَا زَنجَبِيلًا · عَيْنًا فِيهَا تُسَمَّىٰ سَلْسَبِيلًا
Wa yusqawna fīhā kaʾsan kāna mizājuhā zanjabīlā · ʿAynan fīhā tusammā salsabīlā "There they are given to drink from a cup whose admixture is ginger; a spring there, whose name is Salsabīl."
Root: س-ق-ي. Treated in the discussion of al-Muṭaffifīn 83/25; I summarise the finding there: siqāya is the work of distributing water and was the name of an office at the Kaʿba; suqyā is a turn at drinking water (it was taken up at al-Shams 91/13). And on the verb's coming in the passive this was recorded: "they do not take for themselves, it is given to them."
In the fifth verse the verb was active: yashrabūna — they drink. In the sixth verse they were splitting the spring open themselves. In the seventeenth verse the verb is passive: yusqawna — they are given to drink.
Within the same sūra, the same act, two different voices. The order is this: first they drink and open for themselves (5-6), then they are given to drink (17), and at the very end their Lord gives them to drink (21).
Three stages: their own hand → an unnamed hand → the hand of the Lord. The sūra uses the verb of drinking three times and each time carries the subject higher.
The words kaʾs and mizāj were treated at the fifth verse; I do not repeat them. The real matter here is what the two admixtures are.
زَنجَبِيل — ginger. A root plant; sharp, burning, warming. In that world it was an article of trade coming from the direction of India, and its addition to drinks was a known usage among the Arabs.
That the word entered Arabic from another language is widely accepted. I issue no ruling about its precise source.
| 76/5 | 76/17 | |
|---|---|---|
| Admixture | كَافُور — kāfūr | زَنجَبِيل — ginger |
| Its property | Cooling | Warming |
| Who drinks | abrār / ʿibādu'llāh | (The same people) |
| Verb | yashrabūna — they drink | yusqawna — they are given to drink |
The two admixtures are opposites of one another. One cools, one warms. And both are given to the same people.
And this sets up a tension with the thirteenth verse: there there was neither sun nor zamharīr — neither heat nor cold. The surroundings had been cleared of both extremes. But in the cup both extremes are present: coolness and warmth.
I read it thus — I present it as my own inference: what is removed from the surroundings is the compulsion of heat and cold; what is given in the cup is the same two qualities in a form that can be chosen. Heat endured and warmth drunk are not the same thing. The sūra rescues man from the two extremes and gives him back those same two extremes as a gift.
This is a reading; the verse sets up no such ground. That kāfūr cools and ginger warms is something that world knew.
| View | Explanation | Weak point |
|---|---|---|
| A proper name | It is the name of a spring in the garden; it is not derived | The verse already says tusammā (it is named), which supports this view |
| A description | It means "flowing easily, passing smoothly down the throat"; it is of the same family as salis (easy, flowing) and salsal (sweet, light water) | The word's having more than four letters does not sit exactly with the accustomed Arabic patterns |
| A compound | It has been said to come from a compounding such as sal + sabīl | Explanations of this kind are met with caution by the lexicographers |
I adopt no firm preference. The first two views do not exclude one another: a name may be derived from a description — the same note was entered for tasnīm in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn.
It was recorded at the fourth verse: سَلَٰسِل (chains) and سَلْسَبِيل begin with the same sequence of sounds.
The fourth verse of the sūra says salāsil for those who cover over; its eighteenth verse calls the spring of the abrār salsabīl.
I record this as an observation about sound, not as a claim of derivation. Whether the two words come from the same root is disputed and I do not settle it. What I record is only this: at the two poles of the sūra stand two words that call one another to the ear — one that binds, one that flows.
As was recorded in the section on al-Aʿlā as well: no meaning is to be drawn from a resemblance of sound.
In the first verse man was not مَذْكُورًا — he was not a thing mentioned, he had no name. In the eighteenth verse a spring has a name, and it is said.
Without loading it too heavily, I record this as an observation: the sūra opens with a nameless being and, in the middle of its description, sets down a name.