al-Insān 76:30

Wa mā tashāʾūna illā an yashāʾa'llāh, inna'llāha kāna ʿalīman ḥakīmā "And you do not will unless God wills. Surely God is knowing, wise."

The first half of this verse is word for word the same as the last verse of Sūrat al-Takwīr: wa mā tashāʾūna illā an yashāʾa'llāh.

And that verse was treated in a table in the section on al-Takwīr. No side was taken.

I do not repeat the frame recorded there; I recall only two notes, because they hold good here as well:

First, the measure recorded in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/7: none of the parties has maintained that man is not responsible; the dispute is over how responsibility is established.

Second, the observation made in al-Takwīr about the sequence: the qualification comes after the invitation. First "whoever wills" is said, then "your willing too rests on something" is said. Had the order been reversed the text would have been inconsistent. That is, the qualification is put in not to cancel the invitation but to show what the invitation rests on.

No side is taken on this question in this commentary and there is no need to set out the theological views again; the table in the section on al-Takwīr stands where it is.

In the two sūras the same sentence comes with two different closes:

As was recorded in the section on al-Takwīr, in that sūra the construct Rabbu'l-ʿālamīn was the naming at last of the agent concealed for twenty-nine verses — a disclosure of identity.

al-Insān, however, closes the sentence with two attributes:

• عَلِيم — root: ع-ل-م. Knowing; an intensive in the faʿīl pattern.
• حَكِيم — root: ح-ك-م. Possessed of wisdom; one who does a thing in its proper place.

And the word ḥakīm sets up a link with the twenty-fourth verse. There the addressee was told "be patient for your Lord's ruling". Here it is said that the one who gives that ruling is wise.

That is, the sūra gives the quality of the awaited ruling six verses later: what is awaited is not an arbitrary decision but a decision in its proper place.

I record this as my own reading; the shared root in the two verses is in the text.

And this reading too is worth recording, not as a theological preference: having said that man's willing rests on something, the verse adds that what it rests on is one who knows and who does things in their place. That is, the limit itself is given together with the quality of the one who set the limit. This can also be read as a sentence of consolation — but that is my reading; the wording of the verse does not say it.

In the last four verses of the sūra this root comes four times, and the arrangement sets up a symmetry:

That is: God — man — both at once — God. The middle verse joins the two ends in a single sentence.

And recall the first verse: there man was not a شَىْء (thing). Some of the lexicographers attach shayʾ and mashīʾa to the same root. What I record is an observation; I issue no ruling about the historical unity of the root.