al-Mursalāt 77:32-33

Innahā tarmī bi-shararin ka'l-qaṣr · Ka-annahū jimālatun ṣufr

"It throws up sparks like a castle · as though they were yellow camels."

Innahā — a feminine singular pronoun. Who?

Two explanations are given in the classical sources:

There is no practical difference between the two. A pronoun's referring to something not stated plainly is ordinary in Arabic; a similar case was treated in this commentary at al-ʿĀdiyāt 100/4 (bihī).

Root: ش-ر-ر. Sharar — sparks; its singular is sharāra.

This word was mentioned in this commentary in the section on al-Falaq, where the following qualification was set down:

From the same root come sharār / sharar — a spark. In the Qurʾān it is used of the fire of Hell: "It throws up sparks like a castle" (al-Mursalāt 77/32). Some lexicographers draw a link of meaning between "evil" and "spark": what leaps, what spreads, what sets alight. This association is interesting but not certain in terms of language; I record it as an association.

I repeat the same qualification here. The relation between sharr (evil) and sharar (spark) is not certain and I build no interpretation upon it.

تَرْمِى — to throw, to hurl. Root ر-م-ي. The verb conveys a thing's being flung far. And it comes in the imperfect: it throws continually, not once.

The spark's being the size of a castle is the real image the verse carries.

A spark is the smallest part of a fire — a mote that appears for an instant in the air and dies. The verse measures it by a castle: by the size of a structure, a building.

This is the reverse of the technique recorded in the section on al-Fīl. There what was great (the elephant, the army) was made small (ʿaṣf — straw). Here what is small is made great. In both cases the scale is broken, and the breaking of the scale delivers a judgement.

There is a disagreement over the reading of the word:

On the second reading the simile becomes: the sparks are like thick logs piled up.

Both are transmitted and both give a meaningful image. I give no imām's name. Nor do I impose a preference: the first reading gives the size, the second gives both the size and the shape (long, thick pieces).

A note on the root قَصْر. The primary sense of the root ق-ص-ر is to shorten, to limit, to confine (qaṣr, taqṣīr, maqṣūr). The relation of the word qaṣr (a castle) to this root is explained by the lexicographers as "an enclosed, walled structure". I transmit this explanation as a view the lexicographers record.

And the verse lays one simile on top of another. This is not something often seen in the Qurʾān.

كَأَنَّ — a particle of comparison: "as though". It is stronger than ka; ka makes a comparison, ka-anna comes close to establishing identity.

The pronoun's being masculine. Ka-annahū — masculine singular. But what is compared is sharar (a plural). The grammarians explain this by the pronoun's referring to the class of شَرَر, the singular of sharar, or to each individual spark. That is, "each one is as though…".

The second most disputed word in the sūra.

There is disagreement over the reading and more than one variant is transmitted (jimālat, jimālāt, jimāla, jumālāt). I give no imām's name.

In meaning there are two separate directions:

There are two explanations of صُفْر as well:

• Yellow — the word's established sense (aṣfar, yellow). It fits the colour of fire.
• A dark colour tending to black — the lexicographers record that in Arabic the black of camels is called ṣufr, because black camels' hair has a tone tending to yellow.

I impose no preference. I record three things:

One. The camel reading is the more widespread and is the image with the strongest counterpart in the addressee's eye. In Arabia the camel is the measure of size.

Two. The rope reading has a force of its own: sparks travel through the air lengthening; the rope simile gives that lengthening, the camel simile does not. Moreover "like a castle" (volume) and "like a rope" (shape) complete one another.

Three. Neither reading runs against the text, and the word itself already carries both senses. This is a richness often seen in the Qurʾān; as recorded in this commentary in the section on al-Ikhlāṣ, a word not locked onto a single reading is a gain, not a loss.

Ka'l-qaṣr + ka-annahū jimālatun ṣufr.

The two similes come from two different fields:

• A castle — man-made, fixed, architectural.
• A camel (or a rope) — living or manufactured, moving, from seafaring/the desert.

And both measure the same thing: size. But one is a size that stands, the other a size that moves.

For a spark, when these two measures are joined, the image that emerges is: pieces of fire the size of a building, moving in a herd.

I record this as a reading.

And a structural note. The verse-endings of the sūra break here for the second time (ṣufr, then al-mukadhdhibīn). This is one of the three ill-fitting transitions I recorded above — and its position is meaningful: immediately after the densest image, the refrain cuts the sound and returns to the judgement.