al-Nabaʾ 78:39

Dhālika'l-yawmu'l-ḥaqq · Fa-man shāʾa'ttakhadha ilā rabbihī maʾābā "That is the true day. So let him who wills take a place of return to his Lord."

ذَٰلِكَ is in Arabic the demonstrative that points to what is far. This word was treated in detail at al-Baqara 2/2 and what was recorded there was this: the use of the distant demonstrative can convey magnification — it shows the height or the unreachability of what is pointed at.

The same function is present here: the day is pointed at from a distance.

But there is something more. Through the sūra the last day has been related as though it were happening now (perfect verbs: futiḥat, suyyirat, kānat). Now the text draws back a step and looks at the scene from a distance: "that is the day."

I record this as an observation.

Root: ح-ق-ق. Beneath the root lies the idea of being fixed, being in place, coming about. حَقّ — the true, the fixed, the right; and a right (a claim upon someone).

ٱلْحَاقَّة (al-Ḥāqqa) is from this root too and was recorded in the table of the names of the last day in the section on al-Qāriʿa: the direction the root brings forward is verification — a claim turning out true.

And this is exactly the work being done here.

In its first verse the sūra spoke of a disagreement. A disagreement is two claims set against one another: one says "it will happen", the other "it will not". And the resolution of a disagreement is one of the claims turning out true.

The thirty-ninth verse announces this: that day is the day that is true.

The sūra, that is, closes in the thirty-ninth verse the disagreement it recorded in the third. And in between, at the seventeenth verse, stood yawm al-faṣl (the day of separation).

Three verses, a single chain:

I record this chain as my own reading; the places of the three words in the sūra, however, are in the text.

And the sūra's most unexpected sentence is here.

What has been related for thirty-eight verses was a necessity: the day is an appointed time, the trumpet will be blown, the sky will open, the mountains will become a mirage, Hell is in ambush, the reckoning will be held.

And now a choice is given.

شَاءَ — Root: ش-ي-أ. To will, to want. مَشِيئَة — willing, volition.

The sentence is conditional in structure: "Whoever wills… let him take." And the sentence has no compulsion in it, no threat, no command. It states only a possibility.

This pattern occurs in several other places in the Qurʾān and always stands in the same position — after a scene has been related:

"Say: the truth is from your Lord. Let him who wills believe, and let him who wills deny." (al-Kahf 18/29)

"This is a reminder; let him who wills take a way to his Lord." (al-Muzzammil 73/19; al-Insān 76/29)

These last two verses are very close to this one: the same structure (fa-man shāʾa'ttakhadha ilā rabbihī…), only the last word differing — there سَبِيلًا (a way), here مَـَٔابًا (a place of return).

And the sūra's second maʾāb is here.

In the twenty-second verse Hell was "a place of return for the transgressors". Here it says "a place of return to his Lord".

The difference between the two maʾābs lies in the prepositions and in the ownership:

In the first maʾāb the person does nothing. Hell is already there, ready for the transgressors; no one "takes" it. In the second maʾāb, on the other hand, there is a verb: to take.

The sūra, that is, says this: the bad maʾāb is ready; the good maʾāb is taken.

I record this as my own reading. But the grammatical difference between the two verses is in the text: in the one there is no verb, in the other there is.

And the link with the section on al-Qāriʿa. There the expression "his mother is the Abyss" was treated and this was recorded: the person is not thrown somewhere; he arrives where he belongs. And hāwiya was named with the word umm, meaning "the place returned to".

Al-Nabaʾ says the same idea plainly and adds something: the place returned to can be chosen.

Root: أ-خ-ذ. To take. اِتَّخَذَ (Form VIII) — he took for himself, he adopted, he made his own.

In the Qurʾān this verb most often occurs in a negative context:

"They took protectors apart from God." (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/41; al-Zumar 39/3)

"Have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his god?" (al-Jāthiya 45/23 — named in the section on al-Qāriʿa)

"They took the calf as a god." (al-Aʿrāf 7/152)

What the verb has in common is this: a person makes something his own, attaches himself to it, puts it at his own centre.

And this verse uses the same verb in a positive direction: ilā rabbihī maʾābā.

What the verse says, then, is this: a person takes something in any case; the question is what he takes.

This is the same as the finding recorded for al-Ṣamad in the section on al-Ikhlāṣ: everyone turns towards something; the question is what the thing you turn towards is.