al-Nāziʿāt 79:1-5 — Five oaths

Wa'l-nāziʿāti gharqā · Wa'l-nāshiṭāti nashṭā · Wa'l-sābiḥāti sabḥā · Fa'l-sābiqāti sabqā · Fa'l-mudabbirāti amrā

"By those that wrench out to the utmost · By those that loosen and draw out gently · By those that swim along · Then by those that outstrip · Then by those that direct the affair."

The subject of the oath (qasam) was set up in this commentary in the section on Sūrat al-ʿAṣr and widened out to the long series in the section on Sūrat al-Shams. The findings made there are not repeated.

In brief: in the Qurʾān an oath is not made in order to prove one's truthfulness — for the one addressed is already disputing the truthfulness of the one swearing — but in order to draw attention to something. The thing sworn by is at the same time a piece of evidence.

One datum recorded in the section on al-Shams is worth mentioning again here: the longest unbroken series of oaths in the Qurʾān is in Sūrat al-Shams (seven oaths). Al-Nāziʿāt opens with five oaths; al-Fajr, al-Mursalāt and al-Ṣāffāt are of similar length.

The structure common to the five verses is this: a definite active participle (feminine plural) + a word in the accusative.

But within the structure there are two breaks, and both are worth recording.

The first break — the connecting particles.

The first three oaths are joined with wāw, the last two with fāʾ.

In Arabic the difference between these two particles is clear:

• وَ — absolute conjunction. It announces no order; it sets up no temporal relation among the things counted.
• فَ — announces succession and order: "then, immediately after". Sometimes it announces cause and effect as well.

That is, the series of verses says this: the first three acts stand side by side, and the last two come after them.

This is a structure seen in Sūrat al-ʿĀdiyāt too: "by those that run · fa those that strike sparks · fa those that raid · fa those that raise dust · fa those that plunge into the midst" (100/1-5). There there was one wāw and four fāʾs — and as was recorded in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt, the fāʾs were setting out a chain of action.

In Sūrat al-Mursalāt, on the other hand, there is a mixed arrangement (77/1-5).

What is to be recorded in this commentary is this: the difference of particle is in the text and it carries meaning; but since what the five oaths describe remains indeterminate, it is not possible to say with certainty what the order is ordering.

The second break — the accusative words.

The middle three oaths are strengthened by a verbal noun from their own root — in Arabic this is called the absolute object, and it reinforces the verb. English answers it with an intensifying adverb or a doubling: "loosening and loosening", "swimming and swimming", "outstripping and outstripping".

The first and the fifth oaths stand outside this pattern. In the first there is a word from a different root (gharqā); in the fifth there is an object (amrā).

That is, the series is built thus: two different on the outside, three the same on the inside. The five verses form a framed structure.

I record this as an observation. The grammatical data (which are absolute objects and which are not) can be verified; that they form a frame is an order I see.

This is one of the oldest and most open disagreements in Qurʾānic exegesis. There is no noun in the text; there are only five adjectives.

A fact recorded in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt meets us again here: in some of the Qurʾān's series of oaths the thing sworn by is named not by its name but by its attribute (al-Mursalāt 77/1-5; al-Nāziʿāt 79/1-5; al-Ṣāffāt 37/1-3). And in all of these sūras the same disagreement has occurred.

The views:

No preference is imposed in this commentary, and the ground for that needs to be written:

One. There is no noun in the text. The Qurʾān has not chosen to give a name. To make one reading definitive would be to close a place the text deliberately left open.

Two. Every one of the views has a ground and a weak side. None of them explains all five verses with equal ease.

Three. The words themselves — to be treated one by one below — do not require a particular subject. To wrench, to loosen, to swim, to outstrip, to direct: all of these can be applied to more than one agent.

This much I can record, and I offer it as an observation: the fifth verse (فَٱلْمُدَبِّرَٰتِ أَمْرًا) is the strongest indication in favour of the angels, because "directing the affair" requires an agent with will. And the third verse (ٱلسَّٰبِحَٰت) is the strongest indication in favour of the stars, because the Qurʾān uses this verb explicitly of the heavenly bodies.

Two indications point in two different directions. This shows why the disagreement has not been resolved.

One further possibility needs to be recorded: the views do not have to exclude one another. That the Qurʾān in some places chooses comprehensive and many-sided words has been recorded several times in this commentary (the choice of ghāsiq in the section on al-Falaq was an example). It is possible that the five attributes have been left deliberately open — and in that case to look for a single equivalent would be to narrow the scope of the word.

I offer this as a possibility, not as a preference.

Root: ن-ز-ع. The concrete sense of the root is to pull a thing out of the place it is in, to tear it out. Not a gentle taking; a taking that tears loose.

Its derivatives and its uses in the Qurʾān show the force of the root:

• نَزَعَ يَدَهُ — he drew out his hand. In the narrative of Moses: "He drew out his hand, and there it was, white to the beholders" (al-Aʿrāf 7/108; al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/33). This is a verb that occurs in this sūra's own narrative.
• تَنزِعُ ٱلنَّاسَ — it was tearing people out. Of the wind that destroyed the people of ʿĀd: "tearing them out as though they were the trunks of uprooted palm trees" (al-Qamar 54/20).
• نَزَّاعَةً لِّلشَّوَىٰ — that which scorches and strips off the skin. In the description of the Fire (al-Maʿārij 70/16).
• وَنَزَعْنَا مَا فِى صُدُورِهِم مِّنْ غِلٍّ — We tore out the rancour in their breasts (al-Aʿrāf 7/43; al-Ḥijr 15/47).
• تَنزِعُ ٱلْمُلْكَ مِمَّن تَشَآءُ — You take sovereignty away from whom You will (Āl ʿImrān 3/26).
• تَنَازُع — contention; two parties pulling at a thing against one another. "Do not contend with one another, or your strength will go" (al-Anfāl 8/46).

The common core of the root: to separate a thing from the place it is stuck to. And separation always meets a resistance — this is why the verb conveys force.

The last item is also worth recording: tanāzuʿ (contention) is of the tafāʿul form and conveys reciprocity. The first word of Sūrat al-Nabaʾ (tasāʾul) was of the same form. Two neighbouring sūras describe two different relations with the same form — but in this verse there is no contending, only a one-directional pulling.

Root: غ-ر-ق. To drown, to sink in water. أَغْرَقَ — he drowned. In the Qurʾān the end of Pharaoh is spoken of with this root: "We drowned them" (al-Aʿrāf 7/136; al-Anfāl 8/54).

On the word's place in the sentence the grammarians differ:

And an idiom the lexicographers record explains the word:

أَغْرَقَ ٱلنَّازِعُ فِى ٱلْقَوْسِ — "the archer drew the bow [to its limit]."

In this idiom two things are present at once: the word نَازِع is used in the sense of archer, and إِغْرَاق describes the bow's being drawn to its furthest point.

That is, the idiom holds two words of the verse together.

The picture the idiom gives is this: the archer drawing the bow goes to a certain point; a good archer draws to the furthest point — beyond it the bow breaks. Ighrāq is that furthest point.

The word's meaning here thus becomes clear: gharqā announces not the violence of the drawing but its being carried to the end. Not a half draw; all the way down, leaving nothing behind.

I give this idiom as a usage recorded by the lexicographers; I do not ascribe it to any particular exegete.

Root: ن-ش-ط. And this root sets up the exact opposite of the first verse.

The senses of the root:

• نَشَطَ ٱلدَّلْوَ — he drew the bucket from the well. So here too there is a drawing — but of a different kind: even, flowing, without snagging.
• أَنْشَطَ ٱلْعِقَالَ — he untied the knot. Opening the knot of the rope on a camel's leg.
• نَشِيط — lively, brisk, vigorous. (In Turkish the borrowed words neşe and neşeli, "cheer, cheerful", come from this root — but the sense proper to the Arabic is liveliness and briskness.)
• نَشَاط — liveliness, activity.

The core beneath the root: to move, or to set in motion, without snagging, easily, in a flowing manner.

And the sense of untying a knot is especially important: to untie a knot is to separate the rope without breaking it. Breaking also separates the rope — but it can never be tied again.

The root appears to occur only here in the Qurʾān. I do not offer this finding as the result of an exhaustive search; what I record is that the word is rare.

Now let us set the two verses side by side. This is one of the finest places in the sūra.

The two verses describe the same task in two different manners: a thing's being separated from the place it is in.

And the difference is not in the task but in the manner. The same task is done in two distinct ways.

This is the strongest side of the "angels" view, and it is commonly explained in the classical commentaries thus: the soul of the denier is drawn out violently, the soul of the believer is taken gently. The two verses describe two manners of death.

The Qurʾān sets up this distinction elsewhere:

"If only you could see when the angels take the souls of those who disbelieved, striking their faces and their backs!" (al-Anfāl 8/50; Muḥammad 47/27)

"Those whom the angels take while they are in a goodly state…" (al-Naḥl 16/32 — ṭayyibīn)

Two verses describe the same event (the taking of the soul) in two different manners.

I record this as the reading that best fits the contrast between the two verses. But I do not impose a preference, because this reading requires accepting the "angels" view, and that view is not certain.

And this must be recorded as well — it is my own reading: what the two verses say remains the same whichever view is accepted. The same operation takes two different forms according to whom it is done to. This is the governing idea of the rest of the sūra: in verses thirty-seven to forty-one two groups will meet two different ends within the same day.

That is, the sūra sets up the idea of separation in its very first two verses, by the difference between two verbs.

Root: س-ب-ح. This root was treated in the section on Sūrat al-Naṣr and the finding there will be relied on.

What was recorded there was this: the root's original sense is to swim; when it passes into the tafʿīl form (سَبَّحَ) it takes on the sense of tanzīh — holding God apart from everything unbefitting Him. And the connection between the two senses is the lexicographers' interpretation: swimming is moving swiftly away from and through a medium; tasbīḥ likewise holds God away from deficiencies. The connection is not forced, but neither is it certain.

What is to be added here is this: in this verse the root is used in its original sense — swimming.

And the Qurʾān uses this verb explicitly of the heavenly bodies:

"It is He who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon. Each swims in an orbit." (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/33)

"It does not befit the sun to overtake the moon, nor can the night outstrip the day. Each swims in an orbit." (Yāsīn 36/40)

The second verse is striking, because it contains together the third and the fourth oaths of this sūra: to swim (yasbaḥūn) and to outstrip (sābiq). In Yāsīn it says "the night cannot outstrip the day" — the verb is سَابِقُ, the same root as this sūra's fourth oath.

This is the strongest support for the "stars" view and it was recorded in the table.

What the verb of swimming describes. To swim announces three things at once:

1. Being within a medium — what is swum in is a liquid or an air. 2. Moving by one's own power — not being dragged. 3. Going evenly and without obstruction — without snagging, without friction.

And in Arabic sabḥ is not a disorderly thrashing; it is even and continuous advance.

Root: س-ب-ق. To get ahead, to leave behind, to go forward in a race.

Its derivatives:

• سَابَقَ — he raced. "They raced" (in Yūsuf 12/17, nastabiqu — we were racing).
• سَابِق — one who goes ahead. In the Qurʾān within a classification: "…and those foremost in good deeds" (Fāṭir 35/32; also al-Wāqiʿa 56/10: "the foremost, the foremost").
• سَبْق — going ahead.
• سَبَقَتْ كَلِمَتُنَا — Our word has gone ahead (al-Ṣāffāt 37/171) — being prior in respect of time.

The word has two directions: getting ahead in a race (place) and being earlier (time). Both come out of the same idea.

Why is the fourth oath joined with fāʾ? As recorded above, fāʾ announces succession. That is, the outstripping comes after the swimming.

This ordering is meaningful: first the movement (swimming), then the result of the movement (outstripping). A thing that swims gets ahead because it swims.

Root: د-ب-ر. And the concrete sense of the root is the back.

• دُبُر — the back, the end of a thing. In the Qurʾān: "They will turn their backs and flee" (al-Qamar 54/45).
• إِدْبَار — to turn one's back, to go away. It will occur in this sūra: "Then he turned his back, hurrying" (79/22 — adbara).
• تَدْبِير — to manage a matter with its end in view; to plan, to administer.
• مُدَبِّر — one who governs, who administers.

The connection is this: tadbīr is acting with a view to the back — that is, to the end — of a matter. English carries the same thought in making provision for something: taking beforehand into account what is going to happen.

That is, the word names foresighted management. Not doing a thing at random; carrying it out knowing the outcome.

In the Qurʾān the subject of this verb is for the most part God:

"He directs the affair from the heaven to the earth." (al-Sajda 32/5)

"He directs the affair; there is no intercessor — save after His leave." (Yūnus 10/3)

"…and He is the one who directs the affair." (al-Raʿd 13/2)

And here there is a tension, and it needs to be recorded. In these verses tadbīr is ascribed to God; whereas in al-Nāziʿāt 79/5 a plural agent is named, "those that direct the affair".

The exegetes' way of resolving this tension is: the directing is God's; the angels carry out His direction. That is, the agents in the verse are not the party that decides on its own but the party that carries out a decision given.

This explanation is another datum supporting the "angels" view.

أَمْرًا — "an affair". It comes indefinite: "an affair". The indeterminacy shows that the kind of affair is not stated.

The word's place within the sūra. Amr in the Qurʾān means both "command" and "affair". In this verse the second sense comes forward.

And now we come to the most striking feature of the series: the oath has no answer.

In Arabic an oath (qasam) consists of two parts: the muqsam bihi (the thing sworn by) and the muqsam ʿalayhi (the answer of the oath — that is, the "surely such-and-such is so" part).

In this sūra the first part runs for five verses; the second part never comes at all.

The sixth verse begins with يَوْمَ تَرْجُفُ ٱلرَّاجِفَةُ — an adverb of time. Not a clause of answer.

The grammarians' solutions:

The first view is the most widespread.

And the elision itself is worth recording. The Qurʾān carries a series of oaths through five verses and does not give the answer.

Its effect is this: the tension is set up and not discharged. Through five verses the reader waits, asking "what will it say?", and instead of an answer a scene arrives.

I record this as my own reading. But that the elision is present in the text is a datum the grammarians accept unanimously.

And a connection: Sūrat al-Nabaʾ was doing the same thing. There a question was asked, its answer was not given, and in its place a table was set up. Two neighbouring sūras use the same technique in two different ways: one an unanswered question, the other an unanswered oath.

I record this parallel as an observation.