يَوْمَ تَرْجُفُ ٱلرَّاجِفَةُ · تَتْبَعُهَا ٱلرَّادِفَةُ
Yawma tarjufu'l-rājifa · Tatbaʿuha'l-rādifa "On the day the quaking one quakes; the one that comes behind follows it."
- ٱلرَّجْفَة — a quaking, an earthquake. In the Qurʾān it is used of the peoples destroyed: "the quaking seized them" (al-Aʿrāf 7/78 — Thamūd; 7/91 — Madyan; 7/155 — the seventy chosen from the people of Moses).
- تَرْجُفُ — will quake. "On the day the earth and the mountains quake" (al-Muzzammil 73/14).
- ٱلْمُرْجِفُون — those who shake things up, who spread unrest. "The hypocrites, those in whose hearts is sickness, and those who spread agitating rumours in the city…" (al-Aḥzāb 33/60).
The last item is a linguistic datum worth recording. In Arabic إِرْجَاف means to spread baseless and shaking news — to shake things up with rumour.
That is, the root names both physical quaking and social quaking. This is an observation about the language; the use in the verse is plainly physical and I draw no allusion from it.
And this is an instance of a pattern recorded in the section on al-Qāriʿa. There the names the Qurʾān uses for the Hour were given in the form of a table and this finding was made: "All of these names have a grammatical feature in common: nearly all of them are on the active participle pattern and are feminine. That is, all of them stand in the position of 'the one that does'."
ٱلرَّاجِفَة and ٱلرَّادِفَة are added to that list. Both on the fāʿila measure, both feminine, both in the position of "the one that does".
And a third will come in the same sūra: ٱلطَّامَّة (79/34) — which was already in the table in al-Qāriʿa.
The noun qualified has been elided. Al-rājifa is an adjective; the noun it qualifies is not stated. This is the same situation as in verses one to five: there is an adjective, there is no noun described.
That is, in its first seven verses the sūra speaks throughout by attribute. I record this as an observation.
- رَدِيف — the one riding pillion; the one behind on the mount. A known position in Arab culture: two people ride a camel or a horse, the one in front drives, the one behind is the radīf.
- مُرْدِفِين — coming one after another. "I shall help you with a thousand angels — one following another" (al-Anfāl 8/9).
- رَدِفَ لَكُم — it has drawn near you, it has come up behind you. "Say: perhaps a part of what you seek to hasten has come up behind you" (al-Naml 27/72).
The picture the word gives is this: the second one has mounted behind the first. That is, the two do not come separately; they come joined.
The English "hard on its heels" comes near to this, but it does not give the idea of contact that is in radīf.
| View | Explanation | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| The two blasts of the trumpet (the most widespread) | The first blast kills, the second raises | al-Zumar 39/68 describes the two blasts explicitly. Moreover in the neighbouring sūra, al-Nabaʾ 78/18, it says "the trumpet is blown" |
| The earth quakes, then the heaven splits | The first quaking concerns the earth and the mountains, the second the heaven | al-Muzzammil 73/14: "On the day the earth and the mountains quake" |
| Death, then resurrection | Two stages in general | — |
The first view is the most widespread and the explicit expression in al-Zumar 39/68 is its strongest support.
And the connection with the neighbouring sūra is worth recording. In al-Nabaʾ 78/18 a single blast was mentioned: "the day the trumpet is blown." Al-Nāziʿāt speaks of two quakings.
The two sūras do not conflict: al-Nabaʾ mentions the second blast (the resurrection), because it goes on to say "you will come". Al-Nāziʿāt mentions both together.
| al-Nabaʾ 78/18 | al-Nāziʿāt 79/6-7 | |
|---|---|---|
| Word | نَفْخ — a blast | رَجْف — a quaking |
| Sense | Hearing | Balance / touch |
| Source | An instrument (the trumpet) | Unnamed |
| Number | One | Two |
The two sūras describe the same event through two different senses: one is heard, the other is felt.
I record this as an observation. That the two sūras are neighbours and describe the same event with different words is a feature often seen in the Qurʾān's scenes of the Hour.
The seventh verse comes without a connecting particle: تَتْبَعُهَا ٱلرَّادِفَةُ — "the one that comes behind follows it."
The dropping of the particle (faṣl), as was treated in the section on al-Ikhlāṣ, shows that two sentences are too tightly bound to be joined by a connective.
And here this coincides exactly with the sense of the word: radīf is the one who mounts behind. That is, there is no gap between the two quakings — and there is no particle between the two verses either.
I record this as my own reading; but the dropping of the particle and the sense of the word radīf are both in the text.