وَمَا تَشَآءُونَ إِلَّآ أَن يَشَآءَ ٱللَّهُ رَبُّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Wa mā tashāʾūna illā an yashāʾa'llāhu rabbu'l-ʿālamīn "And you do not will unless God, the Lord of all the worlds, wills."
The twenty-seventh verse set up a restriction with in … illā. This verse repeats the same pattern: mā … illā.
- 27: what the text is is bounded — only a reminder.
- 29: a person's willing is bounded — only if He wills.
In two sentences the sūra draws the limit of two things: the text's claim and the human being's power.
The two verses stand one after the other, and at first sight they look to cancel one another. This lies at the centre of one of the longest debates in the history of kalām.
I take no side in this commentary. The frame of this debate was given in the section on al-Baqara 2/7 (the sealing of hearts), and this was recorded there: not one of the parties has held that a human being is without responsibility; the debate is about how responsibility is constituted. That qualification holds here too, and I do not repeat it.
| Reading | What it says | Its weak side |
|---|---|---|
| Absolute determination | A human being has no real willing; everything is the divine willing | It makes verse 28 meaningless. A text does not address as "whoever wills" someone who has no willing |
| The independence of the human will | The verse says only that the possibility is from God; the willing is the human being's | It strains the wording of verse 29: the verse speaks not of possibility but of willing directly |
| Two layers | 28: the act is the human being's and is ascribed to him; the responsibility is his. 29: the possibility of that act, its ground and its coming about are God's | How the two layers join is the theological debate itself; the verse does not explain it |
1. This is a reminder (27). 2. For whoever among you wills (28). 3. And your willing too depends on Him (29).
Had the order been reversed, the text would be incoherent. A text saying "you cannot will — so will" would contradict itself. Whereas a text saying "will — and know that your willing too rests on something" is saying something else.
The sequence itself, then, gives a direction of reading: the qualification was placed there not to cancel the invitation but to show what the invitation rests on.
And the verse's practical function fits this too. The twenty-eighth verse strengthens the person's hand: you can will. The twenty-ninth verse keeps him from claiming the source of that strength as his own: that you are able to will is itself something given.
This also speaks silently with the verse of al-mawʾūda in the sūra's first half. There, the right of someone with no power at all was delivered up. Here, someone who supposes he has power is told where his power comes from. At both ends the sūra does the same thing: no one holds a power that originates in himself.
It was recorded in the first section: not one of the twelve conditional clauses has a subject. The sun was rolled up — who rolled it is not said. The sky was stripped away — who stripped it is not said. The Fire was set blazing, the Garden was brought near — all of them passive.
And in the twenty-ninth verse, in the sūra's last two words, the subject's name is given for the first and only time: ٱللَّهُ رَبُّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ.
The question held in suspension across twenty-nine verses — who is doing all this? — is answered in the very last word.
This is the sūra's strongest structural feature. And it produces this effect: for thirteen verses the reader looks for the subject; in the second half a chain is described (the messenger, the Owner of the Throne, the carrier), but the head of the chain is still referred to by a title (dhi'l-ʿarsh); and only in the last sentence is the name set down.
Moreover the last two words also make a rhyme with the verse two before it: verse 27 ended with li'l-ʿālamīn, verse 29 ends with rabbu'l-ʿālamīn. The text is for all the worlds, and the worlds have a Lord. The same word, one of them the destination, one the source.
And one link more: rabbu'l-ʿālamīn is the second verse of al-Fātiḥa. al-Takwīr ends where al-Fātiḥa began. I record this as a possible reading — the order of the codex and the order of revelation are different, and connections of this kind are not proof but a possible reading.