al-Muṭaffifīn 83:34-36

Fa'l-yawma'lladhīna āmanū mina'l-kuffāri yaḍḥakūn • ʿAla'l-arāʾiki yanẓurūn • Hal thuwwiba'l-kuffāru mā kānū yafʿalūn "So today those who believed laugh at the deniers. On couches they look. Have the deniers been requited for what they used to do?"

The thirty-fourth verse is the mirror of the twenty-ninth:

Of four elements two have changed places, one (the verb) has stayed the same, one (the time) has changed.

This is a structure the Qurʾān uses often, and it was taken up several times in earlier sections: in al-Humaza the reversal between jamaʿa (he gathered) and nubidha (he will be flung); in al-Māʿūn the pairing between yaduʿʿu (he pushes away) and yudaʿʿūna (they are pushed) at al-Ṭūr 52/13.

Here the reversal is plainer, because the same verb is used.

The symmetry is not complete, and the difference is worth dwelling on.

In the twenty-ninth verse those who laugh were named by a verb: alladhīna ajramū — "those who committed crimes". In the thirty-fourth verse those laughed at are named by a noun: al-kuffār — "the deniers".

In the same way, those who believe are named by a verb in both verses: alladhīna āmanū.

On one side, that is, the naming passes from verb to noun.

In Arabic a verbal sentence conveys ḥudūth (an event's taking place), while a noun conveys thubūt (settledness, fixity). This distinction was taken up in the sections on al-Takāthur and al-Humaza.

On this basis the verses may be saying: in this world there was something done (they committed crimes); in the hereafter that thing has become an identity (the deniers).

I offer this reading as my own inference and do not offer it as a settled ruling; the choice of word may have other explanations — in particular the requirements of the verse-ending (the rhyme) affect the choice of words in Arabic texts.

And one further note is needed: that the believers are named by a verb in both verses accords with the principle recorded in Method — the Qurʾān describes an attribute, it does not hand out identities. Faith is named as something done.

The word carries the definite article and is an adverb of time: "that day", "this very day".

And the فَ at the head conveys consequence: as the counterpart of the preceding verses.

The choice of the word is meaningful. The verse does not say "on that day" (yawmaʾidhin); it says "today" (al-yawm).

This changes the position of the narration: the sentence is framed as though spoken from within the hereafter. The reader hears a sentence as though he were inside that day.

The same manner was present in verse 17: "This is what you used to deny" — there too a "now" looking back on a past was set up.

Here one has to stop and ask a question, because the verse is at first sight uncomfortable: how can good people's laughing at people in a bad state be a reward?

The answers the classical exegetes give:

One point can be read off the text and needs recording: in verse 29 the verb of laughing came with the particle min and the phrase was brought forward — that is, the target was being stressed. The same structure is in verse 34.

But there is a difference: verse 35 says, immediately after the laughing, "on couches they look." That is, the believers are seated somewhere, looking. They do not do what the mocker does — pass by and wink.

I record this as an observation; that the two scenes are not exactly the same is visible in the text.

The sentence is word for word the same as verse 23.

And as was recorded at verse 23, the object of the verb is left unstated there as here. But here the context gives a clue: the preceding verse speaks of the deniers.

This supports one of the views given at verse 23 ("they look at the state of their enemies"), but does not cancel the others. That the same sentence should be used in two different contexts strengthens the preference that the object is deliberately left open.

And the repetition itself carries a function: the sentence used in verses 22-28 while relating the state of the abrār is repeated here for the believers. The two sections of the sūra — the description of the hereafter and the story of this world — are thus tied to one another by the same sentence.

The sūra ends with a question.

هَلْ here is not for seeking information; it is a pattern used in Arabic for taqrīr (eliciting assent) and tahakkum (saying something by way of mockery). Its answer is known: yes, they have been.

One of the last words of the sūra, and its root carries the whole logic of the sūra on its own.

Root: ث-و-ب. Its concrete sense: to return, to come back, to revert to one's origin.

• ثَابَ (thāba) — he returned, he came back to his origin. Thāba ilayhi ʿaqluhu — his senses came back to him.
• مَثَابَة (mathāba) — a place returned to. In the Qurʾān it is used of the Kaʿba: "And We made the House a place of return for people and a place of safety." (al-Baqara 2/125).
• ثَوَاب (thawāb) — the requital of a deed that comes back. The Turkish sevap comes from here.
• ثَوْب (thawb) — a garment. The explanation the lexicographers give: cloth takes this name because it returns to the state destined for it.
• تَثْوِيب (tathwīb) — to requite, to reward.

The idea at the centre of the root: what has gone comes back.

And this is the whole logic of the sūra. The sūra is built on the idea that what is given will have its return: the shortfall given in the measure, the deed written in the record, the name of the day of reckoning (yawm al-dīn — whose root, as was recorded in the section on al-Māʿūn, is "requital").

So the sūra is framed by two separate roots meaning "requital":

Both relate the same idea with different pictures: the one from a relation of debt, the other from the movement of return.

Now we come to the most striking side of the verse.

The word ثَوَاب is used in Arabic and in the Qurʾān generally for the requital of a good deed. The Turkish sevap carries this sense too.

In this verse, however, the verb is used for the punishment of the deniers: hal thuwwiba'l-kuffār — "have the deniers been requited?"

In classical rhetoric this is called تَهَكُّم (tahakkum): the use of a word, by way of mockery, in a contrary context. The Qurʾān does this elsewhere too — for example the use of the root bashīr / bushrā in announcing a punishment.

And the use here has a particular force.

The sūra related those who laughed in this world (29-33). They were mocking. And the last sentence of the sūra speaks in the same manner as they did: a question by way of mockery.

That is, in saying its last word to the mockers the sūra uses their own language. This is the completion, at the level of language, of the reversal set up in verse 34.

I offer this reading as my own inference; the application of the term tahakkum to this verse is mentioned in the classical sources, while the link I set up with the general structure of the sūra is an interpretation.

The last three words of the sūra meet a verse of the preceding sūra:

Al-Infiṭār said that what is done is recorded; al-Muṭaffifīn says that what is done comes back.

And as was recorded in the section on al-Infiṭār, the verse used not taʿmalūn but tafʿalūn; by the distinction the lexicographers record, fiʿl is wider than ʿamal and intent is not a condition of it.

The same word is used here too. That is, what is requited is not "their deeds" but "what they did".

I record this link as an observation; that the two sūras use the same verb is a datum of the text, the conclusion I draw between them is an interpretation.

The sūra ends with a question, and this is a pattern taken up in earlier sections: al-Takāthur ends with a question ("you will be asked about the bounty"), al-ʿAṣr with an answer, al-Humaza with a closed door.

The question of al-Muṭaffifīn is of a different kind: it is a question whose answer has already been given. Everything related across thirty-five verses is the answer to the question.

That is, the question is not seeking information; it is addressing the reader. Rather than proclaiming the verdict, the sūra ends by having the reader assent to it.