لَتَرْكَبُنَّ طَبَقًا عَن طَبَقٍ
| Reading | Structure | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| لَتَرْكَبُنَّ (tarkabunna, with ḍamma) | Second person masculine plural | "You shall mount" — an address to all mankind |
| لَتَرْكَبَنَّ (tarkabanna, with fatḥa) | Second person masculine singular | "You shall mount" — an address to the Prophet |
In the widely printed copies of the muṣḥaf the reading with ḍamma is the basis. The reading with fatḥa is transmitted in the sources of the variant readings as well and is counted among those transmitted by mass transmission. On the question of which imam of the readings adopted which reading I give no definite attribution, because I am not certain.
Other readings counted weaker (such as a passive form) are also transmitted in the sources; because these are not counted as transmitted by mass transmission I do not take them into assessment here.
Read as plural: the address is to mankind and the verse is the continuation of the address "O man!" in the sixth verse. The sense: every man will pass from one state to another.
Read as singular: the address is to the Prophet and the verse becomes a word said to him. On this reading the sense opens in two directions: (a) "you will rise stage by stage" — a notice of ascent; (b) "you will pass from hardship to hardship" — a notice of the stages of the call.
My assessment — it is not binding: the plural reading sits better with the context of the sūra, because the twentieth verse turns immediately afterwards to a plural pronoun: "What is the matter with them, that they do not believe?" Moreover the address al-insān in the sixth verse was an address to the genus. The singular reading is not contrary to the text either; both readings state the same law, they only change the addressee.
Root: ر-ك-ب. To get up onto a thing and move with it. Rakb — a caravan, a mounted company. Markab — a mount. Tarkīb — to join by setting one thing upon another; the Turkish terkip and mürekkep ("compound") are from this root.
The choice of the verb is meaningful. The verse does not say "you shall pass" or "you shall enter"; it says "you shall mount".
To mount is different from to walk. He who walks goes by his own power; he who mounts is upon something that carries him. Neither the speed nor the direction is entirely in the hands of the one who mounts.
This sets up an interesting tension with the sixth verse of the sūra. There man was kādiḥ — scraping with his own nail, toiling. Here he is rākib — carried upon something. Man both toils and is carried. Both at once are true.
I record this as my own reading; but that the two verbs have been given to the same subject in the same sūra is a datum of the text.
- طَبَق — a layer; also the lid of a vessel (because it sits exactly upon it).
- طِبَاق — layers one upon another. The Qurʾān: "It is He who created the seven heavens in layers" (al-Mulk 67/3); "Do you not see how God created the seven heavens as layers fitted to one another?" (Nūḥ 71/15).
- مُطَابَقَة (muṭābaqa) — fitting one another, coinciding. The Turkish tıpatıp and mutabakat are from this root.
- أَطْبَقَ — he closed, he covered over.
The word's use for the states of man is known in Arabic as well: ṭabaqāt al-nās — the layers, the degrees of people; and ṭabaq in the sense of a state or period a person passes through.
ʿAn in Arabic conveys mujāwaza: separating from a thing and moving away from it, leaving it behind. This is the particle used in saying "the arrow left the bow".
Had min been used ("from one stage to another") only movement would have been conveyed. With ʿan the sense of leaving behind is added: to mount each new state is to abandon the one before.
This connects with the fourth verse of the sūra: the earth cast out what was in it and emptied itself. The same movement is repeated for man's life — every state is the leaving of the one before.
| View | Explanation | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| The stages of life | The drop, the clot, birth, childhood, youth, old age, death, the grave, resurrection | The Qurʾān counts man's stages elsewhere: al-Ḥajj 22/5, al-Muʾminūn 23/12-14, al-Muʾmin 40/67. Moreover the phases of the moon in verse 18 furnish an instance of this |
| The phases of the Day of Resurrection | That day's dreadful states following one upon another | The context is the Resurrection; verses 1-5 had set up this scene |
| The layers of the sky | Together with the singular reading: the Prophet's passing through the layers | The word ṭibāq being used of the heavens (al-Mulk 67/3) |
| The way of those before you | The repetition of the states of earlier communities | The sense of ṭabaq as "generation, layer" |
| From hardship to hardship | The continuity of difficulty | Agreement with kabad at al-Balad 90/4 |
These views do not exclude one another. The word's being left indefinite (with tanwīn) — ṭabaqan, "a state" — already keeps the sense open-ended.
My assessment — it is not binding: the first view is the one that sits best both with the sense of the root and with the choice of the oaths. The oaths offered a transition (the afterglow), a gathering (the night) and a completion (the full moon); all were instances of change by stages. The verse comes upon these instances.
The nineteenth verse meets that supposition with a law: passing from state to state is not something man chooses. The moon does it every month; the day does it every evening; man will do it too.
And the whole architecture of the sūra is completed here: the sky changed state (1), the earth changed state (3-4), the moon changes state (18), man will change state (19). The man who supposed he would not change stands in a universe in which nothing at all is unchanging.