وَإِذَا ٱلْأَرْضُ مُدَّتْ
Root: م-د-د. To stretch, to draw out, to spread by pulling. Its derivatives show the concreteness of the root:
- مَدَّ يَدَهُ — he stretched out his hand.
- مِدَاد — ink. What runs out from the tip of the pen. "If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord…" (al-Kahf 18/109).
- مَدَد — reinforcement, support that comes. A force sent by being extended.
- إِمْدَاد — to supply, to give continuously. "And We shall supply them with fruit and meat in abundance" (al-Ṭūr 52/22).
- مُدَّة — a span of time. Time in its extended state.
The verb is again passive: muddat — "it was stretched out". Like ḥuqqat in the preceding verse. The earth is not levelling itself.
The most striking side of this root is this: the Qurʾān describes the creation of the earth with the same verb.
"It is He who stretched out the earth (madda'l-arḍa) and set upon it firm mountains and rivers." (al-Raʿd 13/3)
"And the earth We stretched out (madadnāhā) and set upon it firm mountains." (al-Ḥijr 15/19)
In both verses the verb madd describes the earth's being made habitable for man: a surface spread, opened out, walkable.
Now go back to al-Inshiqāq 84/3: the same verb, the same object — but the result is the opposite.
Where is the difference? In al-Raʿd and al-Ḥijr there are mountains alongside the spreading. The earth is spread and fixatives are set upon it. In al-Inshiqāq no mountains are spoken of; the earth is spread and nothing remains upon it.
The comparison the classical exegetes use in explaining this verse is: muddat kamā yumaddu'l-adīm — "it was stretched as a hide is stretched". When a tanned hide is stretched out with pegs all its creases open, everything on it falls off, and a flat surface is left.
"He will leave it a level, empty plain, in which you will see neither a hollow nor a rise." (Ṭāhā 20/106-107)
The end of the earth, that is, is the exaggerated form of the earth's beginning: it had been spread, and it is spread thoroughly. And when it is spread thoroughly it ceases to be a place that can be lived in.
The idea here may be this — I say it as my own reading: what makes the earth habitable is not only its flatness but the hollows and risings upon it. The mountain, the valley, the cave, the boundary. Human life is built inside these hollows: to shelter, to hide, to divide, to own. When the earth is made perfectly flat there is no place left to hide either. The next verse will say just this.