al-Ṭāriq 86:13

Innahū la-qawlun faṣl "Surely it is a word that separates."

The answer to the second oath.

Innahū — "it". It points to something not named earlier in the sūra.

The majority reading: the Qurʾān. The same case as the one treated in the section on Sūrat al-Qadr — there too the referent of the pronoun in the expression innā anzalnāhu was left unstated, and it was recorded that this conveys taʿẓīm and perfect notoriety: the thing is so plain that naming is not needed.

Another reading attaches the pronoun to what the sūra has said before: to the report of the resurrection, or to the ruling in verses 4-10. This reading too has been defended and is not contrary to the text. But the settled expressions used of the Qurʾān itself (qawlun faṣl, la-qawlu rasūlin karīm, and the like) support the first reading.

The word is indefinite: qawlun — "a word". The indefiniteness conveys taʿẓīm here: "such a word as…".

And note: it does not say "book", it does not say "revelation", it does not say "verse". It says word. This fits the reality of the period in which it came down — there was no volume in existence that day; there was a word recited and heard.

Root: ف-ص-ل. Its original sense is to separate, to detach one thing from another, to open a gap between them.

• فَصْل — separation; and the part separated off.
• فَاصِلَة (fāṣila) — that which separates. This is also the term we use in this commentary for the sound of verse-endings: the close that separates verses from one another.
• مَفْصِل (mafṣil) — a joint. The place where two bones part.
• تَفْصِيل (tafṣīl) — detail; to explain a thing by separating it into its parts. It occurs often in the Qurʾān: "And everything We have set out in detail" (al-Isrāʾ 17/12).
• فَيْصَل (fayṣal) — a decisive ruling, the decision that ends the matter.
• فَصْل also: season, chapter, class. All of them are separated units.

A point about the pattern. Faṣl is here a verbal noun but has been used as an adjective: qawlun faṣl = "a separating word". In Arabic the use of a verbal noun in place of an adjective conveys intensification — as though the word were the act of separating itself. It is like saying, instead of "a just man", "the man is justice itself".

The same pattern occurs elsewhere in the Qurʾān: in expressions meaning "He is the one who decides between us", and especially يَوْمُ ٱلْفَصْل — "the day of separation" (al-Ṣāffāt 37/21; al-Dukhān 44/40; al-Mursalāt 77/13-14, 38; al-Nabaʾ 78/17). This is one of the names of the day of resurrection.

The word's being a separator works at several levels:

First, it separates truth from falsehood. This is the commonest explanation. The word is a measure; something is measured by it, and what is true is separated from what is false.

Second, it states a decisive ruling. Faṣl is from the same root as fayṣal: the word that closes the matter. That is, there is in it no hesitation, no probability, no "perhaps".

Third, it separates people. When a word is set out, the answer given to it divides the hearers in two. The Qurʾān says this of itself: "By it He leads many astray, and by it He guides many" (al-Baqara 2/26). The later verses of the sūra (15-17) will be precisely the description of this division: one side lays plots, and the other is told to grant a respite.

These three explanations are not alternatives to one another; they are three faces of the word.

The second oath was sworn by a cycle: water comes down, soil splits. The answer, in turn, says that the word separates. Where is the link?

In the classical works of exegesis this link is generally set up thus: as the coming down of the rain is a promise and is kept, so too is this word. That is, the oath guarantees that the word will come to pass.

I think one further step can be taken, and I record this as my own reading: the splitting of the soil is an operation of separation. The rain comes down on all the soil in the same way; but not every soil yields the same thing. Under the rain, fertile soil grows green, barren soil stays as it was. Water is a measure, and it separates soils.

Qawlun faṣl is like this too: the same word is spoken to everyone, but it does not give the same result in everyone. What separates is not the word itself but the ground the word falls on.

This reading also agrees with the notion of kanūd (soil that yields no crop) in Sūrat al-ʿĀdiyāt. It is not a binding interpretation; the connections of the words stand in the text, but it is I who set up the relation between them.