al-Ghāshiya 88:21-22

Fa-dhakkir innamā anta mudhakkir — lasta ʿalayhim bi-muṣayṭir "So remind; you are only a reminder. You are not one who rules them by force."

The sūra's mode of address changes here. Through twenty verses there was third-person narration; now the Prophet is addressed directly.

Root: ذ-ك-ر. To mention, to remember, to make remembrance. In Form II (dhakkara) it becomes transitive: to remind.

The choice of verb is one of the sūra's most important decisions.

The verse could have said any of the following, and all would have been reasonable:

• fa-ʿallim — teach.
• fa-akhbir — inform.
• fa-dʿu — call.
• fa-nadhir — warn.

It says none of them. It says "remind".

The difference is fundamental. To teach is to give the other something he does not have. To remind is to make visible something the other already has.

This choice accords with the Qurʾān's conception of itself. The Qurʾān calls itself dhikr: "We sent down the reminder, and We are its guardian" (al-Ḥijr 15/9). Dhikr here means "reminding".

And beneath this there is an anthropology: the human being is described not as a being that does not know but as a being that forgets. In the discussion of al-ʿAṣr it was recorded that the word insān, on one view, comes from the root n-s-y (to forget). The two findings support one another.

The verb's coming in the imperative and with a fāʾ: fa-dhakkir — "so remind". The fāʾ conveys consequence. That is, the command is the consequence of the four preceding verses: since the camel, the sky, the mountain and the earth stand before them and they do not look — remind.

A link to the neighbouring sūra: the same root will return in al-Fajr — "That day the human being will remember; but what use is the remembering to him?" (al-Fajr 89/23, yatadhakkaru'l-insānu wa annā lahu'dh-dhikrā).

Two neighbouring sūras use the same root: in al-Ghāshiya the command to remind, in al-Fajr a remembering of no use. al-Ghāshiya says "remind"; al-Fajr shows a moment at which the time for remembering has passed. The urgency of the command is understood from the scene in the facing sūra. I record this as an observation; the same link is made in the section on al-Fajr too.

إنما (innamā) is a particle of restriction (ḥaṣr). To say "you are only…" does two things at once: it affirms one thing and leaves the rest outside.

That is, the sentence at the same time:

• Gives a task: you are a reminder.
• Sets a limit: you are only a reminder.

This double function sets up the sentence's balance. The task is not belittled — to remind is the work that carries the whole weight of the sūra. But neither is it widened.

مُذَكِّر is an active participle, from Form II: one who reminds. That it is from the same root as the command closes the sentence in on itself: dhakkir — mudhakkir. "Remind; you are one who reminds." The work he does becomes the name of his identity.

The spelling and reading of the word. In the orthography of the codex it is written with ص (muṣayṭir); it has also been read with س (musayṭir). This arises from a known phenomenon in Arabic whereby a sīn followed by the letter ṭāʾ turns into a ṣād. The existence of the variant reading is certain; I do not give the name of an imam and I state that it does not change the sense.

Root: س-ط-ر. And the concrete sense of the root is interesting: a line, a stroke, a row.

• سَطْر (saṭr) — a line of writing; its plurals asṭār, suṭūr.
• مِسْطَرَة (misṭara) — a ruler, an instrument for drawing lines.
• أساطير (asāṭīr) — "things that have been written down"; in the Qurʾān the name the mushrikūn gave to the revelation: asāṭīru'l-awwalīn (al-Anfāl 8/31 and elsewhere).

The pattern مُسَيْطِر comes from here, and its sense opens in several directions:

1. One who records, who keeps a register — who writes line by line. 2. One who watches, who inspects — who stands over a thing and controls it. 3. One who rules by force, who holds the matter in his hand — who imposes his will.

All three senses stand within the word, and the lexicographers differ over which is original. In the context the third sense comes forward, but the second is at work too: you are not an inspector set over them.

The word's other occurrence in the Qurʾān:

"Or do they have the treasures of your Lord? Or are they the ones who hold everything in their hands?" (al-Ṭūr 52/37).

There the word is plural (al-muṣayṭirūn) and stands inside a question put to the mushrikūn: is it you who rule? In al-Ghāshiya the same word is negated of the Prophet.

This comparison says something, and I record it as my own reading: to be muṣayṭir is a position the Qurʾān grants to no one. Neither are the addressees in that position (al-Ṭūr), nor is the messenger (al-Ghāshiya).

The finding made in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/6 is of use again here and I rely on it openly. There, for the verse "whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe", this was recorded:

Look at whom the verse is addressed to: the verse is said to the person who does the warning. Its function is not to pass a judgment but to set the warner at ease: your task is to deliver, not to produce the result. The Qurʾān says this openly elsewhere: "You cannot guide whom you love" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56).

al-Ghāshiya 88/22 takes the same principle one step further. In al-Baqara the principle was set up as a finding (they will not believe). Here it is set up as the negation of an attribute: you are not a muṣayṭir.

The difference is this: a finding states a situation, the negation of an attribute states an authority. al-Ghāshiya says not that the result cannot be produced but that the authority to produce the result has not been given.

The Qurʾān carries this line on in many places:

• "There is no compulsion in religion" (al-Baqara 2/256).
• "You are not a tyrant over them; so remind by the Qurʾān whoever fears My warning" (Qāf 50/45).
• "Had your Lord willed, all those on earth would have believed together. Will you then compel people so that they may become believers?" (Yūnus 10/99).

The verse of Yūnus is the clearest of this group, and its logic is this: if faith were sought by way of compulsion, that could have been done directly in the first place. If it was not done, then what is sought is not the kind of thing that can be obtained by compulsion.

And this says something about the definition of faith: what can be obtained by force is not faith. Compulsion can produce conduct; it cannot produce conviction.