al-Fajr 89:6-8

Alam tara kayfa faʿala rabbuka bi-ʿĀd • Irama dhāti'l-ʿimād • Allatī lam yukhlaq mithluhā fi'l-bilād "Have you not seen what your Lord did to ʿĀd? — to Iram of the columns; the like of which had not been created among the lands."

This pattern was taken up in the first verse of Sūrat al-Fīl; I do not repeat the finding there, I bring it briefly.

The main point recorded there was this: the verb رأى (raʾā) conveys, besides seeing with the eye, knowing, grasping, coming to a conviction. English has the same extension — no one is speaking of the eye when he says "you see that this won't work."

And the second finding there was more important: the pattern leaves the one addressed obliged to accept the event. It does not ask "did something happen?"; it asks "have you not seen how it happened?" The event is given; the only thing opened to discussion is its manner.

In the section on al-Fīl, when examples of this pattern were being counted, this verse was already used: "Have you not seen what your Lord did to ʿĀd?" (al-Fajr 89/6) — and this note was entered there: the people of ʿĀd are centuries before those addressed. That is, here too the pattern does not intend seeing with the eye.

What is to be added here is this: the object of the question is not the event but the manner. Kayfa faʿala — "how He did it." What is asked of the one addressed is not that he should learn that ʿĀd was destroyed; he knows that already. What is asked is that he should look at the form of the destruction.

This prepares the rest of the sūra. Because what will be said in the eleventh verse is what the peoples did; what will be said in the thirteenth is what the recompense was. That the question opens with "how" asks that the relation between them be looked at.

The verse does not say "God", it says "your Lord". And this is a choice that will run through the sūra.

When we count the word within the sūra, this table emerges:

Eight occurrences. And two things are striking in the distribution.

One. Six are in the narrator's mouth, two in man's own mouth. And the two sentences that come out of man's mouth are the two sentences the sūra rejects. That is, the sūra both uses the word Rabb itself and shows the place where it is used wrongly.

Two. Each time the word occurs at a different work: destroying, pouring out, watching, testing, coming, being returned to. These are not separate attributes; they are successive phases of the same relationship. The backbone of the sūra is this word: from beginning to end the text asks a single question — what is the relation between us and the Rabb?

And the word Rabb itself directs this question. As was treated in the section on al-Fātiḥa, the word carries ownership together with nurture and care; at al-Baqara 2/21-22 the command to serve was built not with "to God" but with "your Lord" and its ground was counted by way of care. In al-Fajr the same word is the word man uses when he looks at what is happening to him: rabbī akraman. Man uses the right word and makes the wrong inference.

When the story of Thamūd was treated in Sūrat al-Shams a method was established: what the Qurʾān says, what the reports add, and the historical frame are given separately. I apply the same method for ʿĀd.

When all the sūras are brought together, the information the Qurʾān gives about ʿĀd is this:

• Hūd was sent to them (al-Aʿrāf 7/65; Hūd 11/50; al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/123-124). Hūd is called the "brother" of the people — that is, one of them.
• They came after the people of Noah and were given strength in their creation: "Remember that He made you successors after the people of Noah and gave you increase in stature" (al-Aʿrāf 7/69).
• They set up a sign on every height: "Do you build a sign on every height, sporting with vanities? And do you take for yourselves strongholds, hoping to abide forever?" (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/128-129). These two verses are particularly important for al-Fajr and I shall come back to them below: the verb in the second is takhludūn — "that you may abide forever."
• They used their strength tyrannically: "When you seize, you seize like tyrants" (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/130).
• They relied on their strength: "They said: Who is stronger than us?" (Fuṣṣilat 41/15).
• They were destroyed by a hurricane: "As for ʿĀd, they were destroyed by a roaring, raging wind; God loosed it upon them for seven nights and eight days without pause. You would have seen the people there laid low, like hollow trunks of palm trees" (al-Ḥāqqa 69/6-7). Al-Qamar 54/19-20 and Fuṣṣilat 41/16 also mention the same event.
• Their land is al-Aḥqāf: "Mention the brother of ʿĀd: when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf" (al-Aḥqāf 46/21). Aḥqāf means sand dunes.
• At al-Najm 53/50 "the former ʿĀd" is spoken of (ʿĀdan al-ūlā). Whether this expression requires the existence of a second ʿĀd has been disputed; the verse gives no historical information and I build no chronology upon it.

The following come from the reports of exegesis, history and story; they are not in the text of the Qurʾān:

• The bodily measurements of the individuals of the people. Extraordinary figures are given in the reports. The Qurʾān says "He gave you increase in stature" and sets no measure. I give no figure.
• The geographical location of Iram.
• The population of the people, the length of its rule, the names of its rulers.
• The place of ʿĀd in the genealogical tree and the details of the distinction "the former ʿĀd / the latter ʿĀd".
• The date of the destruction.

I do not count these reports worthless; some of them are found in the early sources. But they are not of the same degree of certainty as the text of the Qurʾān, nor are they necessary for the working of the sūra.

What can be said with certainty is this: for those addressed by the Qurʾān, ʿĀd was not a distant and unknown name. The name was an example of destruction lodged in Arab memory and in Arab poetry; indeed the Qurʾān elsewhere mentions ʿĀd with no introduction at all, assuming that the one addressed knows. That the pattern alam tara can be used requires this too — one does not say "have you not seen?" of something unknown.

The description al-Aḥqāf (sand dunes) places the people in a geography looking to the south of the Arabian peninsula. To make a more precise determination of place than that exceeds the information we have.

This construct is one of the most discussed expressions in the Qurʾān, and the disagreement runs along two separate axes.

A grammatical note: the word has also been read in a construct form, عَادِ إِرَمَ (ʿĀdi Irama — "the ʿĀd of Iram"). On this reading Iram becomes the larger community to which ʿĀd belongs, and the first view is strengthened. That variant readings exist is certain; since I cannot say with certainty which reading belongs to which authority, I write no name.

عِمَاد (ʿimād), root ع-م-د: the support that holds a thing upright. ʿAmūd — a pillar, a column. Iʿtimād — leaning, relying. ʿUmda — a support, a basis.

All three views are transmitted in the sources. I impose no firm preference. The link established with al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/128-129 appears to give the first view an advantage, because there ʿĀd is explicitly mentioned as building structures; but this does not refute the second — a community may be both tent-dwelling and building.

I need to open this section separately, because the greater part of the narratives circulating around this verse are things not found in the text.

One. The descriptions in the story literature. In the books of exegesis and story there circulate extremely detailed accounts about Iram: a city made of gold and silver, gardens likened to paradise, a ruler who had it built and the name of that ruler. These accounts have no ground whatever in the Qurʾān. The ruler's name spoken of does not occur in the Qurʾān. Some of the classical scholars regarded these accounts as of the kind of Isrāʾīliyyāt and rejected them; others contented themselves with transmitting them and issued no ruling on their soundness. I do not convey the details; because to convey them gives them, unawares, a weight.

The information the Qurʾān gives is three words: Irama dhāti'l-ʿimād. And in the next verse it adds one more sentence: the like of it had not been created. What the text says is this much.

Two. Archaeological claims. At the end of the twentieth century an archaeological project carried out in the south of the Arabian peninsula — around Oman and the Rubʿ al-Khālī — was reported in the press under headlines of "Iram found". Care is needed here: there is no proof that would identify an archaeological site with the Iram of the Qurʾān, and this equation is not a result accepted in the archaeological community. That old settlements and trading centres have been found in the region is one thing; to say that what has been found is the same as the name in the text is another.

This is the sibling of the note entered for Thamūd in Sūrat al-Shams. There too it was stated that the structures standing today do not belong to Thamūd. The same discipline is required here: to tie the truth of a text to an excavation report is to tie the text to the fate of that report.

Three. What is certain. Those addressed by the Qurʾān knew ʿĀd; the name lived in Arab memory as an emblem of destruction; and the sūra mentions this name not to give a history lesson but for a comparison. The other side of the comparison will come in the fifteenth verse: a single human being and his wealth.

The pronoun is feminine: allatī… mithluhā. What is its referent?

There are two possibilities: Iram (as a tribe or as a city, either can be taken as feminine) or directly ʿĀd (which as a tribal name can be treated as feminine). It produces no difference in meaning: what is without a like is the community or the place mentioned.

What does "the like of which had not been created" mean? There is disagreement here:

The second reading appears stronger, and its ground is in the text itself: the note fi'l-bilād narrows the scope of the claim. I state this as a preference; it is not binding.

And here there is a detail that must not be missed.

The same word will come again three verses later:

• 89/8: lam yukhlaq mithluhā fi'l-bilād — "the like of which had not been created among the lands."
• 89/11: alladhīna ṭaghaw fi'l-bilād — "those who exceeded the limit among the lands."

The same ground, two different sentences. The uniqueness takes place there, and so does the transgression. And between the two sentences there are only two verses.

This is a silent ruling of the sūra: the claim and the offence are committed in the same place. The stage of the uniqueness and the stage of the overstepping are not two separate places. The sentence "its like was not among the lands" is built as a praise, and three verses later what happened in those same lands is stated.

The repetition of the word may also be required by the verse-ending — both end with the sound -ād. But that the repetition produces meaning stands in the text. I record this as my own reading.