وَلَا يَخَافُ عُقْبَٰهَا
There is in this verse a variant reading that does not affect the sense but has to be recorded: some of the leading reciters read the verse as فَلَا يَخَافُ (fa-lā yakhāfu), the majority as وَلَا يَخَافُ (wa lā yakhāfu). This difference is reflected in the codices as well; it is transmitted that in the codices of Medina and Damascus it is written with the fāʾ.
In point of sense the difference is small: read with the fāʾ, the sentence attaches to the outcome of the preceding verse ("He levelled it and so did not fear its outcome"); read with the wāw, it becomes an independent descriptive clause.
| View | Who does not fear | Ground | Its weak side |
|---|---|---|---|
| God (the majority) | God does not fear the outcome of what He has done | The agent of the preceding verse is Rabbuhum; that is the nearest agent. The verb is imperfect — it conveys a continuing attribute | — |
| The man who hamstrung the she-camel | That man did not fear the outcome of what he did | A return to ashqāhā in verse 12; it describes the man's recklessness | Two verses have come in between; it is not the nearest agent |
| The people of Thamūd | The people did not fear the outcome of the warning | The same logic | The same objection |
The majority's preference is the first, and its ground is strong: the agent of the sentence is grammatically the nearest noun, and that is Rabbuhum. Moreover the verb's coming in the imperfect is meaningful — it conveys not a past event but a continuing quality.
Root: ع-ق-ب. And the concrete sense of the root is again something that can be handled: عَقِب (ʿaqib) — the heel. The part that comes down last in walking; what comes after.
- عَاقِبَة (ʿāqiba) — the end of a matter, what comes after it. Frequent in the Qurʾān: "The outcome belongs to those who guard themselves" (al-Aʿrāf 7/128; similarly al-Qaṣaṣ 28/83).
- عُقُوبَة (ʿuqūba) — punishment. What comes after the deed.
- يَعْقُوب — Jacob (Yaʿqūb); the widespread explanation of the name is that he was born after Isaac (Isḥāq), at his heel.
- تَعَاقُب — following one after another.
عُقْبَى means the thing that comes after a matter. The English "outcome" too is built the same abstract way — what comes out; but the picture in the Arabic is more concrete: the print left behind the step.
At first sight this looks like unnecessary information — that God will not fear is obvious in any case. But the work of the sentence is different: it is setting up a comparison.
- The retaliation of the party punished.
- The reaction of public opinion.
- The possibility that the punishment will later prove unjust.
- The shaking of his own position.
- The cost of the punishment.
All of these are fear, and all of them corrupt justice. No judgement in the world is given independently of its consequences. The punishment given to the strong is not the same as the punishment given to the weak — because their consequences are not the same.
The verse speaks of a judgement in which this dependence is absent. And note: it says this not in the language of praise but in a negative sentence. It does not say "He is just"; it says "He does not fear the outcome". It describes justice not as an attribute but as the absence of what would corrupt it.
The sūra closes an account of destruction with this sentence. The wiping out of a people is not the result of an unreckoned anger; it is a judgement given from the only position able to make the reckoning.
The oaths spoke of an order: the sun, the moon, the day, the night, the sky, the earth. The working of this order depends on no one's consent. The sun does not give up rising because objection is made to its rising.
The last verse says the same thing for the moral domain: judgement too depends on no one's consent. The order in nature and the judgement in morality come from the same source, and neither fears the outcome.
The sūra thus closes a circle: the cosmic order opened with the oaths is presented as the same thing as the moral order closed with the judgement.