al-Inshirāḥ 94:7

Fa-idhā faraghta fa'nṣab "When you are emptied, stand up / labour."

In Arabic there are two particles that report a condition, and the difference between them matters:

• إِنْ (in) — reports possibility. "If it happens." Its occurrence is uncertain.
• إِذَا (idhā) — reports certainty. "When it happens." Its occurrence is assumed.

The verse uses idhā. That is, not "if you finish" but "when you finish".

Behind this there is an assumption, and the assumption is correct: every task ends. The possibility of its not ending is not taken into account.

Root: ف-ر-غ. Its original sense is to become empty: a vessel's emptying, a place's being left empty, the hand's being freed of work.

Derivatives: farāgh (emptiness, free time), fārigh (empty).

Two of its usages in the Qurʾān illuminate the root:

• "The heart of the mother of Moses became empty" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/10). Her state after setting her child upon the water. Here fārighan means emptied within.
• "O you two weighty ones! We shall attend to you" (al-Raḥmān 55/31). The sa-nafrughu here comes from the verb "to become empty", but its sense is "we shall be free of other business and turn wholly to this".

The second usage shows the word's second face: to become empty is at the same time to become able to turn wholly to something. Emptiness is not a state in itself; it is the precondition of the next turning.

Root: ن-ص-ب. The word has two main senses in Arabic, and in the classical commentaries both are applied to this verse.

1. To grow weary, to undergo toil. Naṣab = weariness.

• "We have indeed grown weary on this journey of ours" (al-Kahf 18/62). The word of Moses and his young companion.
• "No weariness touches us there, nor any exhaustion" (Fāṭir 35/35). In the description of the Garden.
• The word of Job (Ayyūb): "Satan has touched me with weariness and torment" (Ṣād 38/41).

2. To set up, to stand upright, to raise on its feet. Naṣb = setting up.

• "Do they not look at the mountains, how they were set up?" (al-Ghāshiya 88/19).
• نُصُب (nuṣub) — a stone set up; the stones at which sacrifice was made in idolatrous worship (al-Māʾida 5/3, 5/90).
• The accusative case in grammar is from this root too: the letter's standing upright.

Both senses work in the verse and they join together. The command becomes: when you are emptied, stand up and give yourself to a new weariness.

In the classical commentaries no preference is imposed; the two are given together. And at the point where they join the sense of the verse is completed: to stand upright is to accept weariness.

فَرَغْتَ (you were emptied) ↔ فَٱنصَبْ (stand up / labour).

The two verbs of the sentence are opposites of one another — just like waḍaʿnā / rafaʿnā in verses 2 and 4. The sūra uses this technique twice: in one case spreading it across two verses, here compressing it within a single sentence.

The verse leaves both verbs absolute. What one is emptied of, and what one is to weary oneself with, is not said.

The explanations enumerated in the classical commentaries:

All of these occur in the classical sources. But the text says none of them — and that it does not say them is meaningful.

When both verbs are left without an object, the principle becomes applicable to every task. The verse does not set a rule of transition between two particular occupations; it sets a rule about emptiness.

The most striking side of this verse is at which moment the command is placed.

It does not say "when you are weary, rest." It says "when you are emptied, labour."

The difference matters and is often missed:

• The opposite of weariness is rest.
• The opposite of emptiness is not rest but a new turning.

The verse does not forbid rest. Rest is the transition between two tasks and is itself precisely the "emptying". What is forbidden is that emptiness becoming permanent.

A person rests when he is weary; when he is emptied he either turns to something new or falls apart. The verse closes the second possibility.

This is the finest link in the sūra, and without it being made the seventh verse hangs in the air.

The fifth and sixth verses had said "with hardship there is ease". When this sentence is read on its own it can produce a passive conclusion: waiting. The hardship will pass, the ease will come, and then one will be at rest.

The seventh verse closes that door. What is to be done when the ease comes? One is to enter a new hardship.

That is, the verse builds ease not as a point of arrival but as a transition. The relation of hardship and ease is not a goal but a rhythm.

When this link is made, verses 5-6 are read differently too: the sentence does not say "hold on, it will pass"; it says "this is how the thing works".