أَرَءَيْتَ ٱلَّذِى يَنْهَىٰ • عَبْدًا إِذَا صَلَّىٰ
A-raʾayta'lladhī yanhā • ʿabdan idhā ṣallā "Have you seen the one who restrains — a servant when he prays?"
The analysis of this pattern was done on the first verse of Sūrat al-Māʿūn: the interrogative hamza + raʾayta; a pattern that has frozen in Arabic into the sense "tell me, what do you say"; its function is to draw the one addressed into the matter and then to say something startling. I rely on that treatment; I do not repeat it here.
What has to be added here is that the pattern is repeated three times: in verses 9, 11 and 13. In al-Māʿūn it occurred once; here it comes three times over and sets up a chain. I shall take up the structure of this chain separately at the end of verse 13.
- Verse 7: raʾāhu — he saw himself (a wrong seeing)
- Verses 9, 11, 13: a-raʾayta — have you seen (a call to attention)
- Verse 14: yarā — God sees (absolute seeing)
Three levels: the man's seeing of himself is wrong; the one addressed is asked to see rightly; and above both there is the one who really sees. The sūra sets up a hierarchy of seeing, and does it with a single root. This is a weave standing in the text's own texture; it is not forced.
Root: ن ه ي. To forbid, to restrain, to hold back. Nahy (a prohibition), nihāya (an end — the point at which a thing is kept from going further), muntahā, intihāʾ come from the same root.
The verb has no object. Note: the verse does not say "the one who restrains him", only "the one who restrains". The object will come in the next verse. The gap between them is deliberate — the same technique as the gap between the first two verses of al-Māʿūn. The question is left hanging in the air: what is he restraining? And as the answer is delayed it grows heavier.
A contrast within the Qurʾān. The most famous use of this root in the Qurʾān is this: "Truly prayer restrains (tanhā) from indecency and wrong" (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/45).
The same verb, in opposite directions. Prayer restrains evil; the man here restrains prayer. That is, the person the sūra describes has let go of what he ought to be restraining and laid hands on what ought not to be restrained.
I give this link not as a transmitted piece of exegesis but as a verbal contrast established between two verses. The same root, the same pattern, the opposite object.
Root: ع ب د. The analysis of this root was done in al-Fātiḥa in the discussion of iyyāka naʿbudu: servanthood, absolute submission and surrender; in the concrete semantic field of the root there are resonances such as a "road"'s being levelled by being trodden underfoot.
Its coming indefinite. ʿAbdan — "a servant", indefinite. Not definite. This choice needs dwelling on.
The verse does not say "the one who restrains Muḥammad" or "the one who restrains the Prophet". The name does not occur. Not even the title occurs. It says only "a servant".
1. It widens the scope. If the person restrained is not a particular someone, the verse is describing not a particular event but an attitude. Whoever restrains someone who is praying, the verse is speaking of him.
2. It puts the one addressed in the right place. That the Prophet is called "servant" when he is spoken of is a consistent choice of the Qurʾān's; in the discussion of al-Baqara we dwelt on the word ʿabdinā (our servant): even where the highest ranks are mentioned, the title is servant. So too here. And this sharpens the scene: the man who restrains was seeing himself as sufficient (verse 7); the person he restrains does exactly the opposite — he shows that he is a servant.
That is, the two things brought face to face are in fact two stances: the one who supposes himself ghanī and the one who knows himself to be ʿabd. The sūra sets them against each other not by name but by attribute.
صلّى — the analysis of the root (ص ل و; the sense of supplication, the explanation of ṣalawān, the calling of the horse that comes second in a race muṣallī) was done in Sūrat al-Māʿūn. I rely on that treatment.
The particle إِذَا (idhā) is used for a time whose occurrence is certain — it does not convey doubt as in (if) does. That is, the sentence does not say "if he prays"; it says "at the time when he prays". The prayer is being performed; the restraining is set against that.
Why prayer? Because prayer is the visible form of servanthood. A person may believe inwardly and no one know it. But when he prostrates he has made his declaration with his body. In al-Māʿūn, in the discussion of ostentation, we said that prayer's being a "visible act of worship" made it apt for ostentation; here the same visibility produces another consequence: prayer is the only act of worship that can be prevented, because it is the only act of worship that can be seen.
And this is exactly the target of the restraining: not belief itself but belief's becoming visible. No one can forbid the belief in the heart. What can be forbidden is its coming out in the body, in a place, in the public space.
In the classical commentaries it is said that these verses came down concerning Abū Jahl. The transmitted framework is this: Abū Jahl forbade the Prophet to pray in the vicinity of the Kaʿba and said that if he persisted he would tread on his neck; then he approached and drew back, and when he was asked the reason for his drawing back, he said that he had seen a trench of fire and wings in between.
Concerning this report. This story occurs in the hadith sources and is stated to be transmitted from Abū Hurayra; it is stated to be found in the collections of sound hadith. But I make no definite citation here to a particular book and chapter, because the report has different lines of transmission and different variants. The story itself is very widespread in the exegetical tradition.
A note on method. Even if the report is correct, it is plain that the ruling is not restricted to Abū Jahl. The rule we mentioned in the discussion of al-Māʿūn holds here too: al-ʿibra bi-ʿumūm al-lafẓ lā bi-khuṣūṣ al-sabab — the ruling goes by the generality of the wording. Accordingly the verse itself names no one.
One more observation: the sūra leaves both parties without a name. Neither the one who restrains nor the one restrained has a name. Both are described by what they do. This displays in the text itself the principle the method (Method) underlines: what is described is not persons but attributes.