Yūnus 10:12

Wa idhā massa'l-insāna'ḍ-ḍurru daʿānā li-janbihī aw qāʿidan aw qāʾimā, fa-lammā kashafnā ʿanhu ḍurrahū marra ka-an lam yadʿunā ilā ḍurrin massah, kadhālika zuyyina li'l-musrifīna mā kānū yaʿmalūn

"When affliction touches man he calls upon Us — lying on his side, sitting, or standing. But when We lift his affliction from him he passes on, as though he had never called upon Us over an affliction that touched him. Thus was what they were doing made to seem fair to those who go to excess."

This portrait was treated and tabulated in two places in the index.

At al-Zumar 39/8 and 39/49 the same pattern occurred twice, and it was recorded there: in the first, forgetting; in the second, claiming ownership — "first to forget the source, then to claim to be the source oneself."

At Fuṣṣilat 41/49-51 the portrait occurred once more: naʾā bi-jānibih (turning aside) and duʿāʾin ʿarīḍ (prayer spread wide). And there the difference between ṭūl and ʿarḍ was recorded: the prayer does not deepen, it spreads.

Yūnus is the fourth link, and the table can be completed:

And Yūnus adds two things. Both must be recorded.

Li-janbihī — upon his side, lying down. Qāʿidan — sitting. Qāʾiman — standing.

This is a detail not found in the other three occurrences of the portrait.

And there is a subtlety in the word order, which I record: the first is li-janbihī — with a prepositional phrase; the second and third are qāʿidan, qāʾiman — with a circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl). The grammarians record this shift and say that the first renders better the motionlessness of the one lying down. I relate this explanation as it is transmitted.

And the order is worth recording: lying → sitting → standing. That is, from the most helpless to the strongest.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order itself: the verse does not tie the prayer to one condition. Lying, sitting or standing, the same thing is done — the prayer, that is, is bound to the affliction itself, independently of the state of the body. And this makes the passing on in the second half heavier: what was done in every condition is abandoned in a single condition — in ease.

And at al-Sajda 32/16 tatajāfā junūbuhum ʿani'l-maḍājiʿ (their sides part from their beds) occurred as a quality of the believers. The word janb (side) is in both verses; in the one it is a man praying in affliction, in the other a man rising in ease. I record this as an observation about the wording; I make no claim that the two verses refer to one another.

The root م-ر-ر: to pass, to go past.

And the choice of verb must be recorded: in al-Zumar it was nasiya (he forgot), in Fuṣṣilat aʿraḍa (he turned away). Here it is marra — "he passed".

I record this as my own reading: forgetting is an act of the mind, turning away is a stance; passing on requires neither. Marra is to keep going on one's way as though nothing had happened. And the rest of the verse confirms this: ka-an lam yadʿunā — "as though he had never called upon Us".

The root occurs in three places in the sūra, and this is a fact that can be counted:

The concrete sense of the root ك-ش-ف: to lift a covering, to uncover.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the three verses: the sūra uses the same verb first of one person (12), then of a people (98), and finally as a rule (107). And the man in the twelfth verse passes on after the affliction is lifted; the people in the ninety-eighth do not. That the sūra takes its name from that people has to do with this difference.

زُيِّنَ لِلْمُسْرِفِينَ — tazyīn (being made to seem fair) was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/25 and in al-Zukhruf. I do not repeat it.

The root س-ر-ف: to overstep the bound, to lose the measure. The word will occur once more in the sūra, in the eighty-third verse — and there it will be used of Pharaoh: wa innahū la-mina'l-musrifīn. The same epithet, once for a general type and once for a ruler.