Yūnus 10:22-23

Huwa'lladhī yusayyirukum fi'l-barri wa'l-baḥr, ḥattā idhā kuntum fi'l-fulki wa jarayna bihim bi-rīḥin ṭayyibatin wa fariḥū bihā jāʾathā rīḥun ʿāṣifun wa jāʾahumu'l-mawju min kulli makānin wa ẓannū annahum uḥīṭa bihim, daʿawu'llāha mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīna la-in anjaytanā min hādhihī la-nakūnanna mina'sh-shākirīn · Fa-lammā anjāhum idhā hum yabghūna fi'l-arḍi bi-ghayri'l-ḥaqq

"It is He who makes you travel over land and sea. So that when you are in the ships, and they run with them on a fair wind and they rejoice in it — a violent wind comes upon them, waves come at them from every side, and they know that they are encompassed. Then they call upon God, making their religion sincerely His: 'If You deliver us from this we shall certainly be among the thankful.' · But when He delivers them, at once they are overreaching on the earth without right."

This scene was treated and tabulated twice in the index.

At Luqmān 31/32 (wa idhā ghashiyahum mawjun ka'ẓ-ẓulal daʿawu'llāha mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīn) and at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/65 (fa-idhā rakibū fi'l-fulki daʿawu'llāha mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīn) the same scene had occurred in almost the same words. And in the section on al-ʿAnkabūt it was tabulated that the two sūras end with different outcomes: in Luqmān fa-minhum muqtaṣid (some of them keep to the middle way), in al-ʿAnkabūt idhā hum yushrikūn (they associate others with God).

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

And Yūnus has two differences. Both must be recorded.

In the other two sūras there is a prayer but no undertaking. In Yūnus the prayer continues into a sentence of oath:

La-in anjaytanā min hādhihī la-nakūnanna mina'sh-shākirīn — "if You deliver us from this we shall certainly be among the thankful."

How the sentence is built must be recorded: it opens with la-in (the lām of oath plus the particle of condition), and the answer comes with la- plus the nūn of emphasis (la-nakūnanna). In Arabic this is the most strongly reinforced form a word can take.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this pattern: the other two sūras showed a contradiction of conduct (sincerity at sea, association on land). Yūnus lays a pledge on top of this — and what is broken is not merely an attitude but an undertaking that was given.

And the content of the broken pledge must be recorded: mina'sh-shākirīn — to be among the thankful. What is promised, that is, is not an act but a belonging. At al-Ṣāffāt 37/143 (kāna mina'l-musabbiḥīn) the point of this pattern was treated: "what delivers is not an act at that moment but a belonging." In Yūnus the same pattern stands on the side of what is promised — and it is not fulfilled.

Luqmān said "keeping to the middle way", al-ʿAnkabūt "associating others with God". Yūnus says baghy.

The root ب-غ-ي: to want, to seek; and from this to overstep the bound, to overreach. The lexicographers explain the second sense as an extension of the first: to seek more than one's share.

And the verse gives the word with a qualification: bi-ghayri'l-ḥaqq — "without right". That is, baghy here is not the seeking itself but a seeking that spills past the truth.

And what follows must be recorded: yā ayyuha'n-nāsu innamā baghyukum ʿalā anfusikum — "your overreaching is against yourselves."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the word order of the sentence: ʿalā anfusikum — the harm is written not to the account of the target of the overreaching but to that of the one who commits it. And this coincides exactly with the forty-fourth verse: wa lākinna'n-nāsa anfusahum yaẓlimūn — "but people wrong themselves." The two verses give the same ruling with two different words: baghy and ẓulm.

مَّتَٰعَ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا — and the sentence ends with a note about a term. The construct will come back in the seventieth verse: matāʿun fi'd-dunyā.

This is the most striking linguistic event in the verse, and it must be recorded.

The sentence begins in the second person, shifts in the middle to the third, and then continues in the third:

The rhetoricians call this shift iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address). And this verse is one of the most frequently named examples of iltifāt in the classical books of rhetoric.

The explanations the grammarians and rhetoricians give for this shift. I give them in a table and impose no preference:

All four explanations are transmitted in the classical sources.

And the datum of the text that must be recorded is this: the shift falls exactly on the word wa jarayna bihim — that is, at the moment the ship moves. I record this as an observation about the word order: "you" on the shore, "they" at sea.

And the twenty-third verse turns back again to the second person once the scene is over: yā ayyuha'n-nāsu innamā baghyukum ʿalā anfusikum. The circle closes, that is: second person → third person → second person. The scene is set at a distance, and then the ruling is given directly to the one addressed. This is an observation about word order that I record as my own reading, and its ground is the chain of persons in the verses themselves.

رِيحٌ عَاصِفٌ — the root ع-ص-ف was treated in al-Mursalāt (al-ʿāṣifāt) and in al-Fīl; and it was recorded there: ʿāṣif is used in Arabic of almost nothing but the wind. I rely on that treatment.

And that it comes together with its opposite must be recorded: rīḥin ṭayyibatin (a fair wind) and rīḥun ʿāṣif (a violent wind). The same word, two epithets. What carries the ship along and what will sink it are both the wind.

وَظَنُّوٓا۟ أَنَّهُمْ أُحِيطَ بِهِم — the word ẓann here means "firm conviction". The lexicographers record that the root carries both the sense of "to suppose" and that of "to know for certain", and leave the distinction to context. This is the same root as the ẓann in the thirty-sixth verse of the sūra, in a different use, and I shall take it up in that section.

أُحِيطَ بِهِم — passive: "they were encompassed". The root ح-و-ط: to surround on every side. The verb's coming in the passive does not name the one who encompasses.