وَٱتْلُ عَلَيْهِمْ نَبَأَ نُوحٍ إِذْ قَالَ لِقَوْمِهِۦ … فَأَجْمِعُوٓا۟ أَمْرَكُمْ وَشُرَكَآءَكُمْ ثُمَّ لَا يَكُنْ أَمْرُكُمْ عَلَيْكُمْ غُمَّةً ثُمَّ ٱقْضُوٓا۟ إِلَىَّ وَلَا تُنظِرُونِ
"Recite to them the account of Noah. When he said to his people: 'My people! If my standing among you and my reminding you of God's signs weigh heavy on you — I have put my trust in God. So settle your affair, you and your partners; then let your affair not stay clouded over for you; then carry out your judgment on me and give me no respite.' · 'If you turn away — I asked no wage of you. My wage is with God alone, and I have been commanded to be among those who submit.' · They denied him; so We saved him and those with him in the ship, made them successors, and drowned those who denied Our signs. Look, then, at how those who were warned ended!"
| Order | Command | What |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fa-ajmiʿū amrakum wa shurakāʾakum | Gather your decision |
| 2 | Thumma lā yakun amrukum ʿalaykum ghumma | Let your affair not stay closed to you |
| 3 | Thumma'qḍū ilayya | Carry out your judgment |
| 4 | Wa lā tunẓirūn | Give no respite |
غُمَّة — root غ-م-م: to cover, to close over like cloud. Ghamm — grief; the picture in the root is the sky closing over with cloud. And ghumma here means "closedness, uncertainty": let your decision not stay closed to yourselves.
At al-Anbiyāʾ 21/88 wa najjaynāhu mina'l-ghamm had been treated — what the prophet Jonah was saved from is from the same root. I record this as an observation about the wording; I make no claim that the two verses refer to one another.
The root ن-ظ-ر: to look; and in Form IV to grant a delay (inẓār). And the root occurs in many places in the sūra: fa'ntaẓirū (20, 102), man yanẓuru ilayk (43), unẓurū mādhā fi's-samāwāt (101), lā tunẓirūn (71). The same root serves for looking, for waiting and for granting a term.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the unity of the root: in Arabic waiting and looking come from the same root, because the one who waits is the one who has fixed his eye on a place. And the sūra's question of postponement (11, 49) is woven with this root.
فَمَا سَأَلْتُكُم مِّنْ أَجْرٍ (72) — it is the common declaration of the messengers and was tabulated in the index (in the sections on al-Ṭūr 52/40, Ṣād 38/86, Nūḥ 71/3; al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/109 ff., Hūd 11/29). I rely on that treatment.
وَجَعَلْنَٰهُمْ خَلَٰٓئِفَ (73) — and the word of the fourteenth verse comes back. In both places the same thing happens: a people goes, and another comes in its place. The difference is that in the fourteenth verse it is those addressed who are made successors, here those who were saved.
فَٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلْمُنذَرِينَ — and the construct had occurred in the thirty-ninth verse as ʿāqibatu'ẓ-ẓālimīn. In both places the same command: fa'nẓur — look.