ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ
There is no connective particle at the head of this verse. After the preceding verse it could have said "wa Allāhu'ṣ-Ṣamad"; it does not. In Arabic the dropping of the connective between two sentences (faṣl) shows that the sentences stand in a relation too tight for them to be joined — the second is the explanation of the first, its completion or its answer. "Allāhu'ṣ-Ṣamad", then, is not a second piece of information set alongside "Allāhu aḥad"; it is its unfolding.
By contrast verses 3 and 4 are joined by wāw to one another and to what comes before. In four verses the sūra uses two different modes of connection: the first two verses interlock, the last two are set in sequence.
The second point: the verse does not say "huwa'ṣ-Ṣamad" (He is al-Ṣamad); it repeats the name Allāh. In Arabic the repetition of the name where a pronoun would have served conveys exaltation and fixing. Moreover, both verses beginning with the same name establishes a parallel: Allāhu aḥad / Allāhu'ṣ-Ṣamad. Two attributes are predicated separately of the same subject.
This word occurs only here in the Qurʾān. A hapax legomenon — a word with a single occurrence. While almost all the names the Qurʾān uses of God (al-Raḥmān, al-Raḥīm, al-ʿAzīz, al-Ḥakīm, al-Ghanī, al-ʿAlīm…) are repeated many times over, this name occurs once, here, in the middle of a sūra of four verses, and never again.
This solitude gives the word a weight of its own, but it also creates a difficulty: there is no second usage inside the Qurʾān to explain the word. Its meaning has therefore had to be drawn out from the use of the root in Arabic and from the explanations transmitted from the first generations. This is why the number of views transmitted about this word in the classical commentaries is unusually large.
1. To turn towards, to make for, to have recourse to someone. Ṣamada ilayhi — he turned to him, he made for him, he went to him for his need. Hence al-ṣamad: the one who is turned to, the one resorted to for needs. Among the Arabs the chief of the tribe, the lord to whom one went and to whom troubles were told, was called ṣamad — because in their needs people turned to him.
2. Without hollow, full within, solid. A thing's having no cavity inside it, its being hard and full. A ṣamad rock is a rock that contains no crack and no hole. The explanation that comes from this: al-ṣamad is that which has no hollow inside it; that is, which harbours no lack, no defect, no need.
These two senses are not cut off from one another, and the place where they join is the heart of the sūra: because there is no hollow in Him, all hollows turn towards Him. Not needy, but needed. A relation in one direction is being described — every arrow towards Him, none outward from Him.
The explanations transmitted in the classical commentaries. Among the views gathered by al-Ṭabarī and the exegetes after him, these stand out:
| Explanation | Its emphasis |
|---|---|
| The lord who is resorted to in needs (al-sayyid alladhī yuṣmadu ilayhi fi'l-ḥawāʾij) | The "turning" sense of the root; the social and concrete usage |
| The one who has no hollow within (alladhī lā jawfa lah) | The "fullness" sense of the root; the denial of bodily attributes |
| Who does not eat and does not drink | The concrete unfolding of the above |
| Everlasting; not perishing, without end | Permanence |
| In need of nothing, while everything is in need of Him | A general summary |
These views transmitted from the first generations are less alternatives to one another than different faces of the same word. The majority of the classical exegetes took the sense "the one turned to in needs" as the basis in point of language, and recorded the explanation "the one with no hollow within" as the other wing of the root.
The expression "having no hollow within" may sound strange to a present-day ear; it did not to the first addressees. In the conception of the gods held by the Arab of the pre-Islamic period, the gods ate, drank, slept and had children. For a being to "have an inside" meant that it was a body, and therefore that it ate and drank, was depleted and filled. This explanation denies corporeality by way of the concrete sense of the word.
The article of definiteness. Al-Ṣamad comes with the article "al-". In Arabic two definite elements set over against one another (Allāhu — al-Ṣamadu) convey restriction (ḥaṣr): He alone is al-Ṣamad, and no other. The lord of a tribe could be called ṣamad; but al-Ṣamad — the true and absolute one — is God alone.
That aḥad comes without the article in the preceding verse and al-Ṣamad with it here is not an inconsistency but a division of labour: aḥad already carries uniqueness within itself and needs no article of definition; ṣamad, on the other hand, is a word that can be used of others too, and is therefore delimited by the article. This is not my own inference but a distinction treated in the classical grammatical analyses.
Though the word has a single occurrence, its meaning is treated in other places in the Qurʾān with other words:
- "O people! You are the ones in need of God; and God is al-Ghanī, al-Ḥamīd" (Fāṭir 35/15). The needlessness in ṣamad is met here by the word ghanī (rich, in need of nothing).
- "He feeds and is not fed" (al-Anʿām 6/14). The most concrete expression of the one-directional relation.
- "Praise be to God, who has taken no child, who has no partner in dominion, and who needs no friend out of incapacity" (al-Isrāʾ 17/111). This verse is very close in structure to the three negative sentences of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ.
The expression "a friend out of incapacity" in the last example is important: taking a helper, taking a partner, continuing a line — all are signs of deficiency. In denying these of God, the sūra is in fact denying deficiency.
Aḥad says what God is in Himself: indivisible, unique, without parts. Ṣamad says what God is in His relation to everything: not needy, but needed.
This order is not accidental but a logical necessity. A being can make good another's lack only if it is itself without lack. What must itself turn somewhere cannot be the one turned to. The second verse is the consequence of the first — and the dropping of the connective shows this too.
And this pair prepares the two verses that follow in advance. A being that is not needy has no need of a child (verse 3), and it is impossible that an equal to Him should be found (verse 4).