إِلَٰهِ ٱلنَّاسِ
I take these two verses together, because together with the first verse they form a single structure.
Between the three verses there is no conjunction at all. It could have been said "Rabbi'n-nāsi wa Maliki'n-nāsi wa Ilāhi'n-nās". It was not.
In Arabic a second noun that comes after a noun without a conjunction is called in grammar badal (appositive substitute) or ʿaṭf al-bayān (explanatory apposition): the second is an element that stands in place of the first or that unfolds it. Had the conjunction (wāw) been placed there, the impression would have arisen that three separate things were being spoken of.
The dropping of the conjunction (faṣl) says this: these are not three separate beings; they are three separate names of a single being. We had seen the same structure between verses 1 and 2 of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, and there too the function was the same: the absence of the conjunction shows that the second expression is the continuation and the unfolding of the first.
This grammatical point is not trivial. That not even a trace in the language is left for the idea of three separate gods is part of the sūra's emphasis on tawḥīd.
| Name | Root | Meaning | Kind of relation |
|---|---|---|---|
| الرب | ر-ب-ب | The one who nurtures, who raises, who looks after and brings up, who owns | Care and nurture |
| الملك | م-ل-ك | The owner and governor of dominion; the one who judges, who commands | Authority and judgement |
| الإله | أ-ل-ه | The one who is served, to whom service is directed | Service and attachment |
On الملك. Root م-ل-ك: to own a thing and to have disposal over it. Mulk, mālik, malik, malakūt, mamlūk are from the same root. The difference between mālik and malik is fine but real: mālik carries the emphasis of ownership, malik that of government and judgement. In al-Fātiḥa there is a famous variant reading between these two words (māliki yawmi'd-dīn / maliki yawmi'd-dīn); it was treated there. Here the word is beyond dispute malik.
The Qurʾān uses this name of God in several places: "Exalted is God, the true Sovereign (al-Malik al-Ḥaqq)" (Ṭāhā 20/114); "Say: O God, Owner of all dominion!" (Āl ʿImrān 3/26); and within a sequence of names: "He is God; there is no god but He. He is al-Malik, al-Quddūs, al-Salām…" (al-Ḥashr 59/23).
On الإله. Root أ-ل-ه. Ilāh means the one who is served; its plural is āliha. Its relation to the name "Allāh" was taken up in the section on al-Fātiḥa.
Among the meanings the lexicographers record for this root are "to serve", "to be bound in wonder, to stand before a greatness the mind cannot reach", and — interestingly in this context — "to turn to someone and take refuge with him". This last sense is transmitted; I do not present it as a settled etymology. But if it is correct, it means that an echo is set up between the verb of the sūra (aʿūdhu — I take refuge) and its third name.
The logic of the order. Several explanations can be given for the three names being set out in this order, and they do not exclude one another:
1. The order in which they answer to a human life. A person is first nurtured (he is born, is raised, is fed — Rabb), then becomes aware that he lives under an order and a judgement (Malik), and in the end asks to whom he is to attach himself (Ilāh). This is the order of experience.
2. From the near to the far, from the concrete to the absolute. Rabb is the nearest and the most felt — the relation of care is lived directly. Malik is a higher and more abstract authority. Ilāh is the most absolute; it enters into no comparison at all. The order thus rises from what is felt towards what is transcendent.
3. From what is accepted to what is disputed. This explanation takes account of the first addressees of the sūra. The mushrikūn of Mecca accepted that God was the creator and the giver of provision — that is, in a sense, that He was Rabb; the Qurʾān records this in several places (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/61-63; al-Zumar 39/3). What they did not accept was divinity: that service be rendered to Him alone. The order begins from where the addressee agrees and advances towards where he objects. This is an arrangement for persuasion.
4. The layers of the capacity to protect. It is as though the things needed for protection against the whispering were being named in order: the one who raised you (and therefore knows your weak points), the one who has the authority to command you (and therefore has the authority to command your enemy too), and the one who is the sole address of service (and therefore stands over against the direction the whispering tries to pull you in). This reading is my own.
The irreversibility of the order is not as strict here as the chain of reasoning we saw in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ; the order here is a gradation rather than a logical necessity. This needs to be stated, because looking for a necessary logic in every sequence produces forced readings.
In Arabic these three verses could also have been built thus: "Rabbi'n-nāsi, malikihim, ilāhihim" — "the Lord of the people, their Malik, their Ilāh". A pronoun would have been used, there would have been no repetition, and it would have been shorter.
1. Fixing and reinforcement. In Arabic the repetition of a noun where a pronoun would have served underlines that noun. We had seen the same thing in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ: instead of saying "huwa'ṣ-Ṣamad", the second verse repeated the name by saying "Allāhu'ṣ-Ṣamad".
2. Each name being bound to the human being independently. Had a pronoun been used, the second and third names would have hung from the first. Thanks to the repetition each name establishes a complete relation with the human being on its own: He is separately Rabb and Malik and Ilāh — and in all three the one addressed is the same: the human being.
3. Forcing the addressee to listen. The word rings in the ear. "People, people, people" — the sūra does not let one forget whom it is speaking of. And this will gain its meaning after the fourth verse: because the threat will settle exactly inside the human being.
The answer to this question cannot be given without comparing the two sūras as wholes. I leave it to the section of comparison at the end of the text. But let me set down one marker already: the further the threat moves inside, the deeper the refuge grows.