وَإِذْ قَالَ إِبْرَٰهِيمُ رَبِّ ٱجْعَلْ هَٰذَا ٱلْبَلَدَ ءَامِنًا وَٱجْنُبْنِى وَبَنِىَّ أَن نَّعْبُدَ ٱلْأَصْنَامَ
"And when Abraham said: 'My Lord! Make this town secure; and keep me and my sons away from serving idols.'"
Across seven verses nine requests are set out. In each of them two things are separately determined: what is asked and for whom it is asked.
| # | Verse | What is asked | For whom | Address |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 35 | That the town be secure | A place — not a person | Rabbi |
| 2 | 35 | To be kept away from serving idols | Himself and his sons | Rabbi |
| 3 | 37 | That hearts incline towards them | The line he settled in the valley | Rabbanā |
| 4 | 37 | Provision from the fruits | The same line | Rabbanā |
| 5 | 40 | To be one who holds the prayer upright | Himself | Rabbi |
| 6 | 40 | The same for his descendants | His descendants | Rabbi |
| 7 | 40 | The acceptance of the prayer | Himself (and those with him) | Rabbanā |
| 8 | 41 | Forgiveness | Himself and his parents | Rabbanā |
| 9 | 41 | Forgiveness | All the believers | Rabbanā |
Three things emerge from the table and must be recorded, and I give them as my own reading, their ground being the table itself:
One. Only two of the nine requests are directly for himself (2 and 5) — and both are requests for a protection or for an act of service, not requests for gain.
Two. The requests do not narrow, they widen. They begin with a town, open to his own children, then to a line of descendants, then to his parents, and at the last to all the believers. The last word of the prayer is tied to a date: yawma yaqūmu'l-ḥisāb.
Three. The address comes in two forms: rabbi (my Lord — singular) and rabbanā (our Lord — plural). And the choice is not random: in the requests concerning himself the singular predominates, in the requests that take in others the plural. This is an order that can be verified from the word order.
The same prayer occurs at al-Baqara 2/126 with one word slightly different: rabbi'jʿal hādhā baladan āminā — "make this a secure town."
| Place | Expression | Definiteness |
|---|---|---|
| al-Baqara 2/126 | Hādhā baladan āminā | Indefinite — "a town" |
| Ibrāhīm 14/35 | Hādha'l-balada āminan | Definite — "this town" |
The explanation widely transmitted is this: the prayer in al-Baqara was made when there was as yet no settlement there; the prayer in Ibrāhīm after the town had been founded. I transmit this explanation; I make no claim to a definite chronology, because the text gives no date.
What was recorded in the section on al-Baqara holds here too, and I rely on it: the prayer is built in the order safety first, provision after — and the same order returns as a statement at Quraysh 106/4: alladhī aṭʿamahum min jūʿin wa āmanahum min khawf.
The order here is the same and can be verified: safety is asked for in verse 35, provision in verse 37.
The root ج-ن-ب: the side. Janb — the flank, the side. Ajnaba — he put a thing to one side, he kept it away. From the same root come ajnabī (a stranger — one who stays outside) and ijtināb (avoidance).
The form of the verb must be recorded: ajnaba is transitive and its object is the person who is kept away. That is, the prayer does not say "keep the idols away from me"; it says "draw me to one side, away from the idols."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the object of the verb: the request is not that the danger be removed — it is that he himself be positioned away from the danger. The idols remain; what is asked for is distance.
ٱلْأَصْنَام — the plural of ṣanam. The lexicographers record a distinction between ṣanam and wathan: ṣanam is generally used for what has been given a shape or form, wathan for a shapeless stone or mass. The distinction is not given identically in every source; I do not adopt a preference.