Ibrāhīm 14:42-43

Wa lā taḥsabanna'llāha ghāfilan ʿammā yaʿmalu'ẓ-ẓālimūn · Innamā yuʾakhkhiruhum li-yawmin tashkhaṣu fīhi'l-abṣār · Muhṭiʿīna muqniʿī ruʾūsihim lā yartaddu ilayhim ṭarfuhum wa afʾidatuhum hawāʾ

"Do not suppose that God is heedless of what the wrongdoers do. He only defers them to a day on which the eyes will stare fixedly. · They hurry forward with their heads thrust up; their gaze does not come back to them, and their hearts are empty."

The verb is an emphatic prohibition: lā taḥsabanna — "do not suppose." And the one addressed is the Prophet.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the verse meets the possibility of the delay being read as indifference in the mind of its own addressee, not of the other side. That is, the question is treated not as an objection expected from outside but as a doubt that could arise from within.

And the same prohibition will come once more in the forty-seventh verse: fa-lā taḥsabanna'llāha mukhlifa waʿdihi rusulah. Two prohibitions, five verses apart, with the same verb.

The first concerns knowledge, the second a word given. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

The verb had occurred in the messengers' call in the tenth verse: wa yuʾakhkhirakum ilā ajalin musammā — there the deferral was presented as a favour.

The same verb, in two contrary directions. I record this as my own reading, its ground being the meeting of the two occurrences: the deferral carries no verdict of itself; what determines the verdict is what the deferred time does.

And the same idea was treated at Fāṭir 35/45: wa lākin yuʾakhkhiruhum ilā ajalin musammā — there too it was recorded that the delay does not come from incapacity. I rely on that treatment.

The concrete sense of the root: a thing's rising up from its place, standing out and coming forward.

Its derivatives:

• شَخْص (shakhṣ) — a shape made out from a distance, the body of a thing becoming distinct. The Turkish word şahıs (person) is this word, and its origin is "a mass seen from afar".
• شَخَصَ بَصَرُهُ — the eye fixed on a point without moving, staring without blinking; and the heavier sense the lexicographers record: the eye opening as though it would start from its socket.
• شُخُوص — to set out from a place and take to the road.

The picture beneath the root: to rise from one's place and come forward.

I record this as an observation about the word: the verse does not convey fear by the name of an emotion. What it conveys is the behaviour of an organ — the eye leaves the place where it should be. The root of the word and the scene itself perform the same movement.

The root ه-ط-ع: to walk quickly with the neck stretched out, without turning the gaze away. The lexicographers define ihṭāʿ as "the summoned person's running with his head thrust forward". The word had occurred at al-Qamar 54/8 (muhṭiʿīna ila'd-dāʿ). I rely on that treatment.

The root ق-ن-ع. And this root carries two branches, and the lexicographers record both:

The muqniʿī ruʾūsihim of the verse is from the first branch: "with their heads held up."

The picture the two descriptions give together must be recorded: they are running, their heads are up, but their gaze does not come back to them.

The root ط-ر-ف: the tip of a thing, its edge. Ṭarf — the edge of the eyelid; and from there, the blink, the glance.

The sentence, word for word: "their gaze does not return to them."

The lexicographers explain this in two ways:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

The word must be recorded: hawāʾ — root ه-و-ي.

Hawāʾ in Arabic is the void between two things: the empty space between earth and sky. And the lexicographers attach this word to the root's sense of "falling": the place one falls into, the void with no support beneath it.

And now the ring within the sūra must be recorded — this is a textual datum that can be verified:

In both verses the same two roots come side by side: fuʾād and hawā. In the thirty-seventh verse hearts fall towards a place; in the forty-third the inside of the hearts has become the very void that is fallen into.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pairing of the roots in the two verses: what the prayer asked for was that the heart be attached to a place. The state described in the scene of the resurrection is the heart's being attached to nowhere. The sūra uses the same two words six verses apart in two contrary situations.

The lexicographers give principally two equivalents for afʾidatuhum hawāʾ:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. And both readings rest on the root's picture of "void / falling".