al-Naḥl 16:120-123

Inna Ibrāhīma kāna ummatan qānitan li'llāhi ḥanīfā, wa lam yaku mina'l-mushrikīn · Shākiran li-anʿumih, ijtabāhu wa hadāhu ilā ṣirāṭin mustaqīm · Wa ātaynāhu fi'l-dunyā ḥasana, wa innahū fi'l-ākhirati la-mina'l-ṣāliḥīn · Thumma awḥaynā ilayka ani'ttabiʿ millata Ibrāhīma ḥanīfā, wa mā kāna mina'l-mushrikīn

"Abraham was a community, devoutly obedient to God, ḥanīf; and he was not one of those who associate. · He was thankful for His favours. God chose him and guided him to a straight path. · We gave him good in this world; and in the hereafter he is among the righteous. · Then We revealed to you: 'Follow the way of Abraham, as a ḥanīf.' He was not one of those who associate."

The word is umma, and it is used of a single man. This is a place the lexicographers dwell on, and the explanations must be set out in a table:

All three explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And the sense of the root must be recorded: أ-م-م — to head towards, to intend; amma — he headed for; imām — one who goes in front; umm — the origin, the source. In the root, then, there is both the idea of direction and the idea of source.

This is one of the most striking connections in the sūra, and it must be recorded.

The word anʿum occurs twice in the sūra, and the two stand against each other:

The same plural word, with two opposite verbs. And nine verses stand between them. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra and a countable fact — the word occurs in these two places only.

I record this as my own reading, and my ground is these two occurrences: the sūra ties its enumeration of favours to a town as its negative case and to a man as its positive one. The hundred and twenty-first verse stands like an answer given to the whole enumeration of the sūra: what the one gives thanks for and the other denies is the same thing.

And the purpose of the sūra's enumeration in the eighty-first verse was laʿallakum tuslimūn. And Abraham's attribute is qānitan li'llāhi ḥanīfā — bowed in obedience. The two expressions look towards the same place.

The root was treated in detail at al-Rūm, 30/30; I rely on that treatment. The word's sense of "inclining in one direction" and its relation to fiṭra were analysed there. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here: the word occurs twice, in two verses (120 and 123), and in both together with the same sentence: wa mā kāna mina'l-mushrikīn.

This repetition must be recorded, and I give it as an observation about the word order: ḥanīf is a positive description, wa mā kāna mina'l-mushrikīn a negative one. The verse uses the two together, twice. The description is thus completed by saying both what he was and what he was not.

قَانِت — root ق-ن-ت: unbroken obedience, uninterrupted submission. The root occurred at al-Rūm, 30/26 (kullun lahū qānitūn).

ٱجْتَبَىٰهُ — root ج-ب-ي: to gather, to bring together, to pick out and take. Jibāya — the collecting of a tax. In Form VIII: to choose — that is, to single out and gather from among many.

And the particle thumma must be recorded. In Arabic thumma conveys sequence and an interval. The verse thus marks with a particle the span of time between Abraham and the one addressed.

And the content of the command must be recorded: ittabiʿ millata Ibrāhīm — "follow the way of Abraham."

The root م-ل-ل: milla, the way held to, the manner followed. The lexicographers record its relation to the sense "dictated, written down at another's word" (imlāʾ) — that is, a way taken from another and followed.

I give this as an observation: the command conveys not the following of a person but the following of a way. And the attributes of that way had already been enumerated over four verses: obedience, being ḥanīf, thankfulness, not associating.