خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ بِٱلْحَقِّ تَعَٰلَىٰ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ · خَلَقَ ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ فَإِذَا هُوَ خَصِيمٌ مُّبِينٌ
Khalaqa'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa bi'l-ḥaqq, taʿālā ʿammā yushrikūn · Khalaqa'l-insāna min nuṭfatin fa-idhā huwa khaṣīmun mubīn
"He created the heavens and the earth in truth; He is exalted above what they associate with Him. · He created man from a drop; and behold, he is an open disputant."
Both verses begin with the same word: khalaqa. And the difference between their two objects establishes the whole evidential order of the sūra:
| Verse | What is created | Its outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | The heavens and the earth | Bi'l-ḥaqq — with a purpose |
| 4 | Man | Khaṣīmun mubīn — an open disputant |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses stand back to back: the same verb, two objects; the one is named with its purpose, the other with its conduct. The universe keeps faith with its creation; man begins to dispute the moment after his.
This sentence occurs once more in the Qurʾān, in almost the same words, and it was treated there in detail.
At Yāsīn, 36/77 (a-wa-lam yara'l-insānu annā khalaqnāhu min nuṭfatin fa-idhā huwa khaṣīmun mubīn) the following were recorded, and I rely on that treatment:
- Idhā fujāʾiyya (the idhā that conveys suddenness): "and behold". The sentence leaps over every step between the drop and the disputant.
- Khaṣīm is on the faʿīl pattern, and in Arabic this pattern conveys a settled, fixed quality. Man is thus named not as "someone who disputes" but as "a disputant".
- The limit set by the method (Method) concerning nuṭfa: the word is not equated one to one with the terms of modern embryology; the evidence is that the beginning of man is not in his own hands.
I do not repeat it here. What belongs here is the difference between the contexts of the two verses, and that difference is large:
| Yā Sīn 36/77 | al-Naḥl 16/4 | |
|---|---|---|
| The head of the sentence | A-wa-lam yara'l-insān — a question | Khalaqa'l-insān — a statement |
| Who is speaking | What man has not seen is said | What the Creator has done is said |
| Where it stands | At the end of the sūra — after the evidence | At the beginning of the sūra — before the evidence |
| What follows it | Wa ḍaraba lanā mathalan wa nasiya khalqah | Wa'l-anʿāma khalaqahā lakum — the enumeration begins |
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the position of the two verses within their sūras: Yā Sīn uses this sentence as a conclusion — man's stance is named after all the evidence has been given. al-Naḥl uses the same sentence as a beginning. The diagnosis is entered first, the enumeration made afterwards.
And this has a consequence for the sūra: the ruling lā tuḥṣūhā (you cannot count them) that will come in the eighteenth verse rests upon the diagnosis of the fourth. The one who cannot count and the one who disputes are the same person.
The root خ-ص-م: to contend, to be an adversary, to go to law. Khuṣūma — litigation; khaṣm — the opposing party.
And this diagnosis must be read together with another root in this commentary. At al-Kahf, 18/54, it was said of man:
What was recorded in the al-Kahf section was this, and I rely on it: the root ج-د-ل was the whole backbone of Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), and it was tabulated there that what is condemned is disputation without ground (bi-ghayri sulṭānin atāhum); at al-Baqara, 2/197, the concrete sense of the root — to twist a rope tight — was analysed. And there was one further note in al-Kahf: the tendency is identified (54), then a limit is set (22).
I set the three verses side by side, because the three give the same diagnosis in three different words:
| Place | Word | Root | Pattern / form | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| al-Naḥl 16/4 | Khaṣīmun mubīn | خ-ص-م | Faʿīl — a settled attribute | The attribute won at once by what came out of a drop |
| Yā Sīn 36/77 | Khaṣīmun mubīn | خ-ص-م | Faʿīl | The attribute after the evidence has been seen |
| al-Kahf 18/54 | Akthara shayʾin jadalā | ج-د-ل | A specifying accusative — with akthara | More than anything else — comparative |
And this must be recorded, because it bears on the close of the sūra: having named man a disputant in the fourth verse, al-Naḥl teaches that same man the method of disputation in the hundred and twenty-fifth: wa jādilhum bi'llatī hiya aḥsan.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses stand at the two ends of the sūra: the sūra neither forbids disputation nor praises it. In the fourth verse it identifies it as a fact; in the hundred and twenty-fifth it binds it to a form. This is the line recorded in al-Mujādala, where these two verses were already named side by side: jadal is an act that takes its value from its subject and its manner.