al-Naḥl 16:43-44

Wa mā arsalnā min qablika illā rijālan nūḥī ilayhim fa'sʾalū ahla'l-dhikri in kuntum lā taʿlamūn · Bi'l-bayyināti wa'l-zubur, wa anzalnā ilayka'l-dhikra li-tubayyina li'l-nāsi mā nuzzila ilayhim wa laʿallahum yatafakkarūn

"And before you We sent none but men to whom We gave revelation. If you do not know, ask the people of the reminder. · With the clear proofs and the scriptures. And We have sent down to you the reminder, that you may make clear to people what has been sent down to them, and that they may reflect."

Torn from its context, this verse comes to say something altogether different. The context must therefore be set out first and openly.

The first half of the sentence is this: wa mā arsalnā min qablika illā rijālan nūḥī ilayhim — "and before you We sent none but human beings to whom We gave revelation."

There is, then, an objection in view, and the subject of the objection is this: that the messenger is a human being. This objection is recorded at many places in the Qurʾān and was treated in this commentary: at al-Anbiyāʾ, 21/3 and 21/7-8 (hal hādhā illā basharun mithlukum; wa mā jaʿalnāhum jasadan lā yaʾkulūna'l-ṭaʿām), at al-Aḥqāf, 46/9 (mā kuntu bidʿan mina'l-rusul), at Fāṭir, 35/4.

And the command fa'sʾalū ahla'l-dhikr is the second half of the answer given to that objection: "if you do not know that the earlier messengers too were human beings, ask those who do know."

Insisting on this context is obligatory, because torn from it the verse can be presented as a general and unlimited principle of consulting authority. The text does not say that. What the verse commands to be asked about is definite: the nature of the earlier messengers.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the structure of the sentence itself: the command fa'sʾalū is joined by fāʾ to the preceding clause — it is therefore a clause of consequence, not an independent principle. And the conditional clause narrows it further: in kuntum lā taʿlamūn — "if you do not know."

The same verse occurs word for word at al-Anbiyāʾ, 21/7, and the disagreement was tabulated there. I rely on that treatment and bring the table over here:

I transmit the disagreement; I do not impose a preference.

But it must be recorded that the third view has an internal ground, and this one is peculiar to al-Naḥl: in the forty-fourth verse the same word is used of the Book that is sent down. There was a similar movement in al-Anbiyāʾ — there, three verses later, it said dhikrukum, and in the al-Anbiyāʾ section this was recorded: "ask (7) → if you do not know (7) → you already have it in your hand (10)."

In al-Naḥl the same movement is completed in two verses:

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra. And I record this as my own reading: the command does not set up a standing dependence. What is commanded to be asked about is placed, immediately afterwards, into the addressee's own hand.

This verse has been used in very different places and to very different ends throughout history. In this commentary nothing is loaded onto the verse beyond what its wording and its context give.

What the verse lays down in its own wording is this, and it can be gathered into three items:

Inferences that go beyond these three items — on what subject one is to ask whom, how an authority in knowledge is to be constituted, how binding it is — come not from the wording of the verse but from later debates. This commentary does not enter that debate, and no legal ruling is issued.

Rijāl — men. Some exegetes have drawn a ruling from this word; others record that the word is used here for the contrast not an angel, but a human being — because what the sentence is about is not the messenger's sex but his kind. I transmit both explanations and lay down no ruling in this commentary; the objection the verse answers is, in the text's own words, that the messenger is a mortal man.

زُبُر — the plural of zabūr, root ز-ب-ر: to write, to incise in stone. Zabara'l-kitāb — he wrote it. In the root there is hardness and permanence; zubratu'l-ḥadīd — a lump of iron.

The same pair occurred at Fāṭir, 35/25 (jāʾathum rusuluhum bi'l-bayyināti wa bi'l-zuburi wa bi'l-kitābi'l-munīr) — there it was a threesome, here a pair. This is an overlap verifiable across the sūras.

The root ب-ي-ن occurs at three different places in the sūra and in three different tasks, and this is one of the sūra's structural signs:

All four occurrences can be verified from the text. And I record this as my own reading: the work of making clear is distributed among three distinct subjects — the Book, the messenger, and finally God. And the order is worth recording: the Book makes clear, the messenger makes clear, and what is left over is made clear in the hereafter. A place is thus shown where disagreement will be closed, if it does not close in this world.