Ṭāhā 20:95-98

Qāla fa-mā khaṭbuka yā sāmiriyy · Qāla baṣurtu bimā lam yabṣurū bihi fa-qabaḍtu qabḍatan min athari'r-rasūli fa-nabadhtuhā wa kadhālika sawwalat lī nafsī · Qāla fa'dhhab fa-inna laka fi'l-ḥayāti an taqūla lā misās, wa inna laka mawʿidan lan tukhlafah, wa'nẓur ilā ilāhika'lladhī ẓalta ʿalayhi ʿākifā, la-nuḥarriqannahu thumma la-nansifannahu fi'l-yammi nasfā · Innamā ilāhukumu'llāhu'lladhī lā ilāha illā huw, wasiʿa kulla shayʾin ʿilmā

"He said: 'And what was your business, O Sāmirī?' · He said: 'I saw what they did not see; I took a handful from the track of the messenger and threw it in. Thus did my own self make it seem good to me.' · 'Go!' he said. 'In this life it is yours to say "Do not touch me". And there is an appointment for you that will not be broken. Look at your god, over which you have stayed devoted! We shall surely burn it and then scatter it into the sea. · Your god is only God, beside whom there is no god. He encompasses all things in knowledge.'"

This verse is one of the sentences in the Qurʾān over which the most speculation has been produced.

I draw the boundary at the outset, per the method (Method), and it holds for the whole of this discussion:

• No detail the Qurʾān has not given is entered into.
• No Isrāʾīliyyāt are entered into.
• No fabricated report is transmitted.
• There is no certain knowledge about what this verse tells; the disagreement will be given in a table and no preference will be imposed.

First I enumerate what is definitely present in the verse:

None of these is disputed. What is disputed is the two words in the third item: athar and al-rasūl.

Various combinations of these readings are transmitted in the classical commentaries, and a significant part of the detail added to them rests on narratives outside the Qurʾān.

None of them is preferred in this commentary. The record is this: there is no certain knowledge.

And I record this as an observation: the verse itself does not aim to tell how the event happened. The centre of gravity of the sentence is in its last part: wa kadhālika sawwalat lī nafsī — "thus did my own self make it seem good to me."

The root س-و-ل: to dress a thing up and make it attractive, to present it to a person as easy and right. The word occurs in several places in the Qurʾān (Yūsuf 12/18 and 12/83, sawwalat lakum anfusukum; Muḥammad 47/25, wa amlā lahum).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that this is the sentence's last clause: in telling of his own deed the Sāmirī begins by claiming a superiority (baṣurtu bimā lam yabṣurū bih — I saw what they did not see) and ends by tracing its source to his own self. That is, the sentence begins with a claim to privileged sight and ends with the self's dressing-up.

And the root ب-ص-ر must be recorded: the Sāmirī's first word is a claim to see. And in the hundred and twenty-fifth verse of the sūra another claim to see will come: wa qad kuntu baṣīrā. The relation between the two claims will be treated in the discussion of 124-127.

Misās — root م-س-س: to touch. Lā misās — "no touching".

Different explanations of what the punishment is are transmitted:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. What the text gives is that the sentence itself has been set down as the punishment: fa-inna laka fi'l-ḥayāti an taqūla lā misās.

I record this as an observation, and its ground is the construction of the sentence: the punishment is described not as an act but as a thing to be said. That is, it becomes a sentence to be repeated for a lifetime.

Two verbs, and both are connected to other places in the sūra.

The root ن-س-ف was analysed in detail at al-Mursalāt on 77/10, and it was recorded there: the root has two uses — to tear a thing up by the root and scatter it, and to winnow threshed grain against the wind so as to separate the chaff from the seed (the tool is called a minsaf); the common point is lifting what is light into the air and blowing it away. I rely on that treatment.

And the same root will be used of the mountains in the hundred and fifth verse of the sūra: yansifuhā rabbī nasfā.

The same root, the same object of cognate origin (nasfā), two different objects: an idol and all the mountains. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading: the sūra tells the end of the object worshipped with the same word as the end of the largest objects there are.

And fi'l-yamm — the water that set the story going. In the thirty-ninth verse Moses was set into that water; in the ninety-seventh the idol is scattered into it. This connection was recorded in the discussion of 20/38-39.

The closing sentence of the block must be recorded, and the attribute chosen is striking: ʿilm.

At the end of the story of an idol the expected close might have been a declaration of power. The sentence declares knowledge.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the vocabulary of the section: across the block a claim to sight appeared twice (baṣurtu bimā lam yabṣurū bih) and a claim to knowing once (the reason for the punishment lā misās). The close says where knowledge is complete.

And it overlaps with the fifty-second verse: ʿilmuhā ʿinda rabbī fī kitāb, lā yaḍillu rabbī wa lā yansā. Both verses take knowledge as their subject, and both stand at turning points of the story.