كَذَٰلِكَ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ مِنْ أَنۢبَآءِ مَا قَدْ سَبَقَ وَقَدْ ءَاتَيْنَٰكَ مِن لَّدُنَّا ذِكْرًا · مَّنْ أَعْرَضَ عَنْهُ فَإِنَّهُۥ يَحْمِلُ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ وِزْرًا · خَٰلِدِينَ فِيهِ وَسَآءَ لَهُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ حِمْلًا
Kadhālika naquṣṣu ʿalayka min anbāʾi mā qad sabaq, wa qad ātaynāka min ladunnā dhikrā · Man aʿraḍa ʿanhu fa-innahu yaḥmilu yawma'l-qiyāmati wizrā · Khālidīna fīh, wa sāʾa lahum yawma'l-qiyāmati ḥimlā
"Thus do We relate to you some of the reports of what has gone before. We have given you a remembrance from Ourselves. · Whoever turns away from it will carry a heavy load on the Day of Resurrection. · They will abide under it. Evil for them is that burden on the Day of Resurrection!"
One — it names the telling itself: naquṣṣu ʿalayka — "We relate to you". And min anbāʾi — "some of the reports". That is, the text says that what it gives is not the whole. The same note was treated at al-Qaṣaṣ in connection with the name of that sūra; I rely on that treatment.
And this overlaps with the third verse of the sūra: there the work of the Book was described as tadhkira. Here the Book itself is called dhikr.
| Verse | Expression | What |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Illā tadhkiratan li-man yakhshā | Function |
| 99 | Wa qad ātaynāka min ladunnā dhikrā | Name |
| 124 | Wa man aʿraḍa ʿan dhikrī | What is abandoned |
Three verses, one root. And the hundredth verse and the hundred and twenty-fourth open with the same verb: man aʿraḍa.
| Verse | Expression | Its recompense |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Man aʿraḍa ʿanhu | Yaḥmilu … wizrā — a heavy load |
| 124 | Wa man aʿraḍa ʿan dhikrī | Maʿīshatan ḍankan — a straitened livelihood |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two verses are built on the same pattern: the sūra gives the recompense of turning away twice — one a load in the hereafter, the other a narrowness in this world. Both punishments are spatial: one weight, the other constriction.
وِزْر — root و-ز-ر: a heavy load. The root was treated at al-Inshirāḥ on 94/2 (wa waḍaʿnā ʿanka wizrak) and at Fāṭir on 35/18; I rely on those treatments. And the word wazīr in the twenty-ninth verse was from this root as well — tabulated in the discussion of 20/29-35.
I record this as an observation: the sūra uses the same root in two different places — one a load that is shared (wazīr — a helper), the other a load that cannot be carried (wizr). And as recorded at Maryam on 19/95, the second is carried alone: wa kulluhum ātīhi yawma'l-qiyāmati fardā.