al-Anbiyāʾ 21:107 commentary

21/107

وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَٰكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَٰلَمِينَ

Wa mā arsalnāka illā raḥmatan li'l-ʿālamīn

"We sent you only as a mercy for all beings."

Three sūras, the scope of the messengership

And this verse is the third link of the same pattern across three different sūras. All three have been treated in this commentary, and the comparison is wholly a datum of wording.

	al-Furqān 25/56	Sabaʾ 34/28	al-Anbiyāʾ 21/107
The pattern	wa mā arsalnāka illā…	wa mā arsalnāka illā…	wa mā arsalnāka illā…
The determining word	*mubashshiran wa nadhīrā*	*kāffatan li'n-nās*	*raḥmatan li'l-ʿālamīn*
Which axis it gives	Work — what he does	Scope — to whom	Quality — as what
Where it draws the limit	At two acts: glad tidings and warning	al-nās — human beings	al-ʿālamīn — all beings
Where the sūra was treated	al-Furqān on 25/55-57	Sabaʾ on 34/28	Here

Three sūras use the same negation-plus-exception pattern (mā … illā) and fill it with three different words.

And at Sabaʾ this was recorded about the pattern:

"Wa mā arsalnāka illā — the negation-plus-exception pattern does not narrow the scope; it removes the possibility of narrowing."

I rely on that treatment and add this, as my own reading:

The three words answer three different questions:

Question	The sūra that answers
What does he do?	al-Furqān: he brings glad tidings and warns
To whom?	Sabaʾ: to all human beings
As what?	al-Anbiyāʾ: as a mercy

And the third differs from the first two in one respect: bashīr and nadhīr are a commission; kāffatan is a scope; but raḥma is a quality. That is, al-Anbiyāʾ defines the messengership not by the work it does but by what it is.

And the word al-ʿālamīn is wider than al-nās in Sabaʾ. This is a difference of wording; I build no ruling about scope upon it, I only record it.

رَحْمَةً — its parsing

Raḥmatan is in the accusative, and the grammarians differ over it:

View	What it is	Sense
1	A circumstantial qualifier	"We sent you as a mercy" — the state of the one sent
2	An object of purpose	"We sent you so that there might be mercy" — the ground of the sending

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

Raḥma — root ر-ح-م. The concrete root the lexicographers record: raḥim — the womb. And the connection is this: the womb shelters and feeds what is in it unconditionally. The root was analysed in detail at al-Raḥmān. I do not repeat it here.

And a point of word order must be recorded — I give this as my own reading:

The verse does not say "We gave you mercy". Raḥmatan — the one sent is himself named as a mercy. That is, mercy is not a burden carried but the quality of the one sent.

Its place within the sūra

And the verse's position in the sūra is worth recording.

The sūra had opened with the objections its addressees raised against the Prophet (3: hal hādhā illā basharun mithlukum; 36: a-hādha'lladhī yadhkuru ālihatakum). And in the forty-fifth verse it was said that the only instrument in the messenger's hand is revelation (innamā undhirukum bi'l-waḥy).

The hundred and seventh verse names the same man, this time by a quality.

Verse	How the Prophet is named	Who says it
3	basharun mithlukum — a human being like you	The addressees
36	alladhī yadhkuru ālihatakum	The addressees
45	innamā undhirukum bi'l-waḥy — the instrument	He himself
107	*raḥmatan li'l-ʿālamīn*	The text

Four namings, from four different mouths. I record this as my own reading, its ground being the count above: the sūra closes with a quality the file it opened with an objection.

The same structure was recorded at al-Furqān as well: "the sūra closes the debate about 'what a messenger should be like' with a description of 'how a servant lives'." al-Anbiyāʾ does the same work with a single word.