al-Anbiyāʾ 21:11-12 commentary

21/11-12

وَكَمْ قَصَمْنَا مِن قَرْيَةٍۭ كَانَتْ ظَالِمَةً وَأَنشَأْنَا بَعْدَهَا قَوْمًا ءَاخَرِينَ · فَلَمَّآ أَحَسُّوا۟ بَأْسَنَآ إِذَا هُم مِّنْهَا يَرْكُضُونَ

Wa kam qaṣamnā min qaryatin kānat ẓālimatan wa anshaʾnā baʿdahā qawman ākharīn · Fa-lammā aḥassū baʾsanā idhā hum minhā yarkuḍūn

"How many a town that had gone to wrong have We broken, and raised up another people after it. · When they felt Our might, at once they were running from it."

قَصَمْنَا — the harshness of the word

Qaṣamnā — the root ق-ص-م. And the word is analysed here for the first time in this commentary.

The sense the lexicographers give: qaṣm is to break a thing and separate it into two parts — especially to break a bone. Qaṣama'ẓ-ẓahr — he broke the back.

And the lexicographers define it by comparing it with a sister word:

Word	What it does
قَصْم	Breaks and the parts come apart — it snaps off
فَصْم	Cracks but the parts do not come apart — the fracture stays in place

So the word conveys a break that cannot be mended. And its object is a town: qaṣamnā min qaryatin. The town has been conceived as a body that can be broken.

The root occurs only here in the Qurʾān. I give this as a note about the word.

كَانَتْ ظَالِمَةً — and the town is named not by its name but by its attribute. I record this per the method (Method): the ground of the destruction is not an identity but a quality.

وَأَنشَأْنَا بَعْدَهَا قَوْمًا ءَاخَرِينَ — the root ن-ش-أ: to bring a thing into being afresh, to raise it up. The sentence leaves no gap: in the place of what was broken a new one is set.

يَرْكُضُونَ — and a root shared with Ṣād

Yarkuḍūn — the root ر-ك-ض. The concrete sense of the root: to strike the ground with the foot. Rakaḍa'd-dābba — he spurred his mount on. From this arises the sense "to run, to take to one's heels".

And the root occurs in two places in the Qurʾān; both are in this commentary:

Place	Expression	Who	For what
Ṣād 38/42	urkuḍ bi-rijlik	Job	Healing — strike the ground, water will come
al-Anbiyāʾ 21/12	hum minhā yarkuḍūn	Those destroyed	Flight — running away

That verse was treated at Ṣād on 38/41-44. I rely on that treatment.

I record this as an observation about the root, and I do not claim that the two verses refer to one another: the same verb is attached in one place to deliverance by a command and in the other to flight in panic. The striking of the foot on the ground does two different works in the two places.

Idhā here is the idhā of surprise ("and at once") — it conveys suddenness. And aḥassū — the root ح-س-س: to make out with the senses. That is, the punishment has not yet arrived, it has been felt. The flight is not from what has come but from what has been sensed.