al-Ḥajj 22:18

A-lam tara anna'llāha yasjudu lahu man fi's-samāwāti wa man fi'l-arḍi wa'sh-shamsu wa'l-qamaru wa'n-nujūmu wa'l-jibālu wa'sh-shajaru wa'd-dawābbu wa kathīrun mina'n-nās · Wa kathīrun ḥaqqa ʿalayhi'l-ʿadhāb · Wa man yuhini'llāhu fa-mā lahu min mukrim · Inna'llāha yafʿalu mā yashāʾ

"Have you not seen that to God prostrate those in the heavens and those on the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, the animals, and many of mankind? And for many the punishment has become due. Whomever God abases, none can honour him. God does what He wills."

This verse is one of the verses of prostration in recitation.

And a record of disagreement is needed here: how many verses of prostration this sūra contains has been debated among the schools of law.

This is a matter of law; I confine myself to transmitting the views, and I issue no ruling. No record in this commentary is binding.

The verse names nine items. The order needs to be worked out:

The logic of the order must be recorded, and I give it as an observation about word order:

First two general categories (man fi's-samāwāt, man fi'l-arḍ) — these come with the particle man, which is used of rational beings. Then the list fills in those two categories: it begins in the heavens and descends to the earth (sun, moon, stars → mountains, trees, animals).

And the order within the earth carries an arrangement too: motionless and lifeless (mountain) → motionless and living (tree) → moving and living (dawābb). From the lifeless to the living, from the fixed to the moving.

At the end of the series stands man — and man comes with a qualification of his own.

This is the most striking feature of word order in the verse, and it deserves to be dwelt on in detail.

There are two separate constructions in Arabic, and their meanings differ:

The verse uses the second: kathīrun mina'n-nās.

And immediately after, the same word returns: wa kathīrun ḥaqqa ʿalayhi'l-ʿadhāb. Both parties are thus named with the same word: kathīr and kathīr.

I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the word itself:

• The verse gives no proportion. It does not say "the majority prostrate", nor "the majority do not".
• Both sets are qualified by the same adjective: both are many.
• How the whole is divided is not stated.

The Qurʾān uses the pattern aktharu'n-nās elsewhere, and there a majority really is reported. Here that pattern is not chosen.

As my own reading I add this: in the list the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees and the animals pass without qualification — of none of them is "many of them" said. The qualification appears only at man. Among all the beings in the list, therefore, man is the only kind that is divided — and the verse does not give the proportion of that division, only that it exists.

The verb is singular and comes first: yasjudu. In Arabic a verb placed before its subjects stays singular; this is the ordinary rule of the language, and it operates here too.

But the singleness of the verb raises a question: how do a mountain and a man do the same thing?

The answers given to this question in the classical commentaries fall under two headings:

The two explanations are close to one another, and both occur in the sources. I do not impose a preference.

What can be drawn from the verse itself is this, and I give it as my own reading: man enters the list last and as the only qualified item. Man's prostration is thus positioned as something different from the rest of the list — because he alone carries the note "many of them".

At Fuṣṣilat 41/37 the matter of prostration was treated from another side: there the sun and the moon were named as things not to be prostrated to (lā tasjudū li'sh-shamsi wa lā li'l-qamar). Here the same two bodies are on the side that prostrates.

Setting the two verses side by side is worth recording:

The same two bodies, in two verses, in two separate positions; and the two verses complete one another. Fuṣṣilat says why they are not to be prostrated to: they are created. al-Ḥajj says the same thing from another side: they too are among those who prostrate. This is a link between the two sūras that can be verified from the text.

The root ه-و-ن: lightness, worthlessness, abasement. The root ك-ر-م: value, generosity, nobility.

The two roots are set as opposites. And the structure of the sentence must be recorded: fa-mā lahu min mukrim — "there is none to honour him", that is, there is no second authority.

And where the sentence stands in the verse is meaningful: it comes immediately after the list of prostration. Prostration is the most extreme form of lowering — the placing of the face on the ground. And immediately after describing prostration, the verse speaks of being abased.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the placing of the two sentences side by side: there are two lowerings, and they run in opposite directions. One is bending by one's own choice, the other is being brought low for not bending.