al-Ḥajj 22:74-76

Mā qadaru'llāha ḥaqqa qadrih · Inna'llāha la-qawiyyun ʿazīz · Allāhu yaṣṭafī mina'l-malāʾikati rusulan wa mina'n-nās · Inna'llāha samīʿun baṣīr · Yaʿlamu mā bayna aydīhim wa mā khalfahum · Wa ila'llāhi turjaʿu'l-umūr

"They have not valued God with the value that is His due. God is strong, mighty. God chooses messengers from among the angels and from among men. God is hearing, seeing. He knows what is before them and what is behind them. And to God all affairs are returned."

This sentence was treated at al-Zumar 39/67, and what was recorded there was this: the core sense of the root ق-د-ر is measure; the sentence reports an error of measurement. I do not repeat it here.

The difference between the two occurrences lies in what follows:

And the difference of context must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: in al-Ḥajj the sentence comes immediately after the parable of the fly. The error of measurement, that is, is named after having been shown by way of a fly.

The link between the parable and the ruling is this: to reckon as equal to Him one who is powerless before a thing the size of a fly is an error of measure. And the verse names that error in the language of measure: mā qadarū … ḥaqqa qadrih.

قَوِىّ — root ق-و-ي: strength. The attribute occurs twice in this sūra: 40 and 74. In the fortieth verse after the principle of repelling, here after the parable. In both places at the end of a comparison of strength.

The root ص-ف-و: purity, clearness. Ṣafā, ṣafwa are of the same root. In Form VIII, iṣṭifāʾ: to choose out and purify, to set apart the cleanest.

The picture in the word must be recorded, and I give this as an observation: the act of choosing is named not as a preference but as a purifying. What is chosen, then, is not what is separated out of a crowd but what is strained out of a mixture.

And the word order of the sentence is worth recording: mina'l-malāʾikati rusulan wa mina'n-nās.

Two sources are enumerated: angels and men. And both are tied to the same verb.

I record this as an observation about word order: messengership is set down not as the property of a kind of being but as a choosing. And that the choice is made from both kinds is said in the same sentence.

This can be read together with the objection treated at al-Furqān 25/7: there objection was made to the messenger's being human (mā li-hādha'r-rasūli yaʾkulu'ṭ-ṭaʿām). al-Ḥajj 22/75 gives an indirect answer to that objection: the choice is made from both kinds, and the party who chooses is the same. I rely on that treatment.

The construct was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/42: min bayni yadayhi wa lā min khalfih — and it was recorded there: "In Arabic this pair is used to cover all the directions of a thing." I rely on that treatment.

To whom does the pronoun here (hum) refer? The lexicographers differ:

I do not impose a preference. Reading A appears closer to the context, since the subject of the preceding sentence is the choosing.

وَإِلَى ٱللَّهِ تُرْجَعُ ٱلْأُمُورُ — it does the same work as the sentence in the forty-first verse: wa lillāhi ʿāqibatu'l-umūr. The same word (al-umūr), the same ruling, thirty-five verses apart.