al-Muʾminūn 23:102-103

fa-man thaqulat mawāzīnuhū fa-ulāʾika humu'l-mufliḥūn · wa man khaffat mawāzīnuhū fa-ulāʾika'lladhīna khasirū anfusahum fī jahannama khālidūn

"Those whose scales are heavy — those are the ones who attain deliverance. And those whose scales are light — those are the ones who have lost their own selves; in Hell they remain."

The root و-ز-ن: to weigh. Mīzān — a balance; wazn — weight, weighing.

The word was treated in detail at al-Qāriʿa 101/6-9 (fa-ammā man thaqulat mawāzīnuh · wa ammā man khaffat mawāzīnuh), where it was recorded that it is joined with the dharra of al-Zilzāl. I do not repeat it here.

And this verse is almost a word-for-word repetition of the two verses in al-Qāriʿa:

The shared wording is word for word; what differs is the concluding sentences. This is an overlap that can be verified from the two texts.

And the difference must be recorded: al-Qāriʿa gives the outcome as a place (ʿīshatin rāḍiya / hāwiya); al-Muʾminūn gives it as a name (al-mufliḥūn / khasirū anfusahum).

And here the clearest weave of the sūra is completed.

The root ف-ل-ح was treated at the first verse. The root's three occurrences in the sūra are these:

All three occurrences can be verified from the text. And I record this as my own reading, its ground being this threefold distribution:

The first verse gives the verdict — the believers have attained. The hundred and second shows how the verdict is to be understood — at the scales. The hundred and seventeenth sets down its negative.

The sūra, that is, attaches at its end the verdict it gave at its opening to a measure. And the measure is not the attributes enumerated in the first eleven verses — it is the scales.

And a distinction between falāḥ and fawz was recorded in al-Ḥashr:

Falāḥ was used in the ninth verse for those guarded against covetousness — that is, an inner working in this world. Fawz comes here, in the verse that reports the outcome. One names the process, the other the arrival.

I rely on that treatment. And both words are present in this sūra: falāḥ (1, 102, 117) and fawz (111 — annahum humu'l-fāʾizūn). The distinction drawn in al-Ḥashr, that is, can be tested in this sūra too: falāḥ stands at the two ends of the sūra and in the scene of the scales, fawz in the recompense of those who were patient.

The root خ-س-ر was treated at the thirty-fourth verse. There the other side had said: wa la-in aṭaʿtum basharan mithlakum innakum idhan la-khāsirūn.

The same root, in two different mouths, with two opposite verdicts. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

And the object must be recorded: khasirū anfusahum — what is lost is not property but themselves.

I give this as an observation about the word order: in the thirty-fourth verse the object of the loss was not stated; here it is stated.