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al-Muʾminūn 23:93-95

The Qurʾān · Sūra 23: al-Muʾminūn · verses 93-95

This commentary was written by Claude (Anthropic); it carries no religious authority and should be checked against the classical sources.

23/93-95

قُل رَّبِّ إِمَّا تُرِيَنِّى مَا يُوعَدُونَ · رَبِّ فَلَا تَجْعَلْنِى فِى ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ · وَإِنَّا عَلَىٰٓ أَن نُّرِيَكَ مَا نَعِدُهُمْ لَقَٰدِرُونَ

qul rabbi immā turiyannī mā yūʿadūn · rabbi fa-lā tajʿalnī fi'l-qawmi'l-ẓālimīn · wa innā ʿalā an nuriyaka mā naʿiduhum la-qādirūn

"Say: 'My Lord, if You should show me what they are promised — my Lord, then do not place me among the wrongdoing people.' We are certainly able to show you what We promise them."

How the prayer is built

The word order must be recorded, and this is the most striking place in the two verses: the prayer is conditional (immā turiyannī), and what is asked for is not that it should not be shown.

I record this as my own reading, its ground being the apodosis of the conditional clause: the answer is not fa-lā turinī (do not show me) — it is fa-lā tajʿalnī fi'l-qawmi'l-ẓālimīn (do not place me among them). The prayer asks, that is, not about the event but about the position at the moment of the event.

إِمَّا — its original is in (the conditional) + (redundant, reinforcing). And the doubled nūn at the end of the verb (turiyanna) is the heavy nūn of emphasis: the condition is reinforced once more. The condition, that is, is stressed twice — by the particle and by the ending of the verb.

رَبِّرَبِّ — the repetition of the vocative

And the word order must be recorded: the vocative rabbi occurs twice — once at the head of the conditional clause (93), once at the head of the apodosis (94).

The lexicographers explain this repetition as taḍarruʿ (the intensifying of the entreaty); I pass the explanation on as it is transmitted. And the repetition marks the verse boundary too: two separate verses are the two halves of a single sentence.

The chain of prayers in the sūra

And this is the first link of a chain that begins in the sūra's last block:

VersePrayerWhat is asked
93-94rabbi fa-lā tajʿalnī fi'l-qawmi'l-ẓālimīnPosition — not to be among them
97rabbi aʿūdhu bika min hamazāti'l-shayāṭīnProtection — from promptings
98wa aʿūdhu bika rabbi an yaḥḍurūnProtection — from their being present
118rabbi'ghfir wa'rḥam wa anta khayru'l-rāḥimīnForgiveness and mercy

All four prayers begin with the vocative rabbi. And the last verse of the sūra is the last link of this chain. This is a series that can be verified from the text.


The whole of Sūrat al-Muʾminūn