al-Nūr 24:41-42

A-lam tara anna'llāha yusabbiḥu lahū man fi'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa'l-ṭayru ṣāffāt, kullun qad ʿalima ṣalātahū wa tasbīḥah, wa'llāhu ʿalīmun bimā yafʿalūn · Wa li'llāhi mulku'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ, wa ila'llāhi'l-maṣīr

"Have you not seen that God is glorified by whoever is in the heavens and the earth, and by the birds with wings outspread? Each knows its own prayer and its own glorification. God knows what they do. To God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth; and to God is the journey's end."

With the forty-first verse the sūra enters a new series, and the series is marked by a formula: a-lam tara — "have you not seen?"

And the formula occurs three times in the sūra: at 41, at 43, and at 44 (indirectly, as inna fī dhālika).

The function of the formula is worth noting: what looks like a question is in Arabic a way of drawing attention. No information is being asked of the addressee; he is being asked to look at something he already knows.

And that the verb is raʾā (to see) agrees entirely with the section that follows the thirty-fifth verse. The sūra was built upon the glance:

The sūra first narrows the glance, then shows what is to be looked at, then asks "have you not seen?"

I record this as my own reading; the places of the verbs stand in the text and can be counted.

صَٰٓفَّٰت — root ص-ف-ف. This root was analysed at al-Ṣāffāt, 37/1, and in al-Ṣaff; I rely on those treatments.

The note in al-Ṣāffāt:

The root was analysed in al-Ṣaff. The definition there: to set several things side by side upon a straight line, in one row. … here the word comes as a feminine plural active participle — ṣāffāt. That is, not "those that are ranged" but "those that range, those that form ranks". The verb is active.

And at al-Nūr 24/41 the same word occurs in the same form: ṣāffāt.

But there is a difference, and it is worth noting: in Sūrat al-Ṣāffāt the subject of the word is not stated — it comes as an element of an oath, and who it is that forms the ranks is not specified (in the hundred and sixty-fifth verse of that sūra the angels speak).

In al-Nūr the subject is named outright: al-ṭayr — the birds.

I record this as an observation about the word order.

And the word's use of the birds can be understood in two ways, and both are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

Both agree with the sense of the root and do not exclude one another. I impose no preference.

And it may be recorded that the word is used of birds in one other place in the Qurʾān: a-wa-lam yaraw ila'l-ṭayri fawqahum ṣāffātin wa yaqbiḍn (al-Mulk 67/19) — treated in al-Mulk. There too the same word, in the same form, and of birds.

There is disagreement in the classical commentaries over the subject of the clause, and it needs transmitting.

Both readings are transmitted in the classical sources; I impose no preference, and neither is binding.

But the place of the second clause in the arrangement may be recorded: immediately after, the verse says wa'llāhu ʿalīmun bimā yafʿalūn. God's knowing, that is, is stated separately and openly. This may provide a ground for the first reading — but I give it not as a preference but as an observation about the word order.

And what the first reading carries is worth noting: that every creature has a form of glorification of its own. Glorification, that is, is not of one type.

Root: س-ب-ح. Its concrete sense is to swim in water or in air, to go flowing. Sabḥ — swimming. The root has been taken up at many places in this commentary.

And tasbīḥ: to keep a thing clear of what does not befit it. The connection the lexicographers draw: what swims flows on, passing obstacles; and glorification likewise removes from the divine essence the ascriptions that do not befit it.

The word occurs twice in the sūra: at 36 and at 41. And at 36 it is those who glorify within houses, at 41 the heavens, the earth and the birds. There is a widening between the two verses: from a house to the whole of existence.

I record this as an observation about the word order.

And the subḥānaka of the sixteenth verse is from the same root. The root occurs three times in the sūra: at 16, 36 and 41.

مَصِير — root ص-ي-ر: to become, to be transformed, to arrive at a state. Maṣīr — the place one arrives at, the place of return.

And the sense of "becoming" in the root of the word is worth noting: maṣīr is not merely a place — it is an arriving at a state.