أَمَّنْ خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ وَأَنزَلَ لَكُم مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءً فَأَنۢبَتْنَا بِهِۦ حَدَآئِقَ ذَاتَ بَهْجَةٍ مَّا كَانَ لَكُمْ أَن تُنۢبِتُوا۟ شَجَرَهَآ أَءِلَٰهٌ مَّعَ ٱللَّهِ بَلْ هُمْ قَوْمٌ يَعْدِلُونَ
am man khalaqa's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa wa anzala lakum mina's-samāʾi māʾan fa-anbatnā bihī ḥadāʾiqa dhāta bahja, mā kāna lakum an tunbitū shajarahā, a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh, bal hum qawmun yaʿdilūn
"Or He who created the heavens and the earth and sent down water for you from the sky? With it We caused to grow orchards full of delight; it was not for you to make their trees grow. Is there a god beside God? No — they are a people who swerve."
From verse 60 to verse 64 the same pattern is repeated five times, and the repetition can be verified word for word.
| Verse | am man… — the subject of the question | The shared sentence | The close |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 | khalaqa's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ + water and orchards | a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh | bal hum qawmun yaʿdilūn |
| 61 | jaʿala'l-arḍa qarārā + rivers, mountains, a barrier | a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh | bal aktharuhum lā yaʿlamūn |
| 62 | yujību'l-muḍṭarra + the removal of harm, succession | a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh | qalīlan mā tadhakkarūn |
| 63 | yahdīkum fī ẓulumāti'l-barri wa'l-baḥr + the winds | a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh | taʿāla'llāhu ʿammā yushrikūn |
| 64 | yabdaʾu'l-khalqa thumma yuʿīduh + provision | a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh | qul hātū burhānakum in kuntum ṣādiqīn |
The five closes are worth examining one by one, and I give this as my own reading: the closes form a sequence.
| No. | The close | What it conveys |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | yaʿdilūn | Swerving — setting up an equal |
| 2 | lā yaʿlamūn | Ignorance |
| 3 | qalīlan mā tadhakkarūn | Failure to remember — the knowledge is there, it is not recalled |
| 4 | taʿāla'llāhu ʿammā yushrikūn | Transcendence — the subject is turned to God |
| 5 | hātū burhānakum | A demand for evidence — the close of the argument |
The direction of the sequence is worth recording: the first three describe the state of those addressed, the fourth turns the subject to God, the fifth directs a demand at those addressed. The sequence thus begins in description and arrives at a demand.
And it was recorded above that the fifth (hātū burhānakum) belongs to the chain of demands for evidence set out in the table in al-Qaṣaṣ at 28/75.
The root ب-ه-ج was treated in Qāf at 50/7, and this verse was already cited there. I do not repeat it here. The core of the root: a beauty that opens the heart of the one who sees it, a gladdening appearance.
حَدِيقَة — plural ḥadāʾiq: a walled garden. The lexicographers attach the word to the sense "to encircle, to enclose" in the root ح-د-ق — ḥadaqa, the dark ring of the eye, is from this root as well.
I record this as an observation about the word: the verse names not open country but an enclosed garden — a place a person has laboured over and whose boundary he has drawn.
And at exactly this point the sentence sets its limit: mā kāna lakum an tunbitū shajarahā — "it was not for you to make its trees grow."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two clauses: the verse does not deny human labour — it names the garden as an enclosed garden. The place where it sets the limit is the verb of making grow. The distinction thus lies not in the question "who worked" but in "who made it grow".
And the word order must be recorded: the person changes in the middle of the verbs. Am man khalaqa… wa anzala… — third person; then fa-anbatnā bihī — first person plural.
In Arabic this is called iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address). And it occurs precisely at the verb of making grow — that is, at the verb where the sentence sets its limit. I record this as an observation about the word order.
The root ع-د-ل: to be equal, to make equal. The word carries both the sense of "justice" and the sense of "treating as equal, setting up as a partner", and here it is the second.
The lexicographers record the distinction thus: ʿadala bihī — he made it equal to something else; ʿadala fīhi — he acted justly in it. The particle settles the meaning.
I record this as an observation about the word: the same root can name both justice and the setting up of partners, because both are acts of making equal. The difference lies in what is being made equal to what.