أَمَّن جَعَلَ ٱلْأَرْضَ قَرَارًا وَجَعَلَ خِلَٰلَهَآ أَنْهَٰرًا وَجَعَلَ لَهَا رَوَٰسِىَ وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَ ٱلْبَحْرَيْنِ حَاجِزًا أَءِلَٰهٌ مَّعَ ٱللَّهِ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
am man jaʿala'l-arḍa qarāran wa jaʿala khilālahā anhāran wa jaʿala lahā rawāsiya wa jaʿala bayna'l-baḥrayni ḥājizā, a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh, bal aktharuhum lā yaʿlamūn
"Or He who made the earth a place of settlement, and made rivers run through it, and set firm mountains upon it, and set a barrier between the two seas? Is there a god beside God? No — most of them do not know."
| No. | Expression | What |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | jaʿala'l-arḍa qarārā | A place to settle |
| 2 | jaʿala khilālahā anhārā | Rivers — running through it |
| 3 | jaʿala lahā rawāsiya | Firm mountains |
| 4 | jaʿala bayna'l-baḥrayni ḥājizā | A barrier — between the two seas |
The fourfold repetition of the verb is a datum of the word order, and in each of the four the object changes. I record this as an observation: the verse gathers four separate facts under a single verb.
قَرَار — root ق-ر-ر: to stay in a place, to settle, to become fixed. The word was treated in al-Qamar, Nūḥ and Yāsīn, and this verse was cited there. I do not repeat it here.
رَوَاسِى — root ر-س-و: to cast anchor, to stand fixed. Rāsiya — that which is driven into its place. The word was mentioned in the discussion of al-Takwīr, where the descriptions of mountains were set out in a table. And that table will serve again at verse 88 of this sūra; I shall return to it there.
حَاجِز — root ح-ج-ز: to separate, to set a barrier between, to hold back. The root was treated in al-Ḥāqqa at 69/47, and this verse was already cited there. I do not repeat it here.
And the same fact occurred with the word barzakh in al-Raḥmān at 55/19-20, and it was treated there. The two sūras name the same thing with two different words: ḥājiz and barzakh. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.
Per the method (Method) I draw a limit: I build no claim of a miracle out of the findings of modern ocean science regarding the barrier between the two seas. The language of the verse points to something that can be seen with the eye — places where fresh water and salt water do not mix, the boundaries of currents — and this is an observation that a listener living in the desert could verify as well. I record it as a point of view, not as a proof.
The sūra's ع-ل-م spine passes here to the negative side. It was recorded in the spine table above: at verses 15, 16, 22, 40 and 42 knowledge was being given; at 61 and 84 its absence is reported.