وَتَرَى ٱلْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِىَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ ٱلسَّحَابِ صُنْعَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ إِنَّهُۥ خَبِيرٌۢ بِمَا تَفْعَلُونَ
wa tara'l-jibāla taḥsabuhā jāmidatan wa hiya tamurru marra's-saḥāb, ṣunʿa'llāhi'lladhī atqana kulla shayʾ, innahū khabīrun bimā tafʿalūn
"You see the mountains and suppose them frozen, while they pass by as the clouds pass. This is the work of God, who has made every thing sound and exactly in its place. He is aware of what you do."
Per the method (Method) I write it out plainly:
From this verse I draw no reference to the rotation of the earth, to plate tectonics, to the movement of the continents, or to any other geological or astronomical fact. That is a reading of the scientific-miracle kind that Method forbids.
And this limit had already been drawn in the discussion of al-Takwīr at 81/3, and this verse was set out in a table there. I preserve the note made there as it stands:
Al-Naml 27/88 is striking because it says that the mountain's seeming fixed is an illusion. But to read this verse as "the Qurʾān reports the movements of the earth's crust" is a forcing of the kind Method forbids: the context of the verse is the Day of Judgement, and the description belongs to that day. I record it as a possible reading, not as a claim.
There is disagreement in the classical commentaries about what the verse describes, and the disagreement must be given as a table. I do not impose a preference:
| Reading | What wa hiya tamurru marra's-saḥāb reports | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A scene of the Last Day — the mountains set moving on that day | The context: the preceding verse (87) describes the blowing of the trumpet, and the following verses (89-90) the reckoning |
| 2 | A statement of movement in general — that the mountains are in motion even now, though they appear to stand still | That the verb taḥsabuhā looks at the present |
| 3 | A likeness — a comparison conveying the transience of what looks solid | That the simile marra's-saḥāb conveys transience |
I record one indication, not a preference, and its ground is the sequence: the verse stands immediately after the trumpet scene of verse 87 and immediately before the table of reckoning in verses 89-90. The context appears to support the first reading. But that the verb taḥsabuhā comes in the imperfect also leaves room for the second — and this is a ground recorded in the classical commentaries as well. I do not impose a preference.
The verb occurs for the second time in this sūra; the first was the queen of Sabaʾ seeing the hall at verse 44. It was set out in a table at verse 44 above, and I give it again:
| Verse | Expression | Who is deceived | What is the case |
|---|---|---|---|
| 44 | ḥasibat'hu lujjatan | The queen | ṣarḥun mumarradun min qawārīr — a floor of glass |
| 88 | taḥsabuhā jāmidatan | Everyone who looks | wa hiya tamurru marra's-saḥāb |
1. A sight (raʾat'hu / tarā) 2. A supposition (ḥasibat / taḥsabu) 3. And the reporting of what is the case (innahū ṣarḥun… / wa hiya tamurru…)
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the structure the two verses share: the sūra records twice that what the eye sees and what is the case are not the same — once on the floor of a hall, once in the mountains. And in the first the illusion is one person's private experience; in the second it is the common sight of everyone.
And this is part of the sūra's spine of knowledge: at verse 22 the limit of knowledge was recorded, at verse 65 the limit of the unseen. This verse records the limit of the senses.
The root ج-م-د: to freeze, to harden, to become something that does not flow. Jāmid — frozen, motionless. In Turkish the borrowed word camit ("inert, lifeless") comes from this root.
And the choice of word is worth recording: it does not say "fixed" or "standing still" but frozen. What is supposed is thus not stillness alone — it is the absence of flow.
And the picture set opposite it completes this: marra's-saḥāb — the passing of the clouds. A cloud both moves and changes shape; and its movement most often goes unnoticed by the one who looks.
I record this as an observation about the word: the two words (frozen and cloud) name two exactly opposite states. And the choice of simile also carries the imperceptibility of the movement.
And the descriptions of mountains were set out in a table in al-Takwīr (suyyirat, ka'l-ʿihni'l-manfūsh, kathīban mahīlā, bussat bassā). Al-Naml's description takes its own place in that table, and its difference was recorded there: this description takes as its subject not the mountain's movement but its being supposed motionless.
This root occurs only here in the Qurʾān, and it is worked out for the first time in this series here.
The concrete sense the lexicographers give must be recorded, and it comes from an unexpected quarter:
And the connection is made thus: when that silt settles onto the soil it forms a tight, even layer. From this, itqān: to do a work tightly, evenly and exactly in its place.
| Derivative | Sense | The common thread |
|---|---|---|
| tiqn | Flood silt — fine mud pressed close | Tightness, absence of gaps |
| atqana | To make sound | To leave no slackness |
| itqān | Mastery, doing a work exactly | The same |
| mutqin | One who does his work soundly | The same |
The word does not mean "He made it beautiful" (aḥsana) or "He created" (khalaqa) — it means He made it sound and without a gap.
And this agrees with where the sentence stands: the verse uses this word immediately after saying that what appears is not as it appears. The mountains' being supposed frozen is thus not a flaw — the work itself is sound; what is wanting is the sight of the one who looks. The ground is the sequence of the two clauses.
صُنْعَ ٱللَّهِ — root ص-ن-ع: to work a thing with skill, to fashion it. Ṣanʿa, ṣināʿa and maṣnūʿ are from the same root. Unlike the word khalq (creation), the word brings the dimension of working to the fore.
And the word order must be recorded: ṣunʿa is in the accusative — as a cognate accusative. In saying "this is the work of God" the sentence thus uses a pattern of emphasis.
The root خ-ب-ر: to know the inner face of a thing. The lexicographers record the sense "to plough the ground deeply" in this root (khabara'l-arḍ): that is, to know not the surface but what lies beneath it.
And that the sentence is placed here is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the verse had been speaking of mountains; the close turns to human acts. And there is a link between the two clauses: one takes as its subject what a person cannot see, the other what a person does.
The verse thus sets these side by side: you cannot see the mountain move — He sees what you do. The ground is that the two clauses stand in the same verse.
And the change of person must be recorded: tafʿalūn — second person plural. The verse began in the third person and ends in the second. This is iltifāt.