Āl ʿImrān 3:192-194

Rabbanā innaka man tudkhili'n-nāra fa-qad akhzaytah, wa mā li'ẓ-ẓālimīna min anṣār · Rabbanā innanā samiʿnā munādiyan yunādī li'l-īmāni an āminū bi-rabbikum fa-āmannā, rabbanā fa'ghfir lanā dhunūbanā wa kaffir ʿannā sayyiʾātinā wa tawaffanā maʿa'l-abrār · Rabbanā wa ātinā mā waʿadtanā ʿalā rusulika wa lā tukhzinā yawma'l-qiyāma, innaka lā tukhlifu'l-mīʿād

"Our Lord! Whomever You admit to the fire, You have disgraced him; and the wrongdoers have no helpers. · Our Lord! We heard a caller calling to faith: 'Believe in your Lord' — and we believed. Our Lord! Forgive us our sins, cover over our evil deeds, and take us with the righteous. · Our Lord! Give us what You promised us through Your messengers, and do not disgrace us on the day of resurrection. You do not fail Your appointment."

This prayer is the longest in the sūra and does the same work as the closing prayer of al-Baqara (2/285-286). Its structure must be taken apart in a table.

The prayer begins in the middle of verse 191 and ends at verse 194. The address rabbanā occurs four times, and each address opens a new section.

And the structure that follows from the table must be recorded, and I give four observations. All four can be verified from the wording of the prayer.

One. The prayer does not begin with a request. The first thing said is a statement: mā khalaqta hādhā bāṭilā. And the statement is followed by a declaration of transcendence. The request comes third.

Two. The requests go from outside inward, then outward again.

That is, the prayer opens with protection, turns to its own failings, and then asks for the promise. And the promise is left to the last.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the requests: what was promised is asked for only after forgiveness of the failings has been asked. And even when it is asked it is tied to a ground: innaka lā tukhlifu'l-mīʿād — that is, the ground of the request is not the asker's desert but the giver's word.

Three. Two verbs are asked separately: ighfir and kaffir.

Both verbs convey covering, and their objects are two different words. The lexicographers transmit distinctions between dhanb and sayyiʾa and do not agree on them; I give no definite distinction.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the prayer asks for the same work with two separate verbs and two separate objects. And the concrete sense of both roots is to cover.

Four. In the prayer being disgraced (خ-ز-ي) occurs twice, and the two answer each other:

The same root, two verses apart: one a ruling, the other a prayer. I record this as an observation about the word order: the prayer first accepts the ruling, then asks to remain outside its reach.

The root ن-د-و/ي: to call out. And there are two words from the same root in the sentence: munādiyan yunādī — "a caller calling". In Arabic this sets up emphasis.

And the caller is not named: munādiyan is indefinite. I record this as an observation about the word order: the prayer does not name the one who called; it says that the call was heard.

And this part of the prayer conveys a cause: samiʿnā… fa-āmannā — we heard, and therefore we believed. And only after this does the request come: rabbanā fa'ghfir lanā. Two fāʾ particles one after the other set up a chain: hearing → faith → request.

It was recorded in the introduction to the sūra: both al-Baqara and Āl ʿImrān close with a prayer. Now I compare the two prayers.

And the last row is worth recording. I give this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the prayer of al-Baqara ends with a request; the prayer of Āl ʿImrān ends with a ground. That is, one leaves the last word with the one who asks, the other with the one who gives.

And the standing of the word iṣr in the two sūras must be recorded separately: in the prayer of al-Baqara it was asked that an iṣr not be laid on; while in verse 81 of Āl ʿImrān the taking up of the iṣr was affirmed. The two sūras use the same word in two different directions — this was recorded above.