Āl ʿImrān 3:26-27

Quli'llāhumma mālika'l-mulki tuʾti'l-mulka man tashāʾu wa tanziʿu'l-mulka mimman tashāʾ, wa tuʿizzu man tashāʾu wa tudhillu man tashāʾ, bi-yadika'l-khayr, innaka ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr · Tūliju'l-layla fi'n-nahāri wa tūliju'n-nahāra fi'l-layl, wa tukhriju'l-ḥayya mina'l-mayyiti wa tukhriju'l-mayyita mina'l-ḥayy, wa tarzuqu man tashāʾu bi-ghayri ḥisāb

"Say: 'O God, Owner of all dominion! You give dominion to whom You will, and You pull dominion away from whom You will. You raise whom You will and You abase whom You will. In Your hand is the good. Truly You have power over all things. · You make the night pass into the day, and You make the day pass into the night. You bring the living out of the dead and the dead out of the living. And You provide for whom You will without reckoning.'"

The word is a special vocative form standing in place of yā Allāh: the yā drops and a doubled mīm comes at the end. This form occurs in five places in the Qurʾān, and all five are sentences of calling or of entreaty.

I record this as an observation about the language; the lexicographers differ over how the form is constructed, and I impose no preference.

The root م-ل-ك occurs four times, and each of the four is at a different piece of work:

And the pairs of verbs must be recorded:

The root ن-ز-ع: to pull a thing out of its place, to wrench it loose. The choice of the root is worth recording: the verse does not say "You take back" (taʾkhudhu). Nazʿ is a pull that meets resistance — as though the thing taken were holding on.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference between the two verbs: for giving, ītāʾ (holding out and handing over) is used; for taking, nazʿ. That is, the verse sets up an asymmetry between the way dominion is given and the way it is taken: silent in the giving, contested in the taking.

Per the method (Method), and following the note kept consistently throughout the series, the same holds here: expressions such as yad (hand) cannot be understood as ascribing an organ or a body to God. The same note was entered at 57/29 in al-Ḥadīd and in Yāsīn: two attitudes are transmitted in the classical commentaries — to accept the wording as it stands and leave its manner to God (tafwīḍ), or to interpret it in the sense of power and disposal (taʾwīl). I transmit both and impose no preference. The shared principle is al-Shūrā 42/11.

And there is something in the content of the sentence that must be recorded, and the classical commentaries have dwelt on it: the sentence says bi-yadika'l-khayr — only the good is named. Although raising and abasing are counted together, it does not say "in Your hand are good and evil".

The classical explanations:

All three are transmitted. I impose no preference and do not enter the theological debate.

The root و-ل-ج. It was analysed in detail at 57/6 in al-Ḥadīd and tabulated at 31/29 in Luqmān. I take the description given there:

"Root: و-ل-ج. Its concrete sense: to enter a narrow place, to slip in, to seep inside. […] The word itself describes a seeping. Night does not take the place of day; it enters into it."

I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it here.

Here I add what belongs to Āl ʿImrān alone, and it is a difference of context:

And the difference must be recorded — I give this as my own reading, and it is not binding: in the other two places īlāj is a proof of power. Here it does the work of a comparison. The twenty-sixth verse had described the changing of hands of dominion; the twenty-seventh gives a picture that shows how this happens.

For this is exactly the picture of īlāj: night does not cut day off at a stroke; the day grows a little shorter each day, then a little longer. The boundary shifts every day, and on no day can it be said "there, today it changed." And the changing of hands of dominion is most often like this too — what appears as an overturning in a moment is the last step of a long seeping.

I give this as a reading; the verse does not draw this comparison explicitly. What it does draw is the standing of two sentences side by side, and that can be verified from the text.

This sentence occurs in several places in the Qurʾān (Yūnus 10/31, al-Anʿām 6/95, al-Rūm 30/19) and was treated at 30/19 in al-Rūm. I rely on that treatment.

In the classical commentaries it is explained in two ways, and both are transmitted:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. And the second reading agrees with the context of the sūra: from the thirty-third verse the sūra will relate a lineage, and within that lineage there will be both those who are chosen and others.

بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ — "without reckoning". Two senses are given in the classical commentaries: either "unlimited, immeasurably abundant", or "without being calculated according to the person's deserving". Both are transmitted.

And the work the two verses do together can be recorded as my own reading: the twenty-sixth verse describes a changing of hands among people, the twenty-seventh a changing of hands in nature. Both are given with the same sequence of verbs (You give–You take / You make pass–You make pass / You bring out–You bring out). That is, the changing of hands of political power is put into the same sentence structure as the changing of places of night and day.

And this is what the verse says to the present: the prayer states that power is not lasting, not as a threat but as a description of an order. The verse neither praises nor blames any government; it names the subject of the verbs of giving and taking. No present-day political conclusion is drawn from this in this commentary.