رَبَّنَا لَا تُزِغْ قُلُوبَنَا بَعْدَ إِذْ هَدَيْتَنَا وَهَبْ لَنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ رَحْمَةً إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلْوَهَّابُ
Rabbanā lā tuzigh qulūbanā baʿda idh hadaytanā wa hab lanā min ladunka raḥmah, innaka anta'l-wahhāb · Rabbanā innaka jāmiʿu'n-nāsi li-yawmin lā rayba fīh, inna'llāha lā yukhlifu'l-mīʿād
"Our Lord! Do not make our hearts swerve after You have guided us, and grant us a mercy from Your presence. Truly You are the great Bestower. · Our Lord! You will gather mankind for a day in which there is no doubt. Truly God does not fail His appointment."
These two verses are the direct continuation of the one before, and the link is in the word: lā tuzigh — the same root (ز-ي-غ), in Form IV.
| Verse | Mood | In whose mouth |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | fī qulūbihim zaygh — a statement | The text's own note, about a third person |
| 8 | lā tuzigh qulūbanā — a prayer | In the believer's mouth, about himself |
I give this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the seventh verse had described a defect in someone else; the eighth takes it as a possibility for oneself. That is, immediately after the diagnosis the text turns the diagnosis back on the reader. The first thing a person who learns of a defect would do is look for it in others; the verse closes that road.
The caveat itself matters: the prayer consists not in asking for guidance but in asking that what has been given be kept. And this agrees exactly with the picture of the root zaygh: an inclination is what happens not to one who was never on the road but to one who is on it. The sun cannot decline from its zenith before it has reached it.
ٱلْوَهَّاب — root و-ه-ب: to give without return. Wahhāb is the intensive form faʿʿāl. The distinguishing side of the root must be recorded: a hiba is a giving not tied to any return or to any deserving. And this agrees with the subject of the prayer: the heart's staying straight is not asked for as something held on to by desert.
And the word will occur once more later in the sūra, in the mouth of Zechariah: hab lī min ladunka dhurriyyatan ṭayyiba (38) — the same verb (hab), the same construction (min ladunk).
| Verse | Who | What is asked |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | The believers | Raḥmatan — a mercy |
| 38 | Zechariah | Dhurriyyatan ṭayyibatan — a goodly offspring |
Two prayers built with the same two words: hab and min ladunk. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.
لَا يُخْلِفُ ٱلْمِيعَادَ — mīʿād, from the root و-ع-د: the time or the place appointed. The root was treated at 13/31 in al-Raʿd and at 39/20 in al-Zumar.
And the word order of the sentence must be recorded: the prayer begins with rabbanā (second person), but the last sentence shifts to the third person: inna'llāha lā yukhlifu'l-mīʿād — "truly God does not fail His appointment."
This is the device called iltifāt in Arabic (a shift in the direction of address). I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence comes out of prayer and turns into a ruling. That is, the utterance is taken out of the mouth of the one praying and tied to a general note.