al-Rūm 30:1-5

Alif-lām-mīm · Ghulibati'r-Rūm · Fī adna'l-arḍi wa hum min baʿdi ghalabihim sa-yaghlibūn · Fī biḍʿi sinīn, li'llāhi'l-amru min qablu wa min baʿd, wa yawmaʾidhin yafraḥu'l-muʾminūn · Bi-naṣri'llāh, yanṣuru man yashāʾ, wa huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm

"Alif-lām-mīm. The Rūm have been defeated — in the nearest land. But they, after their defeat, will be victorious: within a few years. The affair belongs to God, before and after. On that day the believers will rejoice at God's help. He helps whom He wills; He is the Mighty, the Merciful."

For the note on the disconnected letters I rely on al-Baqara 2/1 and Qāf; I do not repeat it here.

Places in the Qurʾān where a political outcome still to come is announced within a period bounded by a number are few. This is one of them.

And the construction of the announcement must be recorded: the sentence comes not as a wish or a prayer but as a notification; and the period too is not left indefinite: fī biḍʿi sinīn — within a few years.

Two readings are transmitted for these verses, and the difference turns the sense of the sentence into its exact opposite. For that reason it must be given:

The two readings are exact mirrors of one another: in the one, the voice of the two verbs changes places and the event turns the other way about.

Reading A is widely reported in the classical commentaries and in the sources on the variant readings; and the text of the muṣḥaf is written according to that reading. Reading B has also been recorded; but the reading that is widely reported is A.

I do not impose a preference, and I record both readings.

I record an observation about the word order, and it is independent of the two readings: the two verbs in the sentence are necessarily of opposite voice. That is, whichever reading is taken, the verse says that a situation will be reversed. What changes is which side turns in which direction — not the turning itself.

And the verse's own sentence says this already: li'llāhi'l-amru min qablu wa min baʿd — "the affair belongs to God, both before it and after it." This sentence is a note set between the two verbs: the owner of the turning is named.

Per the method (Method) I write this section without claims, and I make no claim about a definite date, place or number.

The following is widely reported in the classical commentaries: in the period when the Qurʾān was being revealed there was a long-running war between the two great powers of that region. At one stage of that war one of the sides (the Rūm) suffered a defeat; it is reported that the verses, after this defeat, announced that the outcome would be reversed. That this reversal later came about is recorded in the sources as well.

Reports are also transmitted in the classical sources that, upon the revelation of the verse, a wager or a contest of claims took place in Mecca. I do not give the wording or the source of these reports here, because I cannot issue a definite ruling about their variants and their soundness. I confine myself to recording that the idea is found in the sources.

I make no claim about a definite date, the name of a battle, the name of a commander, or a place. And I do not enter into present-day politics at all: the verse speaks in the name of no state, no people and no side of today. The principle recorded in al-Ḥujurāt holds here too: what the verse describes are attributes; no blanket ruling is issued about an ethnic or a political group.

The root means to be near; and adnā, in the elative pattern, carries two senses:

Both senses are recorded by the lexicographers. And the word al-dunyā is from this root as well — "the (life) that is nearest" — this has come up in many places in the series (aw adnā at al-Najm 53/9, and in a great many sections by way of al-dunyā). I do not repeat it here.

Which region the construct intends is disputed in the classical commentaries, and more than one place-name is transmitted. I make no claim to a particular place.

And per the method (Method) I draw a clear boundary: on the strength of this construct I make no claim of a scientific miracle concerning the lowest point on the earth's surface by elevation. Such a reading takes one of the word's two linguistic senses and dresses it in a modern measurement. The boundary set on the same ground in al-Maʿārij and in al-Ṭāriq holds here too: the truth of the text is not made to depend on a datum of measurement.

The work the word does in the sentence is plain enough, and I record that much: the event is mentioned not as a distant legend for the one addressed but as an event that happened in a nearby place. The verse chooses its evidence from a distance the hearer can reach — the sūra will do the same for the sky in the twenty-sixth verse and for the earth in the forty-second.

The root is analysed here for the first time in the series.

The concrete sense of the root: to cut, to break a piece off a whole. Badaʿa'l-laḥma — he cut up the meat. From the same root:

And there are small differences over the range the lexicographers give for biḍʿ:

The one widely reported is the first: from three to nine. I do not impose a preference.

The choice of the word is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the verse neither gives a definite year nor leaves the period entirely open. Biḍʿ, with the picture in its root of "a piece separated off from a whole", announces a bounded but not fully determined interval. That is: the announcement is kept narrow enough to be verifiable, and wide enough not to be reduced to a reckoning of dates.

The division of the sentence must be recorded: the construct bi-naṣri'llāh falls, by verse number, in the following verse (5). That is, there is a verse boundary between "they will rejoice" and "at God's help".

The root ف-ر-ح occurs three times in the sūra: here (4), in the thirty-second verse (fariḥūn) and in the thirty-sixth verse (fariḥū). This is a repetition that can be verified from the text, and it will be tabulated at the end. And what is to be recorded here is this: the word is used in this sūra in both a positive and a negative context. Here the rejoicing is attached to God's help; in the thirty-second verse it will be attached to what they hold in their own hands.

وَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ — and the block closes with a pair of names that joins power to mercy. The same pair had also occurred at al-Sajda 32/6, and was recorded there together with the table of how the names of the One who sends down change from sūra to sūra.

And the placing of the pair here is worth recording: it comes immediately after the news of a defeat and a victory. I record this as an observation: at the end of an event in which both sides are defeated and both are victorious, a pair is set that names power and mercy together. The sentence avoids reducing the outcome to power.