فَأَقِمْ وَجْهَكَ لِلدِّينِ ٱلْقَيِّمِ مِن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِىَ يَوْمٌ لَّا مَرَدَّ لَهُۥ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ يَوْمَئِذٍ يَصَّدَّعُونَ · مَن كَفَرَ فَعَلَيْهِ كُفْرُهُۥ وَمَنْ عَمِلَ صَٰلِحًا فَلِأَنفُسِهِمْ يَمْهَدُونَ · لِيَجْزِىَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ مِن فَضْلِهِۦٓ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
Fa-aqim wajhaka li'd-dīni'l-qayyimi min qabli an yaʾtiya yawmun lā maradda lahu mina'llāh, yawmaʾidhin yaṣṣaddaʿūn · Man kafara fa-ʿalayhi kufruh, wa man ʿamila ṣāliḥan fa-li-anfusihim yamhadūn · Li-yajziya'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti min faḍlih, innahu lā yuḥibbu'l-kāfirīn
"So set your face towards the upright religion before there comes a day that cannot be turned back from God. On that day they split apart. Whoever denies, his denial is against himself. And whoever does a righteous deed, they are preparing a place for themselves — that He may reward from His bounty those who believed and did righteous deeds. He does not love those who deny."
The forty-third verse repeats the first sentence of the thirtieth almost word for word. The two verses must be set side by side:
| Verse | Expression | The difference |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | Fa-aqim wajhaka li'd-dīni ḥanīfā | The manner of the turning is qualified: ḥanīf |
| 43 | Fa-aqim wajhaka li'd-dīni'l-qayyim | The religion is qualified: al-qayyim |
The same command, with two different qualifiers. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.
And al-dīnu'l-qayyim had already occurred in the thirtieth verse — but there as a statement: dhālika'd-dīnu'l-qayyim — "this is the upright religion". In the forty-third verse the same construct enters into the command.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is these two occurrences: in the thirtieth verse the religion is defined, in the forty-third the turning towards that definition is commanded. And the thirteen verses in between had recounted the opposite of the definition: division (32), turning in distress and parting in ease (33), corruption (41).
مَرَدّ — root ر-د-د: to turn back, to send back. The mīmī verbal noun pattern: "a being turned back". And the place of the root in this sūra is worth recording: in the forty-first verse it was said laʿallahum yarjiʿūn (perhaps they will return) — the return is open. Here a day is announced on which the return will be closed. Between the two verses two different roots (ر-ج-ع and ر-د-د) carry the same idea in two different directions.
The root was treated at al-Ṭāriq 86/12 (wa'l-arḍi dhāti'ṣ-ṣadʿ), at al-Wāqiʿa 56/19 (lā yuṣaddaʿūna ʿanhā) and in al-Ḥashr. I do not repeat it here. The core: the cracking, the splitting open of something hard; and the crack itself. Ṣadʿ — a fissure, a crack.
What belongs here is the attributing of the word to people. The verb is of Form V (taṣadduʿ, here with assimilation yaṣṣaddaʿūn): to crack of itself, to break into pieces.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the form of the verb: the verse does not use a verb of dividing for "they part" — it chooses a root that describes the cracking of stone. And this runs in the same direction as farraqū dīnahum (they broke their religion apart) in the thirty-second verse.
| Verse | Verb | Who does it | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Farraqū — Form II | People — with their own hands | Now |
| 14 | Yatafarraqūn — Form V | Of itself | On that day |
| 43 | Yaṣṣaddaʿūn — Form V | By cracking apart | On that day |
Three verbs, three patterns of one idea. I record this as my own reading: the sūra says twice (14, 43) that the division made by hand in this world will on that day come about of itself. And the word it uses the second time is a word that carries the impossibility of repair — a crack.
يَمْهَدُونَ — root م-ه-د: to level out and spread, to prepare a bed. The root was treated at al-Nabaʾ 78/6 (alam najʿali'l-arḍa mihādā) and in al-Zukhruf (mahdā). I do not repeat it here. Mahd — a cradle; mihād — a bedding.
The usage here is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: in the other places the one who spreads the bedding is God. Here the subject of the verb is man: fa-li-anfusihim yamhadūn — "they are preparing a place for themselves". The same root, the one a ground that is given, the other a ground that is prepared.
And the note li-anfusihim (for themselves) overlaps with the line at Fāṭir 35/39 (fa-man kafara fa-ʿalayhi kufruh — the same sentence is in the forty-fourth verse of this sūra as well). That is, the requital is attached in both directions to the person himself.