al-Rūm 30:46-51

Wa min āyātihi an yursila'r-riyāḥa mubashshirātin wa li-yudhīqakum min raḥmatihi wa li-tajriya'l-fulku bi-amrihi wa li-tabtaghū min faḍlihi wa laʿallakum tashkurūn · Wa laqad arsalnā min qablika rusulan ilā qawmihim fa-jāʾūhum bi'l-bayyināti fa'ntaqamnā mina'lladhīna ajramū, wa kāna ḥaqqan ʿalaynā naṣru'l-muʾminīn · Allāhu'lladhī yursilu'r-riyāḥa fa-tuthīru saḥāban fa-yabsuṭuhu fi's-samāʾi kayfa yashāʾu wa yajʿaluhu kisafan fa-tara'l-wadqa yakhruju min khilālih, fa-idhā aṣāba bihi man yashāʾu min ʿibādihi idhā hum yastabshirūn · Wa in kānū min qabli an yunazzala ʿalayhim min qablihi la-mublisīn · Fa'nẓur ilā āthāri raḥmati'llāhi kayfa yuḥyi'l-arḍa baʿda mawtihā, inna dhālika la-muḥyi'l-mawtā wa huwa ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr · Wa la-in arsalnā rīḥan fa-raʾawhu muṣfarran la-ẓallū min baʿdihi yakfurūn

"And of His signs is that: He sends the winds as bearers of good news — that He may give you a taste of His mercy, that the ships may run by His command, that you may seek of His bounty, and that you may give thanks. And We surely sent messengers before you to their own peoples; they brought them clear proofs. We took retribution from those who committed crimes; and helping the believers became a duty upon Us. It is God who sends the winds, so that they raise a cloud, and He spreads it in the sky as He wills, and makes it into pieces, and then you see the rain coming out from between them. When He brings it to whom He wills of His servants, at once they rejoice — though before that, before it was sent down upon them, they had despaired. Look, then, at the traces of God's mercy: how He gives life to the earth after its death! He it is who gives life to the dead as well; and He has power over all things. But were We to send a wind and they saw the crop turned yellow, they would straight after that turn back to ingratitude."

The forty-sixth verse brings back twenty-one verses later a formula belonging to the series that ran between the twentieth and the twenty-fifth verses.

And its closing must be recorded: wa laʿallakum tashkurūn. The other four closings of the series were verbs of cognition (to think, to know, to hear, to reason). This last one is different: thanksgiving.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this difference together with the delay of the formula: the series is built with verbs of understanding, and the link set apart from it ends with a verb of response. That is, the sūra begins with the understanding of the signs and ties it to giving something in return.

The root ر-و-ح / ر-ي-ح occurs three times in this block, and the three do not say the same thing:

The difference of number is worth recording, and the lexicographers generally record it: in the Qurʾān riyāḥ (plural) occurs mostly in a context of mercy, rīḥ (singular) mostly in a context of punishment or of a negative outcome. I transmit this observation as a tendency the lexicographers record, not as an absolute rule.

And the work the fifty-first verse does must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: in the forty-ninth verse man was without hope before the rain (la-mublisīn), and with the rain he rejoiced (yastabshirūn). The fifty-first verse takes the same man back to the beginning when the crop turns yellow. That is, three verses set up a cycle: despair → rejoicing → ingratitude. And this is the very same cycle as in the thirty-third verse (distress → turning → mercy → association of partners). The sūra draws the same circle twice, with two different events.

And min baʿdihi in the sentence la-ẓallū min baʿdihi yakfurūn is worth recording: "straight after it". There is no interval in between.

فَتُثِيرُ سَحَابًا — the same expression was treated in detail at Fāṭir 35/9 (arsala'r-riyāḥa fa-tuthīru saḥābā) and the change of verb tenses was recorded there as an observation about the word order. I do not repeat it here.

The difference here must be recorded: in Fāṭir the cloud was being driven to a dead land (fa-suqnāhu ilā baladin mayyit). In al-Rūm, by contrast, the cloud's state in the sky is set out in detail: fa-yabsuṭuhu (He spreads it) → wa yajʿaluhu kisafan (He makes it into pieces) → fa-tara'l-wadqa yakhruju min khilālih (you see the rain coming out from between them).

كِسَف — the plural of kisfa, root ك-س-ف: a piece, a cut-off portion. خِلَال — the plural of khalal, root خ-ل-ل: the space, the gap between two things. وَدْق — root و-د-ق: the rain itself, the falling drop.

The picture the three words give together is worth recording: spreading out → breaking into pieces → coming out from between. And the tense of the verb changes once more: fa-tarā — "you see", the address turns to the hearer.

I record this as an observation about the word order: while the sentence moves in the third person it shifts in the middle to the second. And in the fifty-first verse it will turn to the second person again: fa'nẓur. That is, the narration calls the reader onto the stage twice.

فَٱنظُرْ إِلَىٰٓ ءَاثَٰرِ رَحْمَتِ ٱللَّهِ — "look at the traces of God's mercy".

آثَار — root أ-ث-ر: a trace, a mark left behind. And the same root had occurred in the ninth verse as a verb: wa athāru'l-arḍa — they turned the soil over. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this recurrence of the root: in the ninth verse what was recounted was the trace man left in the soil — and the end of those who left that trace was destruction. In the fiftieth verse what one is asked to look at is the trace mercy has left in the soil. The same root, the same ground (al-arḍ), two different traces.

إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ لَمُحْيِ ٱلْمَوْتَىٰ — and the evidence is tied off. The same structure was treated at Fāṭir 35/9 (kadhālika'n-nushūr), at Qāf 50/11 (kadhālika'l-khurūj) and at Fuṣṣilat 41/39 (inna'lladhī aḥyāhā la-muḥyi'l-mawtā). The sentence in Fuṣṣilat is almost identical with this verse. I rely on that treatment.

وَكَانَ حَقًّا عَلَيْنَا نَصْرُ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ — "helping the believers became a duty upon Us".

The sentence is worth recording, and it forms a ring with the opening of the sūra: in the fifth verse it had been said yawmaʾidhin yafraḥu'l-muʾminūna bi-naṣri'llāh — the joy of the help. In the forty-seventh verse the same word (نصر) comes back as a pledge.

The same root, at the two ends of the sūra. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this repetition: the historical announcement of the second verse is tied in the forty-seventh to a principle. The sūra does not recount a single event and leave it; it names the order the event rests on as well.

A note per the method (Method): the promise of naṣr here is attached not to a particular state, army or side but to the attribute the verse enumerates. The principle recorded in al-Ḥujurāt holds here too.