ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَكُم مِّن ضَعْفٍ ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ ضَعْفٍ قُوَّةً ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ قُوَّةٍ ضَعْفًا وَشَيْبَةً يَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَآءُ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَلِيمُ ٱلْقَدِيرُ
Allāhu'lladhī khalaqakum min ḍaʿfin thumma jaʿala min baʿdi ḍaʿfin quwwatan thumma jaʿala min baʿdi quwwatin ḍaʿfan wa shaybah, yakhluqu mā yashāʾu wa huwa'l-ʿalīmu'l-qadīr
"It is God who created you from weakness, then after weakness gave strength, then after strength gave weakness and grey hair. He creates what He wills; He is the Knowing, the Powerful."
| Stage | Word | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ḍaʿf — weakness | Min ḍaʿfin — indefinite |
| 2 | Quwwa — strength | Min baʿdi ḍaʿfin quwwatan |
| 3 | Ḍaʿf and shayba — weakness and greying | Min baʿdi quwwatin ḍaʿfan wa shaybah |
The same word (ḍaʿf) at the beginning and at the end; its opposite in the middle. And all the words come indefinite: no particular age or span is given.
I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence draws not a circle but an arc. The beginning and the end are named with the same word — but a word is added at the end: wa shaybah.
شَيْبَة — root ش-ي-ب: the whitening of the hair. The root was treated at al-Muzzammil 73/17 (yawman yajʿalu'l-wildāna shībā — the day that turns children white-haired). I do not repeat it here.
The addition of the word is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the third stage is not distinguished from the first by the second ḍaʿf — what distinguishes it is shayba. That is, the weakness at the end is told apart from the one at the beginning only by a visible mark. And as was recorded in al-Muzzammil, in Arabic greying is the name of the trace time leaves on the body.
At Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/67 the stages of a lifetime were treated in detail and six steps were tabulated: turāb → nuṭfa → ʿalaqa → ṭifl → ashudd → shuyūkh. I rely on that treatment.
| Ghāfir 40/67 | al-Rūm 30/54 | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of steps | Six | Three |
| What they are named by | Names of matter and of age — dust, drop, infant, old man | Names of states — weakness, strength, weakness |
| Structure | A linear series — from the beginning to the end | A symmetry — the same word at both ends |
| The note added | Wa minkum man yutawaffā min qabl — not everyone goes to the end | Yakhluqu mā yashāʾ — the Creator does what He wills |
One — the measure. Ghāfir enumerates matter and age; al-Rūm enumerates strength. That is, Ghāfir's measure is what you are, al-Rūm's measure is what you can do.
Two — structure. Ghāfir's series runs in one direction: it begins somewhere and ends somewhere. al-Rūm's series returns to the word it began with. As was recorded in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), Ghāfir joins all the steps with thumma — the particle that conveys an interval. al-Rūm uses the same particle; but its second thumma takes the second back to the first.
Three — the note added. Ghāfir says the series may be cut short (not everyone grows old). al-Rūm, by contrast, completes the series and says yakhluqu mā yashāʾ.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this third difference: al-Rūm's sentence names at its close not the exception but the owner of the order. And this does the same work as the sentence in the fourth verse of the sūra: li'llāhi'l-amru min qablu wa min baʿd — before it and after it alike are His. The two verses enter the same note, the one for history and the other for a lifetime.
The other occurrence of the root ض-ع-ف in this sūra was in the thirty-ninth verse: fa-ulāʾika humu'l-muḍʿifūn — those who multiply.
| Verse | Word | The branch of the root | Who |
|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | Al-Muḍʿifūn | Multiplying many times over | The one who gives |
| 54 | Ḍaʿf (three times) | Weakness | Every human being |
The same root, in two contrary values. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this shared root: the fifty-fourth verse says that man stands on an arc that opens with weakness and closes with weakness. The thirty-ninth verse says, with the other branch of the same root, that within that arc there can be something that multiplies many times over. The link between the two verses lies in the word and can be verified; I claim nothing beyond that.