al-Aḥzāb 33:38-39

Mā kāna ʿala'l-nabiyyi min ḥarajin fīmā faraḍa'llāhu lah, sunnata'llāhi fi'lladhīna khalaw min qabl, wa kāna amru'llāhi qadaran maqdūrā · Alladhīna yuballighūna risālāti'llāhi wa yakhshawnahu wa lā yakhshawna aḥadan illa'llāh, wa kafā bi'llāhi ḥasībā

"There is no difficulty for the Prophet in what God has laid down for him. This is God's way with those who passed away before. And God's command is a decree determined. · They are those who deliver the messages of God and are in awe of Him and are in awe of no one but God. And God suffices as a reckoner."

In the thirty-seventh verse the ground was the removal of a ḥaraj — for the believers. In the thirty-eighth the same word is used of the Prophet.

The same word, on both sides within two verses. The word order shows that the ruling is applied to both sides in the same way.

I record this as my own reading.

The concrete sense of the root must be dwelt on: faraḍa — to cut a thing and make it distinct, to make a notch. Furḍa — a notch, a nick. From this comes the sense "to determine, to appoint, to make obligatory".

That is, farḍ is in its root an act of cutting and marking out — the marking of a thing's limit.

And this agrees with the continuation of the verse: qadaran maqdūrā — a decree determined. Both words carry the sense of "determining".

Root: س-ن-ن. And the concrete sense of the root is to make a thing flow or run smoothly over a surface: sanna'l-māʾ — he made the water flow; sinān — a spearhead (sharpened); misann — a whetstone.

From this comes the sense "a way, a custom, a course that runs on": a road walked over again and again and thereby made distinct.

This concept was treated in detail at al-Fatḥ (48/23), and verse 62 of this sūra was taken into the table there. I rely on that treatment.

The note recorded there and needing repetition here: "The application of the concept of sunnat Allāh to contemporary events was not entered into; it was recorded that the concept is a measure for understanding the past, not an authority for judging the present."

In this sūra sunnat Allāh occurs twice:

And what the two occurrences have in common is worth recording: both come after a regulation. The sūra presents the rulings it brings not as "new" but as the continuation of a course that has always run.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is that both occurrences stand in the same position.

فِى ٱلَّذِينَ خَلَوْا۟ مِن قَبْلُ — خَلَا, root خ-ل-و: to be empty, to pass away. And the same expression occurred at al-Baqara 2/214: alladhīna khalaw min qablikum — "those who passed away before you."

In both verses the same expression with the same function: a reference to a pattern in the past.

Root: ق-د-ر. And the primary sense of the root is to measure, to determine the quantity of. It was treated as the name of a sūra at al-Qadr.

And the construction is a reinforcement of the cognate-accusative kind: qadaran maqdūrā — "a determined determination". Two words from the same root.

The Qurʾān uses such repetitions of a root for emphasis and it has already been seen five times in this sūra (11, 23, 33, 36, and here).

بَلَّغَ — root ب-ل-غ. To reach, to arrive; in Form II, "to make reach". And this root occurred in the tenth verse too: balaghati'l-qulūbu'l-ḥanājir — "the hearts reached the throats".

The same root, once the place fear reaches, once the delivering of a message. I record it.

رِسَٰلَٰت — plural. The plural of risāla. That it comes in the plural is worth noting: not a single message but messages.

This sentence is the direct counterpart of the expression takhsha'l-nās in the thirty-seventh verse.

Three expressions, within two verses, from the same root (خ-ش-ي). And the order describes a movement: a correction, a measure, a description.

That is, the thirty-ninth verse sets down what is corrected in the thirty-seventh as the general attribute of the prophets. I record it as my own reading.

And the word aḥad occurs in the sūra for the second time after the thirty-second verse — there ka-aḥadin mina'l-nisāʾ, here aḥadan illa'llāh. As was recorded at al-Ikhlāṣ, in a negative context the word means "no one at all", and that is exactly its sense here.

The pattern كَفَىٰ بِـ for the third time in this sūra (3, 25, 39).

حَسِيب — root ح-س-ب. To count, to reckon. It occurred in the twentieth verse as yaḥsabūna — there a mistaken reckoning, here the one who takes the reckoning.

The same root, once a person's erring count, once the one who sees the reckoning rightly. I record it.