al-Aḥzāb 33:41-44

Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanu'dhkuru'llāha dhikran kathīrā · Wa sabbiḥūhu bukratan wa aṣīlā · Huwa'lladhī yuṣallī ʿalaykum wa malāʾikatuhu li-yukhrijakum mina'l-ẓulumāti ila'l-nūr, wa kāna bi'l-muʾminīna raḥīmā · Taḥiyyatuhum yawma yalqawnahu salām, wa aʿadda lahum ajran karīmā

"O you who believe! Remember God much. · And glorify Him morning and evening. · It is He who sends ṣalāt upon you — and His angels — to bring you out of the darknesses into the light. He is Merciful to the believers. · Their greeting on the day they meet Him is 'peace'; and He has prepared for them a noble reward."

The Zayd section is over. Here the sūra takes a breath.

The verses from forty-one to forty-eight are the gentlest part of the sūra, and they give not a regulation but a direction.

And this is a fact in the structure of the sūra that must be recorded: between and after the two heaviest sections (the siege and Zayd) a verse of remembrance or of exemplarity has always been placed.

I record this as my own reading.

The condition of the twenty-first verse turns here into a command.

And it occurred in the thirty-fifth verse too as an attribute: al-dhākirīna'llāha kathīran wa'l-dhākirāt.

That is, the sūra says the same thing three times in three different moods: condition, attribute, command. I record it.

ذِكْرًا كَثِيرًا — again a cognate accusative. The sixth reinforcement in the sūra.

And that the Qurʾān enters a note of "much" for remembrance is striking. The Qurʾān generally sets no quantity to acts of worship; here there is a note of quantity. And the measure is "much" — not a particular number.

This is worth recording: the note is quantitative but not numerical. That is, it conveys not a lower limit but an orientation.

سَبَّحَ — root س-ب-ح. And the concrete sense of the root is to swim: sabaḥa fi'l-māʾ — he swam in the water. The Qurʾān uses the root of the heavenly bodies too: "Each swims in an orbit" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/33 — yasbaḥūn).

The lexicographers dwell on how the root passes from "to swim" to "to declare free of imperfection": tasbīḥ is to remove a thing from what does not befit it — as the swimmer passes through the water and moves away.

بُكْرَة وَأَصِيل — morning and evening. This pair was recorded at al-Fatḥ and this verse was given there as an example: "The Qurʾān uses the same pair in several places: 'Glorify Him morning and evening' (al-Aḥzāb 33/42)." I rely on that treatment.

أَصِيل — root أ-ص-ل. Aṣl — a root, a foundation. Aṣīl — the end of the day, the time from the afternoon to the evening. The lexicographers do not establish with certainty the link between the "root" sense of the word and the sense "end of day"; I record it but build no meaning on it.

This sentence is the herald of the fifty-sixth verse, and the analysis of the root ص-ل-و will be made there.

But a fact of word order must be recorded here.

The same structure, in the same sūra, with two different recipients. And the forty-third verse comes before the fifty-sixth.

This is an order worth recording: the sūra first states the ṣalāt made upon the believers, then the one made upon the Prophet. I record this as my own reading.

The construction is a recurring pattern in the Qurʾān (al-Baqara 2/257; Ibrāhīm 14/1; al-Ḥadīd 57/9 — treated at al-Ḥadīd; al-Ṭalāq 65/11).

And the pattern has an invariable feature, worth recording: ẓulumāt is always plural and nūr always singular.

In classical exegesis this is tied to the manyness of darkness and the oneness of light: there are many ways of leaving the road, and the right road has a single direction.

I record this explanation; I do not present it as a settled ruling — but the fact (the plural/singular contrast) is consistent in the Qurʾān and is a countable datum.

تَحِيَّة — root ح-ي-ي. And the primary sense of the root is life. Taḥiyya is originally a greeting meaning "I wish you life, long life".

That is, in the root of the word there is a wish — the good wish said on meeting.

سَلَٰم — root س-ل-م. For the third time in this sūra (in 22 as taslīm, in 35 as muslimīn, here as salām).

And the concrete sense of the root — wholeness, completeness — is at work in all three occurrences:

The sūra opens the root as a state and closes it as a recompense. I record this as my own reading.

أَجْرًا كَرِيمًا — in the thirty-first verse rizqan karīmā occurred; here ajran karīmā. The same adjective with two different nouns.