Yāsīn 36:13-14

Wa'ḍrib lahum mathalan aṣḥāba'l-qaryati idh jāʾaha'l-mursalūn · Idh arsalnā ilayhimu'thnayni fa-kadhdhabūhumā fa-ʿazzaznā bi-thālithin fa-qālū innā ilaykum mursalūn

"Strike for them the parable of the people of the town, when the messengers came to it. We sent two to them, and they called them both liars; so We reinforced them with a third, and they said: 'We are messengers sent to you.'"

This has to be written first and plainly: the verse does not name the town, does not name the messengers, does not give the time.

Various names are transmitted in the classical commentaries, and these reports differ from one another; some rest on narratives regarded as Isrāʾīliyyāt, some on reports from a later period. In this commentary:

• No name is given for the town.
• No report is transmitted about who the messengers were.
• The names transmitted for the man who came running are not given.

The ground is the text itself, and it can be verified: the verse says "strike for them a parable" — mathal. The work of the narrative, that is, is not to give a historical record but to show a situation. When the names are not given the narrative loses nothing; that it loses nothing shows that the names are not part of the narrative.

This is an interpretation, and I record it as my own reading. But withholding the names is not an interpretation; it is what the state of the knowledge requires: there is no certain knowledge.

The sense of the root: likeness, being equivalent; and setting a thing up opposite. Muthūl — to stand upright, to stand in someone's presence; timthāl — an image. Mathal — a case set in front for comparison.

And the construction must be recorded: ḍaraba mathalan — "to strike a parable". In Arabic the verb ḍarb in this construction means "to set down, to put forward". The lexicographers explain it by likening it to the striking of coin (ḍarbu'd-darāhim): pressing a die into a material.

A repetition inside the sūra — and it has turned around:

The same verb, the same object, two different agents. In the thirteenth verse striking a parable is a charge; in the seventy-eighth it is a matter of accusation — because there a man sets out from his own crumbled bone and passes judgement about God. This repetition is a countable datum and will be taken up again in the closing section.

The town is called al-qarya in the thirteenth verse and al-madīna in the twentieth. This is a verifiable change of word.

ق-ر-ي — the sense of the root is to gather, to bring together. Qarā'l-māʾa fi'l-ḥawḍ — he gathered the water in the basin. And from the same root قِرَى (qirā) — the receiving of a guest, that is, gathering the guest in and feeding him. Qarya — the place where people are gathered. The root has occurred in Muḥammad.

م-د-ن — the relation of the root to dayn/dīn (ديـن) is disputed among the lexicographers; some explain madīna as "a governed place, a place under rule". The lexicographers do not agree on this explanation; I issue no etymological ruling. The common rendering of the word: a settled, ordered city.

Is there a point to the change? In the classical commentaries this is generally counted as stylistic variation. I record this as an observation and issue no ruling: the word changes precisely in the sentence in which the man comes from a distance — min aqṣa'l-madīna. To speak of the "farthest part" of a place presupposes that the place has boundaries and a centre. Madīna is the word that carries that measure.

عَزَّزَ — root ع-ز-ز. The core sense of the root is hardness and invincibility: arḍun ʿazāz — hard, stone-solid ground. From here ʿizza (invincibility) and ʿazīz (the one who prevails, who is not overcome).

Form II, taʿzīz: to strengthen a thing, to reinforce it, to make its rear secure.

The choice of word is worth recording: the verse does not say "We sent a third"; it says "We reinforced them with a third". The third messenger, that is, is not a new beginning but a support set behind the first two.

And this matches the first word of the verse: in the fifth verse the one who sends down had been named al-ʿAzīz — the same root. In the sūra ع-ز-ز occurs twice: at 5 and at 14. One is an attribute of the one who sends down, the other the reinforcing of the messengers. It is a verifiable connection; I do not claim that it establishes a point, I record it.

In the thirteenth verse, al-mursalūn — definite and plural. How many they were is not said. In the fourteenth verse, ithnayni — two people, then thālithin — a third.

The number, then, is not given first but afterwards. And the word order follows the order of the event: two went, they were called liars, a third was added. The narrative begins knowing the outcome but gives the event in sequence.

And a change of agent must be recorded: arsalnā — the sender is "We". The messengers did not come on their own account. This will determine what the objection in the fifteenth verse strikes against.

فَقَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّآ إِلَيْكُم مُّرْسَلُونَ — and the three speak together: innā ilaykum mursalūn. The very word used of the Prophet in the third verse (al-mursalīn / mursalūn). The sūra builds its own story with the word of its own opening sentence.