Yāsīn 36:77-78

Awalam yara'l-insānu annā khalaqnāhu min nuṭfatin fa-idhā huwa khaṣīmun mubīn · Wa ḍaraba lanā mathalan wa nasiya khalqahū, qāla man yuḥyi'l-ʿiẓāma wa hiya ramīm

"Has man not seen that We created him from a drop? And all at once there he is, a plain adversary in argument. He has struck a parable for Us and forgotten his own creation. He says: 'Who will bring the bones to life when they have crumbled?'"

Here the sūra widens the addressee for the third and last time: qawm → banī Ādam (60) → al-insān (77). This progression was tabulated above.

And the word is a generic noun — with the definite al-: the human kind. The sentence, that is, recounts not a person but a condition.

Idhā fujāʾiyya — the sixth and last occurrence in the sūra. A table of the six occurrences was given in the section on structure.

And this occurrence stands over the widest interval of the six:

Not a single stage in between is counted.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the particle itself: fa-idhā erases the whole distance in between. And what is erased is exactly what the next verse calls "forgotten". The word order of the sentence, that is, imitates the fault it diagnoses: the road between the drop and the arguer does not appear in the verse either — because it does not appear in a person's mind either.

A comparison must be recorded: in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/67 the same road had been recounted with six stages and five occurrences of thumma — that is, the intervals were deliberately shown. In Yāsīn there is a single fāʾ. The two verses give the same distance in two opposite ways: one by opening it out, the other by closing it up.

The lexical sense of the word: a small quantity of water, a drop. Nuṭfa — among the lexicographers it is used also for "the little water left in a bucket or a vessel". The root has occurred in al-Qiyāma, al-Insān, ʿAbasa and al-Najm.

And the limit of method set in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/67 holds here too, and I repeat it: words such as nuṭfa are not equated one-to-one with the terms of modern embryology. The work of the verse is not to give a description of stages — indeed no stage is counted here at all. The proof is that the beginning of a human being is not in his own hands. It is the same line as the one treated in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/58-59.

The root خ-ص-م occurs for the second time in the sūra. In the forty-ninth verse wa hum yakhiṣṣimūn (while they wrangle) had been said.

Both occurrences can be verified. And the difference of pattern must be recorded: in Arabic the faʿīl pattern announces a settled and fixed quality. Man, that is, is named not as someone who is arguing but as an arguer.

مُّبِين — the last of the sūra's six occurrences of mubīn. And the first occurrence of the adjective, in the twelfth verse, was used of a record (imāmin mubīn); the last is used of man himself. The six occurrences of the adjective were tabulated in the section on structure.

And one of the clearest rings of the sūra is completed here.

In the thirteenth verse the Prophet had been commanded: wa'ḍrib lahum mathalan — "strike a parable for them." In the seventy-eighth it is said of man: wa ḍaraba lanā mathalan — "he has struck a parable for Us."

The same verb, the same object, the reverse direction. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the identity of the two constructions: in the thirteenth verse to strike a parable is a bridge built so that the other side may understand. In the seventy-eighth, to strike a parable becomes setting out from what is in one's own hand and passing judgement about the whole. The same verb is used once to explain and once to set a limit.

And now come the three words that carry the whole closing section of the sūra.

ن-س-ي — the root has two branches, and the lexicographers record both:

The second branch is used plainly in the Qurʾān (nasu'llāha fa-nasiyahum, al-Tawba 9/67). The root has occurred in al-Mujādala, al-Jāthiya and al-Ḥashr.

Which branch in the verse? A disagreement:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

The same proof was treated in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/62: wa laqad ʿalimtumu'n-nashʾata'l-ūlā fa-lawlā tadhakkarūn — "you have known the first bringing forth; will you not then reflect?" The finding there was this: the proof rests not on a lack of knowledge but on a knowledge already present — ʿalimtum, "you know." I rely on that treatment.

And the two sūras name the same gap with two different words. A comparison table:

The two verses look at the same datum and do two different pieces of work. al-Wāqiʿa calls to remembrance, Yāsīn diagnoses the forgetting.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference between the two verbs: in neither sūra does the proof bring new information. What it brings is the taking into account of something already known. And this determines the force of the proof: no acceptance is asked of the other side — he is asked to draw the conclusion from what he already accepts.

And the link within Yāsīn can be verified: in the twenty-second verse the man who came running had said alladhī faṭaranī — "the one who brought me into being." In the seventy-eighth verse man is spoken of as wa nasiya khalqahū — "he has forgotten his own creation."

The same datum, in two different persons. My own reading: the man in the sūra's story is the person who remembers what the man in the closing section forgets. Both are looking from the same place; one takes his own beginning as proof, the other forgets it and takes his own end as proof.

ٱلْعِظَٰم — the plural of ʿaẓm, root ع-ظ-م. The root was treated in al-Ḥāqqa and in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/96: the lexicographers record the relation between ʿaẓm (bone) and ʿaẓīm (great) — the bone is the hardest and load-bearing part of the body. I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here: the material of the objection. The objector chooses the most durable part of the body. My own reading: if the hardest part rots away, the rest has already ceased to be. The objection is built in its strongest form — and the answer will be given at exactly this point.

رَمِيم — root ر-م-م. The root has two branches, and the lexicographers record both:

The same root announces both decay and repair. The lexicographers record this doubleness; I make no point of it, I note the existence of the root's two branches. And this can be verified: the objection uses the first branch of the root, and the answer recounts the work of the second.

A note on word order: wa hiya ramīm — the pronoun is feminine (hiya, for the bones) while the adjective is masculine in form (ramīm, not ramīma). The lexicographers attribute this to the faʿīl pattern's having the sense of a passive participle (like marmūm); in this pattern the masculine-feminine distinction falls away. It is a settled usage.

It is transmitted in the classical commentaries that a man brought a rotted bone and crumbled it in his hand as he put this objection.

In this commentary: the reports transmitted about the man's name differ from one another; I give no name. I content myself with recording that the incident is transmitted.

And the understanding of the verse does not depend on that report — the verse says al-insān, it gives no personal name.