al-Ṣāffāt 37:1-5

Wa'ṣ-ṣāffāti ṣaffā · Fa'z-zājirāti zajrā · Fa't-tāliyāti dhikrā · Inna ilāhakum la-wāḥid · Rabbu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baynahumā wa rabbu'l-mashāriq

"By those drawn up in ranks · and those who drive on, driving · and those who recite a reminder: your God is one. The Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is between them, and the Lord of the risings."

The matter of the oath (qasam) was set out in this commentary in the section on al-ʿAṣr, widened into a long series in the section on al-Shams, and applied to this mould in particular in the sections on al-Mursalāt and al-Dhāriyāt. I do not repeat the findings there.

Its summary is this: in the Qurʾān an oath is not made to prove truthfulness — the one addressed is already disputing the truthfulness of the one who swears — but to draw attention to something. What is sworn by is at the same time a proof.

All three of the three oaths have the same structure: a definite active participle (feminine plural) + an accusative verbal noun from its own root.

Two observations must be recorded:

One — the cognate accusative. In the first two oaths the verb is reinforced with a verbal noun from its own root (ṣaffan, zajran). In Arabic this is called the cognate accusative, and it strengthens the verb: "drawing up in ranks upon ranks", "driving on and on". In the third this breaks: beside the word tāliyāt (those who recite) comes not tilāwatan, from its own root, but dhikran, from another root. In the third oath, then, there is not reinforcement but an object: what is recited is stated.

The same break was recorded in the section on al-Nāziʿāt, and there the series was in the form "two different at the outside, three the same within". Here the break is at the end: two the same, one different. This shows that the series is tied in its last verse to a subject — and the subject it is tied to is dhikr, that is, the carrier of the ruling to be stated in the fourth verse of the sūra.

Two — the conjunctions. One wāw, two fāʾ. فَ in Arabic announces succession and the absence of interval (fāʾ al-taʿqīb). As was recorded in the sections on al-ʿĀdiyāt and al-Dhāriyāt, the order wāw + fāʾ makes the verses a single oath: the three attributes are not three separate oaths but three steps of a single movement following one upon another.

The root was analysed in al-Ṣaff. The definition there: to set several things side by side on a straight line, in the same alignment. Its derivatives were given there too (maṣfūf — set in rows; al-Ghāshiya 88/15).

What is to be added here is this: the word comes here as a feminine plural active participle — ṣāffāt. Not "those that have been set in ranks", then, but "those who form ranks / who stand in ranks". The verb is active.

And the root will return at the end of the sūra: in the hundred and sixty-fifth verse, wa innā la-naḥnu'ṣ-ṣāffūn — "we, we indeed are those who stand in ranks". The party speaking there appears to be the very party left unnamed in the first verse. I will treat this link separately in a later section.

The root was analysed in al-Nāziʿāt (79/13 — zajratun wāḥida) and in al-Qamar (54/4 — muzdajar; 54/9 — uzdujira). I do not repeat it.

The definition there: to drive with the voice, to drive off by shouting, to direct by rebuke. The concrete use comes from the keeping of animals — the herdsman does not touch the beast, he shouts; the beast rises and moves. In the section on al-Nāziʿāt this verse (37/2) was already cited.

What is to be added here: at the centre of the word there is sound, and there is that sound's moving something from its place. Zajr does two pieces of work: it drives on and it drives away. Which of the two comes forward changes according to who is sworn by — this will be seen in the table below.

And the root occurs once more within the sūra: in the nineteenth verse, fa-innamā hiya zajratun wāḥida — "it is but a single cry". The sūra, that is, names the resurrection by the very act it swore by in its first verses. This is a countable datum.

The root was treated in al-Baqara and in al-Jumuʿa (yatlū ʿalayhim āyātihi). The basic note there holds here too and deserves repeating, because the whole of the verse rests on it:

The original sense of the root is not "to recite" but "to follow after". Talā — he came after, he followed. Tālī — the next, the one who comes behind. Wa'l-qamari idhā talāhā (al-Shams 91/2) — "by the moon when it follows it". There is no reciting there; there is following.

The sense of reciting arises from this picture: one who recites a text sets the letters one after another. Tilāwa, that is, is to set words in order and say them in succession.

And this shows how the three oaths are joined to one another — I record it as my own reading:

The common denominator of the three is "being set in line": one in place (side by side), one in movement (front to back), one in speech (word by word). And the last word of the series (dhikran) says what it is that is set in line: a reminder.

The text gives no name. Through three verses only attributes are set out. This is a recurring situation in the Qurʾān's series of oaths, and it has met us in three other sūras in this commentary.

What the four series have in common: all are definite feminine plural active participles; in none of them is the name of what is sworn by given; and in all four the same disagreement has arisen.

Their differences must also be recorded:

The last row is peculiar to al-Ṣāffāt and bears directly on the dispute over preference: the root of the attribute sworn by is used at the end of the sūra by a speaking party of itself.

Now the views:

No preference is imposed in this commentary. I write out the grounds:

One. There is no name in the text. The principle recorded in the sections on al-Mursalāt and al-Nāziʿāt holds here too: when the text swears by something it does not name, this is not a vagueness but a gain. An oath not locked to a single object can show more than one scene at once.

Two. In al-Ṣāffāt the language does not narrow as it does in al-Dhāriyāt. In the section on al-Dhāriyāt the first two verses were locked to the wind by the Qurʾān's own usage (al-Kahf 18/45; al-Aʿrāf 7/57), and for that reason it was recorded there that "the head of the series is locked". Here the situation is the reverse: the Qurʾān uses the word ṣāffāt plainly of birds (al-Nūr 24/41; al-Mulk 67/19) — the intra-Qurʾānic indication, that is, supports not the angel reading but the bird reading. But the third verse cannot be set up with birds. The indication pulls one way at the head of the series and another way at its end.

Three. The indication within the sūra is strong but not decisive. In the hundred and sixty-fourth and hundred and sixty-fifth verses a company says "each of us has a known station" and "we are those who stand in ranks". That the speakers are angels is the widespread view. This is the one datum within the sūra sharing a root with the first verse. But there is no explicit connecting sentence between the two places; it is the reader who makes the link.

If I must state my own inclination — and I record it not as a preference but as an inclination: the common denominator of the three attributes (order, movement, sequence) describes not so much a particular kind of being as an operation: a thing's being set in line, driven on, and delivered in sequence. In the section on al-Mursalāt this link was recorded as "the logic of being sent", in al-Dhāriyāt as "carrying and distributing". In al-Ṣāffāt its counterpart is this: an orderly chain of carriage. And the answer to the oath requires it as well: your God is one. The claim of oneness is supported in the language not of scattering but of order.

This is not binding and it eliminates none of the views above.

And the answer is one of the shortest answers to an oath in the Qurʾān: four words.

The word order must be recorded. The sentence carries two reinforcements: إِنَّ at the head and لَـ on the predicate (lām al-ibtidāʾ). In Arabic, when these two come together the sentence rises to the highest degree of emphasis. The expression is therefore not "your God is one" but "your God is certainly, beyond any doubt, one".

And there is a further point: the sentence does not say inna'llāha wāḥid ("God is one"). It says إِلَٰهَكُمْ — "your God". The addressee's own admission is taken and a ruling built upon it: whatever it is you serve, it is one. This is exactly the technique recorded in the section on al-Najm (53/21-22): to catch the other side not by a measure from outside but by proceeding from his own admission.

Wāḥid — root و-ح-د. Its difference from aḥad was treated in detail in al-Ikhlāṣ; I do not repeat it. The summary there was this: aḥad brings forward indivisibility in number, wāḥid the absence of anything of its kind. That wāḥid has been chosen here answers directly the other side's claim of "more than one god": a matter of number.

And in the fifth verse there is a notable absence.

The verse names three domains of lordship: the heavens, the earth, what is between them. Then it adds a fourth construct: wa rabbu'l-mashāriq — "the Lord of the risings".

The settings are not named.

Yet in other places the Qurʾān names the two together:

• rabbu'l-mashriqayni wa rabbu'l-maghribayn — "the Lord of the two risings and the Lord of the two settings" (al-Raḥmān 55/17). Treated in al-Raḥmān.
• bi-rabbi'l-mashāriqi wa'l-maghārib — "by the Lord of the risings and the settings" (al-Maʿārij 70/40). Treated in al-Maʿārij.
• al-mashriqi wa'l-maghribi — the singular pair (al-Baqara 2/115, 142; al-Muzzammil 73/9).

The Qurʾān thus sets up this construct in four different forms: the singular pair, the dual pair, the plural pair, and here — the plural rising alone.

This is a countable datum. Why it is so is disputed:

The first of these explanations (the verse-ending) rests on a verifiable fact; the others are plausible but cannot be proved. I do not impose a preference.

And a note of limitation — per the method (Method): no astronomical information is derived from this verse. That the word mashāriq is plural is not a statement of astronomy; describing the changing points of rising over the year in a given place is an everyday use of language in Arabic and rests on the observation of those addressed.

The five verses are built in a single movement: three oaths (order, movement, sequence) → one ruling (oneness) → the extent of the ruling (the heavens, the earth, what is between, the risings).

I record this as my own reading: the answer to the oath rests on number (wāḥid), and the oath itself rests on sequence and order. The sūra, that is, sets down oneness not as an abstract proposition but as the outcome of an operation. A thing set in line has a single ordering.

The shared picture of the three oaths — to be set in line, to be driven on, to be delivered in sequence — describes a discipline of operation. The end of the sūra ties this to the human being as well: "Each of us has a known station" (164).

I record it thus: what is praised at the opening of the sūra is neither power nor greatness; it is knowing one's place and waiting one's turn. This is something measurable in everyday life — a task runs when it is clear who stands where, and jams when it is not.