al-Ṣāffāt 37:108-113

Wa taraknā ʿalayhi fi'l-ākhirīn · Salāmun ʿalā Ibrāhīm · Kadhālika najzi'l-muḥsinīn · Innahu min ʿibādina'l-muʾminīn · Wa bashsharnāhu bi-Isḥāqa nabiyyan mina'ṣ-ṣāliḥīn · Wa bāraknā ʿalayhi wa ʿalā Isḥāq, wa min dhurriyyatihimā muḥsinun wa ẓālimun li-nafsihi mubīn

"And We left upon him, among those who came after: 'Peace be upon Abraham.' Thus do We requite those who do good. He was one of Our believing servants. And We gave him the good news of Isaac, a prophet from among the righteous. And We blessed him and Isaac. And of the progeny of them both there is the one who does good and the one who plainly wrongs himself."

And this is the one omission in the table of the sūra's closing moulds.

This is a fact that can be verified from the text: in four of the five occurrences innā is present, in one it is not.

And the reason is not said in the verse. The explanations transmitted in the classical commentaries:

All three are explanations that can be transmitted. I issue no firm ruling.

But the first explanation is supported by a textual datum, and I record it: the only section in which the mould occurs twice is the Abraham section, and the shortening is there too. The repetition and the shortening are in the same section. This is a fact; it is not a claim of cause and effect.

And the hundred and twelfth verse comes after the section of the sacrifice has closed.

A point of word order must be recorded: the verse says wa bashsharnāhu bi-Isḥāq — plainly by name. In the hundred and first verse it had said bi-ghulāmin ḥalīm — without a name and with an attribute.

This is the most important ground of word order in the question of the sacrifice, and it was given in the table above. I do not repeat it.

Nabiyyan — root ن-ب-أ (news) or ن-ب-و (to rise). Two derivations are transmitted:

The root ن-ب-أ was analysed in al-Nabaʾ. Both derivations are transmitted by the lexicographers; I issue no firm ruling.

Mina'ṣ-ṣāliḥīn — and the answer to the prayer. In the hundredth verse Abraham had said rabbi hab lī mina'ṣ-ṣāliḥīn. In the hundred and twelfth the same construction comes as the answer. This is a link that can be verified from the text and is one of the plainest instances of prayer and response in the sūra.

Bāraka — root ب-ر-ك. And the concrete picture of the root is worth noting: birka — a pool, a gathering of water; baraka'l-baʿīr — the camel put its chest to the ground and knelt. The common denominator: to stay in a place, to accumulate.

Baraka, then, is not abundance but lastingness and continuance: a thing's staying in its place and increasing.

And the preposition ʿalā: bāraknā ʿalayhi — "We sent down blessing upon him". Not lahu (to him). ʿAlā announces a thing that comes from above and settles upon.

The two names are named separately: ʿalayhi wa ʿalā Isḥāq. The preposition is repeated — in Arabic this announces that the two parties are meant separately. The blessing, that is, is not shared but comes in two separate portions.

And this sentence sets down one of the most important notes of the sūra.

Dhurriyyatihimā — "the progeny of them both", a dual pronoun.

And the sentence says this: from the same line two kinds of human being come.

Muḥsin is the word of the sūra's closing mould (najzi'l-muḥsinīn). The attribute occurring in the mould of reward, that is, is here given to a part of the line — not to all of it.

And this is the direct textual counterpart of a principle recorded in Method:

"A judgement is not built wholesale upon an ethnic or religious group; it is the attributes the verse describes, and whoever bears that attribute is included in it."

The verse does exactly this. Descent from a prophet gives no attribute; the attribute belongs to individual persons.

I record this as my own reading: the placing of the verse here is meaningful in point of word order. A moment ago two names were blessed; immediately after, it is said that blessing does not pass automatically to the line. With the two sentences side by side, the second draws the limit of the first.

Ẓālim li-nafsihi — "one who wrongs himself". And note: the wrong is not to another but to himself.

Ẓalama — root ظ-ل-م: to put a thing somewhere other than its place. The root was analysed in al-Baqara. The note there: the original sense of the root is not "injustice" but displacement.

And the qualification li-nafsihi accords exactly with this root: one who wrongs himself is one who has put himself out of the place he ought to be in.

Mubīn — "plainly". The attribute belongs to ẓālim and comes last. The wrong is not hidden, then; it is visible.

And the balance within the sūra must be recorded — this is a textual datum:

After using the two attributes separately, the sūra joins them in a single sentence in the last verse of the Abraham section. This is a countable fact.