كَذَّبَتْ قَبْلَهُمْ قَوْمُ نُوحٍ وَعَادٌ وَفِرْعَوْنُ ذُو ٱلْأَوْتَادِ · وَثَمُودُ وَقَوْمُ لُوطٍ وَأَصْحَٰبُ ٱلْأَيْكَةِ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ ٱلْأَحْزَابُ · إِن كُلٌّ إِلَّا كَذَّبَ ٱلرُّسُلَ فَحَقَّ عِقَابِ
Kadhdhabat qablahum qawmu Nūḥin wa ʿĀdun wa Firʿawnu dhu'l-awtād · Wa Thamūdu wa qawmu Lūṭin wa aṣḥābu'l-ayka, ulāʾika'l-aḥzāb · In kullun illā kadhdhaba'r-rusula fa-ḥaqqa ʿiqāb
"Before them the people of Noah (Nūḥ) cried lies, and ʿĀd, and Pharaoh, lord of the stakes; and Thamūd, and the people of Lot (Lūṭ), and the people of al-Ayka. Those are the factions. Every one of them did nothing but cry lies to the envoys; and My punishment fell due."
Six peoples are counted, divided across two verses. And a similar list was treated in Qāf at 50/12-14 — there were eight peoples there. Comparing the two lists shows that the selection is not random.
| Qāf 50/12-14 | Ṣād 38/12-13 | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Eight | Six |
| Those in common | Noah, al-Rass, Thamūd, ʿĀd, Pharaoh, Lot, al-Ayka, Tubbaʿ | Noah, ʿĀd, Pharaoh, Thamūd, Lot, al-Ayka |
| Absent in Ṣād | The people of al-Rass, the people of Tubbaʿ | — |
| The close | fa-ḥaqqa waʿīd (the threat came true) | fa-ḥaqqa ʿiqāb (the punishment came true) |
| Word | Root | What it conveys |
|---|---|---|
| وَعِيد (Qāf) | و-ع-د | What was promised — as yet only in words |
| عِقَاب (Ṣād) | ع-ق-ب | The requital that follows after — what has actually come |
The concrete sense of the root ع-ق-ب was treated in Muḥammad: the heel, that which comes after. ʿĀqiba — what comes behind a matter. That is, ʿiqāb stresses the punishment's quality of "coming from behind".
I record this as my own reading: Qāf ends its list with the fulfilment of a threat, Ṣād ends the same list with the arrival of a requital. The two name the same event from two different sides: the one, the keeping of a word; the other, the outcome of a deed.
And the yāʾ at the end of the word ʿiqāb has dropped here too (ʿiqābī, not ʿiqāb) — like ʿadhāb in the eighth verse. Both are for conformity to the verse-ending.
This construct was treated in detail in al-Fajr at 89/10, and a table of four views was given there. I rely on that and do not repeat it here.
The summary of the analysis of the root there: و-ت-د — watid/watad: a stake, a nail, a post driven into the ground; its plural is awtād. The work of a stake is one thing only: to hold something in place. A stake is not driven for its own sake; it is driven so that something else will not move.
And in the discussion of al-Fajr this too was recorded: in al-Nabaʾ 78/7 the same word is used of the mountains (wa'l-jibāla awtādā) — that is, the idea of fixing is not in itself bad; what is bad is the confusion about whose the authority to fix is.
| View | What it means | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| Soldiers, armies | The power that holds up a reign — like the stakes that hold a tent | The metaphor of "stakes" for support in Arabic; the word's coming in the plural |
| A firm, settled reign | A rule whose roots are driven into the ground, unshakeable | The stake's real function is to fix; the metaphor is direct |
| Buildings, monuments | Edifices built to last | The monumental architecture of Egypt |
| An instrument of torture | The stakes on which he stretched people | Some exegetes have understood it so; I do not go into the details |
The note in the discussion of al-Fajr holds here too: I do not impose a firm preference, and the first three views come out at the same place — a power thought to be fixed and unshakeable.
What is particular to Ṣād is where the construct stands, and this too was named in the discussion of al-Fajr:
| al-Fajr 89/6-10 | Ṣād 38/12-13 | |
|---|---|---|
| Length of the list | Three (ʿĀd, Thamūd, Pharaoh) | Six |
| Pharaoh's place | The end of the list — a descent from crowds to a single man | The middle of the list — inside the enumeration |
| The function of the epithet | To mark the summit | To make recognition possible |
In the discussion of al-Fajr the following was recorded for this construct, and it matters: "the expression 'lord of the stakes' is a settled designation the Qurʾān uses for Pharaoh; it is not an invention peculiar to al-Fajr. This shows that the expression was something the hearers understood." The usage in Ṣād is the ground of that finding.
أَيْكَة — dense woodland, thicket, grove. This people was named in Qāf at 50/14, and as was recorded there the Qurʾān mentions them in several places (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/176; al-Ḥijr 15/78) and associates them with the peoples to whom Shuʿayb was sent.
I do not go into the detail: whether the people of al-Ayka and the people of Midian are one people or two has been disputed in the classical sources, and no preference is adopted in this commentary.
What is to be recorded is this: five of the six peoples on the list are named by a prophet's name or by a people's name; the people of al-Ayka, however, by the name of a place — by a wood. The list, that is, varies the modes of recognition: some by their leader (Noah, Lot), some by their lineage (ʿĀd, Thamūd), some by their ruler (Pharaoh), some by their country (al-Ayka).
In the eleventh verse mina'l-aḥzāb ("of the factions") had been said, and which factions was not stated. The thirteenth verse gives the answer: ulāʾika'l-aḥzāb — "those are the factions."
I record this as my own reading: in the eleventh verse the present opponents had been named "a routed army". The thirteenth verse says who that army is by counting from the past. The present group, that is, is placed as the continuation of the groups of the past — not as an accusation but as a classification.
إِن… إِلَّا — a strong pattern of restriction in Arabic: "nothing other than…". In English it is carried by "nothing but", "only".
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| A collective view | The six peoples are named collectively; taken all together, the envoys who were cried lies to are many |
| To cry lies to one envoy is to cry lies to them all | What the envoys brought is one in its principle; whoever rejects one has rejected the principle |
The second view finds support in other verses of the Qurʾān — as in the saying of the people of Noah that "they cried lies to the envoys" (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/105); yet the envoy who came to them was one. I do not impose a preference, but the second explanation accords better with the usage elsewhere in the text.