Ṣād 38:9-11

Am ʿindahum khazāʾinu raḥmati rabbika'l-ʿazīzi'l-Wahhāb · Am lahum mulku's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baynahumā, fa'l-yartaqū fi'l-asbāb · Jundun mā hunālika mahzūmun mina'l-aḥzāb

"Or are the treasuries of the mercy of your Lord — the mighty, the great giver — with them? Or is the dominion of the heavens and the earth and what is between them theirs? Then let them climb up the ropes! They are a ragtag army, routed there."

Am in Arabic means "or", and it attaches to a preceding question. Here it attaches to the question in the eighth verse: a-unzila ʿalayhi'dh-dhikru min bayninā — "has the reminder been sent down on him, from among us?"

And the answer hands the question back to the other side. Thus:

I record this as my own reading: the objection had been made to a decision about distribution. The answer asks whose the distribution is. The dispute, that is, is turned from "is the choice right?" to "with whom does the power of choosing lie?"

This is another form of the diagnosis recorded in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/56: it was said there that beneath the dispute lay kibr, and that this pride was a thing not to be reached (mā hum bi-bālighīh). Here there is the same structure: a claim to authority, and the showing that the authority is not in fact in their hands.

Root خ-ز-ن: to conceal a thing, to store and guard it. Khāzin — the one who holds the treasury, its keeper. Khizāna — the place where things are kept.

And note the construct: khazāʾinu raḥmati rabbik — "the treasuries of the mercy of your Lord". Not the treasury of wealth, but of mercy.

I record this because this is what is under dispute: prophethood, in the language of the verse, is not a fortune or an office but is counted in the ledger of mercy. The other side was speaking of it as a status; the text names it as a gift.

Two names come in succession, and both matter in this sūra.

ٱلْعَزِيز — root ع-ز-ز. It was treated at the second verse: hard, impenetrable, not to be overcome. It is the answer, seven verses later, to the ʿizza of the other side (2).

ٱلْوَهَّاب — root و-ه-ب: to give without return. Pattern: فَعَّال — intensity and continuity. Hiba is from the same root: what is given without expecting a return.

This is the most distinctive side of the root, and the lexicographers record it plainly: wahb is giving without a price. Not a sale, not a reward, not a loan — without return.

The two names standing side by side set up a balance:

I record this as my own reading: the two together sum up the whole logic of the sūra. A thing that cannot be seized is a thing that can be given. The other side supposes prophethood to be something to be "wrested"; the verse says it is something "given".

And a sequence of the same kind was treated in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/3 — there five attributes came in succession and mercy and punishment were given in one breath. Here the structure is a pair, but its function is the same: the naming of two directions together.

And this name will recur in the sūra: in the thirty-fifth verse Solomon will call on it in his prayer — innaka anta'l-Wahhāb. A name that occurs in a sentence of polemic, that is, comes back twenty-six verses later in the prayer of a prophet. It was tabulated above.

The sentence is in the imperative but is not a command. In Arabic this is called taʿjīz: showing the limit of the other side's power by commanding what cannot be done.

ٱرْتَقَىٰ — root ر-ق-ي: to rise, to climb. Ruqyā — a ladder. Form VIII (iftiʿāl) conveys that the act is done by the agent's own effort: to go up by one's own exertion.

أَسْبَاب — its singular is sabab. And the concrete sense of the root is very clear: سَبَب — a rope, a cable; especially a rope used to reach somewhere. The rope let down into a well, the rope tied to a tent.

From here the abstract sense arose: sabab — the means that brings one to a thing. The word passed into Turkish as sebep, "cause", and in Turkish the rope behind it has been forgotten.

Now the picture of the sentence comes out: "If the dominion is yours, take hold of the ropes and climb."

And this uses exactly the same word as the scene of Pharaoh treated in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/36-37:

This is a shared wording that can be verified. And the conclusion recorded in the discussion of Ghāfir holds here too: a claim to authority is always told through an attempt to ascend, and it is always unreached.

Every word of the sentence carries a belittlement, and its construction is striking in Arabic.

جُنْد — root ج-ن-د: a body gathered and brought together; an army. The word is indefinite (with tanwīn) — "an army", any army.

مَّا — here, on the view of the majority of grammarians, it is زَائِدَة, that is, a particle that has come for emphasis, and it conveys belittlement (taḥqīr). The nearest English rendering: "what they call an army", "that broken-down army over there".

هُنَالِكَ — "there". A far demonstrative. Not a near place but a distant one is being pointed at.

مَهْزُوم — root ه-ز-م. And the concrete sense of the root must be recorded: to break a thing, to make it cave in; the collapse of something hollow. The lexicographers say hazama'l-siqāʾa — he caved in the waterskin (because it had emptied). The sound of a dry branch snapping is also called hazīm.

To be defeated, that is, is in Arabic a caving-in — losing one's shape not under a blow from outside but because one has emptied inside.

ٱلْأَحْزَاب — its singular ḥizb: a separated part of a body of people, a faction, a party. The word will come again in this sūra at the thirteenth verse: ulāʾika'l-aḥzāb — "those are the factions."

Now the construction is complete, and the time-note matters: mahzūm is a passive participle — that is, not "will be routed" but "routed".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pattern of the word: the sentence gives no news of the future; it makes a statement of state. The army is counted beaten before it has fought — because the picture in the root hazm is not a blow from outside but the collapse of what is hollow.

And the eleventh verse builds a bridge to the twelfth: mina'l-aḥzāb — "of the factions". Which factions? The next verse will count them. The sūra, that is, uses the word first and gives its list afterwards.

The three verses from nine to eleven do a single work: they ask whether a claim has anything behind it.

And the form of the question is worth recording. The verse does not say "you are mistaken"; it asks "what have you got?" Are there treasuries, is there dominion, will you be able to climb?

I record this as my own inference: this is a methodical answer to the objections between the fourth and eighth verses. The other side had framed sentences that cannot be tested (astonishment, insinuation, "we have not heard"). The answer asks a question that can be tested: with whom does the authority in fact lie?

And this distinction — between the untestable sentence and the testable question — will go on working through the rest of the sūra. In the twenty-second verse two litigants will lay an event before a judge and ask for a measure; those quarrelling in the Fire (59-64), on the other hand, will trade untestable accusations and reach no conclusion at all.