al-Zukhruf 43:54-56

Fa'stakhaffa qawmahu fa-aṭāʿūh · Innahum kānū qawman fāsiqīn · Fa-lammā āsafūna'ntaqamnā minhum fa-aghraqnāhum ajmaʿīn · Fa-jaʿalnāhum salafan wa mathalan li'l-ākhirīn

"He made light of his people, and they obeyed him. They were a people who had broken bounds. And when they angered Us, We took retribution from them and drowned them all. We made them a past and an example for those who come after."

The root was treated in al-Qāriʿa at 101/8, and this verse was already cited there; it was cited in al-Nāziʿāt as well. What was recorded in the discussion of al-Qāriʿa was this:

"Root: خ-ف-ف. To be light. اِسْتَخَفَّ — to reckon light, to belittle, to make light of. 'He made light of his people, and they obeyed him' (al-Zukhruf 43/54). This last derivative is worth dwelling on. In Arabic the same root carries both lightness on the scale and not taking seriously. English has the same relation: we say 'to make light of'."

I rely on that treatment and add here what is particular to al-Zukhruf.

The pattern is Form X (istifʿāl), and the finding I recorded above for yastahziʾūn (7) holds here too: this form conveys "to reckon a thing so, to find it so".

But the verb istakhaffa has a second sense in the lexicographers as well, and the exegetes are divided between the two in this verse:

Both are recorded by the lexicographers. I do not impose a preference.

But it must be recorded that both readings are tied to the same outcome: fa-aṭāʿūh — "and they obeyed him".

Between the two verbs there is a fāʾ: fa'stakhaffa … fa-aṭāʿūh.

Fāʾ in Arabic conveys both sequence and cause: immediately after, and on account of it.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the connector itself: the verse does not set two events side by side; it makes the one the cause of the other. Making light becomes the cause of obedience.

And at first sight this seems inverted — ordinarily one who is made light of does not obey.

What the verse shows is this, and it is directly connected with the sūra's main question: Pharaoh offered his people no proof. He showed them three things: dominion (51), a vista (51), and the smallness of the other side (52-53). None of these was a ground. The people obeyed all the same.

The verse, that is, describes how a want of measure meets with a response: a people made light of follows the one who makes light of it. And that this is possible means that the making light of them has been borne out.

I mark this as my own reading; the wording of the verse does not yield this conclusion, the linking of the two verbs with fāʾ does.

And the end of the verse sets the verdict: innahum kānū qawman fāsiqīn.

The root ف-س-ق: the concrete sense the lexicographers give is the date's coming out of its skin (fasaqa'r-ruṭabu min qishrihi). That is, splitting one's husk and coming out. From there: to go outside the bound.

In al-Aḥqāf at 46/35 the same word occurred at the close of that sūra, and this was recorded there: "the close ties the measure of destruction to an act: fāsiqūn — those who go outside the bound. No lineage, no people, no community is named; an attribute is named."

I keep the same line here: the verdict is tied not to who the obedient were, but to what they did.

The sense of the root: severe grief; and anger. The lexicographers record both branches of the root and explain them thus: asaf is the state one is in before a loss that has no recompense — a state which, looked at from below, is grief, and from above, anger.

The Qurʾān uses the word of Jacob: yā asafā ʿalā Yūsuf (Yūsuf 12/84) — there it is in the sense of grief. And of Moses: ghaḍbāna asifā (al-Aʿrāf 7/150; Ṭāhā 20/86) — there it comes together with anger.

In Form IV (āsafa): to make someone angry, to grieve him.

And here a note must be entered.

The agent of the verb is human beings, and its object is the first person plural pronoun (-nā): "they angered Us".

Expressions of this kind (expressions ascribing feeling to God) have been debated in the classical literature of theology, and two approaches have developed:

Both have been defended in the Islamic tradition. I do not impose a preference and I issue no ruling on the modality. What is to be recorded is what both approaches accept in common: the expression is not to be understood as the counterpart of human anger.

And the verb jaʿala comes for the sixth time in the sūra.

The root س-ل-ف: to go in front, to pass ahead. Salaf — those who went before. Sulfa — what is paid in advance. The Turkish word selef ("one's predecessor in an office") comes from here.

Two readings are transmitted for the word:

Both are possible; I do not impose a preference.

And the word mathal connects with the eighth verse of the sūra. I complete here the ring I set out above:

The same word, at the two ends of the sūra, in two opposite directions. This is a verifiable datum of the text.

And I add as an observation: the eighth verse said "the example of those of old has passed." The fifty-sixth shows what it is that makes such an example: a people turns into an example for those who come after to read.