al-Zukhruf 43:77

Wa nādaw yā Māliku li-yaqḍi ʿalaynā rabbuk · Qāla innakum mākithūn

"They called out: 'Mālik! Let your Lord make an end of us!' He said: 'You are staying.'"

This verse has been cited in several places in the corpus (al-Aʿlā, al-Ḥāqqa, al-Muddaththir); here it is treated in detail for the first time.

The word is understood as the name of a keeper, and it is transmitted so in most of the classical commentaries.

The root م-ل-ك: to own a thing, to have the power of disposal over it. The root was treated in detail in al-Mulk, and verse 85 of this sūra was cited there.

The other information the Qurʾān gives about the keepers of Hell was gathered in al-Muddaththir, and this verse was cited there:

"The other information the Qurʾān gives about the keepers of Hell: 'over it are angels harsh and severe' (al-Taḥrīm 66/6); and a call: 'Mālik!' (al-Zukhruf 43/77)."

I rely on that treatment and keep the same limit: I produce no description beyond what the text states.

A variant reading is transmitted: a reading in the form yā Māli (with the final kāf dropped) has also been recorded. In Arabic, dropping a letter from the end of a noun in the vocative (tarkhīm) is a known usage. It produces no difference in meaning.

And the construction of the request must be treated in detail, because every word of it says something.

The last row is worth recording, and the exegetes dwell on it.

The request is framed not by saying "our Lord" but by saying "your Lord".

The readings transmitted for this expression are these:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

But this can be recorded, and I give it as an observation about the arrangement: in the sixty-eighth verse of the sūra the address was direct — yā ʿibādi ("my servants"). In the seventy-seventh the call is made to a keeper, and the Lord is named as someone else's Lord.

The difference between the two scenes is not only place but the direction of the address.

The root ق-ض-ي: to complete a matter, to finish it, to bring a verdict to its conclusion. And the construction qaḍā ʿalayhi means "he finished him off, he killed him".

What is being asked for, then, is plain and must be recorded: an ending. The request is not for a deliverance but for an end.

The root is analysed here for the first time in the corpus.

The sense of the root: to remain in a place, to wait, to linger; to stay without haste.

• مَكَثَ — he remained, he waited.
• مُكْث / مَكْث — stopping and waiting in a place; and acting slowly, not hurrying.
• مَاكِث — one who remains, one who waits.

The root occurs in several places in the Qurʾān and in most of them in the sense of waiting: al-Naml 27/22 (fa-makatha ghayra baʿīd — "he did not stay away long"); Ṭāhā 20/10 (umkuthū — "stay, wait"); al-Isrāʾ 17/106 (li-taqraʾahu ʿala'n-nāsi ʿalā mukth — "that you may recite it to people slowly").

The last example is worth recording, and the comparison is fruitful:

The same root: in one place a tempo of recitation, in another a condition.

And the word the answer chooses must be recorded — I give this as my own reading:

The answer does not say "no". It does not say "you cannot get out". It says "you are staying".

Mākith, in the picture of the root, is the one who is waiting. And the request was precisely for the waiting to end.

The answer, then, gives back not the opposite of the request but its subject: the waiting continues.

And in al-Ḥāqqa this verse was linked with another (yā laytahā kānati'l-qāḍiya — al-Ḥāqqa 69/27, "would that it had been the end"); there this verse was cited as support and not presented as binding. I keep the same note.

This verse was cited in al-Aʿlā as well — there together with lā yamūtu fīhā wa lā yaḥyā (al-Aʿlā 87/13). The two verses say the same thing: it neither ends nor goes on.