44. Sūrat al-Dukhān

Fifty-nine verses. It is widely reported that it was revealed in the Meccan period. It takes its name from a single word in the tenth verse: دُخَان — smoke.

The sūra stands at the middle of the seven sūras that open with ḥā-mīm (the Ḥawāmīm) and keeps up the shared habit of the group: immediately after the letters, the Book is named. This pattern was recorded in al-Aḥqāf; it holds in al-Dukhān as well — the second verse begins wa'l-kitābi'l-mubīn.

The subject of the sūra is not a single thing; but its method is single. What it does from beginning to end is to exchange the places of what the addressee expects and what he ought to expect.

We may see it thus. The sūra begins with a night: on one night every affair is separated (4). Then a day comes: on that day everything is separated (40). Everything that stands between — the smoke, Pharaoh, Tubbaʿ, the zaqqūm, the muttaqīn (those who guard themselves) — takes its place between these two separations.

And the sūra lays a single verb upon its addressee: irtaqib — watch. This command is given in the tenth verse, repeated in the fifty-ninth, and the sūra closes with it. The forty-nine verses between are the content of that watching.

The most disputed place in the sūra comes immediately after this command: "watch for the day when the sky will bring a manifest smoke." What this smoke is is one of the oldest and most open disagreements in the history of exegesis, and it will be given below in a table, with no preference imposed.

Eight blocks. Most of the block boundaries can be read off the nominal sentences at the ends of the verses.

Two of the blocks look directly at one another, and they say so in their very wording. Block III enumerates what the house of Pharaoh left behind (25-27); block VII enumerates what is given to the muttaqīn (51-55). As will be shown below, the two lists are built out of the same words, and the only difference between them is one particle and one word.

These are countable data of the text. What is interpretation is the claim that they form a pattern, and I present that as an observation.

The phrase that occurs in the twenty-fifth and the fifty-second verses is identical letter for letter: جَنَّاتٍ وَعُيُونٍ. The only thing that changes is the particle before it: مِن (from — the place they departed) and فِي (in — the place they are in).

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: the sūra builds its two tableaux out of the same material and reduces the difference to the person's position with respect to that material. And the two adjectives added to the two lists say what the difference is: karīm (splendid) and amīn (safe); fākihīn (taking their ease) and āminīn (in safety).

What is missing in the two lists is not splendour but safety.

The same grammatical pattern occurs in four places in the sūra:

The pattern is the same: emphasis + an intervening pronoun of separation (huwa/anta) + a predicate with the definite article. In Arabic this triad is used to say that an attribute belongs to that one alone — qaṣr (restriction).

And the sūra gives this pattern three times to its owner and once to someone who is not its owner. In the forty-second verse al-ʿAzīz is God's; in the forty-ninth the same attribute, in the same pattern, is said of a man inside the punishment.

This is the sharpest point of word order in the sūra, and it will be taken up in detail at the forty-ninth verse.

In Qāf it was recorded that forty-five verses end in a single sound-pattern. There is a similar case in al-Dukhān, and it can be counted. The list below begins at the second verse; the first is ḥā-mīm, and it too closes on the same sound, on mīm:

mubīn, mundhirīn, ḥakīm, mursilīn, ʿalīm, mūqinīn, awwalīn, yalʿabūn, mubīn, alīm, muʾminūn, mubīn, majnūn, ʿāʾidūn, muntaqimūn, karīm, amīn, mubīn, tarjumūn, faʿtazilūn, mujrimūn, muttabaʿūn, mughraqūn, ʿuyūn, karīm, fākihīn, ākharīn, munẓarīn, muhīn, musrifīn, ʿālamīn, mubīn, yaqūlūn, munsharīn, ṣādiqīn, mujrimīn, lāʿibīn, yaʿlamūn, ajmaʿīn, yunṣarūn, raḥīm, al-zaqqūm, al-athīm, al-buṭūn, al-ḥamīm, al-jaḥīm, al-ḥamīm, al-karīm, tamtarūn, amīn, ʿuyūn, mutaqābilīn, ʿīn, āminīn, al-jaḥīm, al-ʿaẓīm, yatadhakkarūn, murtaqibūn.

All fifty-nine of the fifty-nine verses end in this pattern: a long ī or ū sound, followed by a single nasal letter — n or m. There is no exception.

I record this as a countable fact. The note entered in Qāf holds here too: no reckoning of letters or numbers is entered into; what is recorded is only that the sūra is read on a single breath and with a single closing sound.

It is widely reported that the sūra is Meccan. I give no particular account of an occasion of revelation; what is transmitted about the background of the tenth verse is part of the disagreement about the smoke itself, and will be taken up there.

The basmala was treated in al-Fātiḥa; the verses are counted without it.

Ḥā-mīm · Wa'l-kitābi'l-mubīn

"Ḥā-mīm. By the clear Book."

The general record on the disconnected letters was entered at length in the section al-Baqara 2/1, and in summary at Qāf 50/1. I do not repeat it here.

The summary of the records made there is this:

The meaning of these letters is not known with certainty. One group of scholars refers the meaning to God (tafwīḍ). Among the views that seek an explanation, the one that finds most support from within the text is the explanation that the letters make the challenge meaningful by pointing to the raw material of the Qurʾān. And no numerical reckoning, no abjad and no counting of letters is done over these letters.

In Qāf this record was entered once again, in bold. I enter it here for the third time, and I write the reason: ḥā-mīm stands at the head of seven sūras, that is, it is the most frequently repeated of the groups of disconnected letters; and repetition is the place most open to the manufacture of claims. This commentary does not go down that road.

What can be recorded is a verifiable fact of word order, and it was already recorded in al-Aḥqāf:

"In almost all the sūras that open with ḥā-mīm, the Book is named immediately after the opening."

al-Dukhān is one of the shortest examples of this pattern: the letters are said, and in the second verse al-kitāb comes with nothing at all between.

The table drawn up in Qāf for the three sūras with a single letter gains one more row here:

The difference is worth recording: of two sūras opening with the same group of letters, one speaks of the Book by swearing by it, the other by making a statement. I give this as an observation; it agrees with the difference in how the two sūras work — al-Aḥqāf demands proof, al-Dukhān commands watching.

The Qurʾān's swearing by itself was treated in Qāf; the record made there was this: the text begins its work by swearing by itself and ends it by commanding a reminding by means of itself.

In al-Dukhān the same chain is built more plainly still:

The sūra opens by swearing by the Book and closes by saying that the Book has been made easy. The referent of the pronoun -hu in the fifty-eighth verse is disputed and will be taken up there; but the most widespread reading refers it to the Qurʾān.

Root: ب-ي-ن. In al-Aḥqāf the double use of this root at al-Aḥqāf 46/7-8 was treated; the concrete sense of the root is "the opening of a space between two things". Bayn — the space between. Bāna — it parted, it was distinguished. Bayān — making distinguishable. Mubīn — the active participle of Form IV.

And the most instructive side of the root is that Form IV works in Arabic both transitively and intransitively:

The lexicographers transmit both readings, and no preference is imposed in this commentary. The two do not exclude one another: a thing that is not itself clear is hardly to be expected to make anything else clear.

Now we come to the count within the sūra, and this is the most conspicuous fact of wording in al-Dukhān.

The word mubīn occurs five times in this sūra, and each time it qualifies something else:

Five separate things, one single adjective. And the things qualified form a series: the Book (a word), the smoke (an image), the messenger (a person), the proof (evidence), the trial (a situation).

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the five verses: the sūra names with the same adjective every kind of evidence that can be brought against the addressee. It leaves, that is, no claim of unintelligibility standing. And the consequence of this will be stated plainly in the thirteenth verse: "how should the reminder come to them, when a manifest messenger has come to them?" — that is, the plea of obscurity has been closed off.

In al-Aḥqāf it was recorded that the same root is used by the other party as well (hādhā siḥrun mubīn — "this is manifest sorcery"). The finding recorded there works here too: the dispute is over what the manifest thing is, not over whether it is manifest.

In Qāf the question of the answer to an oath was taken up. In al-Dukhān the case is easier: the answer comes at once.

The third verse begins innā anzalnāhu, and the pattern inna + past tense at its head is one of the known forms of the answer to an oath in Arabic. Nothing, then, is left out here; the thing sworn by (the Book) and the thing said in the answer to the oath (the sending down of the Book) are the same thing.

And this is not a vicious circle but a deliberate one: the Book is sworn by, concerning how the Book came.

Innā anzalnāhu fī laylatin mubārakatin, innā kunnā mundhirīn

"We sent it down on a blessed night. We are ever warners."

These three words are identical letter for letter with the first three words of al-Qadr 97/1. This was already recorded in al-Qadr:

"This verse begins word for word the same as al-Qadr 97/1; only the attribute of the night changes."

Let us set the two verses side by side:

The difference is not only in the word but in the definiteness. al-Dukhān says "on a night" and names the night by an attribute; al-Qadr says "on that night" and names the night by a name.

I record this as my own reading: the context of al-Dukhān does not require the giving of a name, because the sūra is concerned not with the identity of the night but with the work done on that night — the next verse will pass straight to the work (fīhā yufraqu).

أَنزَلْنَا — anzala or nazzala. This distinction was treated in al-Qadr; I do not repeat it here.

ٱلْهَاء — the referent of the pronoun is not stated. In al-Qadr it was recorded that this should be considered together with al-ʿAlaq 96/1. In al-Dukhān the case is different, and the difference matters: here the referent of the pronoun stands in the preceding verse — al-kitābu'l-mubīn. The gap that exists in al-Qadr, then, does not exist in al-Dukhān.

Which night this phrase intends is one of the known disagreements of exegesis. There are two main views, and I do not impose a preference.

I enter two records, and neither is a preference but a determination of the data:

One. "That the two sūras speak of the same night is the widespread view" — this is the stance of the majority in the exegetical tradition, and in al-Qadr too the reading was made through this link.

Two. The material on which the second view rests comes not from the wording of the verse but from outside the verse. This does not of itself make the view wrong; but the kind of ground of the two views differs, and the reader has a right to be told: one is from within the text, the other from outside it.

I declare no preference in this commentary.

The concrete sense, so far as the lexicographers record it, runs in two directions, and both are vivid:

• بَرَكَ — the kneeling of a camel, its settling in a place and staying there. From the same root mabrak — the place where a camel kneels.
• بِرْكَة — a pool; the place where water gathers and stands.
• بَرَكَة — blessing: the remaining and increasing of the good in a thing.

The link between the two branches is made by the lexicographers thus: blessing is the lastingness of the good. An abundance that comes and goes is not blessing; blessing is a small thing that stays and suffices. The camel's kneeling and the water's gathering carry the same idea: to stay in place.

And mubāraka is a passive participle: "made blessed". The blessing of the night, then, is not from itself; it has been given.

I record this as my own reading: the root's sense of "staying in place" makes its choice as an attribute of the night meaningful. A night is a thing that passes; the attribute given to it describes a thing that stands. That the work done on that night is described in the next verse as a fixing (ḥakīm — see below) agrees with this reading.

There are two innas in the verse: innā anzalnā and innā kunnā. And the pattern of the second is striking: kāna + a plural active participle.

In Arabic kāna + an active participle conveys not a single act in the past but an ongoing attribute. The sentence, that is, does not say "we warned"; it says "we are ever warners".

The root ن-ذ-ر was treated in many sections (al-Mulk, Nūḥ, al-Muddaththir, al-Mursalāt); I do not repeat it here. The summary: indhār is the announcing of an oncoming danger in time.

And the point of word order is this: the sending down is given as an event (a perfect verb), the warning as an attribute (kāna + active participle). The coming down of this Book, that is, is new; the work of warning is not new.

The same pattern will be repeated two verses later: innā kunnā mursilīn (5) — "we are ever senders". The same structure twice in two verses, and two separate attributes: to warn and to send.

Both are plural active participles, both with kāna. I record this as a verifiable repetition.

Fīhā yufraqu kullu amrin ḥakīm

"On it every wise affair is separated out."

The sentence does not begin with yufraqu; it begins with fīhā. In Arabic the normal order is verb-subject; fronting the adverbial (taqdīm) produces emphasis.

The direction of the emphasis is this: the work is done there — not elsewhere. The information the sentence carries, that is, is not "it is separated" but "it is separated on that night".

I record this as an observation about word order; that the night is named in the third verse as a night (indefinite) and brought back in the fourth with fīhā completes the way the night is defined: the night is defined by the work done in it.

The root was treated in al-Bayyina and al-Mursalāt. The record in the al-Mursalāt section was this:

"The core of the root: to separate two things from one another, to open a space between them. Its derivatives: farq, firāq (parting), farīq (a party), firqa (a division), iftirāq, tafriqa. And most important, فُرْقَان (furqān) — that which separates."

I do not repeat it. I add what is peculiar to al-Dukhān.

One. The verb is passive: yufraqu. Who separates is not said. And the next verse fills that gap: amran min ʿindinā — "as a command from Us". The agent, that is, is given not within the sentence but in the next verse.

Two. The object is kullu amrin — "every affair". The word is singular and indefinite, but has kull before it: an all-encompassing singular.

Three — and here lies the real point within the sūra: in al-Mursalāt it was recorded that Sūrat al-Mursalāt opens with ف-ر-ق and gives a day its name with ف-ص-ل, and the two roots were compared in a table:

al-Dukhān does the same thing, and this is a verifiable datum within the sūra:

The sūra opens with a separating and is brought to its verdict with a separating. The first is the distributing of affairs; the second is the parting of people. And the difference between the two roots sits exactly upon this: farq puts a distance between, faṣl gives a verdict.

I present this as my own reading; the wording of the two verses and the definitions of the two roots are verifiable, but it is I who count them a pattern.

A note on variant readings. The sources on the readings transmit a doubled reading of this verb as well (yufarraqu — Form II); the contribution of Form II is takthīr, that is, separating one by one and abundantly. The direction of the meaning does not change, the intensity does. I issue no ruling about these readings.

Root: ح-ك-م. As recorded in al-Aḥqāf, the concrete sense of the root is to restrain and hold in place; ḥakama — the bit put in a horse's mouth. All the derivatives of the root — ḥakīm, ḥukm, iḥkām, muḥkam — meet in this single idea: to keep a thing from slipping away.

Now the real question: in which sense of the pattern is ḥakīm here?

In Arabic the pattern فَعِيل (faʿīl) works in two directions, and this is a fact the lexicographers often record:

And for the ḥakīm here the exegetes transmit both:

The second reading works better with the context, and I write the reason — this is not a preference but an observation: the verb of the sentence is yufraqu, that is, a distribution is being described. To call what is distributed "wise" states a value; to call it "fixed" states the character of the distribution. The second is more directly related to the work of the sentence.

But this is no imposing of a preference, and the two readings do not exclude one another: in the logic of the root, wisdom is already firmness. That an affair be in its right place and that it be bound so as not to slip are two faces of the same root.

And I draw a limit: how this verse has been used in the debate over decree is a separate subject in the history of exegesis and theology. I do not enter that debate in this section. What is given here is the linguistic side of the word: the two functions of the faʿīl pattern and the concrete sense of the root.

In al-Qadr this verse was already cited, and the sharing of the word amr with al-Qadr 97/4 was recorded there; I rely on that treatment.

Amran min ʿindinā, innā kunnā mursilīn · Raḥmatan min rabbika, innahu huwa's-Samīʿu'l-ʿAlīm

"As a command from Us. We are ever senders. As a mercy from your Lord. He is indeed the Hearing, the Knowing."

The word comes in the accusative, and the lexicographers differ over what it attaches to. The disagreement does not change the meaning altogether, but the axis of the sentence changes:

I do not impose a preference. What is common to all three is this, and it is the thing to be recorded: the separating is described not as a process that happens of itself but as a command.

عِنْد — being with something, at its side. It does not report a place; it reports belonging and authority.

And this expression fills the gap of the passive verb (yufraqu) in the fourth verse. There "who separates" was not said; here it is said — yet again not by a name but by a place: from Us.

I record this as my own reading: read together, the two verses bring to the fore not by whom the work is done but whence it issues. The agent is not hidden; the source is stressed.

The second accusative word: raḥmatan. The same dispute over case holds here too and arrives at the same result.

But the thing really to be recorded is its counterpart within the sūra:

Both verses are in the same pattern: an indefinite noun in the accusative + min rabbika. One before the second block of the sūra, the other at the end of the last block.

And their shared work is this — I give it as my own reading: the sūra names both the coming of the Book and the realising of the deliverance not as an outcome earned but as a thing given. Both are accusative and indefinite; both are rendered "as a…"; both are a qualification, not a declaration of right.

مِّن رَّبِّكَ — "from your Lord". The sūra shifts here abruptly to the second person. In the fifth verse ʿindinā (from Us — first person plural), in the sixth rabbika (from your Lord — second person singular).

This shift is called iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address) in Arabic and was treated in al-Wāqiʿa. Its function here is this: while the source of the Book is told as "we", when it is told to whom the Book comes the relation is turned to — "your Lord".

The finding recorded in al-Burūj for the address rabbuka works here too: this construct speaks to the addressee by way of a relation that belongs to him.

This is the first link of the four-verse chain recorded in the section on the structure of the sūra.

The pattern: inna + a pronoun + the pronoun of separation (huwa) + two predicates with the definite article.

In Arabic this intervening pronoun is called ḍamīru'l-faṣl (the pronoun of separation) and it does two things:

1. It keeps the predicate from being taken for an attribute. Had it been innahu's-samīʿu, it could have gone on "he, the hearing…"; with huwa in place, the sentence closes there. 2. It produces restriction (qaṣr). "The Hearing is He alone."

And two names are chosen: al-Samīʿ and al-ʿAlīm.

Why these two? Look at the context: the sūra has just said that a word was sent down (the Book), and it will shortly report what the other party says (13-14: "a man taught, possessed"; 34-36: "bring back our fathers").

I record this as my own reading: Samīʿ looks to what is said, ʿAlīm to what is not said. The rest of the sūra requires both of them — because open words will be reported and hidden attitudes will be diagnosed.

Rabbi's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baynahumā, in kuntum mūqinīn · Lā ilāha illā huwa yuḥyī wa yumīt, rabbukum wa rabbu ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn

"The Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is between them — if you are people of certainty. There is no god but He; He gives life and gives death. Your Lord, and the Lord of your forefathers."

The word is in the genitive and stands in apposition to rabbika in the preceding verse. That is, after "from your Lord" is said, that Lord is defined.

ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا — and this phrase will occur three times in the sūra:

Two of the occurrences have wa mā baynahumā, the middle one does not. In the twenty-ninth verse the heaven and the earth stand as a subject (they did not weep), in the other two as an object (that which is lorded over, that which is created).

I record this as a verifiable repetition. The difference among the occurrences of the phrase is not interpretation but a datum of wording.

At al-Aḥqāf 46/3 the same phrase occurred inside mā khalaqnā… illā bi'l-ḥaqqi wa ajalin musammā and was treated there; at the thirty-eighth verse I shall rely on that treatment.

A condition is added at the end of the sentence: "if you are people of certainty."

And the answer to the condition is not stated. In Arabic this is called ḥadhf, and a similar leaving-half-said was treated at Qāf 50/3.

Two readings are transmitted as to what the conditional clause does:

I do not impose a preference.

The root ي-ق-ن: the leaving of doubt, the settling of knowledge in place as water settles to the bottom. The root was treated in al-Takāthur and al-Ḥāqqa by way of the phrases ʿilmu'l-yaqīn / ʿaynu'l-yaqīn / ḥaqqu'l-yaqīn; it was also set out in a table at al-Wāqiʿa 56/95. I do not repeat it here.

What is to be added here is the pattern: mūqinīn — the active participle of Form IV. That is, not "one who possesses certainty" but "one who has arrived at certainty". The pattern conveys an arrival.

The best-known negating structure in Arabic: lā that negates the genus. That is, not "there is no god" but "there is no such thing as a god" — the whole kind is lifted, and then a single exception is placed with illā.

How the structure works is this, and it is worth recording: the sentence first erases them all, then puts one back. Had the order been reversed (huwa ilāhun — "He is a god"), the same thing would not have been said.

Both verbs are Form IV: aḥyā (he gave life) and amāta (he gave death). Both, that is, are in the causative pattern.

The order is striking: first giving life, then giving death.

The expected order in English is the reverse — when we say life first and then death we are describing one lifetime. But the Qurʾān mostly gives this pair in this order, and the order itself says something.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the context of the sūra: the sūra will shortly (verse 35) report this objection — "there is only our first death, and we are not to be raised." The other party, that is, builds the order life → death → the end.

The eighth verse begins the order with giving life. And the verb yuḥyī is imperfect: it conveys continuity. Not once, then, but repeatable.

The sentence thus answers the objection of the thirty-fifth verse twenty-seven verses in advance. It is I who make this link; the wording of the two verses is verifiable.

This phrase makes one of the Qurʾān's most striking moves.

At Mecca the ground the other party most often put forward is the fathers: "we found our fathers upon a religion." The fathers, that is, are the other party's proof.

And the verse does not take that proof out of their hands; it changes its owner: rabbu ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn — "and the Lord of your forefathers".

I record it as my own reading: the sentence does not say "your fathers were in error". It says "He is your fathers' Lord too." The appeal to the fathers is not rejected; it is carried back to its source. The fathers too had a Lord; the chain does not end with them.

ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ — the root أ-و-ل. And this root will occur three times in the sūra:

The sūra uses the word "first" three times, and in all three there is an implication of a second: the first fathers (is there anything before them?), the first death (is there a second?), the first death (and there is no other).

I record this as a pattern; I make no claim that the sūra sets up a deliberate play on the word.

Bal hum fī shakkin yalʿabūn

"No; they are playing inside a doubt."

Bal (the particle of iḍrāb) was treated at Qāf 50/2; the record there: it either cancels what precedes, or leaves what precedes and jumps to the real matter.

Here it is the second, and there is a structural likeness with Qāf. Both sūras open with an oath and a statement, then pass with bal to the condition of the other party:

And the difference between the two diagnoses is worth recording. In Qāf the objection was named as a reaction (wondering). In al-Dukhān it is named as a condition and an act: an element they are inside (doubt) and a thing they do there (play).

The concrete sense is given by the lexicographers thus: shakka — to pierce a thing through, to run through with a spear, to fasten two things together. Shikka — the tie between the poles of a tent. And from this shakk — two possibilities standing in the mind with equal weight.

The connection is this: doubt is the mind's being pinned to two things at once. The man can neither break from the one nor pass to the other.

And the particle fī matters: fī shakkin — "inside a doubt". Doubt is given not as an opinion but as a vessel.

In al-Ṭūr exactly this structure was treated — there fī khawḍin yalʿabūn (playing inside a muddying) was analysed and this table was drawn up:

al-Dukhān uses the same pattern and only changes the vessel: in al-Ṭūr khawḍ (plunging into muddied water), in al-Dukhān shakk (doubt).

As recorded in al-Ṭūr: luʿb — play; the Qurʾān qualifies the life of this world with this word (al-Anʿām 6/32; al-ʿAnkabūt 29/64). And the definition given there: "Play is seriousness with no outcome."

Now we come to what is peculiar to al-Dukhān, and this is one of the cleanest internal chains of the sūra.

The same root occurs twice in the sūra, and the two occurrences stand exactly opposite one another:

The ninth verse gives play to them; the thirty-eighth lifts play away from God.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root and the opposed subjects of the two verses: the sūra returns the charge of play to one side. The party that does not take creation seriously is itself described as at play.

And the mood of the verb is imperfect: yalʿabūn — it continues. Not a single act but an ongoing state.

Fa'rtaqib yawma taʾti's-samāʾu bi-dukhānin mubīn · Yaghsha'n-nāsa, hādhā ʿadhābun alīm

"So watch for the day when the sky will bring a manifest smoke. It will envelop the people. This is a painful punishment."

For nine verses the sūra gave no command. In the tenth the first command comes, and the sūra will close with this command (59).

Root: ر-ق-ب. It was treated in al-Balad and al-Mujādala, and summarised at Qāf 50/18. The summary of the record there:

"The original sense of the root is to watch, to keep an eye on, to wait. […] And from the same root raqaba — the neck. The connection is this: the neck is the axis on which the head turns and the gaze is directed. One who watches stretches his neck and turns it."

I do not repeat it. What is peculiar to al-Dukhān is the pattern.

The verb is in Form VIII: irtaqaba. The contribution of Form VIII (iftiʿāl) in Arabic is the taking of the work upon oneself, the making of an effort. Raqaba is to watch; irtaqaba is to make watching one's business.

And this pattern occurs in a countable number of places in the Qurʾān. One of them was treated in al-Qamar:

"al-Qamar 54/27 — fa'rtaqibhum wa'ṣṭabir. […] The order of the two commands is worth recording: first watch, then be patient. Patience here, that is, is not inactivity; it is patience while watching. The man does not withdraw, he goes on looking."

The use in al-Dukhān parts from that in al-Qamar at one point, and the difference matters:

In al-Qamar what is watched is people, in al-Dukhān a day. I record this as an observation about the wording.

And the particle fāʾ: fa'rtaqib. It attaches to the preceding verse. The command, that is, is given as the consequence of the finding "they are playing inside a doubt".

I record this as my own reading: what is proposed as the thing to do about a man at play is not argument but waiting. There is a moment when the play will end of itself; the command looks to that moment.

The verb is taʾtī — to come; and it has been made transitive with the particle bi-: atā bi- = to bring.

The sentence, that is, does not say "smoke comes from the sky". It says "the sky comes with a smoke". The sky is here the subject; the smoke is what the sky brings.

I record this as an observation about word order, and it has a consequence: the smoke is described not as a fault in the sky but as something the sky brings. When the subject of the verb is the sky, the event is built not as a breakdown but as a delivery.

Root: د-خ-ن. This root has not been treated anywhere else in this index; I give it here in full.

The concrete sense: the thick vapour that rises from something burning — smoke.

Its derivatives show the direction of the root:

• دَخَّنَ — it smoked, it gave off smoke.
• دُخْنَة — the colour of smoke: a dirty, sooty darkness. In Arabic it is the name of a colour.
• أَدْخَن — that which is of a smoky colour.
• دَخَن — a figurative use: a flaw within an affair, a hidden rancour in the heart, a murkiness behind a word. The lexicographers explain it by way of "something whose fire looks to have gone out but which still smoulders within".

The two ideas the root carries must be recorded together: the closing off of sight and the presence of a fire behind it. Smoke says both at once — it blocks seeing, and it is evidence of a burning.

The word occurs once more in the Qurʾān: at Fuṣṣilat 41/11 the first state of the heaven is called dukhān (thumma'stawā ila's-samāʾi wa hiya dukhān). The contrast between the two occurrences is worth recording: there the smoke is the beginning of the sky, here it is what the sky brings.

I give this as an observation; I make no claim that a pattern is set up between the two verses.

The root was treated in al-Layl, Nūḥ and al-Najm; the summary: to cover a thing, to overspread it, to envelop it. Ghishāwa — a veil that comes down over the eye. Ghāshiya — that which covers (the name of a sūra).

And the object of the verb must be recorded: al-nās — the people, with the definite article.

This word stands at the centre of the disagreement below. Al-nās in Arabic can mean both "the people" (a particular group) and "mankind" (the whole); the definite article can convey both ʿahd (a known group) and istighrāq (comprehensiveness). This is exactly where the two sides take their stand.

The sentence begins with a demonstrative and its speaker is not specified. Two readings are transmitted:

The second reading makes a smooth continuity with the twelfth verse: "This is a painful punishment! Our Lord, lift the punishment from us!" — two sentences from one mouth.

I do not impose a preference. But one datum of word order can be recorded: in the twelfth verse there is no "they said" at all. The speech begins directly. This makes easier the reading that the eleventh verse is from the same mouth — but it does not make it necessary.

عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ — alīm is on the faʿīl pattern and is here in the sense of an active participle: muʾlim — causing pain. The discussion of ḥakīm in the fourth verse should be recalled: the same pattern, working here in the other direction.

And a contrast is built within the sūra:

In the same sūra the punishment is named with two separate attributes — one promised to Mecca, the other the punishment from which the Children of Israel were delivered. I record this as a verifiable repetition; the difference between the two attributes will be taken up at the thirtieth verse.

Rabbana'kshif ʿanna'l-ʿadhāba innā muʾminūn

"Our Lord! Lift this punishment from us; we do believe."

There is no "they said" in the verse. The speech is conveyed directly, with no verb coming between.

In Arabic this is a known ellipsis (ḥadhfu'l-qawl) and it is often used in the Qurʾān. Its effect is this: no narrator comes between, and the reader hears the words directly.

I record this as an observation about word order; the whole tension of this section rests on how sincere the words look — and the fifteenth verse will pass judgement on that sincerity.

The vocative particle (yā) has been dropped: rabbanā, not yā rabbanā.

In Arabic the dropping of the vocative particle conveys that the one called is reckoned near. The one calling, that is, is not shouting into the distance.

And there is a tension here — I record it as my own reading: in the twelfth verse God is called upon in the nearest manner, and in the fourteenth the messenger is called "a man taught, possessed". Two verses stand between the two sentences. The same mouth, at two extremes.

And note: the name called upon is Rabb, not Allāh. Rabb — the one who nurtures, who rears, who owns. The name chosen in the moment of distress, that is, is the name that establishes the relation of need.

The concrete sense: to lift the covering off a thing, to uncover it. Kashf — an uncovering. Kāshifa — that which brings to light.

The root was treated in Qāf — there it was taken up by way of the verse fa-kashafnā ʿanka ghiṭāʾak (We removed your veil), and this finding was made: what is removed is the covering that blocks sight.

Now let us look at the use here and record a point of language.

In the eleventh verse the punishment was described as something that covers: yaghsha'n-nās. And the verb whose performance is asked for in the twelfth is kashf — the exact opposite of covering.

The two roots are opposites of one another and they come one upon another in three verses. This is a verifiable datum; that I count it a pattern is my own reading.

The choice of word says one thing more — my own reading: for the removal of the punishment it is not "destroy it" that is said but "uncover". The punishment is described, that is, not as something that disappears when it is removed but as something that is lifted off from above. And the fifteenth verse will confirm this: the lifting will be temporary.

The sentence is a nominal sentence: innā muʾminūn. Not a verbal sentence (āmannā — "we have believed").

In Arabic a nominal sentence conveys thubūt (fixedness), a verbal sentence ḥudūth (coming to be). What is said, that is, is not "we have now believed" but "we are people who believe".

I give this as my own reading, and it produces a tension: the words said in the most permanent form are the words the fifteenth verse declares the most temporary. Innā muʾminūn (a claim of fixedness) stands beside innakum ʿāʾidūn (a verdict of return).

The root أ-م-ن occurs five times in the sūra, and after mubīn this is the densest root in it:

The two branches of the root work together here: īmān (to trust, to hold true) and amān/amn (to be safe). The same root gives both believing and being secure — in Arabic the link is made thus: to believe is to trust someone; to be secure is for fear to be lifted.

And the arrangement of the sūra puts these two branches at the two ends: at the beginning faith is claimed (12), at the end safety is given (51, 55). I record this as my own reading; the wording of the five occurrences is verifiable.

Annā lahumu'dh-dhikrā wa qad jāʾahum rasūlun mubīn · Thumma tawallaw ʿanhu wa qālū muʿallamun majnūn

"How should the reminder come to them, when a manifest messenger had already come to them? Then they turned away from him and said, 'A man taught, possessed.'"

Annā carries three senses in Arabic: whence, how, when. And there is something common to all three: the question is asked not to seek information but to report an impossibility (istifhām inkārī).

The sentence, that is, does not ask "when will they take the reminder?"; it says "how should taking the reminder be possible for them?"

And the ground comes immediately after: wa qad jāʾahum rasūlun mubīn.

The wāw at the head is the wāw of circumstance: "while…". And qad + the perfect strengthens the fact of its having happened.

The logic of the sentence is this, and it is worth recording: the impossibility of their taking the reminder is drawn not from their incapacity but from the opportunity's having already been used.

The verse says, that is: the reminder has already come. There is no place for asking for something new.

I record this as my own reading: when the offer of faith made under punishment is refused, the ground given is not "you are not sincere" — it is "it has already been tried". The measure is not intention but history.

The root was treated in many sections (Qāf, al-Qamar, al-Aʿlā); I do not repeat it here.

What is peculiar to al-Dukhān is the root's two occurrences in the sūra, and the difference between them is sharp:

The same root, at the two ends of the sūra, in two opposite moods.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses. And it is no contradiction: the thirteenth verse speaks of the moment inside the punishment, the fifty-eighth of the time before it. The matter, that is, is not whether the reminder is possible but at which moment it is possible.

And this carries the whole logic of the sūra: the invalidity of the appeal made when the punishment arrives comes not from the appeal itself but from its timing.

The third of the five occurrences of mubīn in the sūra. And what is qualified this time is a person.

Two readings are transmitted for rasūlun mubīn, and both rest on the two branches of the root:

I do not impose a preference.

Thumma in Arabic conveys a delayed sequence: "then". Its difference from fāʾ is that time passes in between.

And here it says something: the turning away did not happen the moment the messenger came. There is an interval.

I record this as an observation: the verse describes the rejection not as a sudden reaction but as a stance taken after a while. This strengthens the ground given in the thirteenth verse — the opportunity was not merely given, there was also time to use it.

The root ت-و-ل: tawallā ʿan — to turn away from a thing, to turn one's back. The original sense of the root is nearness and adjacency (walī, mawlā); tawallā + ʿan is the reversal of that nearness. The root was treated in sections such as al-Baqara and al-Layl.

And what is striking is this: the same root will come back in the forty-first verse as mawlā — "on that day no mawlā will avail a mawlā anything." What they turned away from and what will not avail on that day are from the same root. I record this as an observation about the wording.

Two attributes are placed side by side, and this deserves careful reading, because the two together are strange.

مُعَلَّم — the root ع-ل-م, the passive participle of Form II: "taught". That is, he has taken lessons from someone; he does not speak on his own.

مَجْنُون — the root ج-ن-ن, a passive participle: "possessed by jinn". The concrete sense of the root is to cover, to conceal (janna'l-layl — the night covered; janīn — the one covered in the womb; janna — a garden whose trees cover the ground). Majnūn — one whose mind is covered over.

Now let us look at the strangeness:

The two accusations spoil one another. A man who has been taught cannot be mad; a madman cannot transmit an orderly teaching.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the definitions of the two words: the other party cannot produce a single explanation, and lays two explanations one upon another. And this confirms the diagnosis of the thirteenth verse: what is present is not a proof but a decision to reject — the ground is sought afterwards.

And a detail of word order: there is no wāw between the two words. Muʿallamun majnūn — "a man taught, possessed". The unconjoined sequence fuses the two attributes into a single verdict; they are said, that is, not as two separate claims but as a single piece of abuse. And this too turns their words into a hurling rather than an analysis.

Innā kāshifu'l-ʿadhābi qalīlan, innakum ʿāʾidūn

"We shall lift the punishment a little; you will return."

The sentence does not say sanakshifu (we shall lift). Kāshifū — the plural of the active participle, joined in a genitive construction: kāshifu'l-ʿadhāb.

In Arabic the active participle also covers the future; but it differs from a verb, and the difference is at work here:

I record this as my own reading: the sentence builds not a promise but a description. The lifting is told not as an act of favour but as an operation that will bring the other party's condition to light.

And the nominal sentence has one more consequence: innā muʾminūn in the twelfth verse was a nominal sentence too. Two nominal sentences stand face to face:

The same pattern, the same emphasis (inna), the same claim of fixedness — two opposite verdicts. I record this as a verifiable datum of word order; that the two sentences form an exchange is my own reading.

The word is in the accusative and two readings are transmitted as to what it qualifies:

I do not impose a preference. What is common to both is that the lifting is incomplete: either its duration is short, or it is itself partial.

Root: ع-و-د. It was treated in al-Burūj (in the discussion of yubdiʾu wa yuʿīd): to return, to repeat. Iʿāda — a bringing back; ʿāda — a custom, the thing repeated; maʿād — the place of return.

And the most instructive side of the root is here: ʿāda (custom) and ʿawda (return) come from the same root. To return to a thing is to have made that thing one's custom.

The verse does not say "you will disbelieve again"; it says "you are people who return". Disbelief, that is, is named not as a place gone to but as the place returned to.

I record this as my own reading: the word describes the claim of faith as a deviation and disbelief as the real position. On this reading, the innā muʾminūn said in the twelfth verse is not a return but a way-station.

Let us now look at what these three verses (12, 13-14, 15) build together, because the most widespread human situation in the sūra is described here.

The cycle has four steps, and the verses give them in order:

And when the fourth step joins the first, the cycle closes.

The Qurʾān describes this cycle in many places, and its plainest example is that of those caught in a storm at sea: "When they are aboard the ship they call upon God, making the religion His alone. But when He brings them safe to land, at once they associate others with Him" (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/65). The same structure is present at Yūnus 10/22-23 as well.

The difference of al-Dukhān from those verses is this — I record it as my own reading: those verses describe the cycle; al-Dukhān announces it in advance. The sentence innakum ʿāʾidūn is said before the return takes place.

And this takes the verse out of being a sentence of observation and makes it a sentence of diagnosis.

Let us now look at the content of the diagnosis. The question to be asked is: what is wrong here?

A distinction must be recorded, and I give it as my own reading. To turn to God in a moment of distress is not what the verse criticises — the Qurʾān says elsewhere that the call of one in straits is answered (al-Naml 27/62). What is criticised is the relation between the cause of the turning and its result.

It may be seen thus:

What the verse points to is this second column. The one who says "we do believe" may not be lying; at that moment he really does believe. But what carries his belief is the punishment itself — and when the punishment is lifted, the carrier is lifted too.

And the thirteenth verse was saying exactly this: "How should the reminder come to them, when a manifest messenger had come?" The proof, that is, was already there; what was accepted was not the proof.

This reading is mine; its ground is the order of the three verses: the appeal (12) → the reminder that the proof had already come (13) → the verdict of return (15).

Yawma nabṭishu'l-baṭshata'l-kubrā, innā muntaqimūn

"On the day We seize with the greatest seizing. We are indeed exacting requital."

The root was treated at length in al-Burūj and this verse was already cited there. I do not repeat it. The summary of that record:

"Baṭsh: to grasp a thing violently and harshly, to spring upon it and seize it. The word describes the movement of the hand — clawing, snatching, taking hold and not letting go. […] The three elements the word carries: suddenness, harshness, not letting go."

And one thing recorded in the al-Burūj discussion must be carried straight over here: the same root occurs in the Qurʾān as the act of tyrants as well — "And when you seize, you seize like tyrants" (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/130).

The principle established in al-Burūj was this: the verdict is announced in the language of the crime.

There are three things to add peculiar to al-Dukhān.

One — the absolute object. Nabṭishu'l-baṭshata: the verb is reinforced with its own verbal noun. In Arabic this structure (mafʿūl muṭlaq) makes the verb certain, and when it takes an adjective it qualifies it.

Two — the adjective: al-kubrā. The feminine of the elative: "the greatest". There is a scale, then — there are lesser seizings too, and this is the greatest of them.

And this is the second centre of the disagreement below: if the lesser seizings are those that happen in this world, then the "greatest" must be somewhere else.

Three — innā muntaqimūn. The root ن-ق-م: to find a thing foul and reject it, to feel displeasure. Niqma — the penalty given as the counterpart of that displeasure.

The difference between the word and the English "vengeance" must be recorded, and this is a point the lexicographers dwell on too: in English, vengeance is the satisfying of a personal anger. In the Arabic root, what stands at the centre is finding a thing unacceptable. Naqima ʿalayhi — he reproached him, he found him foul.

The core of the word, that is, is not emotion but judgement: a thing has been rejected, and its counterpart is being given.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the lexicographers' definition of the root. And the pattern supports it too: muntaqimūn is a plural active participle — it reports an attribute, not a moment of anger.

This is the most disputed matter in the sūra and one of the oldest disagreements in the history of exegesis. There are two main views, and no preference is imposed in this commentary.

First a record: the disagreement is not something the moderns have produced. From the earliest exegetes onward the two views have been transmitted side by side. I do not give the views by ascribing them to particular persons; the ascriptions occur differently in different sources, and the condition of transmitting with a name in this commentary is to be certain of the ascription.

The fifteenth verse is the key point of the disagreement, and the two sides read it in two separate ways:

The second route has a linguistic ground: in Arabic a nominal sentence (innā kāshifū) can report not an event but a state; and innakum ʿāʾidūn is in the same pattern. But the objection that this is forced is also made, and it must be recorded.

A third stance is transmitted in the sources as well and must be recorded honestly: it is said that the two views can be combined — that while the sūra names a nearby hardship, the language it uses may have a breadth that looks to the Hour as well.

This stance tries to preserve both views; but since it loads two separate events onto one expression, it may be counted a separate explanation. I do not present it either as a preference in this commentary.

What we cannot say: which of the two the smoke is. The text does not determine it, and I do not stand in for a text that does not determine.

What we can say is the following three data drawn from the wording of the verses:

1. The smoke is qualified as mubīn — with the adjective the sūra uses five times. The smoke, that is, is named like the Book and the messenger in the category of clarity. 2. The verb takes the form "the sky brings" — the event is built not as a breakdown but as a coming. 3. What the verse commands is not a piece of knowledge but a stance: irtaqib — watch. The sūra does not describe what the smoke is; it asks the addressee to await it.

And one last record, as my own reading: the reason this disagreement has lasted so long is that the sūra does not introduce the smoke. What was recorded for zaqqūm in al-Wāqiʿa works here too: the word comes indefinite (dukhānin — "a smoke"), that is, it does not introduce, it estranges. The al-kubrā of the sixteenth verse likewise leaves a comparison but does not give the measure.

To produce definiteness where the text has left indefiniteness is not the business of exegesis.

Wa laqad fatannā qablahum qawma firʿawna wa jāʾahum rasūlun karīm

"Before them We tried the people of Pharaoh too, and a noble messenger came to them."

The first work of the sentence is to establish a link: qablahum — "before them".

The story, that is, enters not as a narrative but as a parallel. In the thirteenth verse Mecca was told "a manifest messenger came to you"; in the seventeenth the people of Pharaoh are told "a messenger came to them". The same verb, the same structure.

The shared part of the two sentences is identical letter for letter: جَآءَهُمْ رَسُولٌ. The only thing that changes is the messenger's attribute: mubīn and karīm.

I record this as a verifiable repetition. And it has a consequence: the sūra describes two communities with the same sentence, and then tells how each of them behaved.

The concrete sense: to put gold into the fire and separate out what is pure. Fattāna — the goldsmith's crucible. From this fitna — both a testing and the disorder that the testing produces.

The logic of the root is this: fire does not destroy gold, it separates it. So too a testing: it does not make anything new, it makes what is there visible.

And now let us look at the frame of the block — this is a verifiable datum within the sūra:

A block of seventeen verses stands between two words for trial. One for the people of Pharaoh, the other for the Children of Israel.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: the sūra does not frame the story as a tale of victor and vanquished. It frames both sides with the same word: being tested. For those delivered too there is a balāʾ — this will be taken up separately at the thirty-third verse.

Root: ك-ر-م. It was treated at al-Wāqiʿa 56/44 and the sense the lexicographers give was recorded there:

"In Arabic karīm is also used in the sense of a thing's being the good and useful of its own kind. Nakhlun karīm — a fruitful palm."

The chain established for this word in the al-Wāqiʿa discussion was this, and it looks exactly to this place:

And the conclusion recorded in al-Wāqiʿa: "The same attribute, denied in one place and ascribed in another."

al-Dukhān does something more complex with the same word. Karīm occurs three times in the sūra:

In al-Wāqiʿa there were two poles: denial and affirmation. In al-Dukhān there are three positions: deserved, not held on to, and claimed without deserving.

I present this as my own reading; the wording of the three verses is verifiable, but it is I who count them a series.

And a detail: the attribute karīm is used here of Moses — one of the places in the Qurʾān where this attribute is used of a messenger. The sūra qualifies the messenger as mubīn (13, to Mecca) and karīm (17, to Pharaoh). The two attributes report two separate directions: the one the messenger's intelligibility, the other his worth.

An addū ilayya ʿibāda'llāh, innī lakum rasūlun amīn

"Saying: 'Hand over to me the servants of God. I am to you a trustworthy messenger.'"

The an at the head is the explicative an: it opens out the content of a verb of speaking that precedes it. Here there is no explicit verb of speaking before it; the sense of speaking is implicit in the expression jāʾahum rasūl, and an brings it out.

The sentence, that is, builds the structure "a messenger came and said" with a single letter.

This root has not been treated anywhere else in this index; I give it here.

The concrete sense: to convey a thing to its place complete and entire.

• أَدَّى — he paid, he handed over, he discharged.
• أَدَاء — adāʾ: the paying of a debt, the full performance of a task.
• تَأْدِيَة — a conveying.

At the centre of the root stands the idea of a trust, and the Qurʾān establishes this openly: "God commands you to hand over trusts to those they belong to (an tuʾaddu'l-amānāti ilā ahlihā)" (al-Nisāʾ 4/58). The same verb, the same pattern.

Now we come to the real point, and I give it as my own reading.

The Qurʾān tells the same demand elsewhere with another verb: "Send the Children of Israel with us" — fa-arsil maʿanā banī isrāʾīl (Ṭāhā 20/47; al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/17). There the verb is the root ر-س-ل: to send, to let go.

In al-Dukhān the verb changes: addū — hand over.

The difference is not small. Arsil counts Pharaoh an owner and asks him to let go. Addū counts him one who holds and asks for restitution.

And what strengthens this is the object: ʿibāda'llāh — "the servants of God". The owner of what is to be handed over, that is, is the one named within the sentence.

I record this as my own reading: the sentence builds a demand for freedom as a correction of ownership. Not "set them free"; but "they are not yours; give them to their owner."

The exegetes differ over the place of this phrase in the sentence, and the disagreement changes the meaning:

The first reading is the more widespread and agrees better with the context (in the next verse lā taʿlū ʿala'llāh, then at 23 fa-asri bi-ʿibādī). But I do not impose a preference; the second reading too is transmitted and is linguistically possible.

I record one datum, and it is not a preference: in the twenty-third verse God will name the same community ʿibādī ("My servants"). The name the messenger uses and the name God uses are the same.

This is a verifiable repetition within the sūra and may be counted a datum supporting the first reading.

There are three elements and their order is meaningful: innī (emphasis) + lakum (fronted) + rasūlun amīn (the predicate).

Lakum — "to you". Its fronting produces emphasis: a messenger sent to you, not to someone else.

I record this as an observation about word order: before introducing the messengership, the sentence introduces its addressee. The house of Pharaoh, that is, is here not the party excluded but the party addressed.

أَمِين — the root أ-م-ن. Above (at verse 12) the sūra's chain of five occurrences was given.

And the work of the word amīn here must be recorded: the faʿīl pattern carries both directions of the root — both trusted (one with whom a trust may be left) and secure. The context is the first.

And it has a link with the preceding sentence — my own reading: the messenger asked for a trust to be restored (addū); immediately after, he introduced himself as trustworthy. Two ends of the same field of meaning: the man who asks for a trust says first that he himself is fit for a trust.

Wa an lā taʿlū ʿala'llāh, innī ātīkum bi-sulṭānin mubīn

"'And do not exalt yourselves against God. I bring you a manifest proof.'"

The messenger's speech has two items, and both are joined with an:

1. Hand over (18) — a demand for an act. 2. Do not exalt yourselves (19) — a demand for an attitude.

The order is worth noting: first the work to be done, then the stance to be taken. And the second is the cause of the first — what lies beneath the not handing over is self-exaltation.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two items.

The concrete sense: to rise, to be high. ʿUluww — height. Aʿlā — higher. Taʿālā — He is exalted.

And the root's use of a human being is negative in the Qurʾān: to rise is to climb to a position that does not belong to one.

Now let us look at the chain within the sūra — this is one of the cleanest internal links of al-Dukhān:

The warning and the verdict are given with the same root. The warning is in the imperative and negative; the verdict comes with kāna + an active participle, that is, as a settled attribute.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root of the two verses: the sūra announces the outcome in the language of the offence. The principle recorded for baṭsh in al-Burūj works here too.

عَلَى ٱللَّهِ — the particle. "Against God". The direction of the self-exaltation, that is, is specified: not against people, but against God.

And this is a fine point — I give it as my own reading: Pharaoh's exalting himself over people was already visible. The verse gives that visible self-exaltation another name. A superiority established over human beings is, in the messenger's eyes, a taking of position against God.

The root was treated in al-Ḥāqqa, al-Ḥashr, al-Najm and al-Raḥmān. The summary: to be set over, to prevail, to have one's judgement carry. Sallaṭa — to loose a thing upon a thing.

And the most striking side of the word in the Qurʾān is here: sulṭān is used in the sense both of power and of proof.

The link between the two senses is made by the lexicographers thus: a proof too is a kind of sovereignty — it rules the mind, it cannot be withstood.

I record this, and it has a consequence: in the verse Moses speaks in Pharaoh's own language. Pharaoh has sulṭān (power) in his hand; Moses says he too has a sulṭān in his hand — but of another kind.

This reading is mine; its ground is the word's having two senses and the identity of the addressee.

مُّبِين — the fourth occurrence. This time it qualifies the proof. The table of the five occurrences was given at the second verse.

And ātīkum is an active participle: "I bring / I am bringing to you". Not a verb but a noun; the bringing, that is, is presented as a position — the messenger is already in that state.

Wa innī ʿudhtu bi-rabbī wa rabbikum an tarjumūn

"'And I have taken refuge in my Lord and your Lord, lest you stone me.'"

The root was treated at length in al-Falaq and al-Nās (by way of the pattern aʿūdhu), and it also occurred in al-Jinn and Nūḥ. I do not repeat it here. The summary: ʿawdh — to draw close to a firm place for protection from a danger, to take refuge.

What is peculiar to al-Dukhān is the tense, and it matters.

In al-Falaq and al-Nās the verb is imperfect: aʿūdhu — "I take refuge". Here it is perfect: ʿudhtu — "I have taken refuge".

I record this as my own reading: the sentence is not a prayer but a statement. The messenger does not say "I take refuge"; he says "I have taken refuge" — the precaution, that is, was taken before the threat came.

And this sets the tone of the speech: in the face of the possibility of being threatened there is no panic, but a completed preparation.

The construct is repeated twice: "my Lord and your Lord."

And this does the same work as the eighth verse of the sūra:

Both sentences do the same thing: they do not leave the addressee outside the relation of lordship.

I record it as my own reading: the messenger takes refuge, from those who threaten him, in the one who is their Lord too. The station taken refuge in, that is, is a station that belongs to the other party as well. This forestalls from the outset any turning of the threat into a contest of "our god is stronger than yours".

The root occurred in al-Mulk and al-Takwīr (in the discussion of rujūm li'sh-shayāṭīn). Its concrete sense: to throw stones, to stone.

The branches of the root in Arabic must be recorded, because the disagreement arises from them:

• رَجْم — to stone, to kill by stoning.
• رَجْم بِالغَيْب — to throw without knowledge, to speak as one throws a stone in the dark. The Qurʾān uses this: "guessing at what they did not see" (al-Kahf 18/22).
• رَجِيم — stoned, driven off.
• And the lexicographers record one further branch: to revile, to speak harshly — "to hurl words as one hurls a stone".

Two readings are transmitted as to the meaning here:

I do not impose a preference.

And the dropping of the yāʾ at the end of the verb (tarjumūni, not tarjumūnī) must be recorded: in Arabic this dropping is widespread at the ends of verses and preserves the verse-ending. The same phenomenon was recorded for the word waʿīd in Qāf. The next verse has the same dropping: fa'ʿtazilūni.

Wa in lam tuʾminū lī fa'ʿtazilūn

"'And if you do not believe me, then keep away from me.'"

The verb has been made transitive not with bi- but with li-: tuʾminū lī.

This difference is recorded in Arabic:

Here li- comes. The sentence, that is, does not say "if you do not believe what I have brought" but "if you do not trust me".

I record this as a datum of language, and it has a consequence: in the preceding verse the messenger had introduced himself as amīn (trustworthy). Here he speaks of the possibility that this introduction will be refused.

This root has not been treated anywhere else in this index.

The concrete sense: to draw a thing to one side, to set it apart, to put it aside. ʿAzala — he removed from office; maʿzil — a corner, a place apart. In Form VIII, iʿtazala — to withdraw oneself, to keep away.

And the pattern matters: the verb is in Form VIII, that is, the pattern of drawing oneself aside. But the command is directed to the addressee: "draw yourselves away from me."

Now let us look at the scale of the demand, and I record this as my own reading.

The messenger's speech descends in three steps:

The demand, that is, grows smaller as it goes unaccepted. At the last step what is asked is not even faith but neutrality.

This reading is mine; its ground is the order of the three demands and the fact that the last sentence is made conditional (wa in lam tuʾminū).

And one more thing must be recorded: in the twentieth verse the messenger had taken refuge from being stoned. In the twenty-first what he asks is exactly the counterpart of that: do not touch me. The two verses together match the taking of refuge with the demand.

Fa-daʿā rabbahu anna hāʾulāʾi qawmun mujrimūn

"Then he called upon his Lord: 'These are a guilty people.'"

Fāʾ conveys succession without interval (fāʾu't-taʿqīb); it was treated in al-Wāqiʿa.

In the twenty-first verse the last demand is made, and in the twenty-second the text passes straight to the calling. In between neither an answer nor a waiting is described.

I record this as an observation about word order: the text does not narrate the refusal — it skips the refusal. We understand it from its consequence.

The concrete sense: to call out, to summon. Duʿāʾ — a call; dāʿī — one who calls; daʿwa.

And the root has two branches in Arabic: to call to someone and to ask for a thing. Both issue from the idea of "calling" — what is asked for is in a manner called for.

The sūra uses this root twice, and both its branches:

I record this as a verifiable repetition within the sūra.

And here is the most striking place in the verse.

A prayer is made — but the content of the prayer is not a request, it is a report.

"These are a guilty people." The sentence ends there. There is no demand: their destruction is not asked for, their deliverance is not asked for, nothing is asked for.

Let us compare it with other examples of prayer in the Qurʾān:

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the three verses: here the prayer is in the form of a report. The messenger states the situation and leaves the verdict.

And the form of the answer supports this reading: the answer that comes in the next verse is not a command to destroy but a command to march — fa-asri bi-ʿibādī.

In Nūḥ Noah's prayer was treated; the difference between the long demand there and the one-sentence report here agrees with the difference in how the two stories are told.

The concrete sense is given by the lexicographers thus: jarama — to cut a thing, to pluck it off; particularly to pluck fruit from the branch (jarama'n-nakhla). From this jurm — an evil thing acquired, an offence committed.

The logic of the root is worth recording: an offence is named as the plucking of a thing from its place. One who plucks the fruit before its time has broken an order.

And mujrim is an active participle — not a single act but an attribute.

The sūra uses this root twice, and both in the same pattern:

And twelve verses apart there are two more sentences built with the same demonstrative:

The first two words of the two sentences are the same: إِنَّ هَٰؤُلَاءِ. One about a community of the past, the other about the community present at the sūra's revelation.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: hāʾulāʾi is a demonstrative indicating what is near. The sūra points to a far-off people and to a nearby people with the same pronoun of nearness. The distance between the story and the present, that is, is removed in the language.

Fa-asri bi-ʿibādī laylan innakum muttabaʿūn · Wa'truki'l-baḥra rahwan, innahum jundun mughraqūn

"'Then set out with My servants by night; you will be pursued. And leave the sea as it is; they are an army to be drowned.'"

It comes with fāʾ: there is no gap between the prayer and the answer.

And the answer is not an announcement of destruction but a command for a movement. This completes the reading recorded at the twenty-second verse.

Root: س-ر-ي. It was treated in al-Fajr (wa'l-layli idhā yasr — "by the night as it passes"). The concrete sense: to travel by night, to journey by night. Isrāʾ — Form IV: to make travel by night.

And the root already contains the night. Why, then, is laylan said?

The lexicographers explain this in several ways, and all are transmitted:

I do not impose a preference. The second explanation, since it rests on the word's being indefinite, is the closest to the wording; I record this as an observation.

It was recorded above (at verse 18): the name the messenger uses and the name God uses are the same.

What is to be added here is the particle: asrā bi- — "he made travel with…", that is, he had them taken along. The command is to Moses, but the object belongs to the community: the messenger does not merely go, he takes.

A passive participle: "you are people who will be pursued". The root ت-ب-ع — to follow, to go after; it was treated in Qāf in the discussion of Tubbaʿ and in al-Mursalāt.

And its point is this: the pursuit is announced before it has begun.

I record this as my own reading: the sentence is not a warning but a piece of information. The departure is built not as a flight but as a movement whose outcome is known. It is said that they will be pursued, and it is also said what will be done afterwards (24). No frightening uncertainty, that is, is left.

Root: ت-ر-ك — to leave, to abandon, to leave as it is.

And now let us look at the two closest occurrences in the sūra — in two consecutive verses:

Two verses in succession, the same root, two opposite forms.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root of the two verses: one leaves by command, the other by having it taken from his hand. And the scale of what is left is inverted: the messenger leaves a sea, the others leave gardens, springs, crops, station and ease.

This root has not been treated anywhere else in this index, and it occurs only here in the Qurʾān. For this reason I give it in full.

The sense of the root recorded by the lexicographers divides into two branches, and the disagreement arises exactly from this:

The first branch — stillness, calm:

• رَهَا — it grew calm, it grew still.
• مَشَى رَهْوًا — he walked slowly, quietly.
• The sea's being rahw: without waves, still.

The second branch — openness, a gap:

• رَهْو — the hollow between two hills, a gap.
• الرَّهْوَاء — a wide, open plain.
• The sea's being rahw: in an opened, parted state, not closing.

And the lexicographers join the two branches thus: a gap that stays open is a gap that stays motionless. The shared idea: to stand untouched, as it is.

Now let us give the disagreement:

I do not impose a preference.

But an observation can be recorded, and its ground is the next clause: the verse continues innahum jundun mughraqūn — "they are an army to be drowned". For a drowning the sea must close. The second reading (leave it open) builds a direct ground for this outcome: the road is left open so that they may enter.

This is an observation, not a preference; the first reading too arrives at the same outcome indirectly.

A passive participle again: mughraqūn — "those who will be drowned".

And now we come to the most striking choice of narration in the sūra.

The sūra does not narrate the drowning.

In the twenty-fourth verse "they are an army to be drowned" is said; the twenty-fifth begins straight off with "how much they left behind". There is no event in between.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses. A similar observation was made in al-Qamar for Sūrat al-Qamar (that the drowning is never mentioned). In al-Dukhān the drowning is named as an attribute, not as an event.

And its effect is this: the sūra does not build the destruction as a scene. What it builds is the gap between the before of the destruction (an army) and its after (gardens left empty). And the reader crosses the gap himself.

جُنْد — the root ج-ن-د. Its concrete sense is explained by the lexicographers by way of "hard, stony ground"; from this jund — a body locked together and hardened: an army.

The choice of word is worth recording: the verse does not say "Pharaoh and his people", it says "an army". The other party, that is, is named here not as a group of belief but as a mass of force.

I give this as an observation.

Kam tarakū min jannātin wa ʿuyūn · Wa zurūʿin wa maqāmin karīm · Wa naʿmatin kānū fīhā fākihīn

"How many gardens and springs they left behind! And crops, and a noble station. And a comfort in which they took their ease."

Kam is of two kinds in Arabic: interrogative (istifhāmiyya) and declarative of multitude (khabariyya). Here it is the second: "how many", "how much".

And kam khabariyya has a feature: its specifier comes with min — as indeed here: min jannātin.

The sentence, that is, gives no number; it reports a multitude. And the withholding of the number is made up for by the length of the list: four items are enumerated.

The things enumerated form a series, and the order is worth noting:

The first three are the three legs of an agricultural civilisation: land, water, produce. The fourth is social, the fifth subjective.

I record this as my own reading: the list runs from the outside inward — land is concrete, comfort is a feeling. And in the last item the construction changes: the first four are nouns, and with the fifth a clause comes (kānū fīhā fākihīn). The list, that is, ends by passing from the things possessed to the state of possessing.

جَنَّٰت — the root ج-ن-ن. It was recorded at the fourteenth verse in the discussion of majnūn: the sense of the root is to cover; a janna is a garden whose trees cover the ground.

And now we come to the plainest internal chain of the sūra.

The fifty-second verse repeats the phrase of this verse letter for letter:

The only thing that changes is the particle.

This is a verifiable datum of the text. And what is interpretation is this, which I give as my own reading: the sūra builds its two tableaux out of the same material. The kind of favour is the same; the difference lies in the relation the person has with the favour — in the one the favour is the thing left, in the other the thing one is inside.

And the difference does not stop at the particle. The fifty-first verse names the place of the muttaqīn maqāmin amīn; the twenty-sixth names the place of the others maqāmin karīm. Two maqāms, two attributes.

Root: ق-و-م. Maqām — the place where one rises and stands; a noun of place. The root was treated in many sections.

The exegetes differ over what the phrase intends:

I do not impose a preference. What is common to all three is that maqām reports a place in the eyes of others — unlike a garden and a spring, the worth of this item depends on being seen.

I give this as my own reading, and the comparison with the fifty-first verse opens it out:

The difference between the two stations is not one of size but of kind. The first was splendid and was left; the second is safe, and the fifty-sixth verse will say what that means: there is no death there.

The word is read نَعْمَة (with fatḥa) and is not the same thing as نِعْمَة (with kasra). The difference must be recorded:

This distinction was treated in al-Muzzammil — there, in the analysis of ūli'n-naʿma (those in comfort), this verse was already cited:

"The stress shifts from what is given to the standard of life being lived."

I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it.

The root was treated in al-Wāqiʿa — by way of 56/20, 56/32 and 56/65. The record there:

"Root: ف-ك-ه. Fākiha — fruit. And the second branch of the root: فُكَاهَة (fukāha) — pleasant talk, jesting, banter. Fākih — jesting, in good spirits. […] In Arabic ṭaʿām (food) reports a necessity, fākiha a surplus."

I do not repeat it. I add what is peculiar to al-Dukhān.

In al-Wāqiʿa the root always occurred as an object: fākiha — fruit. Here it occurs as a state: fākihīn — "as those taking their ease".

And in al-Wāqiʿa at verse 65 the root reported a state once more (tafakkahūn), and there too what was described was the going of the favour. In the closing table of al-Wāqiʿa this was recorded thus: "ف-ك-ه — fākiha (20) — fākiha (32) — tafakkahūn (65) — The favour, and the going of the favour."

al-Dukhān builds the same pair and completes it within its own sūra:

The difference between the two verses is a single word: āminīn.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: in the first tableau there is ease and no security; in the second, security is set beside the ease. And the twenty-seventh verse says what ease without security is by means of the past tense: kānū — "they were".

A note on variant readings: it is transmitted that this word is also read fakihīn; the difference of meaning is small (to be in good spirits / to have come to fruit). I issue no ruling about the readings.

Kadhālika wa awrathnāhā qawman ākharīn

"So it was. And We made another people inherit them."

A one-word sentence, and the exegetes differ over what it attaches to:

I do not impose a preference.

I record one datum, and it is a repetition within the sūra: the same word occurs in the same position in the fifty-fourth verse as well — at the head of the sentence, followed by wāw and a first person plural verb:

The two sentences are in the same pattern: kadhālika + wāw + a verb of the faʿalnā pattern + a pronoun + an object.

I record this as a verifiable repetition within the sūra. And what is interpretation is this, which I give as my own reading: the two sentences stand at the same place in the two tableaux — one closing the list of the house of Pharaoh, the other closing the list of the muttaqīn. In the one there is a passing out of hand, in the other a joining together.

The root occurred in al-Ḥadīd and al-Fajr. Its concrete sense: the passing of a man's property to another after his death. Wārith — the one to whom the property passes; mīrāth — the thing that passes.

And Form IV (awratha) is transitive: "he gave as an inheritance".

The choice of word is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the verse does not say "We gave" (aʿṭaynā) or "it passed into the hands of others". It says "We made them inherit".

The idea the word "inheritance" carries is this: the property changes hands but itself remains. The owner goes, the possession stays. The garden is still there, the spring is still flowing — the only thing that changes is whose it is.

And this prepares the logic of the next verse (29): if the garden is still standing and only its owner has gone, it becomes possible to ask whether anything at all was lessened by his going. The twenty-ninth verse will answer exactly this question.

قَوْمًا ءَاخَرِينَ — "another people". Who they are is not said.

I record this as an observation about word order: the text does not name the heir. The stress lies not on the heir but on the fact that the inheritance has changed hands.

Fa-mā bakat ʿalayhimu's-samāʾu wa'l-arḍu wa mā kānū munẓarīn

"Neither the heaven nor the earth wept for them; nor were they granted respite."

This verse is one of the most discussed expressions in the sūra and deserves detailed treatment.

The root occurred in al-Najm (wa annahu huwa aḍḥaka wa abkā — "it is He who makes laugh and makes weep").

The concrete sense: the coming of tears from the eye; and the lexicographers record two branches of the root — weeping aloud (bukāʾ, when read with a long vowel) and silent tears (bukan). In the Qurʾānic usages the distinction does not always operate.

A human act is given to inanimate things. In Arabic rhetoric this is called tashkhīṣ (personification).

This concept was treated in Qāf and this verse was already cited there:

"In Arabic rhetoric this is called tashkhīṣ (giving personality to what is inanimate) and it is used in several places in the Qurʾān: the weeping of heaven and earth (al-Dukhān 44/29), the heavens' and the earth's saying 'we come willingly' (Fuṣṣilat 41/11), the speaking of the skins (Fuṣṣilat 41/21)."

I rely on that treatment and open out the particular case here.

The background most often appealed to in understanding this verse is a convention of hyperbole in Arab poetry.

It is transmitted that when a great man died the Arabs, in lamenting him, used expressions such as "the sky wept for him", "the earth wept for him", "the stars darkened", "the wind stood still after him". This was the poetic way of saying that the person's loss was felt on a universal scale.

I transmit this convention without making a claim: I transmit no particular poem or line, because to ascribe a text whose wording I am not sure of is contrary to the rules of this commentary. What I record is that the classical works of exegesis and rhetoric transmit that this usage was known among the Arabs.

And if this background is correct, the work of the verse is this: the Qurʾān takes a formula of praise its addressee knows, and negates it.

The sentence, that is, does not give a piece of information — it leaves an expectation unanswered.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the form of the negation. It may be seen thus: to say of a person "the sky did not weep for him" gains its sense only if there is a formula "the sky weeps for him". An absence carries news only if it is the absence of something expected.

The exegetes differ over what the expression conveys, and I do not impose a preference:

All three views are transmitted. I declare no preference in this commentary.

But a datum of language can be recorded, and it is not a preference: the verb of the verse is negative. The text, that is, does not say for whom heaven and earth weep. The only thing it says is that they did not weep for these. What the positive side is cannot be drawn from this verse — everything drawn comes from outside it.

Now let us look at the link of the verse with verses twenty-five to twenty-eight, because its real work shows there.

From the twenty-fifth to the twenty-eighth verse there was a list: gardens, springs, crops, stations, comfort — and all of it passed to someone else.

The twenty-ninth verse appears to add one more item to that list; but what it adds is not a possession, it is a response.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the verses: the list starts from what is possessed and moves towards what is left behind. And the last item measures all the preceding ones again.

For this question may be asked: if a man possessed so much, must he not have left a trace? The verse answers it: there is no record.

And this touches man's most widespread consolation — I give it as my own reading: a man hopes that what he possesses will carry a meaning after him as well; being remembered, being grieved for, leaving a gap. After telling of the changing of hands of property, the verse looks at this hope too.

The root was treated in many sections (al-Baqara, Qāf, ʿAbasa, al-Muṭaffifīn); its concrete sense is to look.

But here it is in Form IV and the sense changes: anẓara — to grant a respite, to give time. Munẓar — one to whom a respite is granted.

The link between the two senses is made by the lexicographers thus: to grant a respite is to wait and to watch — to keep an eye on someone until he finishes his business.

And now we come to the point within the sūra.

In the tenth verse the sūra had said irtaqib (watch) to its addressee — a command to wait. In the twenty-ninth verse it is said of the house of Pharaoh mā kānū munẓarīn — no waiting time was granted them.

Both roots lie in the field of waiting, and they work in two separate directions: the one describes the man who waits, the other the man who is not made to wait.

I present this as my own reading; the wording and the meaning of the two roots are verifiable, but to establish a relation between them is my interpretation.

And the pattern of the sentence: mā kānū munẓarīn — kāna + a passive participle, negated. The same pattern as innā kunnā mundhirīn in the third verse. The sūra gave the attribute of warning with kāna; it gives the withholding of respite with the same pattern.

Wa laqad najjaynā banī isrāʾīla mina'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn · Min firʿawna, innahu kāna ʿāliyan mina'l-musrifīn

"And We delivered the Children of Israel from the abasing punishment — from Pharaoh. He had risen high, one of those who exceed all bounds."

The root occurred in al-Qamar, al-Ṣaff and al-Maʿārij. Its concrete sense is explained by the lexicographers by way of "high ground, a hill": najwa — high ground the flood does not reach. From this najāt — deliverance: to climb where the water cannot come.

And the verb is in Form II: najjā. Its difference from Form I (najā — he was saved) is transitivity and intensification: to deliver a whole community, one by one.

Root: ه-و-ن. It occurred in al-Fajr and al-Mujādala. Its concrete sense: lightness, worthlessness. Hawn — softness, ease; huwān — degradation. Muhīn — the active participle of Form IV: that which lowers, that which abases.

And now let us look at the contrast within the sūra:

The sūra names the punishment with two separate attributes, and the two show two separate kinds of wounding.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: what the Children of Israel were delivered from is named not as pain but as humiliation. And this is the truest description of the condition of slavery — pain comes and goes, humiliation is a position.

And the principle recorded in Qāf should be recalled here too: what an attribute says depends on what the one who bears it does with that attribute.

These two words stand in apposition to mina'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn in the preceding verse.

The sentence, that is, is built thus: "We delivered them from the punishment — from Pharaoh."

And this is not a repetition but a definition.

In Arabic an appositive explains what precedes it. What is explained here is the punishment itself, and what is given as the explanation is a person.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the case-ending of the two verses: the verse sets Pharaoh not as the cause of the punishment but as the punishment itself. The expected expression would be "from Pharaoh's punishment" (a genitive); the expression that comes is an appositive that puts Pharaoh in the place of the punishment.

A human being is named as a punishment.

It was recorded above (at verse 19): lā taʿlū ʿala'llāh (the warning) and kāna ʿāliyan (the verdict) are from the same root.

What is to be added here is the pattern: kāna + an active participle. At the third verse it was recorded that this pattern reports an ongoing attribute. Not "he exalted himself once", then, but "he was one who rises".

And note: ʿāliyan comes indefinite, and mina'l-musrifīn follows it. The sentence, that is, places him within a class: one of those who exceed all bounds.

I give this as my own reading: the verse does not present Pharaoh as an example of a unique evil; it presents him as an example of a kind. And the principle recorded in Method works here: what the verse describes is an attribute, and whoever bears that attribute is included in it.

The root occurred in al-Dhāriyāt. Its concrete sense: to exceed the bound, to lose the measure, to pass the limit in a thing. Isrāf — exceeding the limit in spending is only one instance; the root itself covers every kind of exceeding of a limit.

And the standing together of the two words builds a description:

Both are words of overflowing, and they work on two separate axes.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the definitions of the two roots: the verse describes a tyrant by two overflowings — rising above his own place and exceeding his own measure.

Wa laqadi'khtarnāhum ʿalā ʿilmin ʿala'l-ʿālamīn · Wa ātaynāhum mina'l-āyāti mā fīhi balāʾun mubīn

"And We chose them, upon a knowledge, above all beings. And We gave them of the signs that in which there is a manifest trial."

The root occurred in al-Wāqiʿa, al-Qalam, al-Raḥmān and al-Jumuʿa. Its concrete sense: good, benefit. And Form VIII, ikhtāra — to choose: that is, "to take the better".

The logic of the root is worth recording: in Arabic to choose is not to make a preference but to set apart what is good. The word carries a judgement of value within itself.

And it has a counterpart within the sūra — this is a verifiable datum:

The same root, five verses apart, for two communities. The one reports a being chosen, the other asks a question.

I present this as my own reading; the shared root of the two verses is verifiable, but that they form a pattern is my interpretation.

The phrase is indefinite: "upon a knowledge".

And whose knowledge it is is not said. This is a pattern repeated across the sūras and has been treated twice before:

The principle recorded in al-Aḥqāf works here too:

"Not indefinite, but closed to man."

And the work of the phrase is this: the choice is not arbitrary — it rests on a knowledge. But what that knowledge is is not said. The verse, that is, both says something about the ground of the choice (there is a ground) and does not say it (what it is is not reported).

The exegetes differ over the scope of this phrase:

I do not impose a preference.

But I am bound to enter two records, and both are required by Method.

One. In this commentary no wholesale ruling is issued about a community. What the verse describes is a situation: something was given to a community. What was given is said in the next verse, and that word is decisive: balāʾ — a trial.

Two. The Qurʾān does not leave this expression standing alone. The same pattern occurs at al-Baqara 2/47 and 2/122 (wa annī faḍḍaltukum ʿala'l-ʿālamīn), and there too an obligation follows it. This context was treated in al-Baqara; I rely on that treatment.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses: the thirty-second verse states the pre-eminence, the thirty-third the trial. There is nothing between them. The pre-eminence, that is, is presented not as a privilege whose outcome is settled but as an examination whose outcome is open.

Root: ب-ل-و. Its concrete sense: to test, to try — and the lexicographers record the root's second branch as well: to wear out, to wear away (bilā — wearing out). The link is this: to test a thing is to use it until it wears.

And the most important feature of the word is this, and the Qurʾān says it openly: a balāʾ comes both with good and with evil. "We try you with evil and with good, as a testing" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/35).

The usual English rendering, "affliction", is therefore not the same thing as the Arabic balāʾ: the English word carries only misfortune, while the Arabic covers both sides.

And this is decisive for understanding the verse: what is given is signs — that is, proofs, marks, miracles. And within those signs there is a balāʾ.

I record this as my own reading: a proof is not by itself a favour. A proof is at the same time a burden — because the responsibility of one who has seen the proof is heavier than that of one who has not.

And this reading completes the frame of the block. In the seventeenth verse fatannā (We tried) was said of the people of Pharaoh; in the thirty-third balāʾun mubīn is said of the Children of Israel.

At the two ends of the block stand two words for trial, and the two belong to two separate sides.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: the sūra does not close the story as a tale of taking sides. The party that is delivered is named with a trial too.

And mubīn occurs here for the fifth and last time. The table drawn up at the second verse of the sūra is completed: the Book, the smoke, the messenger, the proof, the trial — all five "manifest".

Inna hāʾulāʾi la-yaqūlūn · In hiya illā mawtatuna'l-ūlā wa mā naḥnu bi-munsharīn · Faʾtū bi-ābāʾinā in kuntum ṣādiqīn

"These people do indeed say: 'There is nothing but our first death, and we are not to be raised up. Bring back our fathers, if you speak the truth.'"

The opening shared with the twenty-second verse was recorded above. What is to be added here is the abruptness of the transition.

The thirty-third verse ends with the signs given to the Children of Israel; the thirty-fourth turns back to Mecca with no connective at all. There is no "thus", no "but" — only inna and a demonstrative.

I record this as an observation about word order: a story of seventeen verses closes without a sentence of transition. And the place of the closing is held by a demonstrative: hāʾulāʾi — "these", that is, the ones standing before you now.

لَيَقُولُونَ — reinforced with the lām al-muzaḥlaqa. As recorded in al-Burūj, the pairing of inna + lām is the highest degree of certainty in Arabic and is used against a denying addressee.

And there is something strange here — I give it as my own reading: what is reinforced is not a truth but the fact that the other party says something. The verse says, that is, "they really do say it". This draws attention not to the words themselves but to their having been said — because what will be seen shortly is that the words are inconsistent within themselves.

In here is a particle of negation (in nāfiya), and together with illā it builds restriction (ḥaṣr): "there is nothing but…".

And the referent of the pronoun hiya is not stated. The exegetes fill it differently:

I do not impose a preference. In all three the result is the same: one death, and nothing after.

The word is in the form mawta — not mawt.

In Arabic the final tāʾ conveys marra (a single instance): ḍarb to strike, ḍarba a single blow; mawt death, mawta one dying.

The sentence, that is, does not say "there is nothing but our death"; it says "there is nothing but our dying once". The number is buried in the pattern of the word.

And now we come to the most striking repetition of the sūra.

The same phrase returns in the fifty-sixth verse — this time about the muttaqīn:

Both verses have the same phrase and the same exceptive pattern (illā).

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: the sentence of those who deny turns out true for the muttaqīn — but somewhere else. They said "there is only one death, and nothing after"; for the muttaqīn too there will be only one death, but there is something after.

The sūra, that is, neither takes up nor discards the wording of the objection; it changes its place.

In Qāf the same technique was recorded for the word baʿīd: "The sūra takes the word the objector chooses and spreads it over the whole text. And each time it turns its direction." al-Dukhān does the same thing for a phrase.

The root occurred in al-Mursalāt, al-Takwīr, al-Muddaththir and al-Mulk. Its concrete sense: to open out something folded, to spread. Nashara'th-thawb — he unfolded the cloth. Nashr — a spreading; muntashir — spread out.

And the root's use for the raising of the dead follows from the logic of the root itself — this is worth recording:

The raising, that is, is named not as a re-creating but as an unfolding. The opening of a rolled-up scroll.

And the form of the negation is decisive: mā naḥnu bi-munsharīn. The بِ at its head is a particle of emphasis; the same structure was recorded at Qāf 50/45 (mā anta… bi-jabbār). Not "we shall not be raised", then, but "we are certainly not to be raised".

And now we come to the most instructive place in the verse.

The other party asks for a proof. And the form of the proof they ask for must be recorded: a specimen.

"Bring back our fathers." That is: show us a raising, and we will believe.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the logic of the demand: the demand is logically inconsistent. Because what is asked for removes what the raising itself is for.

It may be seen thus: the raising, as described in the fourth and fortieth verses of the sūra, is a day of separating — the day on which the reckoning is held. To raise one person by way of a specimen is not to bring that day forward but to turn it into a display.

And note: the verse does not answer this demand. The thirty-seventh verse asks something else.

I record this as an observation about word order: the demand is left unanswered and a question is put in its place. Instead of giving the proof asked for, the text calls the addressee to look somewhere else — and the place to look is again the dead, but not those who have come, those who have gone.

إِن كُنتُمْ صَٰدِقِينَ — "if you speak the truth". This pattern occurs often in the Qurʾān from the mouth of the other party, and its reverse was treated at al-Aḥqāf 46/4: there the same pattern came from the mouth of the text (iʾtūnī bi-kitābin… in kuntum ṣādiqīn).

Setting the two uses side by side is instructive:

The threshold of the two demands differs. As recorded in al-Aḥqāf, what was asked there was "not even a whole book — a remnant". What is asked here is the reversing of the working of nature.

I present this as my own reading; the wording of the two verses is verifiable, but the comparison is mine.

A-hum khayrun am qawmu tubbaʿin wa'lladhīna min qablihim, ahlaknāhum, innahum kānū mujrimīn

"Are they better, or the people of Tubbaʿ and those before them? We destroyed them; they were guilty."

The question is in the pattern a … am: which of two things. And the word khayr is here an elative (the shortened form of akhyar): better, superior.

Exactly the same pattern was treated in al-Qamar:

"The forty-third verse turns directly to the addressee: a-kuffārukum khayrun min ulāʾikum?"

The question in al-Qamar was built with min (the particle of comparison), the one in al-Dukhān with am (the particle of alternatives). The difference is small; both do the same work.

And the logic of the question must be recorded — this is a repeated method of the Qurʾān:

The other party had advanced a claim of impossibility (35: we shall not be raised). The verse answers it not with an argument about possibility but with a parallel: there were those stronger than you; what became of them?

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses: the demand was "bring back the dead"; the answer is "look at those who have gone". The kind of proof asked for, that is, is not changed — what is asked for is a dead man too — but its direction is turned.

A note is also needed on the sense of the word khayr here: the word can report moral superiority and can report superiority of strength and means. The context is closer to the second — because what is compared is a people that was destroyed. But this is an observation, not a preference.

And its sharing of a root with the thirty-second verse was recorded above: ikhtarnāhum (We chose) and khayrun (better) are from the same root.

A record was entered about this people in Qāf and I keep that record exactly. The finding there was this:

"تُبَّع is not a proper name but a title. In the historical records it is known as the title borne by the Ḥimyarite rulers who held sway in South Arabia (Yemen). The word is from the root ت-ب-ع: to follow, to come after — that is, 'the one who is followed'." "The Qurʾān names this community in two places (Qāf 50/14 and here) and gives no detail in either." "Who Tubbaʿ was, which Tubbaʿ he was, and how his people were destroyed are not reported. In the works of exegesis and history there are accounts of rulers bearing the title Tubbaʿ; some of these carry favourable judgements about Tubbaʿ himself and unfavourable ones about his people. Since I cannot vouch for the soundness of these accounts I do not transmit them."

I keep the same care here: there is no certain knowledge, and I do not produce any.

I add here two data of wording not present in Qāf, and both are read off the text.

One. The context of the two occurrences differs:

In Qāf the people are one of a series of communities. In al-Dukhān they are used as a measure — Mecca is compared with them.

Two. al-Dukhān does not leave the people standing alone: wa'lladhīna min qablihim — "and those before them".

I record this as my own reading: the comparison is made not with one people but with an open-ended chain. Not "are you better than that people", that is, but "than that people and all those before them".

And this makes the answer to the question unnecessary. Since the chain is open backwards, the comparison cannot be closed.

The question was asked and not answered. In its place came a verb: ahlaknāhum — "We destroyed them".

In Arabic this may be called a move close to uslūbu'l-ḥakīm: instead of answering the question, to give a piece of information that makes the answer unnecessary.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the word order of the sentence: it is not said "they were better" or "you are better". What is said is this: even if they were better, they were destroyed. Whatever the result of the comparison, that is, the outcome does not change.

And the sentence is unconnected (istiʾnāf): ahlaknāhum comes with no particle between. This makes the sentence read not as an answer but as a verdict.

And the last clause gives the ground of the destruction: because they were guilty.

The pattern is again kāna + an active participle: an ongoing attribute.

And the chain with the twenty-second verse closes:

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared root of the two verses: nowhere does the sūra tie destruction to a difference of strength. In both places the ground is given with the same word: guilt.

And this becomes an indirect answer to the question of the thirty-seventh verse: a question of superiority was asked, and the answer is given on another axis. The measure is not khayr (superiority) but jurm (guilt).

Wa mā khalaqna's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa wa mā baynahumā lāʿibīn · Mā khalaqnāhumā illā bi'l-ḥaqqi wa lākinna aktharahum lā yaʿlamūn

"We did not create the heavens and the earth and what is between them in play. We created them only with the truth; but most of them do not know."

The pair of verses builds the same sentence twice — once negatively, once with an exception.

And at al-Aḥqāf 46/3 these two clauses were given in a single verse and with another word:

"We created the heavens and the earth and what is between them only with the truth and for an appointed term."

Let us set the two sūras side by side — this is a verifiable comparison of wording:

In al-Aḥqāf two qualifications were placed on the creating: ḥaqq and term. The table in al-Aḥqāf was this:

al-Dukhān does not say the second qualification in this verse — but it says it one verse later: inna yawma'l-faṣli mīqātuhum (40). The idea of ajal, that is, has been moved one verse back in al-Dukhān and given by the name of a day.

I present this as my own reading; the wording of the two sūras is verifiable, but the interpretation of the division of labour is mine.

The same sentence occurs at al-Anbiyāʾ 21/16 as well (wa mā khalaqna's-samāʾa wa'l-arḍa wa mā baynahumā lāʿibīn) — almost identical with the thirty-eighth verse of al-Dukhān. I give this as a record of wording.

The word is in the accusative and is a ḥāl: "as ones playing".

And this is the finest point in the verse — I give it as my own reading.

The sentence does not say "We did not create". Mā khalaqnā … lāʿibīn — what is negated is not the verb but the state of the verb.

The fact of creating, that is, is accepted; the character loaded onto it is refused.

And the name of the refused character is the very verb given to the other party in the ninth verse.

It was recorded above (at verse 9) and is completed here:

In al-Ṭūr the definition of the root was given: "Play is seriousness with no outcome: the player spends real effort, but what he spends has no return outside the game."

And this definition explains both verses at once — I give it as my own reading:

• In the ninth verse the other party is at play: they doubt, they argue, they object — but they do not take the outcome of it seriously.
• In the thirty-eighth verse the same character is lifted from the creating: the universe is not an effort without an outcome.

And the two verses together build a thesis: if the universe is not play, then what is done within the universe cannot be play either. The charge of play changes sides.

This reading is mine; the shared root and the opposed subjects of the two verses are verifiable data of the text.

A detail of word order must be recorded.

Three things were enumerated in the thirty-eighth verse: the heavens (plural), the earth (singular), and what is between them. In the thirty-ninth a dual pronoun comes: khalaqnāhumā — "the two of them".

The plural samāwāt and the singular arḍ, that is, are gathered up as a single pair.

I record this as an observation about word order: the second sentence reduces what the first enumerated to two items. This shortens the sentence and shifts the focus from number to relation: what is above and what is below.

The root was treated in Qāf as a chain within that sūra; and in al-Aḥqāf this phrase was analysed. Its concrete sense: that which is in its right place, fixed, not falling.

And the particle must be recorded: bi'l-ḥaqq — "with the truth". The bāʾ here conveys accompaniment (mulābasa, being clothed in a thing) or cause.

Both readings are transmitted:

I do not impose a preference.

The sentence ends with a corrective (istidrāk): wa lākinna.

And its object must be recorded: aktharahum — "most of them". Not all.

I record this as an observation about word order: in sentences of this kind the Qurʾān mostly does not build an absolute ruling. And lā yaʿlamūn — "they do not know" — is not an accusation but a report of a lack.

I record this as my own reading: the verse names the source of the objection not as ill will but as ignorance. And this separates the thirty-ninth verse from the thirty-seventh — there the ground was jurm (guilt), here jahl (not knowing).

Inna yawma'l-faṣli mīqātuhum ajmaʿīn · Yawma lā yughnī mawlan ʿan mawlan shayʾan wa lā hum yunṣarūn · Illā man raḥima'llāh, innahu huwa'l-ʿAzīzu'r-Raḥīm

"The day of separation is the appointed time of them all. A day when no protector will avail a protector anything, and they will not be helped. Save him on whom God has mercy. He is indeed the Mighty, the Merciful."

This link was recorded above (at verse 4) and is completed here.

In al-Mursalāt the difference between the two roots was given in a table, and I do not repeat it. The summary: farq opens a space between, faṣl gives a decisive verdict.

And al-Mursalāt and al-Dukhān make the same move: to build the oath or the opening with ف-ر-ق and to name the day with ف-ص-ل.

I present this as my own reading; the wording of the two sūras is verifiable.

And I record one further observation: the separating in the fourth verse is a night; the separating in the fortieth is named a day. The sūra places the two separations in two separate divisions of time.

The root occurred in al-Wāqiʿa, al-Mursalāt and al-Nabaʾ. Waqt — an appointed time. Mīqāt is on the mifʿāl pattern: the pattern that forms nouns of instrument or of place and time.

The word, that is, is not "a time" but "an appointed meeting point".

And another use of the word in the Qurʾān is worth recording: the term set for Moses' meeting with his Lord is also called a mīqāt (al-Aʿrāf 7/142, 7/143).

I give this as a record of wording: the word reports an appointment — the meeting of two parties at a set time.

أَجْمَعِينَ — emphasis. "All together". The word reinforces the pronoun in mīqātuhum.

And this reinforcement says something: the meeting is not optional. To those who say in the thirty-sixth verse "bring back our fathers", the fortieth speaks of a time of general assembly — in place of the single display asked for, a time that includes everyone.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses.

Root: و-ل-ي. It was treated in many sections (al-Baqara, al-Mumtaḥana, al-Ḥadīd); its concrete sense is nearness, adjacency. Walī — one who is near; walā — to come one after another.

And the most striking side of the word is this: mawlā in Arabic covers opposite positions at once.

The usages the lexicographers enumerate:

• A master — one who frees a slave.
• A freed slave — one who is freed.
• A cousin, a close relative.
• A friend, a helper.
• A neighbour, an ally.

The word, that is, can name both ends of a relation. The shared idea: nearness. Whoever is near to whom is that other's mawlā.

And now we come to the point of the verse — I give it as my own reading.

The verse uses the same word twice, on both sides: lā yughnī mawlan ʿan mawlan.

The expected expression would have been two different words — "a friend for a friend", "a master for a slave", "a kinsman for a kinsman". But the verse names both sides with the same word.

Its effect is this: the direction of the relation is left undefined. Who is above and who below, who protects and who is protected — it is not said. And because it is not said, the sentence closes off every direction at once.

This reading is mine; the word's multiplicity of sense and its occurring twice in the verse are verifiable data of the text.

And its sharing of a root with the fourteenth verse must be recorded: there tawallaw ʿanhu (they turned away from him) came from the same root. The name of the relation they turned away from, that is, and the name of the relation that will not avail on that day are bound to the same root. I give this as an observation about the wording.

The root was treated in many sections (al-Layl, al-Ḥāqqa, al-Ḍuḥā, al-Ghāshiya). Its concrete sense: to suffice, to leave no need. Ghinā — wealth: the ceasing of need. Mughnī — that which suffices.

And its negative use is settled in the Qurʾān: lā yughnī — "it is of no avail".

Shayʾan — "anything". Accusative and indefinite: an absolute negation. Not partly, then, but not at all.

The root ن-ص-ر: to help. And the verb is passive: "they will not be helped" — by whom they will not be helped is not said.

And the division of labour between the two clauses must be recorded — I give it as my own reading:

The first clause closes the known relations, the second the unknown. The result: all the channels of help.

And at exactly this point an exception comes.

The exegetes differ over the set from which the exception is drawn:

I do not impose a preference.

I record one observation, and it is not a preference: in all three readings the result arrives at the same place — after all the channels are closed, the one thing left open is not relations but mercy.

The pattern repeated in four places in the sūra occurs here for the second time (it occurred for the first time in the sixth verse).

ٱلْعَزِيز — the root ع-ز-ز. As recorded in al-Aḥqāf, the concrete core of the root is explained by the lexicographers by way of "hard and impassable ground": arḍ ʿazāz — hard ground that cannot be dug. From this ʿizza — imperviousness, invincibility.

And that the two names come together is worth recording: one reports unreachability, the other nearness. A similar observation was made in al-Aḥqāf for al-ʿAzīzu'l-Ḥakīm: power is not named on its own.

Now we come to the real record, and this is the most important preparation in the sūra.

In the forty-second verse the attribute al-ʿAzīz is given to God. Seven verses later, in the forty-ninth, the same attribute, in the same pattern, will be said of a human being — in mockery.

The grammatical structure of the two sentences is exactly the same: inna + a pronoun + the pronoun of separation + al-ʿazīz + a second attribute with the definite article.

I record this as a verifiable datum within the sūra. And what is interpretation is this, which I give as my own reading: the mockery of the forty-ninth verse would not be so sharp without the forty-second. The sūra first shows the real owner of the attribute, and then gives the same pattern to one who does not own it. I shall take it up at the forty-ninth verse.

Inna shajarata'z-zaqqūm · Ṭaʿāmu'l-athīm

"The tree of zaqqūm is the food of the sinner."

This word was treated in detail at al-Wāqiʿa 56/52 — including the disagreement over its root. I do not repeat it. The record there was this:

The lexicographers differ over its root, and the disagreement must not be concealed: | View | Explanation | |---|---| | An Arabic root | Tazaqqama — to swallow a thing by force, with revulsion | | The name of a known plant | Some lexicographers transmit that a bitter and poisonous plant in Arabia was called by this name | | Of foreign origin | The view that the word entered Arabic from outside is also transmitted | I issue no firm etymological ruling.

And in al-Wāqiʿa the word's three occurrences in the Qurʾān were also recorded: al-Ṣāffāt 37/62, al-Dukhān 44/43 and al-Wāqiʿa 56/52.

Now I treat what is peculiar to this place: the difference between al-Wāqiʿa and al-Dukhān.

The two sūras name the same tree and do two separate things. I give the difference in a table; the wording of the two texts is verifiable.

Three differences are worth recording, and I give all three as my own reading.

One — al-Wāqiʿa narrates an event, al-Dukhān gives a definition. In al-Wāqiʿa the verbs were chained with fāʾ, and this was recorded in al-Wāqiʿa: "the scene flows in four steps, without a break." In al-Dukhān there is no verb at all — the tree is defined as someone's food.

Two — al-Wāqiʿa names the tree by its effect, not by its eater; al-Dukhān by its eater. The sentence in al-Wāqiʿa is "they will fill their bellies with it"; the sentence in al-Dukhān is "it is the food of the sinner". al-Dukhān, that is, gives the tree by way of a relation of belonging: this food is that man's.

Three — and this is the most important difference: al-Dukhān speaks in the singular. In al-Wāqiʿa the address was plural and direct (innakum ayyuha'ḍ-ḍāllūn). In al-Dukhān there is a single person: al-athīm. And this singularity will continue as far as the forty-ninth verse — there too a single person will be addressed: dhuq innaka anta…

The scene of the Fire in al-Dukhān, that is, is not a scene of a crowd but a scene of a person.

The word is written in the muṣḥaf with an open tāʾ: شجرت. This is something seen in a few words in the orthography (rasm) of the muṣḥaf.

I record this only as a datum of writing; no meaning, reckoning or claim of a secret is drawn from it. The record entered in al-Baqara holds.

The root occurred in al-Qalam, al-Muṭaffifīn, al-Insān and al-Ḥujurāt.

Its concrete sense is given by the lexicographers thus: ithm — that which holds a man back from good, that which weighs him down. There is an idea of slowing, hindering in the root: nāqatun āthima — a camel that walks slowly. From this ithm — sin: a burden that makes going to what is good heavy.

And the pattern athīm: faʿīl, here conveying intensity — "deeply sunk in sin".

The word's other occurrences in the Qurʾān are worth recording, because it is always in the same company:

• "A hoarder of wealth, an aggressor, a sinner" — at al-Qalam 68/12, muʿallā mannāʿin li'l-khayri muʿtadin athīm.
• "Every aggressor, sinner" — at al-Muṭaffifīn 83/12, kulli muʿtadin athīm.

In both places the word occurs together with muʿtadī (an aggressor, one who exceeds the bound).

I record this as an observation about the wording: in the Qurʾān the word occurs in a company that describes not merely "one who commits a sin" but one who has made a habit of exceeding the bound. And the word musrif (one who exceeds the bound) used of Pharaoh in the thirty-first verse is in the same field.

Al-athīm has the definite article, and the article can be read in two ways:

I do not impose a preference.

But I enter a record, and it is required by Method: even on the second reading what the verse builds is an attribute. The principle recorded in Qāf and throughout this commentary works here too: what the verse describes is an attribute, and whoever bears that attribute is included in it.

Ka'l-muhli yaghlī fi'l-buṭūn · Ka-ghalyi'l-ḥamīm

"Like molten metal it boils in the bellies — like the boiling of scalding water."

Two kāfs (particles of comparison) come one after another, and each likens something different. This deserves careful reading.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the structure of the two phrases: the term of comparison in the first is a noun (al-muhl), in the second a verbal noun (ghaly). The one says what it resembles, the other how it is.

And it has a consequence: the matter and the movement are likened separately. The text does not give a single image; it builds a two-layered image.

The root was treated at length in al-Maʿārij and this verse was already cited there. I do not repeat it. The summary of that record:

"مَهْل — to move slowly, not to hurry. Muhla (the granting of time), imhāl, tamahhul are of the same root. […] The link between the two senses: molten metal flows slowly. The flow of water is quick; the flow of molten metal is slow and heavy."

And in the closing record of al-Maʿārij this was entered:

"What ٱلْمُهْل is (molten metal / the dregs of oil) — the view of the majority of the lexicographers was transmitted; no firm ruling was issued."

I keep the same record here.

What is peculiar to al-Dukhān is the word's position, and this is worth recording:

The same substance, in three separate positions.

I present this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the three verses: in al-Maʿārij muhl is the spectacle of a scene of the Hour; in al-Dukhān it is inside a person. And in al-Maʿārij the root's sense of "flowing slowly" was recorded — a thing's flowing slowly is, seen from outside, a sight; when it is inside, it is a duration.

A difference of reading is transmitted concerning the subject of the verb: