al-Dukhān 44:20 commentary

44/20

وَإِنِّى عُذْتُ بِرَبِّى وَرَبِّكُمْ أَن تَرْجُمُونِ

Wa innī ʿudhtu bi-rabbī wa rabbikum an tarjumūn

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

عُذْتُ — the root ع-و-ذ and the point of the tense

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".

Pattern	Where	What it conveys
*Aʿūdhu* (imperfect)	al-Falaq 113/1, al-Nās 114/1	A continual, repeated taking of refuge
*ʿUdhtu* (perfect)	al-Dukhān 44/20	A taking of refuge already made, completed

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.

بِرَبِّى وَرَبِّكُمْ — the address taken refuge in

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

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

Verse	Expression	Who speaks
8	rabbukum wa rabbu ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn	The text — to Mecca
20	bi-rabbī wa rabbikum	Moses — to the house of Pharaoh

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".

أَن تَرْجُمُونِ — the root ر-ج-م

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:

Reading	Meaning	Ground
To kill by stoning	A threat of actual killing	The original and most widespread sense of the root
To revile, to insult	An attack by speech	The figurative branch of the root; and the next verse (fa'ʿtazilūni) asks for a severing of relation rather than for the ending of a physical attack

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.