أَمْرًا مِّنْ عِندِنَآ ۚ إِنَّا كُنَّا مُرْسِلِينَ · رَحْمَةً مِّن رَّبِّكَ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ
"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:
| Reading | Of what is amran? | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| A circumstantial accusative | Of kullu amrin ḥakīm | "Every wise affair — as a command from Us — is separated" |
| An absolute object | In place of the verbal noun of the verb yufraqu | "The separating takes place in the form of a command" |
| A circumstantial accusative attached to anzalnāhu | Of the sending down in the third verse | "We sent it down … as a command" |
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.
| Verse | Expression | What it qualifies |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | raḥmatan min rabbika | The sending down of the Book |
| 57 | faḍlan min rabbika | Being guarded from the Fire |
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."
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.