Muḥammad 47:14

A-fa-man kāna ʿalā bayyinatin min rabbihī ka-man zuyyina lahu sūʾu ʿamalihī wa'ttabaʿū ahwāʾahum

"Is one who stands upon a clear proof from his Lord like those to whom their evil deed has been made to look fair and who have followed their own desires?"

A pattern of comparison the Qurʾān uses often: a-fa-man… ka-man — "is one who is…, like one who is…?"

The question is one of denial: it expects no answer, it announces a negation. "Of course they are not the same."

And the work of the pattern is to make the addressee say the answer. No ruling is issued; the addressee is asked to draw the ruling himself.

بَيِّنَة — root ب-ي-ن: to separate, to come out into the open, for a gap to open between two things. From the same root bayān (explanation), tabyīn, mubīn (manifest), bayn (the space between).

At the centre of the root lies separation: a thing becomes visible when it is separated from other things.

بَيِّنَة is an intensive on the faʿīla pattern: that which is utterly clear, the proof that distinguishes.

And the particle matters: عَلَىٰ. "Upon a proof". In Arabic ʿalā announces standing on top of something, treading on it. That is, the proof is not a piece of knowledge the person possesses; it is a ground he stands on.

This gains its meaning when compared with the description of the other side: there is no ground beneath them; something has been made to look fair to them.

زَيَّنَ — root ز-ي-ن, Form tafʿīl: to adorn, to make look fair.

This root was treated in al-Ḥadīd (57/20 — zīna). What was recorded there is decisive here:

"The Qurʾān uses this root in an interesting way: mostly in the sense of a thing's 'being made to look fair'. […] The adornment is not the thing itself; it is what is placed upon the thing. And what is adorned looks as good as its adornment."

What is to be added here is that the verb is passive: زُيِّنَ — "it was made to look fair".

Who made it so? The verse does not say.

And this is the Qurʾān's habit with this construction: the same verb is used in some places of Satan (al-Anʿām 6/43, al-Naml 27/24), in some places left passive (this verse, Fāṭir 35/8); and in one place God's name occurs as the agent (at al-Anʿām 6/108 the making fair of deeds is named as a custom).

This distribution enters into the classical debates of theology, and I do not enter that debate here. What is to be recorded is this: the verse chooses not to name the agent, and this is a choice.

An observation — it is my own reading: the passive has an effect. When the agent is not named, the person cannot see the one who adorns. And to notice that something has been made to look fair requires noticing the one who made it so. That is, the verb form itself carries the mechanism of the deception.

One of the occurrences of the root عَمَل in the sūra is here — and this is the only place where the root is attributed not to the collective deeds of the believers or of those who deny but to the deed of a single person: ʿamalihī — his deed.

سُوء — root س-و-أ: to be bad, to become ugly. From the same root sayyiʾa (an evil deed — it occurred at 47/2: kaffara ʿanhum sayyiʾātihim), aswaʾ, sūʾ.

And a link appears between two verses:

Both verbs cover something over. But one makes it invisible (takfīr), the other makes it look good (tazyīn).

The difference is this — it is my own reading: what is covered is still bad for the one who knows it has been covered; what is adorned is done again, because it is not known to be bad.

There is a marked slippage in the word order:

• مَن زُيِّنَ لَهُۥ — singular ("the one to whom it has been made to look fair"), and the pronouns singular: lahu, ʿamalihī.
• وَٱتَّبَعُوٓا۟ أَهْوَآءَهُم — plural ("they followed their desires").

In grammar this is again called ḥaml ʿala'l-maʿnā: man (who) is verbally singular but plural in meaning; at the head of the sentence the wording is followed, at the end the meaning.

And this slippage does a piece of work — I record it as an observation: the deception is recounted in the singular (each person is deceived alone), the following is recounted in the plural (following desire takes on a collective form).

I do not present this as a settled rhetorical explanation; ḥaml ʿala'l-maʿnā is a usage frequently seen in the Qurʾān and in most places it carries no particular meaning.

Root: ه-و-ي. This root has been treated in this commentary (al-Najm — 53/1, wa'n-najmi idhā hawā; al-Qāriʿa, al-Nāziʿāt, al-Qamar). I do not repeat it here.

The main point recorded there is decisive here: the primary sense of the root is to fall from above downward. Hawā — it fell. هَاوِيَة — an abyss, a bottomless pit (al-Qāriʿa 101/9).

And from the same root هَوًى (hawā) — the appetite of the soul, its inclination.

The connection the lexicographers make is this: hawā is the inclination that pulls a person downward. The word carries in its name the direction it goes in.

And the word occurs twice in this sūra: 14 (wa'ttabaʿū ahwāʾahum) and 16 (wa'ttabaʿū ahwāʾahum). The same expression, the same words, two verses apart.

This repetition binds the two groups together and is to be kept in mind in passing to the sixteenth verse.

And a reminder: in the third verse the verb ittabaʿū occurred twice — once for those who follow falsehood, once for those who follow the truth. That is, the root ت-ب-ع occurs four times in the sūra and in all four the same form (Form VIII) is used: 3 (twice), 14, 16. And once more at 28: ittabaʿū mā askhaṭa'llāh.

Five occurrences, one verb. This is the sūra's way of describing the human being: a human being is a creature that sets off after something. The difference lies in what he sets off after.

I record this finding as my own reading.