al-Māʾida 5:25-26

Qāla rabbi innī lā amliku illā nafsī wa akhī · Fa'fruq baynanā wa bayna'l-qawmi'l-fāsiqīn · Qāla fa-innahā muḥarramatun ʿalayhim arbaʿīna sanatan yatīhūna fi'l-arḍ · Fa-lā taʾsa ʿala'l-qawmi'l-fāsiqīn

"He said: My Lord! I have power over no one but myself and my brother. Separate us from this people who have departed from the way. He said: Then it is forbidden to them for forty years; they will wander bewildered in the land. So do not grieve over the people who have departed from the way."

A sentence in which the messenger states his own limit in his own words.

The verb is amliku — a verb of ownership; here in the sense of "to have any say over, to be able to dispose". The messenger says how much of the task given him he actually "holds in his hand": only himself and his brother.

This agrees with the Qurʾān's description of messengership and has been recorded in many places in this collection: the messenger delivers the message; he does not produce the outcome. It was treated at al-Ghāshiya 88/22 (lasta ʿalayhim bi-musayṭir) and at al-Shūrā 42/48; I rely on that treatment.

And later in the sūra the same measure will be said to the Prophet: mā ʿala'r-rasūli illa'l-balāgh (5/99).

In the classical codices there are in this verse two three-dotted marks in the form ۛ: one before arbaʿīna sanatan and one after.

This is the mark of muʿānaqa (interlocking) treated at al-Baqara 2/2, and it was recorded there: one may pause at either of the two places, but not at both. I rely on that treatment.

The two pauses give two different senses:

Both are correct; they cannot both be read at once. This is an instance of the finding recorded in the section on al-Baqara: the mark in the muṣḥaf is a concrete indication of how scrupulously the tradition of variant readings has preserved differences of meaning.

The sense of the root: to lose one's way and wander bewildered; to go round and round in one place. Tīh — a broad desert in which no road can be found. The Turkish expression "tîh sahrası" (the wilderness of Tīh) comes from here.

The pattern of the verb matters: imperfect, that is, continuous. And the verb conveys not arriving anywhere but wandering.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the sense of the verb: the punishment is not immobility but motion without direction. The walking continues; there is no place arrived at. The answer given to those who in the preceding verse said "we are sitting right here" is not sitting but walking without stopping.

فَلَا تَأْسَ — root أ-س-و/أ-س-ي: to grieve, to be sorrowful. From the same root come asā (sorrow) and — according to some of the lexicographers — āsī (a physician, one who binds a wound); I do not give this second link as certain.

And the one addressed by the command is the messenger. The measure treated at al-Kahf 18/6 (fa-laʿallaka bākhiʿun nafsaka) holds here as well: the messenger is reminded that he is not responsible for the outcome.