Qāf 50:24-26

Alqiyā fī jahannama kulla kaffārin ʿanīd — mannāʿin li'l-khayri muʿtadin murīb — alladhī jaʿala maʿa'llāhi ilāhan ākhara fa-alqiyāhu fi'l-ʿadhābi'sh-shadīd

"Cast into Hell every stubborn ingrate — the withholder of good, the transgressor, the sower of doubt — who set up another god beside God. Cast him into the severe punishment."

And now we come to the most debated question of word order in the sūra.

أَلْقِيَا — the dual imperative of the verb ilqāʾ: "cast, you two."

The question is: to whom is it addressed?

In the classical commentaries and grammars there are three principal explanations, and the disagreement is a real one:

There is an indication that must be recorded for the third explanation, and it matters: the same form is repeated in the twenty-sixth verse with a pronoun attached: fa-alqiyāhu. The explanation from the emphatic nūn does not work with the pronoun attached.

This is an observation and it strengthens the first explanation; but I do not impose a preference. The second explanation too is a usage genuinely recorded in Arabic, and some exegetes adopt it.

And this must be added: all three explanations arrive at the same result. Whether two angels or a pattern of emphasis, the content and the force of the command do not change.

The clause begins with the imperative and the object comes afterwards. In Arabic this is the normal order, but here its effect is sharp: the command is given before it is said whom it concerns.

Alqiyā fī jahannama — "cast into Hell" — whom? The answer takes two and a half verses.

The clause, that is, states the verdict first and the ground afterwards. And the ground is given in five attributes.

The word kull was treated in the sections on al-Humaza and al-Qalam. The note there was this: "kull is singular in wording and plural in sense; and it indicates not a person but a type."

And the warning given in the section on al-Qalam must be repeated here, because a list of five attributes carries the same risk:

"to take up the text, place other people inside the description and pass judgement on them, is to commit the very act the sūra describes."

And all the attributes are indefinite: kaffārin, ʿanīdin, mannāʿin, muʿtadin, murībin. That is, not "that man" but "someone like this".

كَفَّار — root ك-ف-ر. To cover. The faʿʿāl pattern — as recorded in the section on al-Burūj — conveys multiplicity and continuity. Not "one who covers", then, but "one who has made covering his trade".

عَنِيد — root ع-ن-د. Treated in the section on al-Muddaththir; I do not repeat it. The summary of the note there: "to turn off the road, to draw aside; and to do so in resistance. […] the word states not a single fault but a fault that has become permanent."

And in the section on al-Muddaththir this verse was already mentioned, with this finding: the word occurs in three further places in the Qurʾān, and in all three it stands beside another attribute — jabbārin ʿanīd (Hūd 11/59; Ibrāhīm 14/15) and kaffārin ʿanīd (Qāf 50/24).

Now I add to this an observation belonging to Qāf, and I record it as my own reading.

In the Qurʾān the attribute that most often accompanies ʿanīd is jabbār. And this sūra will use exactly that word in its forty-fifth verse:

wa mā anta ʿalayhim bi-jabbār — "you are not a jabbār over them." (50/45)

Two words the Qurʾān uses side by side elsewhere are thus separated in this sūra:

I present this link as my own reading; the places of the two words in the text are fixed, but the claim that a link is made between them is mine.

مَّنَّاع لِّلْخَيْر — root م-ن-ع. To withhold, to refuse. Again the faʿʿāl pattern: one who has made withholding a habit.

And this expression occurs once more in the Qurʾān, in the same form:

…mannāʿin li'l-khayri muʿtadin athīm (al-Qalam 68/12)

In the section on al-Qalam this expression was treated within the portrait of nine attributes. And what was recorded there for the word khayr was: "The use of the word in the Qurʾān is broad and includes the sense of wealth."

The overlap between the two verses is notable and can be verified:

The first two attributes are word for word the same; the third is different.

I record this as an observation and do not claim that there is a deliberate reference between the two sūras. But the difference is meaningful: the portrait in al-Qalam is a portrait of conduct and goes on with athīm (sinful); the list in Qāf is a list of denial and goes on with murīb.

مُعْتَد — root ع-د-و. To exceed a limit, to attack. Iʿtidāʾ — to cross a boundary; ʿaduww — an enemy; ʿudwān — aggression.

The word is in the iftiʿāl form and states the crossing of a limit knowingly.

مُّرِيب — root ر-ي-ب. This root was treated in the section on al-Baqara. The note there was this:

"Rayb — a doubt that unsettles. There is unease and suspicion in it. From the same root comes rība: an ill opinion held against someone."

And the pattern of the word is decisive here: murīb is the active participle of the ifʿāl form — that is, transitive.

The word can therefore be read in two directions: one who is himself in doubt, and/or one who puts others into doubt. Because of the transitivity of the pattern the lexicographers bring the second forward; the first sense is also transmitted.

And the second sense is linked with the fifteenth verse: there they were fī labs (inside an indistinctness). Here murīb — one who spreads the indistinctness.

I give this link as my own reading.

There is a movement in the sequence, and I present this as my own analysis:

And the twenty-sixth verse closes the list with a single clause: alladhī jaʿala maʿa'llāhi ilāhan ākhar — "who set up another god beside God."

This states the source of the five attributes. The method recorded in the section on al-Qalam is at work here too: "The Qurʾān generally frames a diagnosis this way: it begins with the visible act and descends to the source."

The command was given in the twenty-fourth verse. In the twenty-sixth it is repeated.

In Arabic this is called the repetition made when a long series of attributes has come in between — the verdict at the head of the sentence is said again once the grounds have been enumerated.

And there is a change in the repetition:

The first states the place, the second the state. It passes from the name of a place to a quality.

I record this as an observation.