Qāf 50:31

Wa uzlifati'l-jannatu li'l-muttaqīna ghayra baʿīd

"And the Garden was brought near to the godfearing, not far off."

And the clearest internal link of the sūra is completed here.

In the third verse the deniers had said:

dhālika rajʿun baʿīd — "this is a far return."

In the thirty-first verse the sūra says:

uzlifati'l-jannatu li'l-muttaqīna ghayra baʿīd — "…not far off."

The same word. Once as an objection, once as an answer.

And the answer uses the measure the objection used. The denier had spoken in the measure of distance; the sūra replies in the same measure. The dispute is carried on not on the plane of "is it possible or not" but on the plane of "is it far or near" — because the other side had chosen the ground.

I present this link as my own reading, but the presence of the two words in the text and their being from the same root are beyond dispute.

And there is one more thing: in the third verse baʿīd came as a predicate (this is a far return). Here ghayra baʿīd — in negated form.

This root was treated in the sections on al-Mulk and al-Takwīr; I do not repeat it. Its summary:

"Nearness, drawing near. Zulfa — nearness, a rank. […] And from this root مُزْدَلِفَة — the name of a place in the rites of the pilgrimage; the place of drawing near. […] In the root there is the closing of a distance."

And what was recorded for the pattern in the section on al-Takwīr holds here too:

"The pattern: the passive of ifʿāl — 'it was brought near'. The Garden, that is, does not come near of itself; it is brought near."

What is to be added as belonging to Qāf is this: in al-Takwīr this verb came in the same scene as the "kindling" of Hell. In Qāf the bringing near of the Garden comes immediately after Hell's question "is there any more?".

The two verses stand one after the other with no transition between them:

The sūra sets the two scenes side by side and takes the reader from one to the other in a single step.

The word is in the accusative and the grammarians analyse it in different ways: as the ḥāl of janna, or as the absolute object of the verb uzlifat. It makes no difference to the sense.

And the expression is itself a repetition: uzlifat already means "it was brought near"; ghayra baʿīd (not far off) says it once more.

This repetition is not idle. In Arabic, saying an idea both positively and negatively (it was brought near + not far) makes for reinforcement.

But here it has a second task as well, and I give this as my own reading: the second expression appears to be placed there in order to bring back the word of the third verse. The repetition, that is, alongside the reinforcement also does the work of a reference.

Root: و-ق-ي. To guard, to keep oneself from. This root was treated in the section on al-Baqara; I rely on the note there.

And the word order is striking: the Garden is brought near to the godfearing — not the godfearing to the Garden.

The direction of the movement makes a contrast with the movement in the scene of Hell:

I record this contrast as an observation; the subjects of the two verbs are explicit in the text.