al-Ṭūr 52:17-18

Inna'l-muttaqīna fī jannātin wa naʿīm · Fākihīna bimā ātāhum rabbuhum wa waqāhum rabbuhum ʿadhāba'l-jaḥīm "The god-fearing are in gardens and bliss — delighting in what their Lord has given them. And their Lord has guarded them from the punishment of the Blaze."

The tableaux of the god-fearing in the two neighbouring sūras open with almost the same sentence:

The same pattern, two different words. And both use the expression mā ātāhum rabbuhum — word for word the same.

The difference is in the second word and it sets up a sequence: al-Dhāriyāt tells the taking, al-Ṭūr the result of the taking. One is an act, the other a state.

I record this as a reading drawn from a comparison of the two sūras.

Root: ف-ك-ه. And the root has two branches:

• فَاكِهَة — fruit. It occurs often in the Qurʾān's descriptions of the Garden; it is in the twenty-second verse of this sūra as well.
• فَكِهَ / تَفَكَّهَ — to be pleased, to take delight; and to converse and jest. فُكَاهَة — pleasant talk, jesting.

The lexicographers tie the two branches together: fruit is what lies beyond basic food — one lives without eating it. Conversation and jest are the same. I attribute this link to the lexicographers; I do not present it as a settled etymology.

And the choice of the word here is meaningful: the verse does not say fariḥīna (rejoicing) or masrūrīn (happy). It says فَاكِهِين — and the word states a contentment beyond need.

And the word occurs in a negative context in the Qurʾān too: "When they returned to their families they returned delighting" (al-Muṭaffifīn 83/31) — inqalabū fakihīn. This verse was treated in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn.

Setting the two usages side by side is instructive:

The same state, from two different sources. And the structure of "reversal" recorded in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn finds a further example here.

I record this as an observation about a word.

Root: و-ق-ي. And this is the same root as the word muttaqī.

The word order of the verse makes this visible:

inna'l-muttaqīna… — those who guard themselves wa waqāhum rabbuhum — their Lord guarded them

That is, the verse uses the same root twice with two different agents: first the people guard themselves (muttaqī — reflexive), then their Lord guards them (waqā — transitive).

And the order is meaningful: the person guards himself, then he is guarded. His own guarding is presented as the ground of his being guarded.

In the discussion of al-Baqara 2/2-3 it was recorded that this root means "to guard oneself by putting something in between". And the picture here does not show what is put in between; it shows only the two sides of the operation.

I record this as an observation about word order.

And rabbuhum is repeated twice: bimā ātāhum rabbuhum wa waqāhum rabbuhum. A pronoun would have sufficed. The repetition stresses that both acts come from the same source: the giver and the guarder are the same.

ٱلْجَحِيم — root ج-ح-م: fire's burning fiercely, glowing red. Jaḥīm is one of the names of Hell and its root states the intensity of the fire.