al-Ṭūr 52:30-31

Am yaqūlūna shāʿirun natarabbaṣu bihī rayba'l-manūn · Qul tarabbaṣū fa-innī maʿakum mina'l-mutarabbiṣīn "Or do they say, 'a poet; we are waiting for the stroke of time to fall on him'? Say: 'Wait; I too am with you among those who wait.'"

And the sūra's series of questions begins here.

أَمْ is used in two ways in Arabic:

In the fifteenth verse there was the first type: a-fa-siḥrun hādhā am antum lā tubṣirūn — together with a hamza.

From the thirtieth verse onward the second type begins: each am stands on its own.

And the working of the munqaṭiʿa determines the tone of the verse. This particle does two things at once: it drops the preceding possibility (bal) and asks a new one (hamza). In English it is met with "or is it that…?"

That is, each am closes one door and opens the next.

And this is the whole logic of the series. I shall gather it in a table below.

This accusation was treated in the discussion of al-Ḥāqqa 69/41; I do not repeat it here. The summary of the finding there: شَاعِر — the exact sense of the word is one who feels, one who perceives (root ش-ع-ر: to feel, to become aware; shuʿūr is from the same root). The poet is the person who notices what the ordinary man does not.

And in al-Ḥāqqa a reading was attempted about why the poet accusation is answered with tuʾminūn (you believe) and the soothsayer accusation with tadhakkarūn (you reflect), and it was stated that it was not attributed to any classical exegete.

What is to be added here: in al-Ṭūr the poet accusation does not come alone; it comes together with an expectation.

And this construct is one of the most settled expressions of the poetry of the age of ignorance.

رَيْب — root ر-ي-ب: doubt, misgiving; and what causes unease. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/2 (lā rayba fīh); I do not repeat it here.

And rayb here means not "doubt" but "the uncertain calamity that time brings". The lexicographers record this use: raybu'd-dahr — the blows of time.

مَنُون — root م-ن-ن. And above, in the discussion of 52/27, the three branches of this root were given: favour, reproach, and cutting / diminishing.

And manūn comes from the third branch: the cutter, the diminisher. The word is used in two senses:

The two senses do not exclude one another and the lexicographers record both.

And now the root's two occurrences within the sūra side by side:

52/27: fa-manna'llāhu ʿalaynā — God bestowed His favour on us. 52/30: rayba'l-manūn — the stroke of the cutter.

The same root, three verses apart, in two opposite branches. In one it is given, in the other it is cut off.

I record this as my own reading. Both branches of the root are what the lexicographers record; that the two words occur in the same sūra is plain in the text; it is no claim of a deliberate arrangement.

And the ajrun ghayru mamnūn (unbroken reward) of al-Qalam 68/3 is from the same root and was treated in the section on al-Qalam. That is, the root stands in three places in three positions: a reward that is not cut, a favour that is not cut, a time that cuts.

And it is necessary to see what is being said.

The one addressed is not putting forward a thesis. He is announcing a strategy: "this is a poet; let us wait, time will deal with him."

That is, they refuse the argument. Instead of refuting the word, they wait for the death of the one who says it.

And there is an assumption behind this: a word ends when the one who says it dies. This assumption arises from counting the word a poet's word — because a poet's word is personal and goes with the person.

And the answer does not dispute the assumption; it accepts the strategy: qul tarabbaṣū fa-innī maʿakum mina'l-mutarabbiṣīn — "wait; I too am among those who wait."

This is a move the Qurʾān often uses and it was recorded in this commentary in the sections on al-Kāfirūn and al-Ḍuḥā: the reply is given without entering into the content of the claim.

And the fine point here must be seen: the answer does not say "no, your waiting is in vain." It says "I too am waiting."

That is, both sides are content to wait. The difference is in what they are waiting for — and that is not said.

تَرَبُّص — root ر-ب-ص: to wait, to watch, to expect a thing to happen. Form V states the continuance of the act.

And the word occurs three times in the verse, in three patterns: natarabbaṣu (a verb, of them), tarabbaṣū (an imperative), al-mutarabbiṣīn (an active participle, plural).

The same root three times in a row. This is a technique in Arabic and shows that the answer is given with the other side's own word.

I record this as an observation about word order.