al-Ṭūr 52:32-34

Am taʾmuruhum aḥlāmuhum bi-hādhā; am hum qawmun ṭāghūn · Am yaqūlūna taqawwalah; bal lā yuʾminūn · Fal-yaʾtū bi-ḥadīthin mithlihī in kānū ṣādiqīn "Or do their minds command them to this? Or are they an overweening people? Or do they say, 'he made it up'? No — they do not believe. Then let them bring a discourse like it, if they are truthful."

Root: ح-ل-م. And three branches of the root stand together in Arabic:

And the link the lexicographers record: ḥilm is the name of the mind that holds itself in when angered. In this branch of the word, intellect is named as "the capacity to be patient".

Which sense in the verse? — two readings:

The first is the more widespread. And both are transmitted in the classical sources.

And the question carries a mockery: in Quraysh's own culture intelligence and gravity (ḥilm) were a praised quality; the elders of the tribe were named with this epithet. The question gives that epithet back: "so is it your minds that tell you this?"

And the second am gives the answer: am hum qawmun ṭāghūn — "or are they an overweening people?"

That is, two options are offered and the second is made to be chosen. And this is the same structure seen at al-Dhāriyāt 51/53:

al-Dhāriyāt 51/53: atawāṣaw bih; bal hum qawmun ṭāghūn al-Ṭūr 52/32: am taʾmuruhum aḥlāmuhum bi-hādhā; am hum qawmun ṭāghūn

Two neighbouring sūras use the same sentence: qawmun ṭāghūn — an overweening people. Word for word the same expression.

And both do the same work: a question is asked, the possibilities are put through an elimination, and the cause is given as a state.

The difference is in the particle:

Al-Ṭūr gives even the answer in the form of a question. This is the general technique of the series and I shall take it up below.

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

The root طَاغُون was treated in the discussion of al-Shams 91/11; I do not repeat it here. Its summary: ط-غ-ي, the swelling and overflowing of water — to pass the limit.

Root: ق-و-ل. And the work Form تَفَعُّل does here is decisive.

Qāla — he said. تَقَوَّلَ — to make as though one had said what one did not say, to fabricate, to produce speech out of oneself.

And this root was treated in the discussion of al-Ḥāqqa 69/44. What was recorded there: al-Ḥāqqa built the dispute over the source of the speech around the root ق-و-ل — qawlu rasūl (40), qawli shāʿir (41), qawli kāhin (42), taqawwala and al-aqāwīl (44). And it was stated there that the possibility of fabrication was explicitly turned into a scenario.

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added: al-Ṭūr uses the same root and closes the same possibility — but by another road.

Al-Ḥāqqa stated a consequence (had he made it up, this would have followed). Al-Ṭūr makes a challenge.

And the second half of the thirty-third verse is the key to the whole series of questions.

The sūra asked three times: is it their minds? overweeningness? do they say he made it up?

And now, in the middle of the series, an answer is given with bal: bal lā yuʾminūn — "no, they do not believe."

بَلْ is the particle of iḍrāb — it was treated in the discussion of al-Dhāriyāt 51/53: it drops the preceding judgement and puts another in its place.

And the form of the answer given is striking. The answer is not a ground; it is a finding. It does not say "they say this for such-and-such a reason"; it says "they do not believe."

That is, the text says this: the grounds they produce (poet, fabrication) are not the cause but the consequence. First there is the not believing, then the ground comes.

And this is exactly the same as the finding recorded in the discussion of al-Muddaththir 74/18-25:

"the eight steps of denial; the verdict is the eighth: the frowning of the face, the turning of the back and the arrogance come before the verdict. The decision was made first, the ground produced afterwards."

Two texts make the same diagnosis. Al-Muddaththir showed it through one man, in a sequence of eight steps. Al-Ṭūr says the same thing in a single sentence.

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

And this verse was cited in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/23. What was recorded there: the Qurʾān makes this challenge in more than one place, at different scales — bring a discourse (al-Ṭūr 52/34), bring ten sūras (Hūd 11/13), bring one sūra (al-Baqara 2/23; Yūnus 10/38). And a record was entered there: "since the order of revelation of these sūras is not known with certainty, the chronological construction of the form 'much was demanded first, then it was reduced to little' is an assumption."

I do not repeat it here. What is to be added here is the choice of the word.

The verse does not say sūra, nor qurʾān. It says حَدِيث.

Root: ح-د-ث. Its concrete sense: to be new, to come into being afterwards. Ḥādith — what comes into being afterwards; ḥudūth — coming to be; ḥadīth — both "new" and "speech, report".

And the word's carrying the sense of "new" widens the scope of the challenge: what is asked for is not a particular literary form but a discourse. Any discourse at all.

This is wider than the demand for "a sūra" in al-Baqara: a sūra requires a form, a ḥadīth does not.

I record this as an observation about a word; I build no claim of a chronological ordering and the record made in al-Baqara holds.

And this must be recorded: the challenge is the direct counterpart of the accusation in the thirty-third verse (fabrication). If a human being can make it up, another human being can make it up too. The demand comes out of the logic of the claim itself.

إِن كَانُوا۟ صَٰدِقِينَ — "if they are truthful". The conditional clause ties the demand to the claim: the demand is made of the one who makes the claim.