al-Najm 53:10

Fa-awḥā ilā ʿabdihi mā awḥā "So He revealed to His servant what He revealed."

The verse gives no information. It does not say what was revealed.

مَآ أَوْحَىٰ — "what he revealed". The object is described by the verb itself. In English: "he revealed whatever he revealed."

This is a technique of expression called in Arabic إبهام (ibhām — deliberately leaving indeterminate), and it is used three times in this sūra:

All three are in the same pattern: verb + mā + the same verb.

And one must see what the technique does. The indeterminacy here is not ignorance; it is an instrument of magnification (taʿẓīm). Had it said "He revealed such and such", the content would have been bounded. When it says "whatever He revealed", the content is left outside the reader's guess.

This is one of the oldest instruments of language and it works in everyday speech as well: "what happened there happened", "I saw what I saw." The sentence gives no information but conveys a magnitude.

The sixteenth verse will repeat the same technique in the same sūra. And the fifty-fourth, this time for punishment. Three times, then, the sūra "says by not saying": once for revelation, once for light, once for punishment.

I record this as an observation; that the three verses are in the same pattern is a countable datum.

Root: ع-ب-د. This root was treated in the section on al-Fātiḥa (iyyāka naʿbudu); I do not repeat it. The summary: the concrete sense of the root is submission, entering into service; ʿabd — a servant, a slave.

The choice of the word here is worth dwelling on. The verse does not say rasūlihi (His messenger) or nabiyyihi (His prophet). It says عَبْدِهِ — "His servant".

The Qurʾān regularly uses this word when recounting the Prophet in the highest positions:

• "Who took His servant by night…" (al-Isrāʾ 17/1 — asrā bi-ʿabdihi)
• "Praise be to God, who sent down the Book to His servant." (al-Kahf 18/1 — ʿalā ʿabdihi)
• "And when the servant of God stood up calling upon Him…" (al-Jinn 72/19 — ʿabdu'llāh)

This regularity is striking. The epithet used where the highest nearness is recounted is the epithet that conveys the lowest position.

I record this as my own reading: that the epithet of servanthood is chosen while a drawing near is recounted says that the nearness does not change the position. He who has come within the length of two bows is still a servant; the closing of the distance does not mean that the parties change places.

And the verb of this sūra's last verse will be وَٱعْبُدُوا۟ — "serve". The same root: an epithet in the tenth verse, a command in the sixty-second.