al-Najm 53:33-35

A-fa-raʾayta'lladhī tawallā · Wa aʿṭā qalīlan wa akdā · A-ʿindahu ʿilmu'l-ghaybi fa-huwa yarā "Have you seen the one who turned his back? He gave a little and then stopped short. Does he have the knowledge of the unseen, so that he sees?"

The pattern of the nineteenth verse returns: a-fa-raʾayta — "have you seen?"

But there is a difference, and it is the nicety of word order:

The sūra passes from a plural address to a singular one. And what is shown becomes singular too: three idols in the nineteenth verse, one person in the thirty-third.

And this agrees with the general movement of the sūra. The scale narrows: a scene of seeing on the scale of the cosmos (5-18), the beliefs of a society (19-30), a principle (31-32), and now a single man.

I record this as an observation. This narrowing resembles the "circle" movement recorded in the section al-Wāqiʿa — there the sūra descended from the widest to the narrowest (a single person dying in a bed).

Reports are transmitted in the classical commentaries that these verses came down about a particular person, and several different names are given. I do not transmit these names, because the reports differ from one another and I am not certain which is established.

And in point of the text there is no need for it. The verse gives no name; with ٱلَّذِى ("the one who") it describes an attribute.

This principle was treated in the section al-Takwīr — al-ʿibratu bi-ʿumūmi'l-lafẓ (the ruling goes by the generality of the wording): "The verse gives no name; it gives a position." The same principle holds here.

And the position described is given by three verbs: he turned, he gave a little, he stopped short.

أَعْطَىٰ — root ع-ط-و. ʿAṭāʾ — a gift, a giving. Form IV: he gave, he bestowed. From the same root, aʿṭā wa'ttaqā treated in the section al-Layl (al-Layl 92/5).

أَكْدَىٰ — root ك-د-ي / ك-د-و. And the concrete sense of this word carries the whole force of the verse.

كُدْيَة (kudya) — the hard layer of rock beneath the ground.

أَكْدَى ٱلْحَافِر — the well-digger struck hard rock and could go no deeper.

The image is this: a man is digging a well. He digs for a while, the soil is soft, the work goes on. Then the pick strikes something — rock. And there the work stops. The well is left half-dug; no water comes.

And that the verb is in Form IV matters: akdā — "he struck rock, he stopped." The digger does not give up; the way ahead closes. Or, figuratively: he cuts himself off.

This is the work of the word in the verse, and it falls exactly into place.

The verse does not say "then he gave no more". It says "he struck rock". And this is the truest picture of not giving: you give up to a point, and then at some place you harden.

And the word qalīlan (a little) completes it. It is not said that the man gave nothing; it is said that he gave little. The well was dug but stayed shallow.

I record this as an observation: the concrete sense of the root (striking rock while digging a well) is a lexical datum; the assessment of the word's force as an image in this context is mine.

The order is striking: first he turns his back, then he gives, then he stops.

And the second verb looks as though it contradicts the first. Why should a man who has turned his back give anything?

I offer a reading and state that it is my own: the verse describes not a complete break but a half-attachment. The man does not withdraw entirely; he gives a certain amount, he comes a certain distance, and then he stops.

And this is a more common attitude than outright refusal. To enter upon a work and leave it half-done is seen more often than never entering upon it. The image of the well says exactly this: a well that has been dug but yields no water has taken more labour than an undug well and is just as useless.

I present this as an inference, not as transmitted.

And the sūra asks this man the sūra's central question: how do you know?

غَيْب — root غ-ي-ب. The concrete sense of the root: to disappear from sight, to pass out of the field of vision. Ghāba — it disappeared, it set; ghaybūba — disappearance.

Ghayb, then, does not mean "hidden" but "outside the field of vision". A thing's being ghayb is not its non-existence; it is its lying beyond the range of your sight.

فَهُوَ يَرَىٰ — "so that he sees?"

And the verb is again رأى. The verb the sūra uses six times. In this verse, inside a negative question:

The sūra uses the same verb in six places and compares two parties. One party saw; the other passes judgement about what it has not seen.

And the logic of the question is this: this man made a calculation. He gave, then stopped — that is, at some point he decided "this is enough" or "there is no return for this." Such a decision requires knowledge about the outcome.

The verse asks where that knowledge came from. And no answer is given — because the next verse moves elsewhere: "Or has he not been told of what is in the scrolls of Moses?"

The sūra does not say "you do not know", then; it says "the knowledge is elsewhere — have you looked at it?" This is not a refusal but a redirection. And the thirty-sixth verse will show that place.