al-Najm 53:4

In huwa illā waḥyun yūḥā "It is nothing but a revelation revealed."

إِنْ … إِلَّا — Arabic's most widespread pattern of restriction (ḥaṣr, qaṣr). In is here a particle of negation (in place of mā), illā one of exception. The two together: "it is nothing else, it is only this."

This pattern is used in the Qurʾān to narrow the definition of something, and it occurs twice in this sūra:

The same pattern, two opposite rulings. One says that a thing is real, the other that a thing is only a name. The sūra uses the same grammatical instrument in both directions.

This repetition within the sūra is data of the text; that reading the two verses together is fruitful I record as my own reading.

Root: و-ح-ي. The concrete sense of the root: swift and hidden communication. The definition the lexicographers give joins two properties of the word — speed and concealment. To convey by a sign, by a whisper, by a short route.

The Qurʾān does not use this word only of the communication that comes to prophets; its field of use is wide, and that width shows what the word means:

• Zechariah (Zakariyyā), on the days when he could not speak, signalled to his people: "He conveyed to them (fa-awḥā ilayhim): glorify Him morning and evening." (Maryam 19/11). Here waḥy is communicating by a sign.
• To the bee: "And your Lord revealed (awḥā) to the honeybee." (al-Naḥl 16/68). Here it is a creature's knowing how it is to behave.
• Of satans to one another: "They whisper gilded speech to one another in deception (yūḥī baʿḍuhum ilā baʿḍin)." (al-Anʿām 6/112).

These three usages show that the root does not carry the sense of "prophethood". The root names only the manner of communication: swift, direct, without intermediary, and mostly by an unseen route.

The verse in which the Qurʾān describes the channels of revelation is worth noting separately:

"It is not for any human being that God should speak to him except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by His permission what He wills." (al-Shūrā 42/51)

Three channels are counted. And this verse will gain importance below in assessing the disagreement over verses 5-10.

It says waḥyun (a verbal noun), then adds يُوحَىٰ (a passive imperfect verb). In English it looks odd: "a revelation revealed."

In Arabic this structure conveys emphasis (taʾkīd) and does two things:

One: it prevents the verbal noun from staying "indefinite". Waḥy on its own is the name of an act and, as was seen above, spreads over a wide field. The addition of the verb says that here an actual act of revealing has taken place.

Two: the verb is passive, and this is a choice. Yūḥā — "is revealed". Who reveals is not stated in this verse.

And the agent will not be fully stated in the next verse either: ʿallamahu shadīdu'l-quwā — "he was taught by one of mighty powers." Again a description, again not a name.

For eight verses the sūra names the teacher by descriptions. This resembles the technique recorded in the section on al-Takwīr: there too the agent was kept hidden through twelve verbs and saved for the end. Here too the names are delayed.

And that the verb is in the imperfect (not the perfect ūḥiya but the imperfect yūḥā) conveys a continuing: revelation is not a completed event but an operation in progress. At the time the sūra came down the Qurʾān was not yet complete; the word says this from within the grammar.

Now it is possible to see the four together:

Three refusals, one acceptance. And the order is not accidental: first the person is cleared (2), then the source of the speech is cleared (3), then what the source is, is stated (4).

This order carries a method for how a report is to be assessed: first the carrier, then the channel, then the source. Verses 19-25 of Sūrat al-Takwīr do the same work at greater length and were treated in that section; the two sūras answer the same question at two different lengths.