فَٱسْجُدُوا۟ لِلَّهِ وَٱعْبُدُوا۟
سَجَدَ — root س-ج-د. This root was treated in the section al-Inshiqāq; what was recorded there: "To bend, to put the forehead to the ground, to submit."
The concrete sense of the root is a movement of the body, and this is so in Arabic: sajada — he bent, he put his head to the ground. The lexicographers record that the word is used of a camel kneeling to be mounted as well.
عَبَدَ — root ع-ب-د. Treated in the section on al-Fātiḥa; I do not repeat it. The concrete sense of the root: submission, entering into service.
| ٱسْجُدُوا۟ | ٱعْبُدُوا۟ | |
|---|---|---|
| What | A movement — momentary, visible | A form of life — continuous, comprehensive |
| Duration | Instantaneous | Continual |
| Where | In the body | In the whole of life |
And the order is this: first the movement, then the life. The concrete first, the comprehensive after.
The imperative is attached, that is, to what comes before it. A text of sixty-one verses arrives at a single sentence of conclusion.
And what it is most nearly attached to is the three-verse criticism of response (59-61): you marvel, you laugh, you do not weep, you divert yourselves — so prostrate yourselves.
| Wrong responses (59-61) | The right response (62) |
|---|---|
| To marvel | |
| To laugh | To prostrate |
| Not to weep | |
| To divert oneself |
These two verbs were analysed above in the section on verses 8-9. The summary: tadallā is a Form V reflexive verb from the root د-ل-و (a bucket, the vessel let down into a well) — "he let himself down." Something above comes downward.
| Verse 8 | Verse 62 | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | The one above | Man |
| Movement | تَدَلَّىٰ — leaned down, lowered himself | ٱسْجُدُوا۟ — fall to the ground |
| Direction | From above downward | From above downward |
| Pattern | Form V, reflexive — his own letting go | Imperative — a movement asked for |
And the whole architecture of the sūra stands between these two movements. At the eighth verse the distance is closed from above; at the sixty-second from below.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the direction of the two verbs. I do not claim that there is an "intention" between the two verses; the command to prostrate is one that occurs at the end of many sūras in the Qurʾān and is not by itself evidence of a special construction. I record only this: the first half of the sūra recounts a drawing near, its last verse commands a falling to the ground, and the two movements run in the same direction.
And this must be added: above, a contrast was set up between hawā (falling) at verse 1 and tadallā (leaning down) at verse 8 — one an uncontrolled fall, the other a tethered descent. Prostration is a third downward movement and differs from both: a lowering performed by will.
The star falls (of necessity). The revelation leans down (while tethered). Man falls down (willingly). The sūra names three downward movements with three different words.
This verse is counted one of the verses of the prostration of recitation in the Qurʾān, and as recorded above it is widely transmitted that the company fell into prostration when the sūra was recited in Mecca.
I issue no legal ruling; per the method (Method) I record only the existence of the disagreement: it is transmitted that there is a difference of view among the schools of law over the ruling on the prostrations of recitation in the mufaṣṣal sūras, and that some of them do not count these obligatory. The details are the subject of the books of law.
Verse 10: fa-awḥā ilā عَبْدِهِ mā awḥā — "He revealed to His servant." Verse 62: fa'sjudū li'llāhi وَٱعْبُدُوا۟ — "…and serve Him."
The same root (ع-ب-د), in two places in the sūra: once as the epithet of one person, once as a command to all those addressed.
It was recorded above at verse 10: the epithet used where the highest nearness is recounted was the epithet conveying the lowest position.
And at the end the sūra opens that epithet to everyone. At the tenth verse one person is ʿabd; at the sixty-second everyone is told aʿbudū.