al-Qamar 54:19

Innā arsalnā ʿalayhim rīḥan ṣarṣaran fī yawmi naḥsin mustamirr "We sent against them a howling wind on a day of unrelenting misfortune."

In al-Ḥāqqa these two words were treated in detail and I do not repeat them. Two of the things recorded there hold here as well:

• رِيح comes in the singular, and in the Qurʾān the singular rīḥ occurs mostly in contexts of punishment, the plural riyāḥ mostly in contexts of mercy. The section on al-Ḥāqqa drew attention to this distribution and did not present it as a rule, since it could not be said with certainty whether it has exceptions. The same note holds here.
• صَرْصَر is a reduplicated pattern (a doubled quadriliteral) and has two explanations: howling (ṣarīr — a shrill continuous sound) and freezing (al-ṣirr — biting cold). Many exegetes combine the two. No preference was imposed there; I do not impose one here either.

The section on al-Ḥāqqa also carried this note: ṣarṣar occurs in the Qurʾān only of the people of ʿĀd; it is almost the name of a single event.

نَحْس — Root: ن-ح-س. The word means misfortune, a state turning to the bad, and its exact opposite is سَعْد (good fortune, felicity).

The same root yields one further word: نُحَاس — molten copper, or a smoke-like substance. The Qurʾān uses this at al-Raḥmān 55/35: yursalu ʿalaykumā shuwāẓun min nārin wa nuḥāsun. That verse was treated in al-Raḥmān.

I do not speak with certainty about the link the lexicographers draw between the two senses. Explanations connecting the tarnishing of copper with misfortune are transmitted in the sources; I do not present these explanations as etymological data.

And here a note is required.

This verse and its counterpart at Fuṣṣilat 41/16 (fī ayyāmin naḥisāt) have been made a support, throughout history, for teachings about lucky and unlucky days. It should be stated that the verse establishes no such system, and the ground for this is in the Qurʾān itself.

One. The verse does not speak of a kind of day; it speaks of the day of a particular event. Naḥs qualifies that day by what it was for them: that day went badly for them. The sentence is not a piece of calendar lore but the description of an event.

Two. The Qurʾān explicitly rejects the practice of tying events to days and omens:

"When good came to them they said, 'this is ours'; and when an evil befell them they took it as an ill omen from Moses and those with him. Know that their omen is with God." (al-Aʿrāf 7/131) "They said, 'We have met with ill fortune because of you.' They said, 'Your ill fortune is from yourselves.'" (Yā Sīn 36/18-19)

The root used in both verses is ط-ي-ر (ṭiyara — to take auguries by releasing birds), and in both verses the stance rejected is the same: attaching the cause of an event to some outward sign.

Three. The verse itself already names the agent: innā arsalnā — "We sent." The misfortune of the day is not a power; it is a characterisation of the event.

I give these three points together with the notes of Method that "the link with science, history and social science must not be forced" and that "where certainty is not spoken must be stated openly." All three rest on the text of the Qurʾān; the stance in the conclusion is mine.

The word treated at verse two comes back here, and in exactly the same form: مُّسْتَمِرّ.

At verse two the word could be read in three distinct senses (continuous / passing / strong). At verse nineteen only one sense works: continuous. For al-Ḥāqqa 69/7 gives the duration of the same event: seven nights and eight days.

In al-Ḥāqqa the relation between these two verses was already taken up and this was recorded: "The classical explanation is that the note mustamirr in al-Qamar conveys continuity and that the two verses do not conflict; the 'day of misfortune' gives the day the event began, while al-Ḥāqqa gives its duration." I rely on that note and do not repeat it.

The only thing I add here is the meeting of the two occurrences, and it is my own reading: the deniers had qualified a sign as "going on and on" and passed by. At verse nineteen the same adjective is given to a people's day of destruction. The word that enters the language of the sūra is the word that first came out of their mouths.

This is the first of the three times the sūra does this. The others will come at verse twenty-six (al-kadhdhābu'l-ashir) and verse forty-seven (ḍalālin wa suʿur).