al-Qamar 54:4-5

Wa-laqad jāʾahum mina'l-anbāʾi mā fīhi muzdajar — ḥikmatun bālighatun fa-mā tughni'l-nudhur "There has indeed come to them of the tidings that in which there is deterrence. A wisdom that has reached its full. Yet the warnings do not avail."

Root: ن-ب-أ. This root was treated in detail in al-Nabaʾ, and the distinction recorded there holds here too: a nabaʾ is not just any piece of news. It is a report that has weight, that carries benefit, a great report. Ordinary news is called khabar; nabaʾ is a layer of its own.

Its plural is anbāʾ. In the verse it comes with من: mina'l-anbāʾ — "of the tidings". This min is of the kind the lexicographers call partitive: it indicates a part of the whole. What has come, then, is not all the tidings but a portion of them. The sūra will give the list of them shortly: Noah, ʿĀd, Thamūd, Lot, Pharaoh.

Which tidings? The verse does not say; but the stretch running from verse nine to verse forty-two is exactly the unfolding of this sentence. Verse four is the heading, and 9-42 the text.

Root: ز-ج-ر. Its concrete sense: to drive off with a shout, to send away with a rebuke. A herdsman drives an animal off with his voice; that is zajr. At the centre of the word there is a sound, and that sound repelling something.

This root was treated in al-Nāziʿāt, and the two verses of this sūra were already cited there. Here I dwell on the pattern.

مُزْدَجَر is the passive participle / noun of place / mīmī verbal noun of the pattern إِفْتِعَال (Form VIII). The letter ت of the pattern, under the influence of the ز before it, has turned into د: muztajar → muzdajar. This is a regular assimilation in Arabic; the same change occurs in uzdujira in verse nine.

More than one solution is transmitted for the word's grammatical position:

In point of sense all three come out at the same place, and no preference is required.

The root's second occurrence in the sūra is worth recording. In verse nine, of Noah: wa'zdujira — "and he was driven off / rebuked". The same root, the same form, in the passive.

I record this as my own reading: the same root names, in one place, the thing that ought to have turned them back, and in the other, the person they turned back. Zajr had come; but the one who underwent zajr was the bearer of the tidings. This reversal stands in the root itself; the conclusion I draw from it is mine.

بَالِغَة — Root: ب-ل-غ. Its concrete sense: to arrive somewhere, to reach, to attain a goal. Balagha — he reached. Bulūgh — maturity, a person's arrival at the point of ripeness. Balāgh — delivery, the thing conveyed. Balīgh — one who brings his speech to its target.

Bāligha is the active participle: arrived, attained, come to its farthest point.

Two distinct readings can be made and both are recorded:

• The wisdom itself is complete — there is nothing lacking in it, it has arrived at the point of ripeness.
• The wisdom has reached them — it has come to them, it has passed into their hands; no excuse of its not having arrived remains.

The second reading seems more in keeping with the following clause: the wisdom was there, it arrived, and yet it did not avail. Still, the first reading is not contrary to the text, and I do not impose a preference.

More than one solution is also given for the word's case-analysis; the most widespread is to count it a substitute for the mā of the preceding verse, or the predicate of an elided subject (hiya ḥikmatun bāligha). The sense does not change.

أَغْنَىٰ — Root: غ-ن-ي. Its concrete sense: not to be in need of a thing, to have enough. Ghinā — wealth, that is, the state of not standing in need of another. Ghanī — one who is not in need. Istighnāʾ — to regard oneself as self-sufficient.

The construction أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُ is settled in the Qurʾān and means: to take another's place, to ward something off from him, to suffice him. "His wealth did not avail him" (al-Masad 111/2 — mā aghnā ʿanhu māluhu), "They can ward off nothing from them" (al-Jāthiya 45/10).

There is a disagreement over the مَا at the head of the sentence:

Both readings arrive at the same result; the second is sharper. I do not impose a preference.

A grammatical detail: the verb comes in the form تُغْنِ, with the final yāʾ dropped (not tughnī). This elision appears in the orthography of the codex and is connected with the harmony of the verse-ending. The same elision occurs in the words يَدْعُ and ٱلدَّاعِ in verse six, and I take it up separately there.

ٱلنُّذُر — this was dealt with above in the section on the backbone of the sūra: it can be read both as "warners" and as "warnings", and the sūra does not separate the two.

Verses four and five set up a frame for the rest of the sūra, and the frame is logical:

1. The tidings came (jāʾahum). 2. In the tidings there was deterrence (fīhi muzdajar). 3. The wisdom was complete and had arrived (ḥikmatun bāligha). 4. It did not avail (fa-mā tughni'l-nudhur).

That is, the lack is not on the sender's side. For three clauses the quality of what was sent is enumerated: the tidings, the deterrence, the complete wisdom. Then at the fourth step the result is given.

And this is the logic of the first refrain as well: "We have made the Qurʾān easy for remembrance — is there anyone who will remember?" The refrain has the same structure: first the quality of what was given, then the question about the result.

That is, the fifth verse is the refrain that begins at verse seventeen said in advance. I record this as my own reading.