al-Qamar 54:44-45

Am yaqūlūna naḥnu jamīʿun muntaṣir — sa-yuhzamu'l-jamʿu wa yuwallūna'l-dubur "Or do they say, 'We are a host that cannot be beaten'? That host shall be routed, and they shall turn their backs in flight."

These two verses carry the finest point of word order in the sūra, and the point lies in the shift from singular to plural.

Let us look first at the claim:

نَحْنُ جَمِيعٌ مُّنتَصِرٌ

• نَحْنُ — "we", a plural pronoun.
• جَمِيعٌ — a singular noun. A host, a whole gathered together.
• مُّنتَصِرٌ — a singular adjective.

The sentence is built, that is, as: a plural subject + a singular predicate + a singular adjective.

This is not incorrect in Arabic; jamīʿ is a collective noun and takes a singular adjective. But what it does in point of sense is this: it makes the multitude speak as a single being. "We are not separate persons; we are one whole, and that whole cannot be beaten."

Now look at the answer:

سَيُهْزَمُ ٱلْجَمْعُ وَيُوَلُّونَ ٱلدُّبُرَ

• سَيُهْزَمُ — a singular verb, passive.
• ٱلْجَمْعُ — singular, and now definite (with the article).
• وَيُوَلُّونَ — a PLURAL verb.
• ٱلدُّبُرَ — a singular object.

And here is the point.

The first half of the sentence meets the claim in its own language: singular. "That host shall be routed." The claim had said "we are one whole"; the answer says "that whole shall be beaten."

In the second half of the sentence the verb turns plural: yuwallūna — "they turn their backs."

The host, that is, is beaten as a singular and flees as a plural.

I record this as my own reading. The numbers of the verbs and nouns are verifiable grammatical data of the text; the reading "the scattering of the unity" that I draw from them is mine.

And this reading fits what the sūra has been concerned with from the start: the crowd. In verse seven people were likened to a swarm of locusts; in verse fifty-one ashyāʿ (likes, partisans) will be said. Throughout the sūra the collective is a theme.

I complete here the table given under verse ten.

The root ن-ص-ر occurs twice in the sūra:

The same root, the same form (VIII), two opposite positions.

And the outcomes too are reversed: Noah's prayer is answered and the flood comes (11-14); their claim is refuted in verse forty-five.

I record this as my own reading, and let me put it into a sentence: using the same root, the sūra sets two stances opposite one another — the one who asks for help and the one who says he has no need of it. And the pattern of the verb is the same in both; the only thing that changes is who the agent is. In Noah's sentence the agent is God (intaṣir — You do it); in theirs the agent is themselves (muntaṣir — we are the ones).

Root: ه-ز-م. What the lexicographers transmit about its concrete sense: hazama'l-shayʾa — he broke a thing, cracked it, caved it in. Hazīm — cracked, giving off a sound. And from this to rout: to break the order of an army.

The word, that is, conveys not killing or defeating but the breaking of an order. And this fits exactly with the next verb (to scatter and flee).

The verb is passive: yuhzamu — "shall be routed". The agent is not named. And with سَـ it is future.

The difference the lexicographers record between سَـ and سَوْفَ: sa- conveys the near future, sawfa the distant. I transmit this distinction; I do not claim that it works absolutely everywhere.

Root: د-ب-ر. Its concrete sense: the back of a thing, its end. Dubr — the back. Dābir — the last, the root. Tadbīr — to think of the end of a matter. Mudabbir — one who orders the end.

This root was treated in al-Nāziʿāt and this verse was cited there.

The word comes in the singular (al-dubur), though the subject is plural. This is common with generic nouns in Arabic and is also connected with the harmony of the verse-ending — I recorded it in the table of verse-endings above. At al-Anfāl 8/15-16 the same expression is used in the plural: lā tuwallūhumu'l-adbār.

In the classical commentaries it is widely transmitted that this verse was realised at the battle of Badr; since the sūra is Meccan, this would be a report given in advance.

I do not go into the detail of that transmission, and I make this note: I cannot speak with certainty about the text and the chain of these reports; I therefore do not relay any text ascribing it to a transmitter or a source. I record that the transmitted view exists; I do not make it a support.

And this should be stated: the reading of the verse does not depend on that report. The sentence is an answer to a claim, and the refutation of the claim stands within the text independently of what event it was realised in. Some exegetes have in any case read the verse without tying it to a particular event, as a general ruling.

As I recorded above under the heading "Meccan or Medinan", some sources also transmit that this verse is Medinan or was revealed at Medina. I record this disagreement and I do not impose a preference.