al-Raḥmān 55:26-27

Kullu man ʿalayhā fān · Wa yabqā wajhu Rabbika dhu'l-jalāli wa'l-ikrām

"Everyone upon it passes away · and there abides the face of your Lord, possessor of majesty and honour."

This is the axis of the sūra.

In the middle of favours counted for twenty-five verses, with no preparation whatever, these two sentences arrive. And after them — with no softening at all — the refrain: "Which of your Lord's favours do you deny?"

The grammatical construction of the two verses differs, and the difference carries the meaning:

And this choice looks carefully made.

The verse does not say "sa-yafnā" (it will pass away). It says فَانٍ — an active participle, that is, an adjective. Perishing is not an event that will occur in the future; it is a quality carried now.

The measure recorded for la-wāqiʿ in the section on al-Mursalāt works here too:

In Arabic a nominal sentence conveys thubūt. The occurrence is stated not as a future event but as a quality already fixed in the present.

And for the other side a verb is used: yabqā — "abides", "goes on abiding". The imperfect conveys unbroken continuance.

The verse thus gives transience as an adjective and permanence as a verb. The one has fastened onto the being, the other is an act that goes on.

فَنَاء — root ف-ن-ي. To be used up, to come to an end, to be no more. The concrete use of the word is a thing's running out — water being used up, a lifetime being completed.

بَقَاء — root ب-ق-ي. To remain, to be left over, to continue. From the same root come baqiyya (what remains, what is left over) and abqā (more lasting).

The two are regularly used as opposites in the Qurʾān:

"What is with you runs out; what is with God abides." (al-Naḥl 16/96) — mā ʿindakum yanfadu wa mā ʿinda'llāhi bāq

And the verse treated in the section on al-Aʿlā sets up the same pair: "Rather, you prefer the life of this world; yet the hereafter is better and more lasting" (al-Aʿlā 87/16-17).

Whose is the pronoun? There is a feminine pronoun in the verse (ʿalayhā) but its antecedent is not in this verse.

The first view is the sounder — the tenth verse had said "and the earth He set down for the creatures", and this is the antecedent of the pronoun in the verse.

And the word مَنْ is worth pausing over. In Arabic man is used of those possessed of reason, mā of those not. The verse says man — what is directly covered, that is, is beings possessed of reason: men and jinn.

Two reasons are given for this in the classical explanations: either because the address is to those under obligation in any case, or because all living things are meant by way of taghlīb (naming the predominant and including the rest with it).

And the choice has a consequence: the verse does not say "everything", it says "everyone". The announcement of perishing is directed not at stone and mountain but at the one who can hear it.

I record this as an observation about the word order.

Root: و-ج-ه. This word was treated in two separate places in al-Baqara, and I must rely on both.

The first, at al-Baqara 2/112:

أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُۥ — "he submitted his face". In Arabic wajh (face) can stand for the whole — the face is the most visible and most recognisable part of a person. That submission is with the whole and not with a part is said by this word.

The second, at al-Baqara 2/115:

فَثَمَّ وَجْهُ ٱللَّهِ — "there is the face of God". Although wajh means "face", it can cover the whole and the act of turning. The widespread understanding here is "the direction to which God's good pleasure is turned" or "the aspect of turning towards Him". What the verse says: God cannot be confined to a place. What the verse does not say: that direction has no importance at all.

Now let us apply these two notes to this verse.

At al-Baqara 2/112 wajh was used of man and covered the whole: he who submits his face has submitted himself.

At al-Baqara 2/115 wajh was used of God, and as recorded there the word carries the sense of aspect and turning.

In this verse too the same word is used of God, and the classical understandings are these:

The first understanding is the most widespread, and the word order supports it too: the verse sets up a contrast — "everyone upon it perishes, the face of your Lord abides". If the two sides of the contrast are beings, the second side must answer to a being as well.

But the second understanding cannot be struck out either, and it has been defended in the classical commentaries; the usage of al-Baqara 2/115 itself gives it a ground.

I do not impose a preference. Nor do the two exclude each other: His Essence abides, and what has turned towards Him takes a share of that abiding.

This construction occurs twice in the sūra: here (27) and in the last verse (78). Seventy-one verses lie between them, and the two set up the frame of the sūra. I shall take up this frame separately at the last verse below.

ٱلْجَلَال — root ج-ل-ل. Greatness, loftiness, magnitude. Jalīl (lofty), ajall (loftier), jalāla are from the same root. The concrete core of the root is greatness and weight; and in Arabic this greatness gives rise to distance and awe.

ٱلْإِكْرَام — root ك-ر-م. This root was treated in al-ʿAlaq in the discussion of al-akram. I do not repeat what was recorded there; beneath the root lie generosity, valuing, showing honour.

And the pattern matters: إِكْرَام is the verbal noun of Form IV — it conveys, that is, an act: the showing of honour. Not karam (an attribute) but ikrām (an act).

On the meaning of the construction there are two readings:

The first reading is the more widespread and agrees with the sūra as a whole: from beginning to end the sūra counts acts of honouring.

And the real force of the construction lies in the two words pulling in opposite directions:

The two words are joined in a single construction. And the balance recorded in the section on al-Fātiḥa for the sequence of al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm and Māliki yawmi'l-dīn is here compressed into one construction:

Had only mercy been heard: responsibility would have melted away. Had only the reckoning been heard: despair would have been born. When the two are set one after the other a balance emerges.

In al-Raḥmān this balance is built not one after the other but side by side: dhu'l-jalāli wa'l-ikrām.

And now I come to the real question: why are these two verses here?

The sūra is an enumeration of favours. What has been counted over twenty-five verses is this: the knowledge taught, the man created, the clear speech given, the sun, the moon, the plant, the sky, the balance, the earth, fruit, palms, grain, scent, two species, two horizons, two seas, pearl, coral, ships.

After all of them have been counted the verse arrives: "everyone upon it passes away."

Both the owner of the favours counted and most of the favours counted fall under this ruling.

And then the refrain: "Which of your Lord's favours do you deny?"

Above, in the section on the refrain, this was recorded as the hardest sentence in the sūra. Here I complete it.

Two readings are possible and neither runs against the text:

First reading: the refrain covers not verse 26 but verse 27. What is the favour, that is, is not the perishing but the existence of what abides. The verse states the loss first, then what remains; and the refrain looks to what remains.

This reading is a comforting one and is defensible; the two verses are a single section, and the refrain comes after the whole of a section.

Second reading: the refrain covers both at once. And on this reading the perishing itself enters the list.

The second reading has a ground in the text, and it must be recorded: nowhere in the sūra is the refrain attached to only a part of a section. It comes after a section and asks about the whole of that section. There is no sign in the text for keeping the twenty-sixth verse outside this scope.

And when the second reading is taken, what the verse says becomes this: perishing is not a deficiency but a part of an order. This is what the sūra has been counting from the start — the reckoning of the sun, the limit of the balance, the barrier of the sea. Perishing too is a limit: that everything has a bound.

I record this second reading as my own reading and do not strike out the first. There is not enough ground in the text for a definite preference between them.

Imagine a list all of whose items are transient, and whose heading is "favours".

This is what the sūra does, and it is disquieting. Fruit rots, ships sink, pearls are lost, seas dry up, man dies. The sūra counts all of these and in the middle declares transience in a single sentence.

And the everyday counterpart of this is: the worth of a thing is not measured by its duration.

This runs against intuition. A person ties worth to duration — what lasts is counted solid, what passes counted empty. The verse does not accept this measure. What passes is a favour too; that it passes does not take it out of the category of favour.

And the reverse is true as well: to take what passes for something lasting is what takes it out of the category of favour. For when the thing supposed to be lasting slips away, what remains is only loss.

By setting the two verses side by side the sūra separates these: one side perishing, one side abiding. The confusion arises from putting the one in the place of the other.