al-Raḥmān 55:78

Tabāraka'smu Rabbika dhi'l-jalāli wa'l-ikrām "Blessed is the name of your Lord, possessor of majesty and honour."

The last verse of the sūra, and a closing with its one sentence of verdict.

For seventy-seven verses a question was asked and no answer given. The seventy-eighth verse does not ask a question; it lays down a verdict.

Root: ب-ر-ك. And one must look at the concrete core of the root, because in translation the word has become wholly abstract.

بَرَكَ ٱلْبَعِيرُ — the camel knelt down. The camel's putting its breast to the ground and settling there, becoming fixed in that place.

This is the idea beneath the root: to settle in a place and remain there. And from here two branches come out:

• بِرْكَة — a pool. The place where water does not run away but stands and gathers. The Turkish birke/berke is this word.
• بَرَكَة — blessing. The presence in a thing of a good that lasts and increases.

And the common point of the two branches is this: to remain and to gather. Blessing is not quantity; it is lastingness and increase. What is little but does not run out is blessed; what is much but flows away is not.

This distinction is decisive for the sūra as a whole.

For what did the twenty-sixth verse say? "Everyone upon the earth passes away."

And what does the last verse say? "The name of your Lord is tabāraka" — that is, it lasts, it is not used up, it gathers.

The sūra closes the matter it opened with perishing by the contrary of that same idea.

I record this as my own reading; the sense of the root and the places of the two verses in the sūra are data of the text.

تَبَارَكَ is of تَفَاعُل. And in the Qurʾān's use of this verb there are two particularities:

One. The verb always occurs in this pattern. Its imperfect, its imperative and its active participle are not used in the Qurʾān. Only the form tabāraka occurs.

Two. The verb is always used of God. In the Qurʾān it is ascribed to no other subject.

These two particularities are the same as the situation recorded for the name al-Raḥmān in the section on al-Fātiḥa:

Raḥmān is used of God alone, while Raḥīm can be used of a human being too. … The language has opened one to sharing and closed the other.

The sūra opens, then, with a name used of God alone and closes with a verb used of God alone.

I record this as my own reading. That Raḥmān is used of God alone was documented in the section on al-Fātiḥa; the finding about the use of tabāraka I present as an observation drawn from the text of the Qurʾān.

And here is the most elegant link of the sūra.

The verse does not say "your Lord is blessed". It says "the name of your Lord is blessed". What is made blessed is not the Essence but the name.

This is the very matter discussed in the section on al-Fātiḥa in the discussion of the basmala. The question asked there was this:

But why not "with God" rather than "with the name of God"? Because the servant cannot take hold of the Essence directly; what he can take hold of is the name. The name is the face turned towards us.

And the root of the word ism was taken up there as well:

ٱسْم (ism) — There are two old views about its root: s-m-w (height) or w-s-m (mark, trace, brand). In fact both come out at the same place: a name is the sign that distinguishes a thing from others and makes it visible.

Now apply these two notes to this verse.

In the basmala the servant took hold not of the Essence but of the name. And in the last verse of al-Raḥmān what is made blessed is again the name.

The sūra ends, that is, at the place a person can reach.

And this says something that looks to the sūra as a whole. For seventy-eight verses the sun, the moon, the sea, the garden and the fire were counted; all were things that can be seen, touched, known. The last sentence of the sūra stands in the same place: not at the unseen but at the visible side — the name.

I record this as my own reading; the finding in the section on al-Fātiḥa and the wording of this verse are data of the text.

And note the "mark" branch of the root of ism. As recorded in al-Fātiḥa, ism, on one view, comes from the root و-س-م — a brand, a mark. And in the forty-first verse of the sūra the guilty were known by their سِيمَا — a word counted from the same root.

I record this as an observation about the weave of words; I noted above that the lexicographers differ over the root of the two words, and I claim no settled link.

The construction occurs twice in the sūra: at 27 and at 78. And seventy-one verses lie between them.

But the two occurrences are not exactly the same, and the difference is grammatical:

In the twenty-seventh verse the construction attaches to "wajh"; in the seventy-eighth to "Rabb".

This is a difference that can be read directly from the iʿrāb: dhū is nominative and qualifies wajh, which is nominative; dhī is genitive and qualifies Rabbika, which is genitive.

And the difference says something. At the first occurrence majesty and honour are ascribed to what abides. At the second, to the one whose name is uttered.

I record this as an observation about the iʿrāb; the grammatical difference is beyond dispute and can be verified from the classical sources of iʿrāb. The interpretation of meaning I draw from the difference is mine.

Now let us set the first and last verses of the sūra side by side:

Three things must be recorded:

One. The sūra opens with a name and closes with the blessing of a name. In the first verse the name is spoken; in the last it is said what that name is.

Two. The addressee changes. In the first verse there is no addressee at all. In the refrains the addressee is dual (Rabbikumā). In the last verse the addressee is singular: Rabbika — "your Lord".

The sūra follows this path, then: no one → the two of you → you. It begins from the widest name and descends to the narrowest address.

Three. In the first verse the name is al-Raḥmān , in the last Rabbika .

The difference between these two names was treated in the section on al-Fātiḥa: al-Raḥmān is comprehensive — believer, unbeliever, animal, plant, it covers them all. Rabb, as recorded in al-Fātiḥa, is the one who nurtures and conveys a relation: "your Lord".

The sūra opens, then, with a name that covers everyone, and closes with a relation belonging to one person.

I record this as my own reading. The wording of the two verses and the number of the addressees are verifiable data of the text.