al-Wāqiʿa 56:88-94

Fa-ammā in kāna mina'l-muqarrabīn · Fa-rawḥun wa rayḥānun wa jannatu naʿīm · Wa ammā in kāna min aṣḥābi'l-yamīn · Fa-salāmun laka min aṣḥābi'l-yamīn · Wa ammā in kāna mina'l-mukadhdhibīna'l-ḍāllīn · Fa-nuzulun min ḥamīm · Wa taṣliyatu jaḥīm

"If he is of those brought near: ease, and fragrance, and a garden of bliss. If he is of the men of the right: 'peace be to you from the men of the right.' And if he is of the deniers who have gone astray: a welcome of boiling water, and a roasting in the blaze."

In the seventh verse people were divided into three: wa kuntum azwājan thalātha. Now, ninety verses later, the sūra frames the same three again — but this time at the moment of one person's death.

And the order changes. In the opening the right was named first, then the left, then those who go ahead. In the close the muqarrabīn come first — the third in order, that is, rises to the first place.

I recorded this in the section on the structure of the sūra; here its ground is visible: the close ranges the classification not by the order of this world but by the order of the outcome.

The second change was treated earlier: the third group here loses its name of place — not aṣḥābu'sh-shimāl but al-mukadhdhibīna'l-ḍāllīn. And that it is ranged in the reverse of the order in the fifty-first verse was tabulated there.

Ammā is in Arabic the particle of particularising and setting out in detail, and each time it takes its clause with fāʾ. Its being repeated three times shows that three possibilities are ranged at equal weight.

But the lengths of the returns are not equal:

Both words are from the same root, and the breadth of the root is entirely at work here.

The branching of the root ر-و-ح:

The lexicographers generally give the shared core as "air in motion": the wind blows, the breath goes in and out, scent is carried by air, relief is the opening of what was constricted.

And its placing here is worth recording: in the eighty-third verse the soul had reached the throat — that is, the rūḥ was about to go out. Five verses later rawḥ and rayḥān come from the same root.

I give this as my own reading: the name of what departs is never spoken in the sūra (the subject was omitted in verse 83). But the root of what departs returns in the word of the recompense. This link is verifiable from the text: the same root, in two different derivatives, five verses apart.

Two explanations are transmitted for rayḥān: sweet scent and provision. The lexicographers record both; I impose no preference.

A note on the variant readings: it is transmitted that in some readings the word is read fa-rūḥun wa rayḥān. On that reading the sense shifts towards "the soul and provision" or "mercy and provision". I record it because the variant changes the sense.

This clause is one of the most debated places in the sūra, because the addressee of the pronoun laka (to you) and the work of the particle min are not clear.

All three readings are found in the classical exegeses. I impose no preference.

This is worth recording and is verifiable from the text: of the three returns, it is only in this second one that the addressee is spoken to directly (laka — to you). The first and third returns are given in the third person.

And the content of the return is not an object but a word. What is given to the men of the right had been enumerated at length in the sūra's second table (28-38). Here it is not even summarised: only peace.

This coincides with another place in the sūra, and I record the link: in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth verses the table of the sābiqūn closed with sound — illā qīlan salāman salāmā. There too the last thing said was peace.

Nuzul — root ن-ز-ل: the first hospitality brought out to a guest. The word was used for the same group in the fifty-sixth verse too (hādhā nuzuluhum yawma'd-dīn) and was treated there. The sūra gives the same word to the same group twice.

Ḥamīm — it occurred in the forty-second verse; its third and last occurrence in the sūra.

Taṣliya — root ص-ل-ي: to put into fire, to roast in fire. The verbal-noun pattern (Form II) conveys the carrying out of the act.

Jaḥīm — root ج-ح-م: the rising of the flame of a fire, the flaring of embers.

And the return is given in two items: a drink and a fire. The long scene between the fifty-first and the fifty-fifth verses, that is, is here reduced to two words. At its end the sūra repeats none of the tables; it only names them.