al-Ḥashr 59:23

Huwallāhu'lladhī lā ilāha illā hū, al-Maliku'l-Quddūsu'l-Salāmu'l-Muʾminu'l-Muhayminu'l-ʿAzīzu'l-Jabbāru'l-Mutakabbir, subḥānallāhi ʿammā yushrikūn

"He is God, besides whom there is no god. He is al-Malik, al-Quddūs, al-Salām, al-Muʾmin, al-Muhaymin, al-ʿAzīz, al-Jabbār, al-Mutakabbir. God is far above what they associate with Him."

The names come one after another with no conjunction between them (without ʿaṭf). In Arabic this arrangement is called taʿāqub, and its effect is this: the names are read not as qualities enumerated one by one but as the successive faces of a single whole.

The series has a curve, and I record this as an observation:

The series opens with authority, descends in the middle to the names of security and protection, then rises again to the names of power. The gentle ones are in the middle, the hard ones at the two ends. I do not claim that this symmetry was set up deliberately; this is the state of the ordering in the text.

The root م-ل-ك. The lexicographers record this distinction concerning the root: mulk is to own, while malik is to have the authority to dispose over what one owns. That is, not every mālik is a malik; in malik there is power and execution.

The variant reading mālik / malik at al-Fātiḥa 1/4 and the difference of meaning between the two readings were taken up in the file al-Fātiḥa; it is not repeated here.

Its link with the context of the sūra: this text has been recounting a changing of hands of land, houses and property. The seventh verse regulated to whom the property belonged and how it was to be distributed. In the eighth verse, ukhrijū min diyārihim wa amwālihim — those driven out of their houses and their possessions.

That the first name coming at the end of a sūra in which ownership is constantly changing hands should be al-Malik deserves to be recorded as a reading. I give this not as the claim of the verse but as a view that the context permits.

The root ق-د-س. The sense of the root recorded by the lexicographers is cleanness and purification. Taqdīs — to purify, to hold pure.

A use of the root having to do with the soil is also transmitted: al-arḍu'l-muqaddasa, blessed and purified ground. The word qads, used of a water vessel, is also recorded. I give these second explanations in the form in which they are transmitted.

The pattern: فُعُّول. In Arabic this pattern conveys intensiveness and is rare. Apart from Quddūs and Subbūḥ there are few widespread examples.

The link with al-Baqara 2/30: the angels had said wa naḥnu nusabbiḥu bi-ḥamdika wa nuqaddisu lak. There taqdīs was the act of the angels; here al-Quddūs is a name of God. The same root: in the one place a work that is done, in the other a quality.

The direction of the meaning: taqdīs is to hold a thing far from all deficiency. That is, the word is less a declaration of "holiness" than a work of purifying — and what it is purified from will be said by the ʿammā yushrikūn at the end of the verse.

The root س-ل-م. The sense of the root the lexicographers give: to be far from deficiency and from disorder, to be sound and whole. Salīm — flawless; salāma — the state of a thing that has taken no harm.

From the same root Islām (to give oneself over), silm (peace), salām (the wish of well-being), sullam (ladder — that which is climbed step by step in soundness).

That the name should come in this form is striking: not sālim or musallim, but the bare verbal noun — al-Salām. In Arabic the use of the verbal noun in place of an adjective conveys intensiveness: not the bearer of the quality, but the quality itself.

The context of the sūra: this text recounts a war, a siege and an exile. Within it are the cutting of trees, the demolition of houses, the falling of terror into hearts.

That al-Salām should be found in the section of names of such a sūra produces a tension, and rather than hide it one must record it. The verse does not resolve this tension. The distance between the root sense of the word (flawlessness) and its widespread use (peace) leaves room for two readings at once:

I make no preference between the two readings. Both are transmitted in the classical commentaries.

The root أ-م-ن. The sense of the root recorded by the lexicographers: the heart's coming to rest, the going away of fear. Amn — the state of being in security; amāna — what is left in trust; īmān — to trust and to hold true.

The pattern is the active participle of Form IV (aʾmana → muʾmin), and the meaning of the form is causative: the giver of security.

In this commentary the root of īmān was taken up in the section on al-Baqara 2/3-5; that analysis is not repeated. Let only this be recorded: what the root carries is not an "acceptance" but the notion of security. To believe is to give security.

That the name occurs in the Qurʾān only here I can verify from the text, and this deserves to be read together with the place in which the name stands.

The finding recorded at the beginning of the sūra (in the section What the sūra does) was this: throughout the text a single question was being worked on — what are you relying on? Fortresses, wealth, promises, numbers, the instigator: all five collapsed.

And in the very middle of the eight-name series stands the name derived from the root of security. I record this as a datum of the text that can be verified; the claim that the ordering was set up accordingly is mine and is not binding.

Concerning the root of this name the lexicographers have differed, and the disagreement must not be concealed.

If the second view is right — and some of the lexicographers record it — then al-Muʾmin and al-Muhaymin are two names from the same root, and their standing side by side is not a repetition but an unfolding.

I find this possibility interesting but do not count it certain. The question of the root has not been settled among the lexicographers; here I content myself with transmitting both views.

On the meaning, however, the situation is close to agreement: muhaymin is the one who stands over a thing and watches it, protects it and bears witness to it. The image of a bird spreading its wing over its young is mentioned by the lexicographers.

At al-Māʾida 5/48 the same word is used of the Qurʾān: wa anzalnā ilayka'l-kitāba bi'l-ḥaqqi muṣaddiqan limā bayna yadayhi mina'l-kitābi wa muhayminan ʿalayh — confirming the books before it and watching over them.

This use makes the meaning clear: haymana is to stand above and to be the measure. Not merely to protect, but to be in the position of separating true from false.

The context of the sūra: in the fourteenth verse there was a scatteredness that people could not see (taḥsabuhum jamīʿan wa qulūbuhum shattā). Al-Muhaymin names the one who stands above that layer.

The root ع-ز-ز. The concrete sense recorded by the lexicographers: hardness and endurance. Arḍun ʿazāz — hard soil, difficult to dig.

Two directions come out of this:

1. Invincibility — that which does not break, which cannot be made to submit. 2. Rarity and worth — ʿazīz, that which is precious because it is scarce (ʿazza'l-shayʾu: it became rare).

The two senses are bound together: what is hard to reach is both strong and valuable.

This is the third occurrence of the name in this sūra:

The first and the last verse end with exactly the same construct; the twenty-third verse places the name inside the series. The sūra uses the same name both as frame and as content.

And the sense of hardness sits on the vocabulary of the sūra: fortresses, walls, a mountain — all of them were hardness, and all of them came apart. Al-ʿAzīz names what does not come apart.

The root ج-ب-ر. The sense of the root the lexicographers give is two-directional, and both are alive in Arabic:

1. To bind up a break, to mend. Jabīra — the splint bound to a broken bone; jabara'l-ʿaẓma — he set the bone back in place. This is the medical use of the root, and the lexicographers count it the original sense. 2. To force, to make submit. Ajbara — he compelled; ijbār.

The link between the two senses is this: to bind up a broken bone is also to force the bone back into its place. Mending is bringing a thing, by an intervention from outside, to the place where it ought to be — and this does not wait for the patient's consent.

The "algebra" of mathematics is from this root too: the operation of restoring the broken balance of an equation. This is a note about the language; no mathematical meaning is being loaded onto the verse.

The use of the word for a human being is always negative in the Qurʾān. At Maryam 19/32, wa lam yajʿalnī jabbāran shaqiyyā; at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/19, in turīdu illā an takūna jabbāran fi'l-arḍ.

The same word is blamed in a human being and occurs as praise in God. This is not a coincidence but a rule of the language: the value of an attribute depends on whether the one who bears it has a right to that attribute. In one who has no right to it, the same attribute is a usurpation.

This measure will become still plainer in the next name.

The root ك-ب-ر. Greatness. But the pattern matters: Form V (tafaʿʿul), in the state of the active participle.

In Arabic this form performs one of three functions: 1. To carry out a work upon oneself (tanazzul, taḥarruk). 2. To acquire a quality. 3. To claim a quality one does not possess (takalluf).

When it is used of a human being the third function applies, and for this reason mutakabbir is always blamed in a human being: at al-Muʾmin 40/35, kadhālika yaṭbaʿullāhu ʿalā kulli qalbi mutakabbirin jabbār — note: the same two words, in the same order, but of a human being and as a rebuke.

This is a striking datum of the text: al-Jabbār and al-Mutakabbir, standing side by side as praise at al-Ḥashr 59/23, occur side by side of a human being and as a rebuke at al-Muʾmin 40/35.

The conclusion I draw from this is my own reading: the sūra gives, as the names of the one who has a right to them, two attributes that are counted faults in a human being because he has no right to them. And it does this immediately after a narrative in which man relied upon his own power and collapsed.

The verse does not set up this link openly. The reading above is mine and is not binding.

The root س-ب-ح. The concrete sense recorded by the lexicographers: to move in water or in air, to flow along, to go far away. Sabaḥa fi'l-māʾ — he swam.

From this comes the meaning of tasbīḥ: to put God far away from everything that does not befit Him. That is, tasbīḥ is not a praise but a work of purifying — and for this reason it does the same work as the name al-Quddūs.

سُبْحَٰنَ — a verbal noun in the accusative as an absolute object; its verb has been elided (with usabbiḥu understood). In Arabic this pattern conveys certainty and continuity.

A link within the sūra: the first verse had opened with sabbaḥa lillāhi. The root now returns, and it will return once more in the twenty-fourth verse (yusabbiḥu lahū). Three occurrences set up the frame of the sūra.

عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ — ʿan + mā. The particle ʿan conveys moving away, and it agrees with the meaning of subḥāna: to be far above is to be far from something.

The root ش-ر-ك. Concrete sense: partnership, having a share in something. Sharika, sharīk. The image the root carries is the dividing up of a property.

And here there is a thematic contact with the seventh verse of the sūra: there, kay lā yakūna dūlatan bayna'l-aghniyāʾi minkum — it was regulated that property should not circulate in a narrow circle. That is, the sūra sets up two separate rulings on where sharing ought to be and where it ought not: property is to be shared, divinity is not to be shared.

I record this contrast as my own reading. The two verses speak with different roots (d-w-l and sh-r-k) and there is no verbal link between them; the link is in the subject.