al-Jumuʿa 62:8

Qul inna'l-mawta'lladhī tafirrūna minhu fa-innahū mulāqīkum, thumma turaddūna ilā ʿālimi'l-ghaybi wa'sh-shahādati fa-yunabbiʾukum bimā kuntum taʿmalūn

"Say: the death from which you flee — it will certainly find you. Then you will be returned to the Knower of the unseen and the seen; and He will inform you of what you used to do."

The sixth verse had proposed wishing for death; the seventh recorded that they do not wish for it. The eighth verse takes a further step and changes the verb: tafirrūna minhu — you flee from it.

The sequence is an ascent:

1. They do not wish for it (62/7) — a passive negation. 2. They flee (62/8) — an active movement.

The verse establishes a behaviour beyond mere unwillingness. And to flee says something different from not wishing: the one who flees knows that what he flees from is coming. One flees from a danger; one does not flee from what will not happen.

That is, the picture the verse sets out is this: had there been a friendship such as is claimed, death would have been wished for; that it is not wished for is not enough, it is also fled from. The two behaviours together show exactly where the word sits.

The root ف-ر-ر: to flee, to run away. From the same root come firār and mafarr (a place of escape).

The root has another interesting usage recorded by the lexicographers: farra'd-dābba — to open an animal's mouth and look at its teeth in order to tell its age. From this, sayings such as "al-firāru yudallu ʿala'l-firāri" have been derived. The bond between the two senses is established by way of the idea of "bringing to light": looking at the teeth brings to light the real condition of the animal. This account of the derivation is the lexicographers' interpretation; I do not count it certain. But it is worth recording, because the verse does exactly this: the flight brings to light the condition of the one fleeing.

The same root in the Qurʾān: at al-Qiyāma 75/10-12, in the description of man's state on the Day of Resurrection: "That day man says: where is the place of escape? No — there is no refuge. That day the place of arrival is your Lord alone." The same root (al-mafarr), the same outcome. Sūrat al-Qiyāma was treated in this commentary; the picture there can be read as the continuation of this verse.

There is something noteworthy in the structure of the sentence: inna is used twice.

Inna'l-mawta'lladhī tafirrūna minhu — here the noun of inna (al-mawta) is present and its predicate is awaited. But the predicate does not come directly; a فَ enters in between and inna is repeated: fa-innahū mulāqīkum.

In the classical sources of grammar two explanations of this structure are given:

Both explanations produce the same effect, and the effect is this: the sentence is cut. The subject is set out, there is a pause, and then the ruling comes. It is what we do in English when we say, "That death you are fleeing from — yes, it will find you."

This cut carries the most important word of the sentence into an emphasis of its own.

مُلَاقِيكُمْ — the root ل-ق-ي: to encounter, to meet. The active participle of the mufāʿala form (mulāqī).

And here lies the real point: the mufāʿala form states reciprocity. As was recorded for yurāʾūn at al-Māʿūn 107/6, this form requires two parties: qātala (he fought against), sābaqa (he raced against).

That is, the verse does not say "death will come to you"; it says "death will meet with you". A meeting is an event in which both parties take part.

When this is read together with the verb of fleeing, a sharp image emerges: the one who flees is, even as he flees, going towards the meeting. The flight is a part of the meeting. Whatever the direction, the destination is the same.

And mulāqī is an active participle, not a verb. In Arabic the active participle states a fixed state. Not "it will meet" but "it is a meeter" — this is its definition, not an action in the future.

ثُمَّ again states an interval: there is a distance between death and the coming into the presence. The verse does not say what that distance is.

تُرَدُّونَ — the root ر-د-د: to turn back, to give back. The verb is passive: "you will be returned". The agent is not named.

The choice of word is meaningful. Not "you will go" but "you will be returned". Radd is the giving back of a thing to the place it came from. That is, the arrival is described not as going to a new place but as returning to the place one set out from.

At al-Baqara 2/28 the same idea had been set up as a proof in four stages: you were dead, He gave you life, He will cause you to die, He will give you life, then you will be returned to Him. The Qurʾān's language on this subject is regularly a language of return.

And the passive pattern says one thing more here: the flight was active (tafirrūna — you are fleeing), the return is passive. The only verb in man's hand was fleeing; and that does not change the outcome.

The root غ-ي-ب: to disappear from sight, to be covered. Ghāba — it set, it was hidden. From the same root come ghayba (absence) and ghība (speaking behind someone's back — in the person's absence).

The root ش-ه-د: to be present, to bear witness. Shāhid — the one who is there. Shahāda — the report of one who was present. From the same root come mashhad (a place that is seen) and shahīd.

The opposition of the two words lies in the roots of the words themselves: that which is hidden and that which is present. That is, not the known and the unknown; the unseen and the seen.

The function of this construct here is very marked. In describing the reckoning after death, the verse qualifies the one who holds the reckoning as "the Knower of both domains". Why both at once?

Because man's life is divided into two domains. Part of it is visible — the words spoken, the prayer performed, the alms given. Part of it is invisible — the intention, the reason, the real reason. Men's knowledge of one another comes only from the first domain. The verse says that the reckoning will cover both domains at once.

And this is a sentence standing at the very middle of the sūra. Three verses later the sūra will regulate a visible act of worship (the Friday prayer), and four verses later it will record that this act of worship was visibly abandoned. The distinction between the seen and the unseen is the background of that regulation.

The neighbouring Sūrat al-Munāfiqūn, for its part, will pass from beginning to end within this distinction: the gap between what is said and what is believed. The common ground of the two sūras is established in this construct.

A detail in the word order: ghayb comes first, shahāda after. In the Qurʾān this construct regularly comes in this order. The order looks meaningful: what is accessible to man is shahāda, yet it is mentioned second in the list. That is, the ordering is not made according to man's access.

The root ن-ب-أ: news. But not ordinary news. The lexicographers make this distinction between nabaʾ and khabar: every nabaʾ is news, but not every piece of news is a nabaʾ. A nabaʾ is news that is important, useful and carrying a large measure of certainty. From the same root comes nabī — the one who brings the great news.

This root was treated in the section on Sūrat al-Nabaʾ (78/2); the finding recorded there is at work here.

In the tafʿīl form (nabbaʾa) the verb becomes transitive and acquires the sense "to make known in detail".

Now attend to the last sentence of the verse. In describing the day of reckoning, the verbs to be expected might have been: He will punish, He will call to account, He will give the recompense. The verse says none of these. It says: He will inform.

This preference changes what the reckoning is. What is described is not a courtroom scene but a notification. And a notification is the telling to a person of something he does not know.

But does a man not know his own deeds?

The verse implies exactly this. Bimā kuntum taʿmalūn — "what you used to do". The doer does in fact know what he does. But he does not know what he has done: where a behaviour arrived, to what chain it was attached, what its real reason was.

This comes out at the same place as the finding recorded at al-Baqara 2/9 and 2/12: "the matter is not the telling of lies but the inability to see one's own condition." The verse describes the moment at which that inability will come to an end.

كُنْتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ — the structure kāna + imperfect states a habit continuing in the past. Not single events; what has come to be done.

The eighth verse closes the second section of the sūra. The structure of the section is this:

1. 62/5 — Those who carry the book and do not carry it: the comparison. 2. 62/6 — A claim and the test set up for it. 3. 62/7 — The result of the test. 4. 62/8 — The inescapability of what is fled from, and the character of the reckoning.

And the inner logic of the section is this: the fifth verse described a fault of carrying; the sixth to eighth verses describe a state of flight that the fault produces in the person. The person who does not carry the content of the text is compelled to flee from the consequence of that content as well. The two states require one another.

The ninth verse will open with a direct command, and the addressee will change: "O you who believe!"