al-Ḥāqqa 69:17

Wa'l-malaku ʿalā arjāʾihā; wa yaḥmilu ʿarsha rabbika fawqahum yawmaʾidhin thamāniya "And the angels are upon its edges. On that day eight [beings] bear the Throne of your Lord above them."

ٱلْمَلَك is singular, yet "upon its edges" conveys a plural distribution. In Arabic it is ordinary for a collective noun to be used in the singular with a plural sense; the same phenomenon was recorded at al-Fajr 89/22 (wa'l-malaku ṣaffan ṣaffā).

And there is a link between the two verses: in al-Fajr the angels were drawn up rank on rank; in al-Ḥāqqa they stand at the edges. Two different dispositions, two different scenes.

Root: ر-ج-و. Rajā — the edge or rim of a thing; it is used especially of the mouth of a well and of the slope of a valley. Its plural is أَرْجَاء.

The word occurs in the Qurʾān only here.

A note. From the same letters comes the word رَجَاء (rajāʾ — hope), and the lexicographers differ over whether the two are one root or two homonymous roots. I do not enter into this disagreement and I draw no meaning from the shared sound; I merely record it. The same note was entered for the root ح-م-ي in the section on al-Qāriʿa.

The sense at work in the verse is not in dispute: edges.

The image is this: the sky has been split, its fabric has gone slack, it is no longer a whole. And the angels stand at its edges. At the rim, that is, of a structure that is coming apart.

The pronoun hā (its) refers back to the sky — the subject of the preceding verse.

And one of the most discussed words in the sūra.

The verse gives a number and does not say what is numbered.

In Arabic, when a number occurs, the maʿdūd (the thing numbered) follows: thamāniyata ayyām (eight days — in the seventh verse of this sūra). Here there is no maʿdūd. Only ثَمَٰنِيَةٌ.

There is a grammatical clue. In Arabic numerals the rule of reversed gender agreement applies: numbers from three to ten come in the feminine form (with tāʾ) when what is numbered is masculine, and in the masculine form when it is feminine. Thamāniya has taken the tāʾ; the omitted maʿdūd is therefore masculine.

This points to the word's being malak (masculine) or some similar noun — and indeed al-malak has already occurred at the head of the same verse.

This is a verifiable grammatical datum. But it does not settle what the eight are.

The classical explanations:

The first view is the most widespread and fits the context best, since it is ordinary in Arabic for the maʿdūd to be understood from context, and the context lies within the verse itself.

But what really must be recorded is that the verse has not said the maʿdūd.

Here the sūra continues the stance of the third verse: "And what made you know what it is?" Information is given, but given incompletely. There is a number, and no thing numbered.

In the literature of reports details are transmitted about the shape, the size and the names of these angels. I do not relay them, because I cannot judge their soundness and they are not of the same degree of certainty as the text of the Qurʾān. This is the same note that was entered for Iram in the section on al-Fajr: "to relay them is, without one's noticing, to lend them a weight."

عَرْش — Root: ع-ر-ش. This root was treated in the section on al-Takwīr 81/20: its concrete sense is an arbour, a raised covered structure, a roof; and from there, a throne. ʿArīsh — a vine arbour; at al-Anʿām 6/141 maʿrūshāt (trellised gardens). I do not repeat it.

What was recorded in al-Takwīr was this: there the title ذِى ٱلْعَرْش (the Lord of the Throne) was chosen because the subject was a chain of authority.

Here it is not a title, but the construct is meaningful: ʿarsha rabbika — "the Throne of your Lord." A second person singular pronoun.

Here again the sūra turns to the one addressed (the fourth time, after the third, seventh and eighth verses). And the place of the turn looks deliberately chosen: at the most distant, least graspable point of the scene — while the bearing of the Throne is being described — the telling touches the shoulder of the one addressed: your Lord.

I record this as an observation about word order.

On the "bearing" of the Throne. This expression belongs to the same category as "your Lord comes" at al-Fajr 89/22: it is ambiguous (mutashābih). In the section on al-Fajr no theological side was taken on this matter, and the two main positions (tafwīḍ and taʾwīl) were given in a table. I keep the same stance here and do not repeat that table.

I record only this: both positions meet at al-Shūrā 42/11 ("There is nothing like Him"), and the verse's function within the sūra is the same on either position: to announce that the seat of judgement has been set up.

To whom does the pronoun hum refer? Two readings:

Both are possible in the language. The second reading connects more easily with the next verse: "On that day you are brought forward" — a seat above those who are brought forward.

I express no preference; neither reading runs against the text.

The table recorded at the eleventh verse is completed here:

• 69/11: God carried human beings (in the ark).
• 69/14: The earth and the mountains were carried (in order to be beaten).
• 69/17: Eight carry the Throne.

And in the third there is a reversal: in the first two carryings what was carried lay below; in the third what is carried is above.

I record this as my own reading.