al-Ḥāqqa 69:19-20

Fa-ammā man ūtiya kitābahu bi-yamīnihi fa-yaqūlu hāʾumu'qraʾū kitābiyah · Innī ẓanantu annī mulāqin ḥisābiyah "As for him who is given his book in his right hand, he says: 'Here, read my book! I did think that I would meet my reckoning.'"

Let us look first at the form of the text, because here the sūra lets go of the sound it has kept for eighteen verses.

From the first verse to the eighteenth the verse-ending was -iya. In the nineteenth verse the sound changes: كِتَٰبِيَهْ — kitābiyah.

And the new sound is built by a letter added at the end: هَاء ٱلسَّكْت (the hāʾ of pause). This letter was treated in the section on al-Qāriʿa, and this was recorded there: the letter has no meaning, it is there for the preservation of the sound; and its densest use in the Qurʾān is in Sūrat al-Ḥāqqa.

Now let us see that density. The hāʾ of pause occurs in five places in the sūra, and all of them are inside these two scenes:

And note: ḥisābiyah in the twentieth verse is of the same structure, but there it is the one on the right who is speaking. There are six occurrences in all, then; two in the mouth of the man on the right, four in that of the man on the left.

What they have in common is this: they all end with the first person singular yāʾ — kitāb-ī, ḥisāb-ī, māl-ī, sulṭān-ī. "My book", "my reckoning", "my wealth", "my authority."

The density of the hāʾ of pause in this sūra is therefore no accident: here the sūra makes two men speak, and both of them say "my".

The hāʾ of pause comes in order to preserve the yāʾ at the end of the word. The sound that the grammar gives the sūra is thus precisely the sound of the possessive pronoun. The rhythm of the text carries the "my" that comes out of the two men's mouths.

I record this as my own reading. The function of the hāʾ of pause and the wording of the six occurrences are data that can be verified; the interpretation that the emphasis on "my" passes into the rhythm is mine.

The two scenes of the book were treated in detail in this commentary in the section on al-Inshiqāq 84/7-12. I do not repeat what was recorded there; in summary it was this:

• The passive form of the verb أُوتِىَ and the non-naming of the agent.
• بِيَمِينِهِ and its root ي-م-ن (yumn, blessing), and the settling of the right/left association in the Qurʾān.
• حِسَابًا يَسِيرًا (an easy reckoning) and the distinction between being brought forward and being argued with.
• The right-hand man's "returning to his people rejoicing", and the contrast of fī ahlihi / ilā ahlihi.
• The left-hand man's book being given from behind him, and the relation of that to the left in al-Ḥāqqa. In the section on al-Inshiqāq three explanations were given in a table for this relation and no preference was expressed. I preserve that suspension of judgement here and do not repeat the table.
• This too was recorded in the section on al-Inshiqāq: the book given from the right is "visible, readable, showable", and this verse was adduced as the evidence for it.

Now I shall open out that evidence — because in the section on al-Inshiqāq it was passed over in a sentence.

The most human moment in the sūra, and it is built in two words.

هَآؤُمُ — in Arabic this is an ism fiʿl: a word that carries the sense of a verb without being conjugated as one. Its sense is "take!", "here you are!", "here, hold this!"

The structure of the word: hāʾ plus an ending inflected for the one addressed. To a single man hāʾa, to a single woman hāʾi, to a plural هَاؤُمُ. The مُ at the end of the word, that is, shows that the one addressed is plural.

ٱقْرَءُوا۟ — an imperative, and it too is plural.

Two words, two plural imperatives. The man is calling out to a crowd.

This carries the whole meaning of the scene.

Consider: the man is saved. His book has been given in his right hand. There is nothing left for him to do. And the first thing he does is to show his book to others.

The verse records the first reflex of salvation, and that reflex is not sharing or thanksgiving — it is showing.

How this should be read needs pausing over, because it is open to being read wrongly.

It is not presented as a fault. The sūra does not reproach the man; on the contrary, the rest of the sentence vindicates him ("I did think so all along") and his reward is described over three verses. The showing stands, that is, within a positive scene.

What, then, does it describe? To my mind this: joy is a feeling that is not completed alone. When a person rejoices he wants to tell someone; a joy not told stays incomplete. The verse records this human fact in the most extreme scene of all — even at a moment when the person has no other need left.

And Sūrat al-Inshiqāq had said the same thing with another word: "he returns to his people rejoicing" (84/9). There too the joy went towards someone.

Two sūras describe the same moment with two different behaviours. In al-Inshiqāq the man goes; in al-Ḥāqqa the man calls out.

I record this comparison as my own reading; the wordings of the two verses can be verified.

The real key is the comparison of these two scenes, and it must be made now, because it will come back in the twenty-fifth:

The most striking row is the second: joy looks for someone to address, regret does not.

The man on the left speaks for five verses and not once calls out to anyone. All his sentences are about himself: would that it had not been given to me, would that I had not known, would that it had made an end of me, my wealth has not availed me, my authority has gone.

And the last row is meaningful too: regret speaks more. Joy is over in two verses; regret runs for five. When there is nothing left to say a person stops speaking; when what he has to say is not finished, he goes on.

I record this comparison as my own reading. The counts of verses, the kinds of mood and the presence of an addressee are, for their part, data that can be counted in the text.

The man ascribes the book to himself: "my book."

Yet he did not write it. As was recorded in the section on al-Inshiqāq, at al-Isrāʾ 17/13-14 the record is described as something "fastened to the neck", and the one who reads it is the person himself.

The expression "my book", that is, conveys not ownership but belonging: this record is the record of my life.

And the same word will occur six verses later in the mouth of the man on the left: "Would that my book had not been given to me" (25). Both men use the same word. They agree that the book is theirs; where they part is in whether they want to see it.

ظَنَنتُ — Root: ظ-ن-ن. This root was treated in the section on al-Baqara 2/46 and its two poles were compared in a table in the section on al-Inshiqāq 84/14. I do not repeat it; the summary is this:

• In Arabic the root can carry both a doubtful supposition and a firm conviction; in linguistics this is called contronymy.
• What is meant at al-Baqara 2/46 is certain knowledge, because the verse says it in praise.
• What is meant at al-Inshiqāq 84/14 is a groundless assumption, because the verse says it in reproach.
• The measure drawn in the section on al-Inshiqāq: "The Qurʾān does not censure supposition in itself. What it censures is the putting of an unproven assumption in the place of certain knowledge."

The use here is at the same pole as al-Baqara 2/46 — and in fact closer to it, because the wording is almost identical:

The two verses are the same sentence at two times. Al-Baqara describes the state in this world: these people "suppose" that they will meet Him. Al-Ḥāqqa gives the sentence at the moment that supposition comes true: "I did think so all along."

And the mood of the verb has changed accordingly: in al-Baqara the imperfect (a continuing conviction), in al-Ḥāqqa the perfect (a closed file).

I record this comparison as my own reading; the wordings of the two verses can, for their part, be verified.

The man has entered the Garden. He now possesses certain knowledge. And still he says "I thought".

The classical explanations:

The second explanation fits the framework this commentary has already built. The degrees of certainty were treated in the section on al-Takāthur, and what was recorded there was this: ʿilm al-yaqīn is knowledge reached by report and by proof, ʿayn al-yaqīn is the certainty of seeing with the eye.

The believer in this world stands, as regards the reckoning, at the rank of ʿilm al-yaqīn; he has his proof, he has his report, his conviction is firm — but he has not seen. The man names this rightly: "I thought."

And now he sees. The sentence, that is, describes the passage between two ranks: "what I have seen is what I thought."

I record this reading as a possibility; the note recorded in the section on al-Takāthur holds here as well: the degrees of certainty were turned into a systematic order of ranks in later periods, and the Qurʾān does not present it as a defined doctrine.

Root: ل-ق-ي. Liqāʾ — to meet, to encounter. An active participle of the مُفَاعَلَة form: mulāqī — one who meets reciprocally.

That the mufāʿala form conveys reciprocity was treated in the section on al-Māʿūn (yurāʾūn). The same pattern here: the man meets his reckoning — and the reckoning meets him.

And this changes the idea of "settling accounts". The reckoning is not an operation applied to a person; it is something that comes to meet him. A coming face to face.

In the section on al-Inshiqāq 84/6 the same root was treated: "you shall meet your Lord" (fa-mulāqīh). There what is met is the Lord; here what is met is the reckoning.