مَآ أَغْنَىٰ عَنِّى مَالِيَهْ · هَلَكَ عَنِّى سُلْطَٰنِيَهْ
Mā aghnā ʿannī māliyah · Halaka ʿannī sulṭāniyah "My wealth has availed me nothing. My authority has gone from me."
The mood of the speech changes here. The twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses were wishes (would that). The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth are declarative sentences: a statement of fact.
The man stops asking for what cannot be, that is, and begins to say what is. And the two things he says are the two pillars of a life: wealth and power.
Root: غ-ن-ي. This root was treated in detail in the section on ʿAbasa 80/5 and 80/37, and a table was set up there: istaghnā (to count oneself self-sufficient — an illusion) and yughnīh (the affliction that makes him do without — a fact). What was recorded in ʿAbasa: "self-sufficiency is given to whoever asks for it." I do not repeat it.
The أَغْنَىٰ عَنْ pattern is particular: "to stand in someone's place, to make someone do without a thing, to be of use." Not "my wealth did not make me rich", that is, but "my wealth was of no use on my behalf".
| Verse | Expression | About whom |
|---|---|---|
| Al-Layl 92/11 | وَمَا يُغْنِى عَنْهُ مَالُهُۥٓ إِذَا تَرَدَّىٰ | General — "when he falls" |
| Al-Masad 111/2 | مَآ أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُ مَالُهُۥ وَمَا كَسَبَ | About a particular person |
| Al-Ḥāqqa 69/28 | مَآ أَغْنَىٰ عَنِّى مَالِيَهْ | From the person's own mouth |
The first two verses were treated in the sections on al-Layl and al-Tabbat. What is to be added here is the difference of the third:
In al-Layl and al-Masad it is the narrator who gives the verdict: "his wealth will not avail him." In al-Ḥāqqa it is the man himself who gives it: "my wealth has availed me nothing."
The same sentence, that is, is a warning in two sūras and a confession in one. And the confession is the confirmation of the warning.
And the pronoun is again "my": māl-ī-yah. The man speaks on the assumption that the wealth still belongs to him. The wealth was of no use, but it is still "my wealth".
هَلَكَ — Root: ه-ل-ك. To perish, to be destroyed. The same root occurred in the fifth and sixth verses of the sūra: uhlikū — "they were destroyed."
The sūra uses the root twice: peoples were destroyed (5-6), and the man's authority perished (29). The one collective, the other individual; the one passive, the other active.
عَنِّى — "from me [going away]". The particle ʿan conveys separation (mujāwaza, going away from); the function of this particle was treated in detail in the section on al-Māʿūn 107/5.
The sentence, that is, is not "my authority perished" but exactly "my authority perished by parting from me". The particle gives the direction of the parting: it is what goes, the person is what stays.
And the same particle stands in both verses: aghnā ʿannī, halaka ʿannī. The man says "from me" twice. Both of the two things he possessed have broken away from him.
| Sense | Example |
|---|---|
| Power, dominion, authority | Uses in the context of "be my partner in my rule"; "he has no power over him" (al-Naḥl 16/99, of Satan) |
| Proof, decisive evidence | "He has sent down no authority for this" (al-Aʿrāf 7/71); "with a clear proof" (al-Nisāʾ 4/153); سُلْطَٰنٍ مُّبِينٍ is a construction the Qurʾān uses often |
The link the lexicographers make is this: a proof too is a kind of prevailing — it puts down the other side in a dispute. In Arabic "to have a proof" and "to have power" are expressed by the same word.
| Reading | Sense | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| Power | "My rule, my strength, my authority has gone" | Wealth was named in the preceding verse; wealth and power go together. The more widespread in the classical sources |
| Proof | "The defence in my hand is gone; I have no argument left to advance" | The scene is a scene of reckoning; what is lost in a court is one's proof. This is the commonest sense of sulṭān in the Qurʾān |
Both fit the text and both are found in the sources. I do not impose a preference. But the picture the two readings give together is worth recording:
In two sentences the man loses two things: what was in his hand (wealth) and what he had to say (proof, or power). Both his material and his verbal support go.
And the measure recorded in the section on al-Ṭāriq is at work again here: "There are two ways for a person to get out of a difficulty: either by his own strength or by someone's help. The verse closes both doors separately." Al-Ḥāqqa does the same work by way of wealth and authority.
The five-verse speech ends here. And note how it ends: not with the sentence unfinished but with it complete. The man says what he has to say.
And everything he says is about himself: my book, my reckoning, my wealth, my authority. In five verses, "my" four times.
Then the thirtieth verse begins, and the subject changes there: "Seize him." Everything the man called "mine" has been taken from him; now he himself becomes an object.
I record this as my own reading. Its ground is the distribution of the pronouns, and that can be counted in the text.