al-Ḥāqqa 69:51-52

Wa innahu la-ḥaqqu'l-yaqīn · Fa-sabbiḥ bi'smi rabbika'l-ʿaẓīm "And it is surely the very truth of certainty. So glorify the name of your Lord, the Mighty."

And here the sūra closes — with the root it opened with.

The same root, fifty verses apart. The sūra begins by saying its name and ends by saying the root of its name.

And everything that comes between stands between those two words: a claim will come true (1), and the speech that carries that claim is truth itself (51).

An observation recorded in the section on al-Qāriʿa is completed here. It was written there: al-Qāriʿa says its name three times and never mentions it again. Al-Ḥāqqa's name likewise does not occur after the first three verses — but its root returns at the end.

I record this as a verifiable link within the sūra; the root of the two occurrences is the same.

This construction was taken up in the section on al-Takāthur 102/5-7, and a table was given there:

And the critical note entered there was this, and it is preserved here exactly:

This triad was turned in later periods — especially in the literature of Sufism — into a systematic order of ranks: knowing by report → seeing → living or becoming. This systematisation does not occur in the Qurʾān itself as a defined set. The Qurʾān uses these three constructions, but does not present them as a three-step doctrine; nor do the three ever come together in one place.

In the section on al-Takāthur the example of fire was also related (hearing / seeing / touching), and its source was not ascribed to any person. I do not repeat it.

What is to be added here is this: to what is the construction applied in al-Ḥāqqa?

In al-Takāthur the constructions concerned the seeing of Hell. In al-Ḥāqqa the construction concerns the text itself: "innahu" — the pronoun refers, as in the two preceding verses, to the Qurʾān.

The verse says, that is: this text stands at the highest degree of certainty.

And this accords exactly with the logic of the sūra's third part. What was disputed throughout that part was the source of the text: not a poet, not a soothsayer, not an invention, but from the Lord of all the worlds. Now the conclusion is given: therefore it is certain.

In the section on al-Takāthur two grammatical solutions were given for ʿilma'l-yaqīn (a construct / an absolute object). Here the structure differs — the construction is not accusative but nominative, and it is the predicate.

The grammarians' two solutions:

Both have been maintained in the classical sources and their practical difference is limited.

And now the most striking external link of this sūra.

This construction occurs in two places in the Qurʾān: here and at al-Wāqiʿa 56/95. This was already recorded in the section on al-Takāthur.

But what was not recorded is this: the two sūras end with the same verse, and their penultimate verses close with the same construction too.

The last verse is the same word for word. And the verse before it ends with the same construction.

And there is a link between the names of the two sūras as well. The name of Sūrat al-Wāqiʿa is ٱلْوَاقِعَة. And Sūrat al-Ḥāqqa uses exactly this word in its fifteenth verse: waqaʿati'l-wāqiʿa.

Sūrat al-Ḥāqqa, that is, both carries al-Wāqiʿa's name within it and ends with the same last verse as al-Wāqiʿa — and the penultimate verses of the two sūras, though their wordings differ, close with the same construction (ḥaqqu'l-yaqīn).

This is a verifiable textual datum and is worth recording. I do not establish any relation of arrangement between the two sūras; I make no claim about the order of revelation. What I record is that two sūras treating the same subject (the resurrection and two groups) close with the same sentences.

And the difference between the two sūras is worth recording too: al-Wāqiʿa divides people into three (aṣḥāb al-maymana, aṣḥāb al-mashʾama, al-sābiqūn); al-Ḥāqqa divides them into two (the one given from the right, the one given from the left). The same close, a different division.

Root: س-ب-ح. Sabaḥa — to move in water or in air, to swim. Sibāḥa — swimming.

تَسْبِيح (Form II) — to declare God free of all deficiency. The link the lexicographers make: tasbīḥ is to remove God from, to set Him apart from, everything unbefitting Him; and the swimmer too advances by parting the water. I transmit this explanation; I do not present it as a settled etymological judgement.

بِٱسْمِ — "the name of". The verse does not say "glorify your Lord"; it says "the name of your Lord" or "with the name of your Lord". The particle bāʾ has two readings:

Both occur in the classical sources. I express no preference.

The difference from al-Aʿlā 87/1. Sūrat al-Aʿlā opens thus: سَبِّحِ ٱسْمَ رَبِّكَ ٱلْأَعْلَى — there there is no bāʾ and the attribute is ٱلْأَعْلَى. This verse was treated in the section on al-Aʿlā; I do not repeat it. The difference here is worth recording: the two verses are close to the same pattern, but the particle and the attribute differ.

The link recorded at the thirty-third verse is completed here:

The same attribute, two opposite attitudes. And the sūra, having recounted the end of the one, gives a command to the other.

I record this as a verifiable link within the sūra.

For fifty-two verses the sūra gave information: what happened happened, what will happen will happen, this speech is true. Now a command comes, and it is the sūra's only command (the only command directed at the one addressed himself — the commands at 24, 30-32 and 19 are inside the scene).

And the content of the command is not an action but an attitude: glorification.

Why this should be so is worth thinking about, and I shall offer a reading — as my own reading.

What the sūra recounts throughout is coming true: something claimed finding its place. And this is a field in which man cannot intervene. Peoples were destroyed, books will be given, the reckoning will be set up — none of it is in the hands of the one addressed.

What command, then, can be given to him?

The sūra chooses glorification. And the sense of glorification, by its root, is to set apart God from what does not befit Him. What is asked of the one addressed, that is, is not to do a piece of work but to hold something in its right place.

And this ties to the sūra's first word. Ḥāqqa came from the root ح-ق-ق, and the concrete sense of that root was to seat exactly in place. All through the sūra everything settles into its place: claims, deeds, verdicts. What is asked of the one addressed in the last verse is likewise an operation of settling something in its place.

I record this as my own reading. Its ground is the lexical senses of the two roots.