قَالَ يَٰمُوسَىٰٓ إِنِّى ٱصْطَفَيْتُكَ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ بِرِسَٰلَٰتِى وَبِكَلَٰمِى فَخُذْ مَآ ءَاتَيْتُكَ وَكُن مِّنَ ٱلشَّٰكِرِينَ
Qāla yā Mūsā innī'ṣṭafaytuka ʿala'n-nāsi bi-risālātī wa bi-kalāmī fa-khudh mā ātaytuka wa kun mina'sh-shākirīn · Wa katabnā lahū fi'l-alwāḥi min kulli shayʾin mawʿiẓatan wa tafṣīlan li-kulli shayʾin fa-khudhhā bi-quwwatin wa'mur qawmaka yaʾkhudhū bi-aḥsanihā, sa-urīkum dāra'l-fāsiqīn
"He said: 'O Moses! I have chosen you above mankind with My messages and with My speech to you. So take what I have given you and be among the thankful.' · And We wrote for him on the tablets an admonition about everything and a setting out in detail of everything: 'Take these with strength, and command your people to take the best of them. I shall show you the abode of the transgressors.'"
In these two verses the same verb (أ-خ-ذ) occurs three times, and each time it states a command to take hold:
| Verse | Expression | To whom |
|---|---|---|
| 144 | Fa-khudh mā ātaytuk | To Moses |
| 145 | Fa-khudhhā bi-quwwatin | To Moses |
| 145 | Wa'mur qawmaka yaʾkhudhū bi-aḥsanihā | To the people |
And the same pattern will come once more in the hundred and seventy-first verse of the sūra: khudhū mā ātaynākum bi-quwwatin. That is, the same command at the beginning and at the end of the block.
This command was treated at 2/63 in al-Baqara, where it was recorded; I rely on that treatment: "It is said that to hold the Book in hand requires not a loose contact but a force of grip. What is held loosely does not stay in the hand."
And what belongs here is this, and it connects with the sūra as a whole — I record it as my own reading, and it is not binding: the backbone recorded in the section on the structure of the sūra was "the passing of what was given out of the hand". The command in the hundred and forty-fifth verse is exactly the reverse of that: bi-quwwatin — to hold fast. And in the hundred and seventy-fifth verse the sūra will tell the opposite: the man who slipped out of his signs.
One expression in the hundred and forty-fifth verse draws notice: what the people are commanded is to take the best of the tablets.
| Reading | What aḥsanihā means | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | All that is in them is good; aḥsan here states not a comparison but an attribute | That in Arabic the elative is also used for an attribute without comparison |
| 2 | Between dispensation (rukhṣa) and the stricter course (ʿazīma), to take the higher | That there is a distinction between what the text permits and what it recommends |
| 3 | Between what is commanded and what is merely allowed, to take what is commanded | The application of the same distinction to kinds of ruling |
All three explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference, and I draw no legal rule from this (Method).
The root ص-ر-ف occurs three times in the sūra, and its table was given at the fifty-eighth verse. This is the third occurrence.
And the qualification of the sentence must be recorded: alladhīna yatakabbarūna fi'l-arḍi bi-ghayri'l-ḥaqq.
I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the relative clause: the turning away is tied not to a group as a name but to a behaviour. And the word connects with the second block of the sūra: the same root had been used of Iblīs too — fa-mā yakūnu laka an tatakabbara fīhā (13).
And in the continuation of the hundred and forty-sixth verse a table of seeing and of way is built, and this table is read directly from the text:
| What is seen | What is done |
|---|---|
| Kulla āyatin — every sign | Lā yuʾminū bihā |
| Sabīla'r-rushd — the way of rightness | Lā yattakhidhūhu sabīlā |
| Sabīla'l-ghayy — the way of error | Yattakhidhūhu sabīlā |
Three things are seen, and to the three three different responses are given. And the verb is the same: yattakhidhū (to take up). That is, the verse speaks not of blindness but of choice.
I record this as my own reading and it is not binding; its ground is the threefold structure. And the same structure was recorded at 41/17 in Fuṣṣilat (fa'staḥabbu'l-ʿamā ʿala'l-hudā — they preferred blindness to guidance). I rely on that treatment: the two sūras build the same fact with two different words.