ٱدْعُوا۟ رَبَّكُمْ تَضَرُّعًا وَخُفْيَةً إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْمُعْتَدِينَ · وَلَا تُفْسِدُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ بَعْدَ إِصْلَٰحِهَا وَٱدْعُوهُ خَوْفًا وَطَمَعًا إِنَّ رَحْمَتَ ٱللَّهِ قَرِيبٌ مِّنَ ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ
Udʿū rabbakum taḍarruʿan wa khufya, innahū lā yuḥibbu'l-muʿtadīn · Wa lā tufsidū fi'l-arḍi baʿda iṣlāḥihā wa'dʿūhu khawfan wa ṭamaʿā, inna raḥmata'llāhi qarībun mina'l-muḥsinīn
"Call upon your Lord in humility and in secret. He does not love those who exceed the bounds. · Do not work corruption on the earth after it has been set in order. Call upon Him in fear and in hope. The mercy of God is near to those who do good."
The fifty-fourth verse had stated who the Lord is; the fifty-fifth says how He is to be called upon. The order is worth recording: first the description, then the manner of address.
The root ض-ر-ع: weakness, submission, being brought low. Ḍariʿ — weak, without strength. Form V (taḍarruʿ) states a person's putting himself into that condition: to lower oneself, to plead.
| Word | What it looks to |
|---|---|
| Taḍarruʿan | The inward state — holding oneself small |
| Khufyatan | The outward state — the voice not being heard |
And this pair will overlap with one of the last verses of the sūra. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra:
| Verse | Expression |
|---|---|
| 7/55 | Udʿū rabbakum taḍarruʿan wa khufyatan |
| 7/205 | Wa'dhkur rabbaka fī nafsika taḍarruʿan wa khīfatan wa dūna'l-jahri mina'l-qawl |
In both verses the same word (taḍarruʿ), and in both a note about the voice. The difference: at 55 khufya (secrecy), at 205 khīfa (fear). That is, where the sūra opens the command to pray and where it closes it, it presses on the same two axes: lowering oneself, and voice. I record this as my own reading; its ground is the words of the two verses.
And a question of word order must be recorded: exceeding the bound in what does the sentence forbid? Two readings are transmitted in the classical commentaries, and I give the disagreement in a table:
| Reading | Where the iʿtidāʾ is | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | In supplication — exceeding the bound while praying (shouting, asking for what cannot be, demanding what is not one's own) | That the sentence comes immediately after the supplication; that the qualification taḍarruʿan wa khufyatan is setting a measure |
| 2 | In general — exceeding the bound in every field | That the sentence is left without an object; that the word al-muʿtadīn comes unrestricted |
Both readings are transmitted. I do not impose a preference. And the two do not exclude each other: the next verse already moves out of supplication and on to the earth.
This sentence occurs twice in the sūra, in word-for-word identical form — 56 and 85 — and its second occurrence is in the mouth of Shuʿayb. This repetition was tabulated in the section on the structure of the sūra; I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it here.
| Verse | Command | Field |
|---|---|---|
| 55 | Udʿū rabbakum | Vertical — the servant towards his Lord |
| 56a | Wa lā tufsidū fi'l-arḍ | Horizontal — the servant towards the earth |
| 56b | Wa'dʿūhu khawfan wa ṭamaʿā | Vertical — supplication again |
That is, the command about the earth has been placed between two commands about supplication. I record this as an observation about word order, and its ground is the order of the three sentences.
بَعْدَ إِصْلَٰحِهَا — "after it has been set in order". What must be recorded is this: the sentence presupposes a prior condition. The earth is named not as a neutral ground but as a ground that has been set right. Corruption is described not as adding something to a void but as breaking an order that exists.
Who set it right is not stated, and several explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries for this gap (the order in creation; the order the messengers brought; both at once). The text does not name it; nor do I make a preference.
| Place | Expression | Whose state |
|---|---|---|
| al-Rūm 30/24 | Yurīkumu'l-barqa khawfan wa ṭamaʿā | The state of one who looks at lightning — fear of the bolt, hope of rain |
| al-Raʿd 13/12 | Yurīkumu'l-barqa khawfan wa ṭamaʿā | The same scene — treated on the basis of al-Rūm |
| al-Sajda 32/16 | Yadʿūna rabbahum khawfan wa ṭamaʿā | The state of one who prays |
| al-Aʿrāf 7/56 | Wa'dʿūhu khawfan wa ṭamaʿā | A command — the one who prays is commanded |
And what al-Aʿrāf adds must be recorded, and it is a datum of the text: in al-Rūm and al-Raʿd the pair is the description of an observation, in al-Sajda the attribute of a company, and in al-Aʿrāf a direct command.
That is, the same pair occurs in the index first as a fact, then as an attribute, and here as a demand. I record this as an observation.
And within the sūra this pair has a precedent — it was treated at the forty-sixth and forty-seventh verses: the people of al-Aʿrāf, looking towards the Garden, were yaṭmaʿūn (hoping), and looking towards the Fire were saying rabbanā lā tajʿalnā maʿa'l-qawmi'ẓ-ẓālimīn (fearing). The fifty-sixth verse turns the state described there into a command. This link was recorded at 46-47; here it closes.
A point of word order must be recorded, and the lexicographers dwell on it: raḥma is a feminine word, but its predicate comes as qarībun — masculine. The expected form would be qarībatun.
The lexicographers give several explanations, and I convey all of them as transmitted, imposing no preference:
| # | Explanation |
|---|---|
| 1 | Raḥma here is grammatically feminine only (it states no real femininity); the predicate of such words may come masculine |
| 2 | Qarīb is used here not as an adjective but as an adverbial — in the sense "in a near place"; adverbials do not take the feminine |
| 3 | Raḥma stands in place of a masculine word of like meaning such as raḥm or faḍl |
This is a question of case (iʿrāb) that does not change the meaning and generates no ruling; I record it for the sake of the analysis of the word.
And it must be recorded to whom the mercy is near: mina'l-muḥsinīn. It does not say those who pray, but those who do good. I record this as my own reading and it is not binding; its ground is the word itself: for two verses supplication has been described, and at the closing the measure set is not supplication itself but conduct.