al-Aʿrāf 7:73-79 — Ṣāliḥ

Wa ilā Thamūda akhāhum Ṣāliḥā, qāla yā qawmi'budū'llāha mā lakum min ilāhin ghayruh, qad jāʾatkum bayyinatun min rabbikum, hādhihī nāqatu'llāhi lakum āyatan fa-dharūhā taʾkul fī arḍi'llāh wa lā tamassūhā bi-sūʾin fa-yaʾkhudhakum ʿadhābun alīm

"And to Thamūd [We sent] their brother Ṣāliḥ. He said: 'O my people! Serve God; you have no god but Him. A clear proof has come to you from your Lord: this is the she-camel of God — a sign for you. Let her be, to eat in God's earth; do not touch her with harm, or a painful punishment will seize you.'"

The root ن-و-ق: a she-camel. The Qurʾān speaks of this camel in several places (al-Aʿrāf 7/73; Hūd 11/64; al-Isrāʾ 17/59; al-Qamar 54/27; al-Shams 91/13) and it was treated in al-Qamar and al-Shams. I rely on those treatments.

And here there is a limit I must write out plainly, per the method: the Qurʾān says nothing about where the camel came from, how she appeared, her size, her colour, or her milk. There are detailed accounts transmitted in the classical sources; this commentary does not enter into them — because the verse does not, and their soundness cannot be established (Method).

What the text says is this, and that much I record:

And a point of word order must be recorded: the sign given is not a thing to be done but a thing not to be done. Both commands are a withdrawal: let her be, and do not touch.

I record this as my own reading and it is not binding; its ground is the two verbs themselves: the test is built not with a demand for an act but with a demand for a withholding of the hand. And what was given to Adam in the second block of the sūra was of the same kind: wa lā taqrabā hādhihi'sh-shajarata (19) — a prohibition. In both scenes the subject of the test is that what is given not be taken. This is an overlap that can be verified within the sūra.

The seventy-fifth verse is the clearest instance of the "line of class" recorded in the section on the structure of the sūra:

Qāla'l-malaʾu'lladhīna'stakbarū min qawmihī lilladhīna'stuḍʿifū li-man āmana minhum: a-taʿlamūna anna Ṣāliḥan mursalun min rabbih

Two patterns are set facing one another, and both are Form X:

The difference of voice must be recorded, and it is a datum of word order: the first is active, the second passive. That is, the verse gives weakness not as an attribute but as something that was done.

The same root was treated at 26/22 in al-Shuʿarāʾ, where it was recorded: istiḍʿāf — weakness is not something that comes of itself, it is something done. I rely on that treatment.

And there is an appositive note within the verse, and it must be recorded: lilladhīna'stuḍʿifū li-man āmana minhum — "to those made weak, to those of them who believed". The second expression narrows the first.

I record this as an observation about word order: the verse does not equate "those made weak" with "those who believed"; it separates the second out from within the first. That is, here too the sūra builds no blanket judgement about a class (Method).

The root ع-ق-ر: to bring an animal down by cutting its leg; and from this, to kill. The lexicographers give the primary sense as the cutting of the leg tendon.

The root ع-ت-و: to exceed the bound, to hold out in pride, to dry and harden. ʿAtā ʿan amri rabbih — "he went out from the command of his Lord".

And the order of the verbs is worth recording: first the act, then the naming of the act. The verse does not say "they went out from the command and hamstrung the camel"; it says the reverse. I record this as an observation about word order.

And the sentence that follows is in the same pattern as the one in the story of Hūd:

The only difference is in the last word: one ṣādiqīn (those who speak truly), the other mursalīn (those who are sent). This is a difference that can be verified from the text.

And as was recorded at 26/31 in al-Shuʿarāʾ, the conditional particle is in, not idhā — in Arabic in is used for the doubtful, idhā for the certain. I rely on that treatment.

The root ر-ج-ف: violent shaking, trembling. Rajfa — a quaking.

The root ج-ث-م: an animal's sinking down on its breast and knees, sticking fast to the ground. The lexicographers use the word especially for a bird's crouching to the ground.

And the choice of the word is worth recording: jāthimīn states a posture, not an annihilation. The scene is of bodies left collapsed where they were.

And precisely this sentence occurs twice in the sūra (78 and 91) — it was counted in the section on the structure of the sūra. It must also be recorded that for the same event the Qurʾān uses other words in other sūras (ṣāʿiqa at Fuṣṣilat 41/13; ṣayḥa at al-Qamar 54/31). They were treated in Fuṣṣilat and al-Qamar; I rely on those treatments. This variation is explained as the naming of different aspects of the same event; I convey it as transmitted and impose no preference.