وَأَنَّا مِنَّا الصَّالِحُونَ وَمِنَّا دُونَ ذَٰلِكَ ۖ كُنَّا طَرَائِقَ قِدَدًا
"And that: among us there are the righteous, and among us those below that. We were on separate roads."
The root ص-ل-ح was taken up in al-Baqara, in the discussion of 2/11: to be fitting, to be in its right place, to be repaired; its opposite is fasād — to be spoilt, to depart from one's own order. From the same root comes ṣulḥ (peace).
The core of the word is serviceability: a thing's being in a condition to do the work expected of it. A ṣāliḥ instrument is a working instrument. A ṣāliḥ human being is one who fulfils what being human requires.
Its use here is striking: the jinn name the good portion among themselves with a word used of human beings. This is part of what is being done throughout the sūra: the jinn are described within the same moral categories as the human being. The same verbs, the same attributes, the same responsibility.
The verse does not say "among us are the righteous, among us are the transgressors / the deniers". It says "دُونَ ذَٰلِكَ" — "those below that", "those falling short of it".
دُون is an adverb in Arabic conveying "below, short of, on the other side of". The opposite is not named; only its position is stated: below the first group.
First: it sets up a scale of degrees. Not two sharp categories (good/bad) but an upper level and a wide field remaining below it. The expression "below that" does not say there is a single level below it either — there may be many.
Second: it makes plain the position of the speaker. The jinn are speaking of their own community and avoid naming the bad among them. This is not a covering over — the distinction is made plainly. But there is a measure in the choice of word.
And note this: in verse 14 the same distinction will be made again, this time with names: "among us are those who submit, among us are the deviators." The sūra, that is, uses a measured expression first, and the sharp one afterwards. What happens in the three verses between? The jinn relate their own experience (12-13): that they cannot escape, that they heard the guidance and believed. The distinction sharpens only after the experience has been related.
The framing of the sentence is striking in Arabic: kunnā ṭarāʾiqa qidadā — translated exactly, "we were separate roads."
That is, not "we were on separate roads" — "we were roads." Not what is on the road but the road itself. This is a structure used in Arabic for intensification: to declare a community to be the very state it is in. What we do in English when we say "that man is a disaster."
The effect is this: the dividedness is not an incidental condition but has become the community's definition.
The plural of طريقة. The root ط-ر-ق: to strike, to beat — and from this "road" (a track opened by being beaten with the feet).
In al-Fātiḥa the Qurʾān's words for road were distinguished, and that distinction is of use here:
| Word | Its sense |
|---|---|
| ṣirāṭ | A wide, open, main road; a thoroughfare anyone can pass along |
| sabīl | A particular way of going, a route |
| ṭarīq | A path, a track followed |
In the section on al-Fātiḥa this was also recorded: the Qurʾān uses ṣirāṭ always in the singular; subul (roads) is plural. "This is My straight road, so follow it. Do not follow the other roads; they will separate you from His road" (al-Anʿām 6/153) — one road, many turnings.
Al-Jinn 72/11 stands exactly within this pattern: the jinn describe themselves with a plural word for road. Ṭarāʾiq — plural, and by its root a "path" (narrow, personal, a track each opens for himself).
The choice of word is not chance. For the main road there is ṣirāṭ, and it is singular. To relate dividedness, the plural of ṭarīq has been chosen. And the distinction recorded in the section on al-Ṭāriq is added here too: a ṣirāṭ is a road that has been laid, a ṭarīq is opened by being beaten with the feet. So each group has opened its own road by its own walking.
The word's other uses in the Qurʾān: "And We created above you seven roads" (al-Muʾminūn 23/17 — of the layers of the heavens), "and do away with your exemplary way" (Ṭāhā 20/63), "the most judicious of them in the road he takes" (Ṭāhā 20/104).
And in verse 16 the word will return in the singular: "if they had gone straight upon that road (al-ṭarīqa)…" That is, five verses after relating a plural dividedness the sūra will name a single, definite road. Ṭarāʾiqa qidadā → al-ṭarīqa. Scattered paths → that road.
In Arabic this root holds a distinct place among the verbs of cutting, and the lexicographers separate it from its sibling:
The difference looks small but it unties the knot of a story in the Qurʾān. In the story of Joseph, in the account of the tearing of the shirt: "If his shirt is torn from the front (qudda min qubulin) she speaks the truth… if his shirt is torn from behind (qudda min duburin) she lies" (Yūsuf 12/26-27). The same root. The lengthwise tearing of the shirt became the evidence showing who was pulling whom.
- qadd — stature, figure. (The line running along a person's length.)
- qadīd — meat separated into thin strips for drying. The most widespread way of storing meat in the desert: to slice it lengthwise, salt it and dry it in the sun.
Now the picture is complete: the jinn were in separate roads like strips split lengthwise. The word gives the form of the division too — not crosswise but lengthwise. That is, the break is not momentary and horizontal; each group has walked its own line separately from beginning to end.
This corresponds exactly to the expression "separate roads". The lengthwise splitting of a road means two parallel roads. Lines running side by side but never crossing.
This verse makes the sūra's most important correction on the subject of "jinn": jinn is not a moral category.
Everyday usage in English (and in many languages) has confined the word almost wholly to a negative field. The verse rejects this directly: a word that is the name of a kind cannot carry a single moral verdict. Among them there are the righteous too.
And this has a consequence, bearing on the whole sūra: the criticism in verse 6 does not rest on the jinn's being evil. It was wrong for human beings to seek refuge with the jinn — but the reason for the wrongness is not the evil of the jinn but that no created thing can be a refuge. The sūra will say this of the Prophet too in verse 22.
This distinction matters because it sets the measure in place: the matter is not "keeping away from evil beings" but turning to the right address.
The expression ṭarāʾiqa qidadā is one of the rare findings a community can make about itself: to acknowledge that it is divided.
The jinn say this neither as a complaint nor as a defence. They say it as a statement of a situation — and immediately after (12-14) they make their own position clear.
The order is worth noting: first the dividedness is acknowledged, then the side is stated. The reverse was possible too — "we are on the right side" could have been said first and the others related afterwards. The text does not do this. First the state of the community, then the place of the person.