al-Jinn 72:19

Wa annahu lammā qāma ʿabdu'llāhi yadʿūhu kādū yakūnūna ʿalayhi libadā

"And that: when the servant of God stood up to call upon Him, they were all but piled upon him like felt."

The verb is from the root ق-و-م — the same root as istaqāmū three verses earlier. In a short span the sūra uses the same root for two separate works: uprightness (remaining on the line) and standing (rising for prayer).

Qāma yadʿūhu — "he stood up calling upon Him". A circumstantial clause. What is related is generally explained in the classical commentaries as the night prayer, and this is reasonable: the word qiyām has a settled link with prayer in the Qurʾān.

Who? The majority in the classical commentaries say this is the Prophet, and the context supports it: the scene the verse relates — someone standing up to pray and a crowd gathering around him — accords with the sūra as a whole, and that immediately after, in verse 20, the Prophet is told "say: I call only upon my Lord" reinforces this reading.

It is said that other possibilities are transmitted in a few sources. On these I cannot give a classification I am sure of; I transmit the view of the majority and find it reasonable.

The point of the naming is the real matter.

The verse does not say "Muḥammad". It does not say "Our messenger". It does not say "the Prophet". It says "the servant of God".

This is the highest description the Qurʾān uses of the Prophet, and it is a deliberate choice. When the Qurʾān names the Prophet in the loftiest positions it regularly chooses the word servant:

• In relating the sending down of the revelation: "what He sent down upon His servant" (a like expression at al-Kahf 18/1; al-Furqān 25/1: "who sent down the Furqān upon His servant").
• In making the challenge: "if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our servant" (al-Baqara 2/23 — this verse was treated in al-Baqara).
• In relating the night journey: "who carried His servant by night" (al-Isrāʾ 17/1).

The pattern is this: the higher the station, the more the description moves towards "servant".

And its function in this verse is very particular. The scene is this: a person is praying, a crowd is thronging around him. In such a scene the risk of the person's being exalted is at its highest — what draws those gathering around him is uncertain.

At precisely that moment the verse names the person servant. The man at the centre of the crowd is "the servant of God". And what is he doing? He is calling upon Him — that is, he too is asking for something, he too is in need.

This is the silent preparation for what the sūra will say plainly in verses 20-22: the person at the centre of the crowd has nothing in his hand.

كَادَ belongs in Arabic to the group called the verbs of approximation. Its function: to state that an event came very close to happening but did not happen. The English "almost" answers it well.

The predicate of the verb comes in the imperfect (yakūnūna), and this structure relates the event's remaining on the threshold.

Why not "they became" but "they were all but"? Because what is described is not a piling that took place but a pressing that comes close to piling. The scene is given frozen: the crowd is about to close over him, but has not quite done so.

This is a technique the Qurʾān often uses in relating a scene — giving the event in its uncompleted state and thereby holding the tension.

The particle ʿalā conveys coming from above and pressing down. In the section on al-Fīl the function of this particle was taken up: punishment is sent "upon them"; a small particle draws the direction of the event.

Here too the direction is from above downward: the crowd rides on top of the one praying.

The root ل-ب-د was analysed in full in al-Balad, in the discussion of 90/6. The finding there: the concrete sense of the root is to pile one on another, to stick together, to mat; libd/libda is felt — the cloth obtained by wetting wool fibres and beating them so that they interlock, not woven but pressed; lubda is the matted mane on a lion's neck. And lubad does not mean simply "much" but piled one on another, stuck together, become a single mass.

And that section already referred to this verse: in relating the "felt-like" quality of the wealth at al-Balad 90/6, this verse was shown as the root's other occurrence in the Qurʾān and it was said: "Not coins that can be counted one by one; a mass interlocked, indivisible." This is the counterpart of that reference.

The word's function here is that analysis applied to human beings: the crowd ceases to be separate persons and becomes a single mass.

This image is extremely concrete. The property of felt is that the fibres can no longer be separated — in a woven cloth the threads can be pulled apart, in felt they cannot. By describing the crowd with this material, the verse pictures it as a mass in which individuals cannot be picked out.

The verse does not say, and it has been read in two directions in the classical commentaries:

The verse is open to both readings and the choice of word supports this: libad is neither a positive nor a negative word; it conveys density, not intent.

I make no definite preference. But this can be recorded: on either reading the picture the verse gives is the same — a person praying and a mass piling on top of him. And the continuation of the sūra (20-22) gives what the Prophet is made to say against that mass: I call only upon my Lord… I have nothing in my hand.

That is, whatever the crowd's intent, the answer is the same: the person at the centre is not in a position to carry what is loaded onto him.

The two verses side by side say something.

Verse 18: places of worship belong to God, no other addressee is joined to them. Verse 19: while one person is praying, a crowd thrones about him as a mass.

The sequence does not look accidental. Immediately after the ruling about the address of a turning comes a scene in which a human being might be put at the centre of the turning. And that human being is named "the servant of God".

The side of this that looks on the present is one of the oldest risks of religious life: the intermediary passing to the centre. Gathering around the one who prays blurs the difference between him and the one prayed to. As the crowd grows, the person at the centre begins to resemble a source.

The sūra's solution is interesting: it does not disperse the crowd, does not censure the crowd. It makes the person at the centre speak. Across the next four verses the Prophet will enumerate, one by one, what he does not have in his hand.

The last section of the sūra is built with four commands, and all four do the same work: to make the Prophet say what he does not have in his hand.

This is one of the most striking attitudes of the Qurʾān. The bearer of a message stands in the middle of the message and enumerates his own limits. And he does not say it of himself — he is commanded to say it.

The order of the four verses draws a descending line:

That is, in order: my position, my power, my safety, my knowledge — all four are limited.