al-Muzzammil 73:2-4

Qumi'l-layla illā qalīlā / Niṣfahū awi'nquṣ minhu qalīlā / Aw zid ʿalayhi wa rattili'l-Qurʾāna tartīlā

"Stand the night — save a little of it. Half of it; or take a little from that. Or add to it. And recite the Qurʾān with tartīl."

The three verses are the working-out of a single command; they need to be taken together.

Root: ق-و-م. The concrete sense of this root and its family of derivatives were treated in al-Fātiḥa (mustaqīm) and in al-Baqara (iqāmat al-ṣalāt); I do not repeat it here. The core recorded there was this: the root conveys both straightness and standing upright, and iqāma is not "to perform and finish" but "to keep standing".

Here the verb is in its barest form: قُمْ — imperative, second person singular. "Get up on your feet."

And the concreteness of the word does particular work in this verse. The addressee is someone lying down — wrapped in his covering. The first command given to him is not an article of belief, not a prayer, not an act of remembrance; it is a bodily movement. To pass from the horizontal to the vertical.

It was recorded in al-ʿAlaq that the first revelation contained no "command to worship". Here a bodily command comes for the first time — and the first command is still not the name of an act of worship: it does not say "pray", it says "rise".

And the same verb will be repeated in the second verse of the next sūra: qum fa-andhir — "Rise and warn." The two sūras begin with the same command; but one points to the night, the other to people. This is one of the firmest linguistic data for the link between the two sūras, and it will be taken up separately in the comparison section at the end of the sūra.

The point of word order is here.

It could have said qum fi'l-layl ("rise in the night"). It could have said qum mina'l-layl ("rise during part of the night") — and indeed al-Isrāʾ 17/79 says wa mina'l-layli fa-tahajjad bih.

Here, though, ٱلَّيْلَ stands directly in the accusative, that is, like the object of the verb.

The lexicographers explain this as an adverbial (ẓarf of time, "through the night"). This is what is correct grammatically, and it is not disputed.

But the effect this word order leaves is a separate matter: the night ceases to be a vessel inside which a work is done and stands instead like a material worked upon. English expressions such as "to see the night through" or "to get through the night" set up a similar picture — time is handled like an object.

I record this effect not as a grammatical judgement but as the impression the word order leaves on the reader.

No sooner is the command given than an exception comes: "save a little of it."

This is a striking order. First it says "stand the night" — a command that looks absolute, without limit. Then immediately after it a limit is set.

And the direction of the limit announces the whole sūra. In the twentieth verse the ruling will be lightened once more. That is, the sūra makes its first lightening even while it is giving its first command. The command is never given without limit.

An observation — as my own reading: the exception comes in the same breath as the command. A heavy demand is not put first and then loosened by negotiation; the limit is set inside the demand itself.

The third and fourth verses open up the phrase "save a little of it" in the second verse:

And the word order here is worth pausing over.

The verse does not give a figure. It gives a range — and both ends of the range are left open. "Half" is set as a centre, then deviation in both directions is left free.

More important still: the restriction placed on decreasing is not placed on increasing.

• inquṣ minhu qalīlā — "take a little from it". The extent of the decrease is limited.
• zid ʿalayhi — "add to it". The extent is not stated.

So there is a floor in the downward direction and no ceiling in the upward.

I record this as my own reading: the measure is a range whose lower bound is protected but whose upper bound is left open. This says something about the structure of the demand — a minimum ground is asked for, a maximum ceiling is not set.

The verse will give the ground in the sixth verse (inna nāshiʾata'l-layli hiya ashaddu waṭʾan), and it will be treated in that section. But a preliminary note is needed here.

The command of the night is settled in the early texts of the Qurʾān, and it does not stand alone:

• "And in part of the night prostrate to Him; and glorify Him through the long night" (al-Insān 76/26).
• "And in part of the night, wake and pray with it — as something additional for you" (al-Isrāʾ 17/79).
• "Their sides forsake their beds; they call upon their Lord in fear and in hope" (al-Sajda 32/16).

The common point: none of these texts presents the night as an ordeal. The night is presented as the time in which the work can be done.

The most beautiful word in the sūra, and a place that needs pausing over separately.

Root: ر-ت-ل. The concrete sense the lexicons give is unexpectedly specific:

رَتَل (ratal) — the setting of teeth that is even, evenly spaced, not crowded against one another. An Arab describing fine teeth says thaghrun ratilun or ratlu'l-asnān: teeth in an even row, the gaps equal, none riding over another.

That is, at the centre of the root there is not a tooth but a row of teeth. Not the beauty of the individual teeth but the order between them.

From here the word widens:

• رَتَّلَ (rattala) — to set something out at even intervals, to arrange it in sequence.
• تَرْتِيل (tartīl) — the verbal noun of that act: spaced, measured, ordered arrangement.
• In modern Arabic رَتْل (ratl) — a convoy, a column advancing in file. The same idea: one after another, at regular intervals.

Now the concrete sense of the root can be carried into the verse.

For the recitation to be "with tartīl" means for the recitation to be like a row of teeth. And this comparison says three things at once:

1. The words will not be crowded against one another. There are gaps between teeth; without them there would be no teeth but a single bone. In the recitation too there will be space between the words.

2. The gaps will be equal and regular. Not random space but measured space. To hurry in one place and drag in another is not an even setting.

3. Each unit will be seen separately. In an evenly set row of teeth each tooth is picked out one by one. In a text recited with tartīl too each word is heard one by one.

And a fourth thing, which the comparison does not say but implies: teeth are set in a row for a function — for chewing. A disordered setting spoils the function. I write this last item as my own inference; the lexicons do not explain the root by way of function.

It could have said wa rattili'l-Qurʾān and left it there. It did not; the verbal noun is repeated: تَرْتِيلًا.

This is what is called in Arabic the cognate accusative (mafʿūl muṭlaq), and its function is emphasis: to bring the verbal noun of a verb after the verb is to say "truly, fully, as it should be".

The sūra will use this technique once more: wa tabattal ilayhi tabtīlā (73/8), wa mahhadtu lahū tamhīdā (at 74/14 — in the other sūra), fa-akhadhnāhu akhdhan wabīlā (73/16).

But there is an added effect here, and it is easily missed: the cognate accusative adds another syllable to the sentence and lengthens it. That is, the very sentence that gives the command "recite with tartīl" slows down by taking on one more word.

I record this as an observation, not as a claim.

The Qurʾān itself uses this word once more, and the context is explanatory:

"Those who disbelieve said: should the Qurʾān not have been sent down upon him all at once, in a single stretch? Thus — that We might make your heart firm with it (We sent it down so), and We set it apart with tartīl" (al-Furqān 25/32).

Here tartīl is ascribed not to the recitation but to the sending down: the text was sent down piece by piece, at intervals.

And when the two usages are put together a whole emerges: the text came down at intervals, and it is to be recited at intervals. The manner of its descent and the manner of its recitation are named with the same word.

I record this as an inference. That the two verses use the same root is beyond dispute; the link made between them is interpretation.

A distinction has to be drawn, because the two words are often confused.

Tajwīd is a body of rules systematised in later periods: the points of articulation of the letters, the measures of prolongation, the rules of joining and merging. It is a branch of learning and a technical discipline.

Tartīl, by contrast, is the word that occurs in the verse and conveys a quality: spaced, measured, unhurried recitation.

The two do not contradict each other; tajwīd is a method developed afterwards for how tartīl is to be realised. But the verse does not command tajwīd; it commands tartīl. To draw this distinction is not to diminish tajwīd; it is to say correctly what the verse says.

And one more note: in the classical commentaries it is often said that tartīl has to do not only with the ordering of sound but also with following the meaning — the purpose of slow reading being that one can dwell on what is read. This explanation does not run against the text; but the wording of the verse does not say it directly, and the concrete sense of the root is setting and interval.

The arrangement of the three verses carries a logic:

1. Rise — bodily condition. 2. Divide the night — measure of time. 3. Recite with tartīl — the quality of the work.

That is, first the person is put on his feet, then time is set aside for him, then he is told how the work to be done in that time is to be done.

And note: "how much you are to recite" is not said. What is measured is the time; what is qualified is the recitation. Quantity never comes up at all.

This reading of the sequence is my inference; the text does not offer such a justification.