al-Muddaththir 74:40-42

Fī jannātin yatasāʾalūn / ʿAni'l-mujrimīn / Mā salakakum fī saqar "They are in gardens, asking one another — about the guilty: 'What put you into saqar?'"

Root: س-أ-ل. To ask. In the تَفَاعُل form (tasāʾala): to ask one another, mutually.

This form conveys reciprocity (mushāraka): taqātala (they fought one another), takhāṣama (they went to law with one another).

al-Nabaʾ opens with this verb (ʿamma yatasāʾalūn), and it was treated there.

And there is a transition in the word order, and it is striking.

The verse first says yatasāʾalūn — they ask one another; and the subject they ask about is ʿani'l-mujrimīn — about the guilty.

Then in the forty-second verse the question is directed straight at the guilty: mā salakakum — "what put you in?"

That is, the question passes from speaking about to asking directly. From the third person to the second.

I record this transition as an observation about word order.

Root: س-ل-ك. Its concrete sense: to pass a thing into another thing, to thread it through like a thread.

Salaka'l-khayṭa fi'l-ibra — he threaded the thread through the needle. It has nothing to do with the Turkish "silk" and "meslekî"; but "sülûk" (entering upon a path) and "meslek" (the path entered upon) do come from this root.

The uses in the Qurʾān light up the root:

• "Thus do We thread it into the hearts of the guilty" (al-Ḥijr 15/12).
• "Put into it two of every kind" (al-Muʾminūn 23/27) — into the ship.
• "And He made broad ways in it for you, that you might walk in them" (Nūḥ 71/20).
• "Whoever turns away from the remembrance of his Lord, He will put him into a grievous punishment" (al-Jinn 72/17) — yasluk-hu ʿadhāban ṣaʿadā.

And the last example is worth dwelling on.

At al-Jinn 72/17 the same verb (salaka) and the same root (ص-ع-د, ṣaʿadā) occur side by side. And in this sūra too both are present: sa-urhiquhū ṣuʿūdā (74/17) and mā salakakum fī saqar (74/42).

Two words, in two sūras, in the same context. I record this as an observation; I make no claim of a reference.

And the question itself needs dwelling on.

The question begins with مَا: "what?" — the cause is being asked.

And the verb is transitive: salakakum — "put you in". That is, the agent is being asked: what was the thing that put you in there?

The one who is asked is compelled to recount his own action.

The verse does not describe the state of the people of the Fire from outside; it makes them recount it in their own words. And this is one of the most effective techniques of the sūra.