كَلَّآ إِذَا بَلَغَتِ ٱلتَّرَاقِىَ · وَقِيلَ مَنْ رَاقٍ · وَظَنَّ أَنَّهُ ٱلْفِرَاقُ · وَٱلْتَفَّتِ ٱلسَّاقُ بِٱلسَّاقِ
Kallā idhā balaghati't-tarāqiy · Wa qīla man rāq · Wa ẓanna annahu'l-firāq · Wa'ltaffati's-sāqu bi's-sāq "No! When it reaches the collarbones, and it is said, 'who will heal him?', and he knows that this is the parting, and leg is wound about leg…"
The narrowest scene in the sūra. The tableau of the resurrection was universal — sun, moon, all mankind. Here the scene comes down to one room, one bed, one body.
The third and last kallā of the sūra. And it does a different work from the others: it cuts off not a question but the whole argument.
Everything spoken of up to the twenty-sixth verse — the objection, the question, the scene, the two tableaux — is left behind and the text turns to the most concrete thing there is: the moment of death.
There is a logic to this. The matter argued over throughout the sūra was the reality of a distant day. By saying kallā the text says this: there is no need to argue over that day, because there is a reality far nearer than it and nobody argues over that one.
The classical explanation: the elided subject is ٱلرُّوح (rūḥ) or ٱلنَّفْس (nafs); the verb's coming in the feminine shows this (nafs is feminine). It was not stated because the indication is clear.
And the ellipsis has an effect. The sentence opens with a gap: "when it reached" — what? The reader halts for a moment. Then al-tarāqī comes and the gap fills of itself: something is going up.
In describing a man who is dying, the verse does not use the word death. Throughout the whole scene (26-29) that word never occurs.
The collarbone stands just below the neck, at the very top of the chest. Anatomically it is the place where the trunk ends. When the soul has come up against it, no road is left.
That is, the verse states not a time but a limit. And in naming the limit it chooses not an abstract word but a bone that can be touched.
فَلَوْلَآ إِذَا بَلَغَتِ ٱلْحُلْقُومَ — "When it reaches the throat (ḥulqūm)…" (al-Wāqiʿa 56/83)
The same verb (balaghat), the same absence of a subject, a different organ. Read together, the two verses show the Qurʾān's description of death: a movement of rising, and a stopping place at the top of the body.
The verb is passive: qīla — "it was said". Who says it is not specified. Those in the room, his kin, those around him — no name is given.
And the words are said not to the sick man but about him. The one who is dying is no longer the one addressed; he is the subject. This is one of the finest details of the scene: the person is still there, but he has turned into a third person.
| Branch | Meaning | Derivatives |
|---|---|---|
| To rise | To go up, to climb | ruqiyy, irtiqāʾ, mirqāt (a ladder) |
| Ruqya | To treat by reciting and breathing over | ruqya, rāqin (one who recites) |
| Reading | Who says it | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| The healer | Those around him | "Who is there, who will cure this man?" — the search for a last resort |
| The one who takes up | The angels | "Who will take this soul up?" |
The first reading suits the context better and is more widespread in the classical sources: the scene is a sickroom, and those around are looking for a remedy. The second is not contrary to the text either and comes legitimately out of the root's other branch. I state my preference; it is not binding.
One side of the first reading is worth dwelling on. The question is asked as "who will cure him?" — but those who ask it also know there is no answer. This is the last expression of helplessness: when there is nothing left to do, still to want something done.
ظَنَّ again. The sūra's second ẓann (the first was in verse 25). And here the context is plainly on the side of firm conviction: the man has now understood. To render it "he supposed" would be wrong; "he knew" is closer.
The same side as the usage at al-Baqara 2/46: there too ẓanna was in the sense of certain knowledge.
ٱلْفِرَاق — root: ف-ر-ق. To separate, to divide, to open a space between. Its derivatives are wide: farq, firqa, tafriqa, farīq, iftirāq, mufāraqa. And فُرْقَان (furqān) — that which separates; one of the names of the Qurʾān.
The word's taking the definite article is striking: al-firāq — "that parting", "the parting itself". As though it were something recognised, something with a name of its own. Partings are many; this is the one by which all the rest are named.
And who is parting from whom? The verse does not say. The soul's parting from the body, the man's parting from his kin, his parting from the world — all happen at the same moment and the verse does not choose one.
The books of rhetoric call this jinās: the placing side by side of two words alike in sound and separate in meaning.
| رَاقٍ | ٱلْفِرَاقُ | |
|---|---|---|
| Root | ر-ق-ي | ف-ر-ق |
| Meaning | The one who heals by reciting | Parting |
| What is hoped | Staying | Going |
| Who says it | Those around | The man himself |
In one verse those around him hope for staying; in the next the man himself knows he is going. Two sentences end on the same sound and say exactly opposite things.
I record this as an observation about sound, not as a claim of miracle. In the section on al-Inshiqāq for kadḥ, and in the section on al-Qāriʿa, similar findings were made and it was stated that correspondence between sound and sense is a phenomenon found in all languages. The same record holds here. But that the two words stand side by side in this sūra and carry opposite senses is a datum of the text.
The root ل-ف-ف: to wrap, to wind, to entangle, to fold. Lifāfa — a wrapping cloth. Alfāf — entwined with one another (of gardens: jannātin alfāfā, al-Nabaʾ 78/16).
Form VIII (إِلْتَفَّ): it wound itself, it was wrapped together. Reflexive — a movement that happens of itself.
سَاق — the shank, the leg (below the knee, the bony part). The same word is used of plants as well: sāq, stem or stalk — it occurs in the description of the crop in Sūrat al-Fatḥ.
| Reading | Explanation | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| A physical description | In the throes of death the legs wind about each other; the body contracts | The concrete sense of the word; the bodily character of the scene |
| Hardship added to hardship | Sāq here is figurative. In Arabic kashafa ʿan sāqihi ("he bared his shank") means "he took the matter seriously, he entered upon difficulty". The sentence: "one hardship wound about another" | The idiom's being settled in Arabic |
| The joining of two worlds | The last day of this world and the first day of the hereafter wind about each other | The scene's being a moment of transition |
All three have been maintained in the classical sources. I state no preference, because none of the three is contrary to the text and there is no indication requiring a choice among them.
But one side of the second reading is worth recording: the association of the word sāq with hardship is a known usage in Arabic, and on this reading the verse describes not the body but the moment. The third reading, for its part, agrees with the structure of the sūra: this block stands exactly at the threshold of the passage from individual death to the universal resurrection.
A note on the language: the sentence has the particle bi- — iltaffati's-sāqu bi's-sāq. This particle conveys adhesion (ilṣāq). That is, the winding is not superficial but stuck fast.