هَلْ أَتَىٰ عَلَى ٱلْإِنسَٰنِ حِينٌ مِّنَ ٱلدَّهْرِ لَمْ يَكُن شَيْـًٔا مَّذْكُورًا
Hal atā ʿala'l-insāni ḥīnun mina'd-dahri lam yakun shayʾan madhkūrā "Has there not passed over man a long stretch of time in which he was not a thing worth mentioning?"
This formula was treated in the section on Sūrat al-Ghāshiya. The finding recorded there was this: the sentence is in the interrogative mood but asks for no information; in Arabic the interrogative form has functions such as warning, drawing attention and getting something conceded, and here the function is that of an opening formula — like the English "have you heard…?". After the formula a narrative always begins.
In the section on al-Ghāshiya this was also recorded, and rather than repeat it I recall it: the subject of the formula is the news, not the one addressed. The one addressed is not looking for anything; something is coming towards him.
What is peculiar to this passage is this: in al-Ghāshiya the formula looked to the future, here to the past. What is asked in al-Ghāshiya 88/1 is the news of a day that has not yet happened. What is asked here is a time that has long since happened — or rather, that never happened at all.
And this distinction was already recorded in the section on al-Ghāshiya: what the formula works upon is not the time of the event but the state of knowledge of the one addressed. In both cases the one addressed does not know. A day will come and he has not seen it; a time has passed and he does not remember it.
Why does he not remember? Because there was no self of his to do the remembering. The whole force of the verse is here.
The word carries the definite article: ٱلْـ. In the discussion of al-Inshiqāq 84/6 the function of this article — which holds good here too — was recorded: istighrāq, the encompassing of the whole genus. The sentence looks not at a person but at the quality of being human.
But there is a distinction. In al-Inshiqāq the genus was being addressed (yā ayyuha'l-insān — O man). Here the genus is spoken about, in the third person. The difference looks small; it is not. To address a being is to grant that it is there. This verse, however, speaks of exactly the time in which man was not there. That the sentence is built in the third person suits its subject.
The analysis of the root (أ-ن-س: familiarity, visibility, or forgetfulness) was made in earlier sections, so I do not repeat it here.
حِين — root: ح-ي-ن. An indefinite span; a piece of time whose beginning and end are not fixed. The Qurʾān uses this word precisely for its indefiniteness: in usages such as "it gives its fruit at every time (ḥīn)" (Ibrāhīm 14/25) the span is not measured. The word comes with tanwīn: ḥīnun — "a time", any time at all.
دَهْر — root: د-ه-ر. And this word is the opposite of ḥīn: the whole of time, unbroken, long, flowing on. Not the duration of an event but duration itself. In Turkish the borrowed word dehir has been used in this sense, and dehrî — a materialist, one who acknowledges nothing but time — comes from here.
So the construct sets up this: a slice out of boundless time. And inside that slice there was no man.
The particle مِنْ is here partitive (tabʿīḍ): a part of the dahr. This is the detail that establishes the scale of the verse. The verse does not say "there was time and there was no man"; it says "throughout a part of time there was no man". That is, man does not cover the whole of time — he is a guest who entered a portion of it later.
The Qurʾān has a warning about the word dahr as well, and it must be mentioned here: elsewhere, where the words of those who deny the resurrection are relayed, it is recorded that they said "nothing destroys us but the dahr" (al-Jāthiya 45/24). That is, dahr was in that world the name of a way of explaining things: tying everything to time itself, seeking no will behind it.
That the same word is used in the first verse of this sūra is striking. The sūra takes the word of explanation used by its opponents and sets it inside its own sentence. There is a dahr, yes — but within the dahr there is a slice in which man was not, and the passage from that slice to this one is not the work of the dahr.
I record this as my own reading. The existence of the verse in al-Jāthiya and the shared word are in the text; the relation I build between them is my own inference.
شَىْء — root: ش-ي-أ. And this detail is important: this is the root of the verb shāʾa (he willed) at the end of the sūra. Shayʾ and mashīʾa (willing) are from the same root. Some of the lexicographers explain shayʾ as "what is wanted, what is willed" — what exists is what has been willed.
In the first verse of the sūra man was not a shayʾ; in the twenty-eighth through the thirtieth verses the verb shāʾa will come four times. The root stands at the two ends of the sūra. I record this as an observation; the derivational link between shayʾ and mashīʾa is drawn by the lexicographers, but I issue no firm ruling on the historical development of the root.
| Reading | Explanation | Ground | Weak point |
|---|---|---|---|
| He was not at all | Not to be madhkūr is an oblique way of saying not to exist. What is not mentioned is what is not | Agreement with the expression "you were dead" in al-Baqara 2/28; the sūra's next verse beginning with creation | The verse does not say "he was not"; the word was chosen and put in place, and the word chosen negates not existence but being mentioned |
| He was, but was not mentioned | As matter he had some kind of existence — earth, water, the first elements — but was not a thing that could be mentioned as "man" | The wording of the word: what is negated is madhkūr-ness | There is no indication in the text for saying "he was" either; this reading too makes an addition |
Both readings have been defended and neither spoils the work the verse does. For the work the verse does is not to give information about the matter man is made of but to issue a verdict about his standing: he had no name, he was not counted, he was not reckoned with.
I am for taking the choice of the word seriously, and I record this reading — it is not binding: the verse sets up a distinction between existing and being mentioned, and describes the beginning of man as not being mentioned. That is, the story of man is as much a story of "from namelessness to a name" as it is a story of "from nothing into being". The twenty-second verse of the sūra supports this reading: there man's striving becomes mashkūr — mentioned with thanks. The being that is not mentioned comes at last to be a being that is mentioned.
"How can you deny God? You were dead, and He gave you life; then He will cause you to die, then give you life again, then to Him you will be returned." (al-Baqara 2/28)
The finding recorded there was this: the proof is built so as to show that the fourth step objected to (being raised again) is a repetition of the second step (the first giving of life), which has already taken place once; and the force of the argument lies in the one addressed being made to use his own existence as evidence.
al-Insān 76/1 takes the first step of that proof by itself and sets it out in front. Let us place the two verses side by side:
| al-Baqara 2/28 | al-Insān 76/1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Word | كُنتُمْ أَمْوَٰتًا — you were dead | لَمْ يَكُن شَيْـًٔا مَّذْكُورًا — he was not a thing mentioned |
| Mood | Statement — direct announcement | Question — getting the one addressed to concede |
| Addressee | Second person plural: you | Third person singular: man |
| Function | The first step of the proof | The opening of the sūra |
| What follows | He gave life, will cause death, will give life | We created, We are testing, We showed the way |
The difference is here: al-Baqara speaks of death, al-Insān of not being mentioned. To be dead is still a state; to be a thing that is not mentioned is not even a state. al-Insān takes al-Baqara's first step one further step back.
And the two verses arrive at the same conclusion: man's own beginning is the strongest evidence about himself. It asks for nothing from outside.
What the verse amounts to today is more concrete than a moral counsel such as "do not think yourself something".
Most of the sentences modern man builds about himself assume a continuity: my career, my savings, my standing, my record. All of these are lines extending through time, and all of them make a starting point invisible. The verse puts that point back and gives it a name: not being mentioned.
And this has a practical consequence. One who sees being mentioned as a gain has to protect it; one who sees being mentioned as a beginning does not have to protect it. Later in the sūra people will be described who give without expecting return or thanks. The psychological ground of that behaviour is established exactly in this first verse: one who began without being mentioned can give without being mentioned.