al-Insān 76:27

Inna hāʾulāʾi yuḥibbūna'l-ʿājilata wa yadharūna warāʾahum yawman thaqīlā "These people love what passes quickly and leave a heavy day behind them."

The verse begins with the demonstrative that points to what is near: hāʾulāʾi — "these, the ones here".

The fifth verse, speaking of the abrār, used the definite article (al-abrār) — a genus. Here there is a demonstrative: persons standing opposite, who can be pointed at.

It points to the same group as minhum ("of them") in the twenty-fourth verse.

Root: ح-ب-ب. For the second time in the sūra.

In the eighth verse: عَلَىٰ حُبِّهِ — they gave though they loved it. In the twenty-seventh verse: يُحِبُّونَ ٱلْعَاجِلَةَ — they love what comes quickly.

The same root, two types of man, two different acts:

The sūra does not condemn love; there is love on both sides. What it separates is whether the love can be let go of.

I record this as my own reading; the shared root and the arrangement in the two verses are in the text.

This word was treated in detail in the discussion of al-Qiyāma 75/20; I summarise the finding there: the root ع-ج-ل is to hurry, to bring forward, and al-ʿājila means "what comes quickly, what is had in advance"; in one place the Qurʾān calls this life al-dunyā ("the near one"), here al-ʿājila ("the hurried one") — two separate names for the same idea, one measuring distance and one speed.

I do not repeat it. What is peculiar to this passage is the second half of the sentence.

In al-Qiyāma the sentence ran thus: "No! You love what comes quickly and you leave the hereafter" (al-Qiyāma 75/20-21). In al-Insān the same sentence has changed at three points:

The first difference — person. al-Qiyāma says it straight to their faces; al-Insān speaks of them in a sentence whose addressee is the Prophet. The context of the sūra requires this: in the twenty-fourth verse it had said "do not obey them", and the twenty-seventh verse explains who those "them" are.

The second difference — the name of what is left. al-Qiyāma says "the hereafter": a place, a period. al-Insān says "a heavy day": a load.

And this turns the sentence into a scale. Al-ʿājila is a word that measures speed; thaqīl is a word that measures weight. In language as in physics the two are opposites: what can be carried quickly is what is light. These people choose the light and the quick and leave the heavy — because it is not possible to carry both.

I record this as my own reading; the semantic fields of the two words are transmitted.

The third difference — وَرَآءَهُمْ. It is taken up separately below.

Root: و-ذ-ر. Its meaning: to leave, to abandon, to let go.

And this root has a striking property in Arabic: the perfect (past tense) form of the verb has dropped out of classical usage. Only the imperfect (yadharu) and the imperative (dhar) forms are used. When a past tense is required it is taken from another root, from ت-ر-ك (taraka).

The lexicographers call this a nāqiṣ (defective) verb: a verb whose conjugation is not complete. Arabic has several examples of this and wadhara is the best known of them.

The Qurʾān uses this verb only in the imperfect and the imperative — it observes the root's own constraint.

A caution: this root must not be confused with the root of the word نَذْر (vow) in the seventh verse of the sūra, namely ن-ذ-ر. The two roots are distinct; closeness of sound establishes no derivational link.

A further caution: the root of the verb yadharūna is not ذ-ر-ر either. That is a separate root (dharra — a mote, the smallest particle; dhurriyya — offspring) and has nothing to do with this verse.

The defectiveness of the root is not an instrument of interpretation — it is a historical fact of the language and I draw no meaning from it. I record it only because a reader who looks at the conjugation of the word will meet this gap.

Root: و-ر-ي. Warāʾ — behind, back.

And this word is counted among the aḍdād of Arabic (words of opposite meanings): it can mean both "behind" and "in front / beyond".

The first reading is the stronger and my ground is its agreement with the verb: the object of "to leave" stays behind. It is not binding; the second reading does not run against the text either, and when the two are combined a strangely accurate picture emerges: throwing behind you something that stands in front of you.

And a link: at al-Inshiqāq 84/10 the giving of the book وَرَآءَ ظَهْرِهِ — "from behind his back" — was treated. There too the same word, in the same direction: the side the person does not see.

Read together, the two verses yield a sequence: one who throws a day behind him in this world receives his book from behind him in the hereafter. I record this as a reading; the shared word of the two sūras is in the text.

Root: ث-ق-ل. Weight, load. Its derivatives are common in the Qurʾān:

• أَثْقَال (athqāl) — weights, burdens. At al-Zalzala 99/2 it is used of the earth: "when the earth brings forth its burdens" — treated in the section on al-Zalzala.
• مِثْقَال (mithqāl) — the weight of a thing, a unit of weight. At al-Zalzala 99/7-8: "the weight of a mote."
• ٱلثَّقَلَان (al-thaqalān) — "the two weights"; the Qurʾān uses this name for men and jinn (al-Raḥmān 55/31).
• thaqulat, used together with مَوَازِين — at al-Qāriʿa 101/6: "whoever's scales weigh heavy."

The root's work in the Qurʾān is measuring. Weight is what is weighed.

And its being used of a day does something here. The verse names the day not as a time but as a load — as something that can or cannot be carried. And in al-Qāriʿa what was weighed was deeds; here what is weighed is a day.

I record this as my own reading; the occurrences of the root in the Qurʾān are the data of the text.