إِنَّ هَٰذِهِۦ تَذْكِرَةٌ فَمَن شَآءَ ٱتَّخَذَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِۦ سَبِيلًا
Inna hādhihī tadhkiratun fa-man shāʾa'ttakhadha ilā Rabbihī sabīlā "This is a reminder; whoever wills takes a way to his Lord."
1. مَذْكُورًا (1) — man was not a thing mentioned. 2. وَٱذْكُرْ (25) — remember. 3. تَذْكِرَة (29) — the text's own name.
The text names itself a "reminder" — not knowledge, not a book, not a ruling, not news. And the pattern tadhkira (tafʿila) states the instrument that does a work or the work itself: the thing that reminds.
This sentence pattern has come before us twice already in this commentary, and setting the three side by side shows what the text is doing:
| Sūra | Sentence | What the one who wills does |
|---|---|---|
| ʿAbasa 80/11-12 | innahā tadhkira · fa-man shāʾa ذَكَرَهُ | He remembers — mental |
| al-Takwīr 81/27-28 | in huwa illā dhikrun li'l-ʿālamīn · li-man shāʾa minkum an يَسْتَقِيمَ | He goes straight — posture |
| al-Insān 76/29 | inna hādhihī tadhkira · fa-man shāʾa ٱتَّخَذَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِ سَبِيلًا | He takes a way — movement |
And the three complete it with different verbs. In ʿAbasa remembering (mind), in al-Takwīr going straight (posture), in al-Insān setting out on a road (movement).
In the section on al-Takwīr this was recorded about yastaqīm: the pattern (istifʿāl) states seeking, that is, not "he became straight" but "he wanted, he sought to become straight". al-Insān's verb carries a similar effort: ٱتَّخَذَ (Form VIII) — he acquired, he took to himself, he held. Not receiving something given, but making something one's own.
| 76/3 | 76/29 | |
|---|---|---|
| Word | ٱلسَّبِيلَ — definite | سَبِيلًا — indefinite |
| Preposition | None | إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِ |
| Verb | hadaynāhu — We showed | ittakhadha — he took |
The way was shown (3); the way is taken (29). The sūra closes its own fork: two possibilities were opened in the third verse, and in the twenty-ninth one of them is chosen.
And the expression إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِ has the same structure as ilā Rabbika, treated at al-Inshiqāq 84/6. The finding recorded there was this: the particle ilā states a going all the way to a goal, and in al-Inshiqāq this was a statement of fact — man was going in that direction anyway. Here, however, it is a choice: the taking of the way is left to whoever wills.
The two verses do not contradict: al-Inshiqāq states the inevitability of the arrival, al-Insān the selectability of the road.