77. Sūrat al-Mursalāt

Fifty verses. It takes its name from the word وَٱلْمُرْسَلَٰتِ in the first verse.

This is one of the sūras whose structure is most visible in the Qurʾān. The reason is a single sentence:

وَيْلٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ لِّلْمُكَذِّبِينَ

This sentence occurs ten times in the sūra. And each time it occurs at the end of a section. That is, the sūra is a text divided by a single sentence repeated ten times; the reader does not have to work out where the sections begin and end, for the text marks this itself.

This is an arrangement with few parallels in the Qurʾān. In most short Meccan sūras the sections are separated by a change of sound — in the section on al-Ghāshiya three sound regions were shown, in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt three groups of verse-endings. In al-Mursalāt what separates is not the sound but the wording itself: the same sentence comes round again, repeated in ten places.

At the end of this section I shall show in a separate table where the repetition falls and what it follows. For now, this much: ten repetitions close ten sections. And the lengths of the sections shorten as the sūra proceeds — towards the end a section comes down to a single verse. The sūra ends by accelerating.

The content of the sūra suits this structure. It opens with a five-verse oath, the answer to the oath is a single sentence ("what you are promised will surely come to pass"), and the remaining forty-three verses are the unfolding of that one sentence: first the scene of the day, then three proofs, then two tableaux, then the close.

There is something close to unanimity that it is Meccan. The style supports this: the opening with an oath, the short verse-endings on a single sound, the debate about resurrection, the naming of the addressee as mukadhdhibīn (deniers), the absence of legal content.

In the hadith sources a report is transmitted that this sūra was revealed in a cave at Minā; I mention the report as a recollection transmitted from a Companion, and since I cannot give its chain and source with certainty I ascribe it to no one.

A small number of views are also transmitted holding that the forty-eighth verse ("when they are told 'bow', they do not bow") was revealed in Medina. This view is a minority one and I do not go into its details.

Since the basmala was treated in earlier sections, it is not taken up again here; the verse numbers are counted without it.

There is something visible in the table that determines how the sūra is read: the last three sections are of one verse each. 41-44 is four verses, 46 one verse, 48 one verse. The sūra ends by narrowing.

Wa'l-mursalāti ʿurfā · fa'l-ʿāṣifāti ʿaṣfā · wa'n-nāshirāti nashrā · fa'l-fāriqāti farqā · fa'l-mulqiyāti dhikrā

"By those sent forth one after another · by those that blow fiercely · by those that spread wide · by those that separate decisively · by those that deliver a reminder…"

Five verses, five attributes, and the thing sworn by is never named. The sūra says only what they do.

This is the same situation treated at length in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt, and I do not repeat here what was recorded there. In brief: in the Qurʾān's sequences of oaths, naming what is sworn by with an attribute rather than by its name is an established preference (al-ʿĀdiyāt 100/1-5, al-Nāziʿāt 79/1-5, al-Ṣāffāt 37/1-3, al-Dhāriyāt 51/1-4), and in all these sūras the same disagreement has arisen. The function of the oath was recorded there as well: what is sworn by is presented as evidence; to say "by such and such" is at the same time to say "look at such and such".

The work to be done here is different. In the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt the narrative logic of the sequence was worked out (sound → light → time → dust → contact; a scene approaching from far to near). In al-Mursalāt the real weight of the sequence lies not in the narration but in the patterns. I shall therefore look at the grammar first.

Let us set the five words side by side in terms of pattern. The table that emerges does not look like coincidence:

Two separate criteria — the form of the pattern and the root of the accusative word — give the same division: 1 and 5 on one side, 2-3-4 on the other.

What this means is:

One. The verbs of the first and fifth verses are of the ifʿāl form (أَرْسَلَ, أَلْقَى); the three in the middle are bare triliterals. In Arabic the ifʿāl form conveys causation and the bringing of something to a destination. So at the two ends of the sequence there is "sending" and "delivering"; in the middle, the movement itself.

Two. The first word is a passive participle: mursalāt — "those sent". The fifth word is an active participle: mulqiyāt — "those that deliver". That is, the sequence begins with something's being sent and ends with that thing's doing a work. Passive at the start, active at the end.

Three. In the three middle verses the accusative word is from the same root as the active participle: al-ʿāṣifāti ʿaṣfā, al-nāshirāti nashrā, al-fāriqāti farqā. This is what the grammarians call the absolute object (mafʿūl muṭlaq): the repetition of the verb's verbal noun for emphasis. In English it comes out as something like "blowing and blowing", "separating and separating". Its function is emphasis.

In the first and fifth verses, on the other hand, the accusative word comes from a different root — ʿurfā and dhikrā. These cannot be absolute objects. Dhikrā is plainly a direct object: the thing delivered, that is, the reminder itself. What ʿurfā is, on the other hand, is disputed, and I shall take it up separately below.

Fourth, and most important: the accusative words at the two ends convey a content, whereas the three in the middle convey only a manner. The middle of the sequence says how the thing is done; the two ends say what is carried.

I record this as a reading drawn from the patterns themselves. But the patterns are beyond dispute and were shown one by one above.

Now look at the heads of the verses:

In the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt the difference between fāʾ al-taʿqīb (the fāʾ of sequence) and wāw was treated: fāʾ establishes an unbroken continuity, wāw conveys no order. And the conclusion recorded there was: in al-ʿĀdiyāt there is one wāw and four fāʾ (وَ فَ فَ فَ فَ), and therefore the five verses are a single oath; not five separate objects but five moments of one thing.

In al-Mursalāt the situation is different. The third verse begins with وَ.

In grammar a wāw coming between oaths most often begins a new oath. On this reading there are two separate oaths at the head of the sūra:

• First oath: 1-2 (al-mursalāt + al-ʿāṣifāt)
• Second oath: 3-5 (al-nāshirāt + al-fāriqāt + al-mulqiyāt)

And this division is one of the strongest supports for the disagreement we shall see below: the first two of the oaths may belong to one thing and the last three to another.

But note: the two divisions do not coincide.

• The patterns divide 1 / 2-3-4 / 5.
• The particles divide 1-2 / 3-4-5.

This is not a contradiction but a datum. And it explains exactly why the disagreement at the head of the sūra has never closed: the text itself does not give one clean division. Take one criterion and you get one result; take another and you get another. Tying the five verses to a single thing, and dividing them in two, both find support in the text.

It is important to record this, because it is the reason why, when the views are listed in the table below, none of them is decisively eliminated.

The openings of the two sūras are of the same kind, and precisely for that reason their differences are instructive:

The rule recorded in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt works here too: a nominal sentence conveys fixity (thubūt), a verbal sentence occurrence (ḥudūth). In al-ʿĀdiyāt the fourth verse moved from noun to verb, and that transition turned the scene from a description into an event. Al-Mursalāt never makes that transition: five nouns across five verses.

The consequence is this: in al-ʿĀdiyāt a raid happens; in al-Mursalāt a work is described as a work habitually done. One is narration, the other definition.

And because it is definition, al-Mursalāt's oath does not point to a scene occurring once. The thing that is sent, that blows, that spreads, that separates and that delivers a reminder — whatever it may be — does this continually.

One further difference: al-ʿĀdiyāt's first word is active (those that run), al-Mursalāt's passive (those that are sent). Al-ʿĀdiyāt opens with something moving by its own decision; al-Mursalāt with something that has itself been sent. This implies from the outset that in the second sūra there is a sender — already in the first word of the oath.

The most disputed word in the five verses. And the cause of the dispute is that both of the two separate branches of meaning in the root fit the context.

Root: ع-ر-ف. The core of the root is to know, to recognise — but this is a kind of knowing different from ʿilm: recognising something because one has seen it before. Its derivatives:

• مَعْرِفَة — recognition, familiarity.
• مَعْرُوف — what is commonly known and recognised; and from this, good. What is good in a society is what everyone recognises.
• عُرْف — custom, established usage. In Turkish it survives as the borrowed word örf.
• تَعَارُف — mutual acquaintance. "That you may come to know one another" (al-Ḥujurāt 49/13).
• ٱلْأَعْرَاف — a high place, a ridge, the height between two sides (al-Aʿrāf 7/46).

And the second branch of the root — the concrete usage the lexicographers record:

• عُرْف — a horse's mane, a cock's comb. Hair or feathers ranged in a row along the neck, one after another.

From these two branches arise two separate readings, and both have been defended in the classical sources.

Both readings are defensible and I make no decisive choice between them. But two things should be recorded:

One. The second reading has direct support within the Qurʾān: in al-Aʿrāf 7/199, "wa'mur bi'l-ʿurf" — "enjoin what is right". That is, the word ʿurf occurs in the Qurʾān's own usage in the sense of "good". This is an advantage the first reading does not have.

Two. The first reading, on the other hand, has an advantage of word order: since the word is not from the same root as the active participle, it cannot be an absolute object; and dhikrā at the other end of the sequence is not an absolute object either. If the two end words form exceptions for the same reason, one expects them both to do similar work. Dhikrā conveys content (what is delivered); in that case it seems more consistent for ʿurfā too to convey content or purpose — that is, the second reading.

This second observation is my own inference, not a transmitted view; and it does not count as decisive evidence, since a circumstantial qualifier is also possible in terms of word order.

A third possibility. A small number of sources say that, proceeding from the "like a horse's mane" comparison, ʿurfā conveys multitude and density. This may be counted a sub-branch of the first reading.

And one last note. The two senses of the word are not wholly foreign to one another. Both maʿrūf (good) and ʿurf (custom) are what is repeated, habitual, recognised — a thing becomes recognisable only because it is repeated. The hairs of a mane too are things that repeat, ranged in the same order. I record the presence of a common idea of "regular repetition" beneath the two branches as a relation drawn by the lexicographers; I do not present it as a settled etymology.

Root: ع-ص-ف. This root has been treated earlier in this commentary — but in its nominal form.

In the section on al-Fīl, the last verse of the sūra ran: fa-jaʿalahum ka-ʿaṣfin maʾkūl — "He made them like chewed-up straw". What was recorded there:

ʿAṣf is the part of a crop other than the grain — stalk, leaf, husk, chaff. The dry residue left in the field after harvest and scattered by the wind. And from the same root comes ʿāṣif: a fierce, scattering wind. The root carries the idea of being scattered within it.

Now the same root stands, in this verse, on the verbal side: al-ʿāṣifāti ʿaṣfā — those that blow, blowing fiercely.

So a single root yields two words at two ends:

The single idea beneath the root is this: a movement that tears a thing from its place and disperses it. On one side of the root stands the movement itself (the wind), on the other the object of the movement (the scattered stalk). Arabic does not separate the two; it names the scattering and the scattered with the same root.

Drawing this connection makes both sūras read better:

• In al-Fīl the army stood at the passive end of the root: the side that is scattered.
• In al-Mursalāt what is sworn by stands at the active end of the root: the side that scatters.

And if we recall that in the tenth verse of this sūra the mountains will be dispersed with the word nusifat (they were scattered), the choice of root becomes more meaningful still. I record this as my own reading.

The root's other uses in the Qurʾān:

• "A fierce wind came upon them" (Yūnus 10/22) — rīḥun ʿāṣif.
• "And to Solomon [We subjected] the fiercely blowing wind" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/81) — al-rīḥa ʿāṣifa.
• "Their deeds are like ashes that the wind blows fiercely away on a stormy day" (Ibrāhīm 14/18) — fī yawmin ʿāṣif.

The last verse is particularly noteworthy: there too the wind is on the scattering side, and what is scattered is deeds. Setting the three verses together, the root's field in the Qurʾān becomes clear: ʿaṣf appears where something cannot hold on and disperses.

In grammar. ʿAṣfā is an accusative verbal noun from the same root as the active participle: an absolute object. Its function is emphasis — "it blows and blows", "when it blows it blows fiercely". The closest English rendering is an adverb that redoubles the verb.

Root: ن-ش-ر. This root was treated in this commentary in the sections on ʿAbasa and al-Takwīr. The definition recorded there:

Its concrete sense is to open what has been folded, to spread, to lay out. Nashara'th-thawba — he opened out the cloth. Its opposite is طَوَى (ṭayy) — to fold.

In al-Takwīr this root was used for the opening of the pages: wa idha'ṣ-ṣuḥufu nushirat (81/10) — what was closed was opened. In ʿAbasa it occurred in the إِنشَار pattern (raising to life): thumma idhā shāʾa ansharah (80/22).

The root has three separate fields in the Qurʾān, and all three can be made to work here:

The third field is especially important for this sūra. For nashr is also a name of the resurrection; and this sūra is about resurrection from beginning to end. The root of the word pronounces the subject of the sūra already in the third verse of the oath.

I record this as an association. The root's sense of resurrection is beyond dispute in the Qurʾān (nushūr, anshara, munshir); but I do not claim that this sense is intended in the verse — the accusative word nashrā, as an absolute object, only emphasises the verb.

On the wind reading this is the verse that sits most easily: in al-Rūm 30/48 and Fāṭir 35/9 this is exactly the wind's work — to raise a cloud and to spread it. The Qurʾān's own expression answers the attribute directly.

On the angel reading two explanations are given: the angels spread out the pages/books, or they spread mercy. These explanations too have been defended.

Root: ف-ر-ق. This root was treated in this commentary in the section on al-Bayyina, and the tension framed there is here exactly reversed. Let us first recall the finding there:

The core of the root: to separate two things from one another, to open a space between them. Its derivatives: farq, firāq (parting), farīq (one party), firqa (a company), iftirāq, tafriqa. And most important, فُرْقَان (furqān) — that which separates; one of the names of the Qurʾān. From the same root come both furqān (praised separation) and tafriqa (blamed division). Where lies the difference? Furqān separates truth from falsehood — it opens a space between right and wrong. Tafriqa separates people from one another — it opens a space between one human being and another. The first is necessary; the second is a disaster.

In al-Bayyina the root occurred with its blamed face: tafarraqa — they split apart. Here it occurs with its praised face: al-fāriqāti farqā — those that separate decisively.

The same root carries two opposite values in two sūras. And this is no inconsistency; it is the direct consequence of the root's logic.

The act of separating is in itself neither good nor bad. Its value depends on what is separated from what:

And the tragedy recorded in the section on al-Bayyina was exactly the confusion between these two lines: the thing that came so that truth might be separated from falsehood (bayyina/furqān) had become the cause of people being separated from one another (tafriqa). They had divided along the wrong axis.

Al-Mursalāt, on the other hand, shows the right axis. And in the later sections of the sūra this separating will become the name of a day — but this time with a different root. I shall take up this internal link separately at verse 13.

The root's relevant uses in the Qurʾān:

• ٱلْفُرْقَان — one of the names of the Qurʾān (al-Furqān 25/1; al-Baqara 2/185).
• يَوْمُ ٱلْفُرْقَان — used of the day of Badr (al-Anfāl 8/41): the day on which the two sides were separated.
• "On that night every wise matter is distinguished" (al-Dukhān 44/4) — yufraqu. This verse was treated in the section on al-Qadr: that night is the night on which matters pass from a mixed state to a separated one.

The last item is particularly meaningful for this verse. In al-Dukhān what separates is a particular night; here what separates is that unnamed plural sworn by. The work of separating is once again attached in the Qurʾān to an agent who is not named.

This is the strongest verse for the angel reading, because in al-Dukhān 44/4-5 the work of separating comes together with the expression "by a command from Us", and this has been taken as the work of the angels. On the wind reading, on the other hand, this is the verse that strains most; the explanation given runs to the wind's dispersing and separating the cloud, or to the rain's separating soils. The second explanation is close to the reading framed in the section on al-Ṭāriq: "Rain falls on all soil in the same way; but not every soil yields the same thing. Water is a measure, and it separates soils."

Root: ل-ق-ي. Laqiya — he met, he found. أَلْقَى (the ifʿāl form) — he threw, he set down, he put before.

The concrete sense of the verb is a movement of setting down: to let go of what is in one's hand, to cast it before someone. In the Qurʾān it is used with both material and immaterial objects:

• "Throw down your staff" (al-Aʿrāf 7/117; Ṭāhā 20/69) — concrete.
• "He set firm mountains on the earth, lest it shake with you" (al-Naḥl 16/15) — alqā fi'l-arḍi rawāsiya. The same object and the same verb family as verse 27 of this sūra.
• "We shall deliver to you a weighty word" (al-Muzzammil 73/5) — innā sa-nulqī ʿalayka qawlan thaqīlā. This is the verb used for revelation.
• "He delivers the spirit from His command upon whom He wills of His servants" (Ghāfir 40/15) — yulqi'r-rūḥa min amrihī ʿalā man yashāʾu min ʿibādih.

The last two verses are decisive: this is the verb of revelation's descent. And the verse also names what is delivered: ذِكْر.

ذِكْر — this root was treated in detail in this commentary in the sections on al-Aʿlā and al-Ghāshiya, and I do not repeat what was recorded there. In brief: beneath the root lie both to mention and to remember, and the Qurʾān names itself with this word (innā naḥnu nazzalna'dh-dhikra, al-Ḥijr 15/9).

So the fifth verse partly names what was left unnamed in the first four verses of the sequence: what is carried is a reminder.

This changes how the whole sequence reads. Look back:

1. They are sent — by whom is not said. 2. They blow fiercely. 3. They spread and lay out. 4. They separate. 5. They deliver a reminder.

At the end of the sequence an addressee appears. A reminder is left for someone who will remember. In the first four verses there was no human being at all; in the fifth, the human being enters the scene without being named — because he is the recipient of the dhikr.

A comparison with al-Ṣāffāt. Almost exactly the same structure occurs once more in the Qurʾān:

"By those ranged in ranks · by those that drive · and by those that recite a reminder" (al-Ṣāffāt 37/1-3) — fa'l-tāliyāti dhikrā.

The last verse of the two sequences ends with the same word: ذِكْرًا. And in both sequences this is the final verse; and in both, that word, unlike the accusatives before it, conveys a content.

I record this shared feature as an observation. I do not claim a deliberate reference between the two sūras; but it does show that the Qurʾān's oath sequences tend to close with the carrying of a reminder.

A difference of pattern should be recorded too: in al-Ṣāffāt the verb is talā (to recite, to follow after), here alqā (to set down). Reciting is done with the voice, setting down with the hand. In al-Ṣāffāt the reminder is recited, in al-Mursalāt it is set down — that is, it is put somewhere and stays there. I record this distinction as my own reading.

The oldest and most debated question of the sūra. Across five verses the text lists only attributes; it never says whose attributes they are.

In the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt the general logic of this situation was treated, and there two views (horses / camels) were given in a table and one was preferred. Here the situation is more complex: there are more than two views and none of them meets the whole of the text without strain. For this reason I impose no preference in this section.

The table above shows that all the pure views come to a halt somewhere. For this reason mixed readings have been widespread since the classical period, and they also have a support in terms of word order — the وَ at the head of the third verse.

The second row is the one with the soundest ground in terms of word order — because the other two derive the division from meaning, whereas this one derives it from a particle. But as I recorded above, the analysis of patterns gives a different division (1 / 2-3-4 / 5), and the two divisions do not coincide.

I impose no preference in this sūra, and I must write out plainly why:

One. In al-ʿĀdiyāt the ground of the preference was language: the overwhelming majority of the lexicographers took the word ḍabḥ to belong to the horse, and qadḥ (a spark) required a hoofed animal. That is, there language narrowed the possibilities. Here language does not narrow: none of the five attributes locks onto a single kind of being. ʿĀṣif is close to the wind but does not belong to it alone; mulqiyāt is close to revelation but a metaphor can be framed for the wind as well.

Two. Every view is strong in one place and weak in another. The wind reading is flawless at 1-2-3 and strained at 5. The angel reading is flawless at 4-5 and strained at 2. This distribution shows that no single view meets the whole of the text.

Three. That the analysis of patterns and the analysis of particles give different divisions suggests that the text deliberately does not close onto a single reading.

The principle recorded in the sections on al-Ikhlāṣ and al-ʿĀdiyāt holds here too: when a text swears by something it does not name, this is not a vagueness but a gain. An oath not locked onto a single object can point to more than one scene at once.

If I must state my own inclination — and I record it not as a preference but as an inclination — the close of the sequence (delivering a reminder) and its opening (being sent) look towards the conveying of revelation; the three attributes in the middle are close to the language of movement in nature. Rather than tying the five verses to a single kind of being, it seems to interfere less with the text to say that the sequence describes a work of delivery. This is not binding and it eliminates none of the classical views.

The question asked in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt must be asked here too: why is this oath sworn by these five attributes, and how is it linked with the judgement in the seventh verse?

The answer is in the seventh verse: "what you are promised will surely come to pass."

The link is this — and it is the link most often framed in the classical commentaries: what the things sworn by have in common is that they are sent and reach their destination. What is sent blows, spreads, separates and delivers what it carries. That is, the five verses describe the delivery of a consignment.

And the answer says the same thing: the word given will be delivered.

This link stands whichever view you adopt. The wind too is sent and does its work, and so are the angel and the prophet. The common point on which the oath works is not the kind of being but the logic of having been sent: what is sent arrives.

I transmit this as a link widely framed in the classical commentaries; my own addition is this, and I record it separately: the first word of the sequence being passive (mursalāt — those sent) tightens the link further. The oath is sworn not by something moving of its own decision but by something that has been sent. The arrival of something sent is more certain than the arrival of something that set out on its own; for behind it there is a sender.

ʿUdhran aw nudhrā "To leave no excuse, or to warn."

The continuation of the fifth verse and the last link of the oath. The dhikr is delivered — for what? Two grounds are given.

Both words are in the accusative and are objects of purpose: they convey a reason. "They deliver the reminder for this: either for ʿudhr or for nudhr."

A second view takes them as substitutes for dhikr: what the delivered reminder is is being explained — that reminder is a ʿudhr or a nudhr. It makes no great difference to the sense.

A variant reading. There is a difference of reading in the vowelling of the middle letter of the two words (sukūn / ḍamma): ʿudhran/ʿudhuran, nudhran/nudhuran. This does not change the meaning of the word; they are two pronunciations of the verbal-noun pattern. I give no imām's name.

A small particle, but one that has been dwelt on. In Arabic aw conveys division (taqsīm) or diversification (tanwīʿ).

Two explanations are given in the classical sources:

The second reading is the more widespread and is also logically consistent: because the warning is given, no excuse remains. The two are two faces of one act.

Root: ع-ذ-ر. The idea beneath the root: to remove a fault, to present a ground that lifts responsibility.

• عُذْر — an excuse, an apology.
• مَعْذِرَة — the stating of an excuse. "As an excuse before your Lord" (al-Aʿrāf 7/164).
• إِعْذَار — leaving the other party no excuse; making the warning so plain that "I did not know" can no longer be said.
• ٱعْتِذَار — to apologise, to offer an excuse. This word will come back in verse 36 of this sūra.

Which sense in the verse? There is a nicety to be attended to. ʿUdhran here does not mean "so that they may offer an excuse" — it means "so that no excuse may remain to the other party". That is, the word conveys not the offering of an excuse but the removal of its possibility.

The Qurʾān frames this logic plainly elsewhere, and that verse is the best commentary on this word:

"Messengers bearing good news and warning, so that after the messengers people would have no argument (ḥujja) against God." (al-Nisāʾ 4/165)

The logic of the verse is exactly this: the notification is for the removal of the ground of excuse. One cannot be held responsible for something not made known; once it has been made known, the excuse "I did not know" falls away.

So ʿudhr here is a word that works not in the addressee's favour but against him. The notification is a favour, but it is also the moment at which responsibility begins.

Root: ن-ذ-ر. This root was treated in this commentary at al-Baqara 2/6, and what was recorded there was:

To warn, but specifically to give advance notice of a bad outcome. This is why the Qurʾān uses two words as a pair for the prophet: bashīr (bringer of good news) and nadhīr (warner). From the same root comes nadhr — a vow. What the two have in common is making binding, here and now, something that has not yet come to pass.

That last sentence sits exactly right here. The next verse of the sūra ("what you are promised will surely come to pass") declares binding something that has not yet come to pass. The word nudhr is already the name of that act.

ʿUdhr first, nudhr second. Is the order meaningful?

One reading is this, and I record it as my own reading: the order runs not from the outcome of the act to its cause but from the goal to the means. The real aim is to remove the ground of excuse (ʿudhr); the way to that is warning (nudhr). The goal is said first, the means second.

A second reading is also possible: ʿudhr looks to God's side (no excuse has been left by Him), nudhr to the human side (a warning has reached the human being). Two aspects of the same event.

Neither reading runs against the text.

Let me record something here; I shall complete this link towards the end of the sūra.

In the sixth verse the sūra says عُذْرًا: no excuse was left.

In the thirty-sixth verse the sūra says فَيَعْتَذِرُونَ: they cannot offer an excuse.

The same root, at the two ends of the sūra, on two different sides. At the start the possibility of an excuse is removed; at the end permission to offer an excuse is not given. The first is in this world and is a notification; the second is in the hereafter and is a consequence.

I shall treat this link in detail at verse 36. Here I only leave a marker: the sūra closes the door of excuse as early as its sixth verse and, thirty verses later, shows that the door is closed.

Innamā tūʿadūna la-wāqiʿ "What you are promised will surely come to pass."

The answer to the oath (al-muqsam ʿalayh). The single sentence that comes after six verses of preparation.

And this is the most economical place in the sūra: the remaining forty-three verses of the text are the unfolding of this one sentence.

A grammatical point that deserves attention, and one that is often lost in translation.

In Arabic, إِنَّمَا can be two separate things:

In this verse it is the second. And the evidence for this is within the sentence: the لَـ at the head of the predicate.

It works thus: mā is the noun of inna and is a relative pronoun — "that which". Tūʿadūna is its relative clause — "is promised to you". La-wāqiʿ is the predicate of inna, and the lām at its head is the lām al-muzaḥlaqa. This lām does not come after the restrictive innamā; the presence of the lām shows that mā is a separate word.

The effect of this detail on the sense is this: the verse does not say "what you are promised is only that which will come to pass". It says "what you are promised will certainly come to pass". Not restriction but emphasis.

The measure recorded in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt can be applied here too. There are three emphases stacked in the sentence:

1. إِنَّ — the particle of emphasis. 2. لَـ — the lām al-muzaḥlaqa; a second emphasis. 3. A six-verse oath — set before the sentence, the heaviest emphasis of all.

And the conclusion recorded in al-ʿĀdiyāt was: this density shows that the addressee is in a position to object to what is being said. No one swears three times over for something that will be accepted.

Here the subject of the objection is plain and the sūra names it itself: the addressee is mukadhdhibīn — the deniers. And what is denied is resurrection.

Root: و-ع-د. To promise. The Qurʾān uses this root for both good and bad outcomes; the pattern specific to a bad outcome is إِيعَاد / وَعِيد (a threat).

The verb is passive: tūʿadūna — "it is promised to you". The name of the promiser is not given.

And the name of what is promised is not given either.

This is the same technique recorded in the sections on al-Takāthur and al-ʿĀdiyāt: in al-Takāthur "the abundance of what" was not said, in al-Zalzala "which burdens" was not said, in al-ʿĀdiyāt "what he does not know" was not said. The rule recorded there holds here too:

A threat whose object is not named is greater than one that is named, because it has no limit.

But there is a difference here and it should be recorded: the sūra begins to fill this gap one verse later. From the eighth verse the scene of what is promised is set. That is, in al-Mursalāt the gap is not left permanently; it is deferred.

The imperfect form. Tūʿadūna is in the imperfect: the promise has been given and stands; it is not a finished event. What the Qurʾān says to its addressee is not a word spoken once in the past; it is an undertaking still in force.

Root: و-ق-ع. Its concrete sense: to fall, to come down to a place, to come upon.

• وَقَعَ — it fell.
• وَاقِعَة — that which falls, that which comes to pass; and a name of the resurrection: "When the event comes to pass" (al-Wāqiʿa 56/1).
• مَوْقِع — the place where something falls, a position. In Turkish this word is borrowed as mevki.
• وَقْعَة — a blow, a clash.

What Arabic does here is striking: it derives the verb "to come to pass" from the same root as "to fall". The occurring of an event is told as though something were falling.

This is not an accidental feature of language; there are parallels in many languages. But its Arabic form is especially concrete: a future event is conceived as a body hanging above and waiting to fall.

And this conception connects directly with the next verse of the sūra. In the eighth verse the stars will be effaced — that is, the things that stand above. The word gives the direction of the scene from the outset: from above downward.

I record this as a reading; the sense of the root is not in dispute.

The choice of a nominal sentence. The verse does not say "sa-yaqaʿu" (it will fall); it frames a nominal sentence: la-wāqiʿ — "is that which will fall". In Arabic a nominal sentence conveys fixity (thubūt). That is, the coming to pass is stated not as a future event but as an attribute already fixed. The property of what is promised is that it will come to pass.

Fa-idha'n-nujūmu ṭumisat · wa idha's-samāʾu furijat · wa idha'l-jibālu nusifat · wa idha'r-rusulu uqqitat

"When the stars are effaced · when the sky is parted open · when the mountains are scattered away · and when the messengers are appointed their time…"

The four verses are on exactly the same pattern, and the pattern itself does a work:

That is: particle of time + subject + passive perfect verb. In none of the four is the agent named. Who effaces, who parts, who scatters, who appoints the time — none of it is specified.

This preference has been recorded in several places earlier in this commentary: in the first verse of al-Zalzala (zulzilat), in the ninth verse of al-ʿĀdiyāt (buʿthira), in the opening sequences of al-Takwīr and al-Infiṭār. The scene is set without an agent; what happens is looked at, not who does it.

And all the verbs are in the perfect — the past tense. The use of the past tense for something that has not yet happened conveys in Arabic taḥaqquq: as certain as if it had happened. In the Qurʾān's scenes of the resurrection this is an established preference.

The verse-endings. All four verses end in the sound -at: ṭumisat, furijat, nusifat, uqqitat. And this sound continues into a fifth verse: ujjilat (12). An island of sound five verses long. Before it the endings were in tanwīned -ā (ʿurfā, ʿaṣfā, nashrā, farqā, dhikrā, nudhrā), after it they will be -īn/-ūn. The measure recorded in the section on al-Ghāshiya works here too: the sound changes where the subject changes.

A break in the sequence. The first three of the four verses tell of the cosmos: the stars, the sky, the mountains. It descends from above downward — the light in the sky, the sky itself, the heaviest body of the earth. An orderly descent.

The fourth, however, is not in the cosmos. The messengers.

This is one of the most striking transitions in the sūra and I shall take it up separately at verse 11 below. For now let us record: the scene begins cosmic, but it does not end cosmic.

Root: ط-م-س. The idea beneath the root: to destroy the trace, the form, the distinguishing lines of a thing. To erase a writing, to blur a road, to level a face.

Its derivatives and its uses in the Qurʾān:

• "Our Lord, efface their wealth" (Yūnus 10/88) — iṭmis ʿalā amwālihim. The wealth is not destroyed; it is made useless, unrecognisable.
• "Had We willed, We would have effaced their eyes" (Yāsīn 36/66) — la-ṭamasnā ʿalā aʿyunihim. The eye is not put out; its function of seeing is removed, and the eye becomes a flat surface.
• "We effaced their eyes" (al-Qamar 54/37).
• طَامِس — whose trace has been erased, become indistinct (used of a road, a track).

This is the root's most decisive feature: not to destroy but to render indistinguishable.

This distinction is decisive in reading the verse. The verse does not say "the stars went out" or "the stars fell". It says "the stars were effaced". What is effaced does not disappear; it becomes impossible to make out.

What does this mean for a star? A star's function is light; the function of light is to let things be distinguished. When a star is effaced the sky is not empty — it becomes indistinguishable.

And this connects with the whole of the sūra. The Qurʾān names one function of the stars plainly: finding one's way.

"It is He who made the stars for you, so that you may be guided by them through the darknesses of land and sea." (al-Anʿām 6/97)

The effacing of a star is the effacing of a mark of direction. The sūra opens the scene of the resurrection by removing the first instrument by which man finds his direction.

I record this as my own reading; the sense of the root and the content of al-Anʿām 6/97 are not in dispute.

A comparison with al-Takwīr. The same event is told in different sūras with different verbs, and the verbs do not say the same thing:

Three verbs point in three separate directions: dimming, dispersal, effacement. What they have in common is this: none of them says "went out." All three speak by way of the star's visibility. This stands out as a shared preference of the three sūras.

Root: ف-ر-ج. Its concrete sense: to open a space between two things, to leave a gap, to form a cleft.

Its derivatives show where the root opens out:

• فُرْجَة — a gap, a space, an opening.
• فَرْج — an opening, a cleft; and in the Qurʾān a veiled expression for a region of the body. This use too comes from the sense of "opening".
• فُرُوج — its plural: clefts, cracks.
• فَرَج — the opening up of a hardship, relief. In Turkish the borrowed words ferah ("at ease") and feraha çıkmak ("to come into relief") are from this root.
• تَفْرِيج — to open up a constriction, to relieve it.

Here is the root's most instructive side: the same root names both a cleft and a relief. The reason is plain — constriction is a narrowing, relief is a space opening between. The passing of a hardship is, in the word's own logic, the opening of a space between things that were pressed together.

And the Qurʾān uses this root of the sky once more — in exactly the opposite sense:

"Have they not looked at the sky above them, how We built it and adorned it, and it has no clefts (furūj)?" (Qāf 50/6)

This verse is the direct counterpart of the verse before us. The same root, the same object, the opposite verdict.

• The sky as it is now: mā lahā min furūj — it has no gap at all.
• The sky on that day: furijat — it was parted open.

In Qāf the sky's evidential force rested on its flawless wholeness: nowhere left open, nowhere cracked. In al-Mursalāt that wholeness comes undone.

I record this connection as an observation; the root and the object of the two verses are shared and this is beyond dispute. I do not claim a deliberate reference between the two sūras.

In this commentary the opening of the sky has been treated with two other roots, and in those two sections the difference between the roots was framed. Now a third is added.

What was recorded for ف-ط-ر in the section on al-Infiṭār:

The root's chief weight is on beginning. From the same root come fāṭir (who brings into being from nothing), fiṭra (the state of first creation), ifṭār (the breaking of a fast). Faṭr is to split something open for the first time and bring it into being; and the same root is used for the final dissolution as well. This is why fāṭir is an attribute of creating while infiṭār is a verb of dissolving — and the two stand in one root.

What was recorded for ش-ق-ق in the section on al-Inshiqāq:

In this root there is neither birth nor establishing. What happens here is the breaking apart of a whole. The root's other branches — mashaqqa (wearing down), shiqāq (division) — all look the same way: something was holding together, and now it is not.

And there the three were gathered in one sentence: "falaq opens what is closed; faṭr splits from nothing and establishes; shaqq divides what has been established."

ف-ر-ج is added to this trio as a fourth, and it has a place of its own:

The difference can be put most shortly thus: shaqq breaks apart, furūj opens a space.

Something split is divided in two; something parted open is something in the middle of which a space opens — like a door, like a curtain. That is, ف-ر-ج conveys not a division but an opening.

And this accords with another resurrection verse of the Qurʾān: "The sky was opened and became gateways" (al-Nabaʾ 78/19) — fa-kānat abwābā. There the opening of the sky is described as a passage. The same idea.

There is a fourth root as well and it must not be confused: ف-ت-ح (al-Qamar 54/11, fa-fataḥnā abwāba's-samāʾ). That too is opening, but the opening of a door; it conveys no splitting.

A limit: the division of labour I have drawn among the four roots is my own reading; the dictionary senses of the roots are transmitted, the division of labour among them is not. The same qualification was set down in the section on al-Inshiqāq.

And an echo. Recall the sense of faraj as "the opening up of a hardship". Read with the word's second sense, the sky's being furijat carries a strange side: in this sūra the parting brings relief to no one. But the tableau that will be set up for the godwary in verse 41 of the sūra recalls that branch of the word. I record this as an echo, not as a claim of interpretation.

Root: ن-س-ف. And the root of this word carries the sūra's most concrete link with agriculture.

The root has two uses, and the second is decisive:

1. نَسَفَ — to tear something up by its roots and fling it away, to break it from its foundation and cast it off. 2. نَسَفَ ٱلْحَبَّ — to winnow grain, that is, to toss the threshed crop against the wind so that the chaff is separated from the grain. The implement used for this work is called مِنْسَف (minsaf): a winnowing tray, a threshing sieve.

So the root names both the tearing up of a mountain and the winnowing of a threshing floor. The common point: to lift what is light into the air and let it fly.

Its uses in the Qurʾān:

• "They ask you about the mountains. Say: my Lord will scatter them away." (Ṭāhā 20/105) — yansifuhā Rabbī nasfā. The same verb, the same object, the same absolute-object structure.
• "We shall burn it, then scatter it into the sea." (Ṭāhā 20/97) — of the calf idol.

The second verse is noteworthy: there nasf is the end of an idol. It is burnt, then scattered and dispersed — no piece is left to be gathered up.

Now this root must be added to two links framed earlier in this commentary.

In the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt, of the word حُصِّلَ (ḥuṣṣila) in the sūra's last verses, this was recorded:

Taḥṣīl is a process of sifting. When wheat is harvested, straw and grain are mixed together. On the threshing floor the sledge is passed over it, then it is tossed against the wind: the light straw flies off, the heavy grain falls to the ground. What remains — what is obtained — is the grain.

In the section on al-Fīl, the end of the army was named with عَصْف (scattered crop stalks).

And in the second verse of this sūra the oath was sworn by the scattering wind: al-ʿāṣifāti ʿaṣfā.

Let us set the four words together:

The four are four moments of the same process: the scatterer, the scattered, the scattering, and what remains after the scattering.

I record this as my own reading; I do not present it as transmitted material. But the root senses of all four words were given one by one above and in the relevant sections, and none of them is disputed.

And what the table says is this: the scattering of the mountains is, in the Qurʾān's language, a work of the threshing floor. The heaviest and most fixed-seeming body of the earth is likened to straw in the winnowing tray. When the measure of weight changes, the heavy becomes light.

This is the same idea as the mountains becoming "carded wool" in Sūrat al-Qāriʿa; and, as recorded in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt, a thing that has lost its weight and hangs in the air is one of the shared images of these sūras.

The single most discussed word in the sūra, both for its spelling and for its meaning.

Root: و-ق-ت. Waqt — an appointed time. From the same root:

• مِيقَات — an appointed time or place; a time of meeting. In the Qurʾān: "The day of separation is indeed an appointed time" (al-Nabaʾ 78/17) — kāna mīqātā.
• مَوْقُوت — bound to a time. "Prayer is prescribed for the believers at appointed times" (al-Nisāʾ 4/103) — kitāban mawqūtā.
• تَوْقِيت — the fixing of a time.

The verb is of the tafʿīl form and is passive. Its original form would be وُقِّتَتْ (wuqqitat): the root letter wāw, with a ḍamma on it.

And here a phonetic rule of Arabic comes into play. A wāw that has taken a ḍamma at the head of a word can turn into a hamza. This is a known transformation in Arabic with other instances as well (wujūh → ujūh in some dialects, wishāḥ → ishāḥ). Thus وُقِّتَتْ becomes أُقِّتَتْ.

So the hamza at the head of the word is not original; it has taken the place of a wāw bearing a ḍamma. Anyone looking for the root must look not to the hamza but to the wāw.

A variant reading. The word has been read both as wuqqitat and as uqqitat; a reading without the doubling is also transmitted. The meaning does not change — all three are from the same root and in the same sense. I give no imām's name.

The verb is plain, but its object is strange: the messengers are appointed a time. Two chief explanations are given in the classical sources:

The first reading is the more widespread and has strong indications within the Qurʾān:

• "On the day God gathers the messengers, He will say: 'What answer were you given?'" (al-Māʾida 5/109)
• "We shall question those to whom messengers were sent, and We shall question the messengers who were sent." (al-Aʿrāf 7/6)
• "How will it be when We bring a witness from every community, and bring you as a witness against these?" (al-Nisāʾ 4/41)

All three verses set up the same scene: on that day the messengers are called as witnesses.

The two readings do not exclude one another: the time of gathering is at the same time the moment at which the awaited term runs out.

Now let us look at the four verses together:

After three cosmic events the fourth is not cosmic. The scene leaps from the dissolution of the universe to the records of humanity.

And this leap explains the whole sequence. The dissolution of the universe is not the subject of the sūra; the subject of the sūra is the reckoning. The four verses set up a scene and at the fourth step show why that scene was set up: star, sky and mountain disperse, because the real matter is the opening of a session of testimony.

There is a similar movement in Sūrat al-Takwīr, treated in that section: into the middle of a twelve-verse cosmic sequence entered "when the girl buried alive is asked". There too the scene shifted from the universe to a human being.

The fifth verse of the sūra ran: fa'l-mulqiyāti dhikrā — those that deliver a reminder.

The eleventh verse runs: wa idha'r-rusulu uqqitat — when the messengers are appointed their time.

The same work, from two ends. In the oath there were those who carry the reminder; in the scene those who carried that reminder are called to account. And the verbal link between the two verses is plain too: the first word of the oath is ٱلْمُرْسَلَٰت, the subject of the eleventh verse ٱلرُّسُل — the same root, ر-س-ل.

The sūra opens with those who are sent and continues with the summoning of those who were sent.

And this is a datum bearing on the disagreement over the first five verses. What al-mursalāt is is disputed; but in the eleventh verse al-rusul, from the same root, occurs, and there who is meant is not disputed. This may be recorded as an indication supporting the "prophets" or "angels" reading.

But it does not count as decisive evidence: the use of the same root in two different fields within one sūra is ordinary in the Qurʾān. In this commentary, in the section on al-Ghāshiya, it was shown that the same roots (naṣb, rafʿ) were used at the two ends of the sūra with two different objects. I therefore record the indication without using it as a preference.

Li-ayyi yawmin ujjilat · Li-yawmi'l-faṣl "For what day were they deferred? — For the day of separation."

Four idhā clauses have come one after another and none of them was completed: "when…", "when…", "when…", "when…". In Arabic idhā conveys a condition and calls for an apodosis. The apodosis does not come.

In its place comes a question.

This is a structure the grammarians have dwelt on. The explanations given:

The first and third readings are the more widespread. It makes no great difference to the sense.

But this should be recorded: the sūra counts four ruptures and, without giving an answer, turns to a question. This is a technique that leaves the telling to the reader. Across four verses a scene has been set; at the fifth step the text stops and asks: "For what day was all this held back?"

Who asks the question? Two explanations are given in the classical sources: either the question is one of taʿajjub (wonder) and is the text's own voice, or it is a question that will be put to people on that day. The first is the more widespread.

Root: أ-ج-ل. Ajal — an appointed term, the end of a term. In Turkish the borrowed word ecel is used only of death; in Arabic it means any appointed term whatever. The term of a debt is an ajal too.

• أَجَل — a term, a period. "Every community has its term" (al-Aʿrāf 7/34).
• مُؤَجَّل — bound to a term. "A decree with a fixed term" (Āl ʿImrān 3/145) — kitāban muʾajjalā.
• آجِل — what is left for later; its opposite is ʿājil (what is immediate).
• مِن أَجْلِ — "on account of…". The Turkish expression ecilden comes from this.

The verb is again passive and of the tafʿīl form: ujjilat — they were deferred, they were bound to a term. It is in the same pattern, the same voice and the same verse-ending as uqqitat in the preceding verse. The two verses read as continuations of one another.

And the two words say the same idea with two separate roots: being bound to a time (w-q-t) and being bound to a term (a-j-l). Not repetition but emphasis.

Root: ف-ص-ل. This root was treated in detail in this commentary in the section on al-Ṭāriq (innahū la-qawlun faṣl) and I do not repeat what was recorded there. What is to be taken from it:

- فَاصِلَة (fāṣila) — that which separates; the name of verse-endings. - مَفْصِل (mafṣal) — a joint; the place where two bones part. - تَفْصِيل (tafṣīl) — to explain a thing by separating it into its parts. - فَيْصَل (fayṣal) — a decisive judgement, the decision that ends a matter. - فَصْل also: a season, a chapter, a class. All of them are separated units.

And there it was recorded that faṣl works on three levels: it separates truth from falsehood, it delivers a decisive judgement, and it divides people in two.

As the name of a day this construct occurs in several places in the Qurʾān: al-Ṣāffāt 37/21; al-Dukhān 44/40; al-Nabaʾ 78/17; and in this sūra three times (13, 14, 38).

Here is one of the strongest internal links of the sūra.

In the fourth verse the oath was sworn by those that separate: ٱلْفَٰرِقَٰتِ فَرْقًا — root ف-ر-ق.

In the thirteenth verse the day is named: يَوْمُ ٱلْفَصْلِ — root ف-ص-ل.

The same idea, a different root. Both mean "to separate". The sūra builds its oath on separating, and names the day in the answer to the oath separating too.

What is the difference between the two roots? Arabic does not use them as synonyms, and the difference is worth recording:

Roughly: farq opens a distance, faṣl gives a decisive verdict. The first is a distance, the second a judgement.

And the work the sūra does is visible in the order of these two roots:

• In the oath (verse 4): separating occurs as a process — a work continually done.
• In the answer (verse 13): separating turns into a day — once and decisive.

That is, the sūra ties a separating that goes on in this world to a separating completed in the hereafter. What separates truth from falsehood has been sent and is at work; the final result of that work is a day.

I record this as my own reading. The senses of the two roots and the text of the two verses are not in dispute.

And the triangle with al-Bayyina is completed. In the section on al-Bayyina tafriqa (dividing along the wrong axis) was blamed. Now we have three points:

The third is the correction of the first: in this world people had divided along the wrong axis; on that day they will be divided along the right one. This is the counterpart of the diagnosis of "dividing along the wrong axis" recorded in the section on al-Bayyina.

I offer this triad as my own reading.

Wa mā adrāka mā yawmu'l-faṣl "And what will make you know what the day of separation is?"

The وما أدراك pattern was treated in detail in this commentary in the section on al-Humaza, and applied in the sections on al-Qāriʿa, al-Qadr, al-Infiṭār, al-Balad, al-Ṭāriq and al-Muṭaffifīn. What is to be taken from there:

Root د-ر-ي (dirāya — to know, to be aware); adrā (the afʿala form) — he made known. Mā adrāka, literally "what made you know?" — its sense: "your knowledge cannot grasp this; had you known it, you would have known it from one who informed you." And there is a consistent distinction within the Qurʾān: after the مَا أَدْرَاكَ (perfect) pattern an explanation follows; after the مَا يُدْرِيكَ (imperfect) pattern it does not — the knowledge is left closed to man.

And what was added in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn: "the pattern declares, before giving any knowledge, that knowledge will not suffice."

The pattern here is in the perfect (adrāka), so by the rule an explanation ought to follow.

And it does not.

The next verse is waylun yawmaʾidhin li'l-mukadhdhibīn; this is not an explanation but a judgement. And after it, not a description of the day but the section of three proofs begins. What the day is is not told — not until verse 29.

This is an exception that should be recorded. Two explanations may be given:

First: the explanation comes with a delay. Verses 29-40 of the sūra are the scene of that day; that is, the question is asked, three sections intervene, and then the answer is given. On this reading the rule is not broken, only a distance is inserted.

Second: the name of the day has already been given in the preceding verse (yawm al-faṣl), and mā adrāka comes in order to declare the insufficiency of a name already given. That is, the explanation came first, and the pattern afterwards magnifies it.

The second reading accords with the pattern's use in Sūrat al-Qadr: there too the name laylat al-qadr was given first and mā adrāka came after. In the section on al-Qadr this was recorded: "The verse uses the construct laylat al-qadr a second time. A pronoun would have sufficed… but the whole name is repeated."

Here too there is the same repetition: in verse 13 li-yawmi'l-faṣl, in verse 14 again mā yawmu'l-faṣl. A pronoun would have sufficed; the construct is repeated.

In al-Qadr the function of this was magnification. It seems to be the same here.

In this commentary the pattern has so far occurred with both positive and negative objects:

The last row is striking: yawm al-faṣl is not a one-sided day. The day of separation separates both sides. In verse 41 of the sūra the tableau of the godwary will come — that is, this day is a disaster for one side and an arrival for the other.

This explains why the object of the pattern has been left so broad: the day is not the day of a single group.

Waylun yawmaʾidhin li'l-mukadhdhibīn "Woe on that day to the deniers!"

The refrain of the sūra. It will be repeated ten times. Here, at its first occurrence, I shall take up the words; the repetition itself I shall treat under a separate heading.

The analysis of this word was made in the sections on al-Māʿūn, al-Humaza and al-Muṭaffifīn. I do not repeat it; what is to be taken from there:

Root: و-ي-ل. An Arabic word conveying destruction, punishment, severe pain. Rendering it in English as "alas" comes out weak, because wayl conveys not pity but a verdict. Its opposite is ṭūbā. The word does not frame a sentence; it declares a judgement. Waylun is the subject and is indefinite; the reason an indefinite noun is allowed to begin the sentence is that the sentence carries the sense of a prayer or an imprecation. The indefiniteness, meanwhile, is for magnification (tafkhīm): "such a woe as cannot be described." And the widespread saying that wayl is a valley in Hell was treated with caution, because the soundness of the report on which it rests is disputed.

The observation recorded in the section on al-Māʿūn is useful here too:

"If you see wayl at the head of a verse, what stands before you is most often either denial or the diminishing of another's right."

In this sūra it is the first: denial. And the sūra repeats it ten times.

The ordinary word order of the sentence would be waylun li'l-mukadhdhibīna yawmaʾidhin. In the verse يَوْمَئِذٍ has been drawn ahead of the predicate.

Exactly this distinction was treated in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn, and that finding holds here too:

And there it was recorded: "a fronted element gains emphasis. That is, the emphasis lies not on 'woe to them' but on 'on that day'."

This is especially important for al-Mursalāt. For the whole matter of the sūra is a day, and the name of that day was given two verses earlier. The central word of the refrain is not wayl but yawmaʾidhin. What is recalled at every repetition is the day itself.

This sentence occurs in one other place in the Qurʾān outside this sūra: al-Muṭaffifīn 83/10.

In the section on al-Muṭaffifīn this shared wording was recorded and the following qualification set down:

"That the same sentence occurs once in al-Muṭaffifīn establishes a shared wording between the two sūras. I record this as an observation; I do not claim a deliberate reference between the two sūras."

I repeat the same qualification here. But one detail is worth adding: the function of the sentence differs in the two sūras.

• In al-Muṭaffifīn the sentence occurs once and is a link in a chain: those who give short measure → those who do not expect resurrection → the record in sijjīn → woe to the deniers → and the deniers are also aggressors and sinners. The sentence advances the chain.
• In al-Mursalāt the sentence occurs ten times and advances no chain. Each time it returns to the same place.

That is, the same sentence is in one sūra a step, in the other a stop.

The analysis of the verb was made in the sections on al-Māʿūn and al-Muṭaffifīn:

Kadhdhaba (the tafʿīl form) is "to call another's true word a lie"; it differs from kadhaba (to lie). And takdhīb is not a silent refusal but an active stance and a taking of a position.

What is to be added here is that the word has been chosen for this sūra.

The sūra does not name its addressee kāfirūn. Nor does it say mushrikūn. Nor ẓālimūn. It says mukadhdhibīn — and it repeats it ten times.

This choice is meaningful, because:

One. Takdhīb is a verb of speech. To deny is to take a position against a claim; it is not a silent indifference. The addressee of the sūra is one who has heard the report and rejected it.

Two. The verb is transitive and has an object. What are they denying? The sūra will say so in verse 29: "Go towards what you used to deny." That is, the object is the promise in the answer to the oath.

Three. The tafʿīl form in Arabic often conveys repetition and continuity. Denial is not a word said once but a stance maintained. There is a correspondence between the refrain's being repeated continually and the noun's conveying continuity; I record this as my own reading.

Four, and most important: the word is an attribute, not an identity. The principle recorded in the section on al-Humaza works here too:

The sūra does not target a person, it targets an attribute. Whoever bears that attribute is the one the verse speaks of; whoever does not, it does not. Identity, affiliation, class and period make no difference.

In al-Mursalāt this is even plainer, since the sūra names no people, no person and no community. The addressee of the judgement repeated ten times is described from beginning to end as those who do a certain act.

Now the real question about the sūra itself.

What does the repetition of the same sentence ten times do? This is a question taken up once before in this commentary — in the section on al-Kāfirūn. There the fact that verses 3 and 5 are word for word identical was discussed and the explanations were given in a table. Two findings to be taken from there:

Emphasis (taʾkīd): in Arabic, repeating an important judgement is an established way of emphasising it. The repetition reflects the certainty of the judgement and the obstinacy of the addressee. The most widespread explanation; sound in terms of language. And: "There is a rhythmic fact as well: when the sūra is recited, this repetition is heard like a door closing. The same sentence coming twice produces an emphasis that closes the subject. The text is not only saying something; it is also announcing that what it has said is closed."

These two findings hold for al-Mursalāt too; I do not repeat them. But the repetition in al-Mursalāt is structurally different from that in al-Kāfirūn, and the difference deserves attention.

The last row is important: a fifth of the sūra is a single sentence.

And from this emerges the function peculiar to al-Mursalāt. In al-Kāfirūn the repetition produced a closing. In al-Mursalāt the repetition produces a division.

One — it marks the sections.

The sūra takes up twelve separate subjects: the scene of the resurrection, the destructions in history, the creation of man, the earth, the driving to Hell, silence, the gathering, the godwary, the address to the deniers, bowing. So many different subjects could have run into one another in a short sūra.

They do not, because the same sentence comes at the end of each. The refrain works as a line separating the subjects from one another.

And note: the subject of the sūra is itself separation (yawm al-faṣl). The sūra does in its form the work it describes in its content: it separates its sections from one another. I record this as my own reading.

Two — it ties every section to the same judgement.

The refrain's position is the same every time: at the end of the section. That is, each section presents a proof or a scene, and at the end the same judgement is delivered.

The logical effect of this is: ten separate contents are tied to a single conclusion.

• The scene of the resurrection → woe.
• The destruction of the former peoples → woe.
• Creation from a fluid → woe.
• The gathering power of the earth → woe.
• The driving to Hell → woe.
• Silence → woe.
• The gathering → woe.
• The tableau of the godwary → woe.
• "Eat, enjoy yourselves" → woe.
• Those who do not bow → woe.

The eighth line is striking and I shall take it up separately below: the same sentence comes even at the end of the tableau of the Garden.

Three — it holds the addressee fixed.

The sūra changes its subject but does not change its addressee. Whether the talk is of stars, or of semen, or of mountains and sweet water, at the end of the section the same group is named: al-mukadhdhibīn.

The effect of this is that the reader cannot forget against whom each new section is framed. The sūra is not making a description of nature; it is presenting evidence against a claim, and between the pieces of evidence the claim is recalled.

The table below shows which section the repetition follows. This is the real datum that makes the structure of the sūra visible.

Three things emerge from the table:

One — the sections shorten. In order: 7, 3, 4, 3, 5, 2, 2, 4, 1, 1. As the sūra proceeds the refrains grow more frequent. Reaching the first refrain takes seven verses; between the last three refrains there is one verse each.

Its effect on the reading is direct: the sūra accelerates. In the last four verses (46-49) the repetition falls almost once per verse.

Two — the kind of the sections changes, and follows a regular order:

Scene (1) → three proofs (2, 3, 4) → three scenes (5, 6, 7) → counter-tableau (8) → address (9) → diagnosis (10)

The three proof sections in the middle are the sūra's argument. And all three open with the same pattern — this will be taken up at verse 16 below.

Three — the refrain merges with the sūra's verse-endings. The sentence ends in the sound -īn (al-mukadhdhibīn). And most of the verse-endings after verse 15 are in -īn or -ūn: al-awwalīn, al-ākhirīn, al-mujrimīn, al-qādirūn, tukadhdhibūn, yanṭiqūn, fa-yaʿtadhirūn, fa-kīdūn, yashtahūn, taʿmalūn, al-muḥsinīn, mujrimūn, lā yarkaʿūn, yuʾminūn.

That is, the refrain is not foreign to the sound-texture of the text. It does not stand there like an alien sentence intruding; it emerges from within the sūra's own sound.

Three exceptions stand out, and all three look deliberately placed:

In these three places the refrain comes as a break in sound. And all three fall immediately after the sūra's three most loaded images: the name of the day, sweet water, and sparks the size of a castle.

I record this observation as my own reading. The sound of the verse-endings, meanwhile, is plain in the text.

The question has to be asked, because for a modern reader repetition is often perceived as weakness.

Alongside the answer recorded in the section on al-Kāfirūn, two things peculiar to al-Mursalāt may be added:

One — in oral texts repetition is a structural instrument, not an ornament. In a written text sections are separated by headings, by white space, by numbers. In a text recited aloud none of these instruments exists. One instrument remains: a repeated sentence. When the listener hears that sentence he knows a section has ended.

Al-Mursalāt is a text built to be recited aloud, and its sectioning rests on this instrument. Take away the refrain and the sūra becomes forty verses of undivided text.

Two — the content of the repeated sentence lends itself to repetition. The refrain gives no information; it declares a judgement. Information weakens when repeated (heard a second time it is no longer new). A judgement grows stronger when repeated — because what matters in a judgement is not its novelty but its certainty.

I record this as my own reading.

The eighth refrain (verse 45) comes immediately after the tableau of the godwary. This is the most striking placement in the sūra and it requires attention.

Verses 41-44 describe the Garden: shades, springs, the fruits they desire, "eat and drink, with relish". Then verse 45: "Woe on that day to the deniers!"

Why there?

The explanation given in the classical sources is this, and it is reasonable: contrast makes the judgement heavier. To mention the deprived immediately after a tableau of favour has been set up makes the deprivation more visible. The sūra had already done this in reverse in verses 30-31 (the false shade); now it does it the right way round (the real shade).

I make one addition and record it as my own reading: placing the refrain there shows that the tableau of the Garden is not an independent section. The sūra is not describing the Garden for its own sake; it tells of it too as part of the matter of denial. The tableau is set up in order to show what the addressee is losing.

Indeed the whole structure of the sūra supports this: nowhere in the fifty verses is there a direct address to the believers. Even the command "eat and drink" in verse 43 is inside a third-person narration. From beginning to end the sūra is speaking to the deniers.

A lam nuhliki'l-awwalīn · Thumma nutbiʿuhumu'l-ākhirīn · Kadhālika nafʿalu bi'l-mujrimīn

"Did We not destroy the former peoples? · Then We make the later ones follow them · Thus do We deal with the guilty."

The argument section of the sūra begins here, and all three sections open with the same pattern:

Three sections, three identical openings. This is the sūra's second most visible structural feature (the first being the refrain).

أ + لم — the interrogative hamza + the particle of negation. In Arabic this combination frames an istifhām taqrīrī: a question asked not to seek information but to make the addressee concede. Its answer is known and it is affirmative.

Its English equivalent is the "did We not…?" pattern, and it does the same work: it appears to be asking a question while in fact obtaining assent.

Why confirmation? Because the things asked about are things the addressee cannot deny:

• He knows that peoples were destroyed in the past (their ruins lie around Mecca).
• He knows that he was created from a fluid.
• He knows that he buries his dead in the ground.

The sūra does not begin with a disputed piece of knowledge. It sets out from three things the addressee already accepts.

And all three have something in common: none of them concerns the hereafter. All three proofs are taken from this world. The sūra proves the hereafter not from the hereafter but from this world.

This is an established method of the Qurʾān and was recorded in the section on al-Ṭāriq:

The Qurʾān regularly uses the same method against this objection: it does not argue about the future, it takes you back to the past. For a thing that has happened once, its happening a second time is no novelty in point of possibility.

Root: ه-ل-ك. Halaka — he perished, he was destroyed, he was ruined. أَهْلَكَ (ifʿāl) — he destroyed.

The root's use in the Qurʾān is broad; but in the narratives of destruction this verb is used regularly. The word conveys not a natural perishing but the execution of a sentence: what perishes has been made to perish.

The voice of the verb matters: nuhlik — first person plural, active. In the preceding section (8-11) all the verbs were passive and the agent was not named. Here all at once the agent speaks: "We".

This transition is meaningful. In telling the scene the agent was concealed; in presenting the proof the agent comes forward. For the whole force of the proof lies in the doer's being the same: the one who destroyed in the past and the one who will hold the reckoning in the future are the same party.

ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ — the former ones, the first. ٱلْءَاخِرِينَ — the later ones, those who come after.

The two words form a regular pair in the Qurʾān. And in this sūra one of them will come back: in verse 38, jamaʿnākum wa'l-awwalīn — "We have gathered you and the former peoples".

That is, the sūra speaks in verse 16 of the destruction of the former peoples, and in verse 38 of the gathering of them all. The same group, in two separate scenes.

A small point, but one that has been dwelt on.

• Verse 16: nuhlik — past (in the interrogative pattern; lam + imperfect conveys the past).
• Verse 17: nutbiʿu — imperfect, general/future.

Between the two verses the tense changes: the destruction is an event that has happened, the following is an event that will happen.

ثُمَّ — in Arabic this is the conjunction that inserts an interval (unlike fāʾ). That is, there is a stretch of time between the first group and the second.

أَتْبَعَ (ifʿāl) — to make someone follow after another, to send behind. Root ت-ب-ع: to follow, to go after. From the same root come tābiʿ, tabaʿa, ittibāʿ, tābiʿīn.

The choice of verb is meaningful: it does not say "we shall destroy the later ones too". It says "we make the later ones follow them". That is, the second group is described as the party going after the first.

This is not a declaration of fate but the statement of a rule, and the next verse will say so plainly: whoever does the same act gets the same outcome. The being made to follow is the following of an act.

I record this as my own reading.

And the eighteenth verse explains what the two verses mean.

كَذَٰلِكَ — "thus". The kāf is the particle of comparison, dhālika the demonstrative. It points to what has been told above.

نَفْعَلُ — imperfect: "we do". Not a single event but an ongoing practice.

بِٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ — and here is the critical word.

Root: ج-ر-م. The concrete sense of the root is worth dwelling on. According to what the lexicographers record, jarm originally means to cut, to sever; and جَرِيم is associated with the gathering of dates or fruit. From here arises jurm (a crime): a crime is the act that severs the bond.

• جُرْم — a crime, an offence.
• مُجْرِم — one who commits a crime.
• إِجْرَام — to commit a crime. "My crime is upon me" (Hūd 11/35) — ʿalayya ijrāmī.
• لَا جَرَمَ — "assuredly, inevitably" — a fixed expression.

What the verse does is this: in verses 16 and 17 there were two groups — the former and the later. That is, a distinction by time. The eighteenth verse removes that distinction and puts in its place a distinction by act: al-mujrimīn.

That is, the measure is not "coming first" or "coming after"; it is committing a crime. If the former peoples were destroyed, they were destroyed not because they came first but because they were guilty.

This is another form of the principle recorded in the section on al-Humaza: the judgement is attached to an attribute, not to an identity. And in this sūra the same technique is present in the refrain repeated ten times: al-mukadhdhibīn too is an attribute.

The relation between the two attribute-words: in this section the sūra says mujrimīn, in the refrain mukadhdhibīn. Are they the same people?

The sūra will say so plainly in verse 46: "Eat, enjoy yourselves a little; you are the guilty" — there the addressee is the addressee of the refrain, and is named mujrimūn.

This is the same movement recorded in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn:

The sūra had pronounced woe upon the muṭaffifīn in the first verse. In the tenth verse it pronounces woe upon the mukadhdhibīn… The twelfth verse ties the head of the chain to its end. That is, the muṭaffif of the first verse and the mukadhdhib of the tenth are the same person — one named by his act, the other by his belief.

Al-Mursalāt does the same work: mujrim (act) and mukadhdhib (stance) are joined in verse 46.

For the addressee of these three verses "the former peoples" was not an abstract notion.

Mecca lay on the trade routes running north and south. The caravans of Quraysh set out twice a year, and their routes passed beside abandoned settlements. The Qurʾān says this plainly elsewhere: "You pass by them in the morning and at night" (al-Ṣāffāt 37/137-138) — this verse was touched on for another reason in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt.

That is, the question "did We not destroy the former peoples?" points to something the addressee saw on the road. This is why the answer to the confirming question is known: the question asks about something known.

In this section I give no names of historical peoples, because the verse gives none either. The sūra's preference is a general expression like al-awwalīn; to narrow that generality would be to add something to the text.

The second refrain.

And its position is meaningful: it comes after the proof from history. The section had ended "thus do We deal with the guilty"; the refrain ties this to a day.

Set the two sentences side by side:

• 18: kadhālika nafʿalu bi'l-mujrimīn — imperfect, an ongoing practice, without time.
• 19: waylun yawmaʾidhin li'l-mukadhdhibīn — tied to a day.

That is, the section ends with a timeless rule, and the refrain nails that rule to a particular day. This is what the refrain does every time, and it is why yawmaʾidhin's having been fronted mattered.

A lam nakhlukkum min māʾin mahīn · Fa-jaʿalnāhu fī qarārin makīn · Ilā qadarin maʿlūm · Fa-qadarnā fa-niʿma'l-qādirūn

"Did We not create you from a despised fluid? · Then We placed it in a firm lodging · Until a known measure · So We measured — and how excellent are We at measuring!"

A sequence of four verses, and the four flow like a single sentence: a-lam + fa + ilā + fa. Unbroken.

This verse was quoted earlier in this commentary. In the section on al-Ṭāriq, when māʾin dāfiq (a fluid poured forth) was treated, this was recorded:

The word is indefinite: māʾin — "a fluid". Here the indefiniteness works in the direction of belittling (taḥqīr): an ordinary liquid, not even named. The Qurʾān gives the same image elsewhere in plainer words: "Did We not create you from a despised fluid?" (al-Mursalāt 77/20); "Then He made his progeny from an extract of a base fluid" (al-Sajda 32/8).

Now we are at that "plainer word" itself.

Root: م-ه-ن. It has two branches of meaning and the lexicographers record both:

• مَهَانَة — worthlessness, weakness, being held in contempt. مَهِين — despised, weak, of no worth.
• مِهْنَة — work, service, a craft. مَاهِن — a servant, one who does the work.

The link between the two branches is explained by the social lowness of service work. I transmit this as a relation drawn by the lexicographers, not as a settled etymology.

The pattern in the verse: فَعِيل — mahīn. And a caution is needed here, because the word is easily confused:

The verse has the first: the fluid is despised, not despising. (The second word occurs in the Qurʾān too — of punishment: ʿadhābun muhīn.)

The choice of the word. In al-Ṭāriq the fluid was described as dāfiq (poured forth) — by its movement. Here it is called mahīn (despised) — by its worth. The same object, two different adjectives; and the two sūras do two different things:

Al-Mursalāt's argument is this: the starting material was worthless and a human being came out of it all the same. If this happened once, there is no reason it should not happen a second time.

And it says one further thing from the other side — which accords with the sūra's general addressee: the source of the being who speaks with pride is a liquid he himself counts worthless.

In the section on al-Ṭāriq this was linked with Yāsīn 36/77: "Has man not seen that We created him from a drop? Yet there he is, an open adversary." The same link holds here.

قَرَار — root: ق-ر-ر. To stay in a place, to settle, to remain fixed. Its derivatives:

• قَرَّ — he settled, he remained fixed.
• قَرَار — a place of staying, a place of settling; and "decision" (steadiness, fixity).
• مُسْتَقَرّ — a place of settlement. "On the earth there is a dwelling place for you" (al-Baqara 2/36).
• قُرَّة — coolness of the eye; qurrat ʿayn, the thing on which the eye rests and does not stray.

The Turkish words karar, istikrar and mukarrer are from this root. The single idea beneath the root: to stay in place, not to move.

مَّكِين — root: م-ك-ن. This word was treated in this commentary in the section on al-Takwīr: dhī quwwatin ʿinda dhi'l-ʿarshi makīn (81/20). What was recorded there:

عِندَ ذِى ٱلْعَرْشِ مَكِين — firm in place in the presence of the source. Which question it answers: does he have access to the source, did he receive it directly?

And there this word was linked with Yūsuf 12/54: "Today you are with us firmly placed (makīn) and trusted" — a word describing an official's standing in the language of the court.

The root's sense: مَكَان (place) belongs to the same family. Makīn is one whose place is firm, whose position does not shift. Used of a person it means "of established standing", used of a place, "unshakeable".

In al-Takwīr the word conveyed the position of a messenger; here of a womb. The same word names two different kinds of firmness: one the firmness of authority, the other of protection.

I record this as an observation.

The pairing of the two words: قَرَارٍ مَّكِينٍ. Both say the same idea — to stay and to be firm. It looks like repetition but is not: qarār conveys the function (this is a place to stay in), makīn the quality (and it is firm).

And the sound. The verse-endings of the two verses: mahīn / makīn. The same metre (faʿīl), the same sound, two consecutive verses — and opposite content:

• Māʾin mahīn — a weak, worthless fluid that cannot hold on.
• Qarārin makīn — a firm, unshakeable place that holds.

The rhyme carries the contrast. The weak is placed inside the firm. The measure recorded for the pair āniya / jāriya in the section on al-Ghāshiya works here too: "the ear notices the link between two verses before it works out the meaning."

Interpreting the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān. The same construct occurs once more:

"Then We made him a drop in a firm lodging." (al-Muʾminūn 23/13) — fī qarārin makīn.

The two verses use exactly the same construct.

إِلَىٰ — a particle conveying a limit: "until". That is, the lodging is not indefinite but towards an end.

قَدَر — root: ق-د-ر. This root was analysed in three branches of meaning in this commentary in the section on al-Qadr, and it occurred in the section on ʿAbasa as well. What is to be taken from the section on al-Qadr:

Root: ق د ر. In Arabic this root carries three senses that are connected but open in different directions: 1. Measure, determination, apportioning. Qadara — he measured, he cut to size, he fixed its amount. Its derivatives: qadar, miqdār, taqdīr, qudra. From the Qurʾān: "We created everything according to a measure (bi-qadar)" (al-Qamar 54/49). 2. Worth, honour, elevation. "To know a thing's worth." "They did not appraise God with His true appraisal" (al-Anʿām 6/91). 3. Straitness, constriction. Qadara ʿalayhi — he narrowed it, he restricted it. "He whose provision is straitened" (al-Ṭalāq 65/7); "when He straitens his provision" (al-Fajr 89/16).

And the link recorded there: "the relation between measuring and worth is built into the language itself. To know a thing's worth is to give it the right measure. Measuring and valuing come from the same root in Arabic — because worth is the result of right measuring. One who measures wrongly cannot value either."

In this sūra the root occurs four times in three verses:

That is, the last two verses of a four-verse section rest entirely on this root. The subject of the section is measure.

What is the qadar of verse 22? Two chief explanations in the classical sources:

The first is the more widespread and fits better with the particle إِلَىٰ: ilā is more suited to conveying a limit of time.

مَّعْلُوم — known. A passive adjective. Known by whom? It is not said — but the next verse gives the answer by saying "We measured".

And the choice of the word says something: the term is called not determined but known. Determinedness stands, in the eye of an outside observer, like a rule; being known requires the existence of one who knows.

The close of the section, and one of the densest plays on sound in the sūra: the same root twice, one after the other, in two different patterns.

A variant reading. The verb has been read both as فَقَدَرْنَا (without the doubling) and as فَقَدَّرْنَا (with the doubling, the tafʿīl form). There is no marked difference of meaning between the two readings: the first is "we measured / we had the power", the second "we measured out, we determined". Since the tafʿīl form conveys repetition and refinement, the second reading leans a little more towards "we measured stage by stage". I give no imām's name.

فَنِعْمَ — niʿma is in Arabic a verb of praise: an uninflected verb conveying commendation. Its opposite is biʾsa (how evil). The pattern is: niʿma + the class praised + (sometimes) the person praised.

Fa-niʿma'l-qādirūn — "how excellent are We at measuring", or "what excellent measurers!"

The presence of this pattern here is striking. The sūra has been proceeding in a hard tone from the start: destruction, woe, scattering, effacement. And here, at the end of a four-verse section, a pattern of praise appears all at once.

There are parallels in the Qurʾān: "What an excellent Protector, what an excellent Helper!" (al-Anfāl 8/40) — fa-niʿma'l-mawlā wa niʿma'n-naṣīr. And "How excellent a servant he was" (Ṣād 38/30, 44) — niʿma'l-ʿabd.

Why here? One reading is this, and I record it as my own reading: the subject of the section is measure, and measure works in two directions across the whole sūra. The one who measures is at the same time the one who holds the reckoning. The one who measured the term in the womb and the one who will measure the reckoning in life are the same — and the section proves the second by the first.

The function of the pattern of praise is this too: the sentence "how excellent are We at measuring" is not an aesthetic appraisal but a declaration of competence. The party able to do the work of measuring can do the second measuring too.

Indeed the "power" wing of the root is at work here: al-qādirūn means both "those who measure" and "those who have the power". The two senses are not separated — because, as recorded in the section on al-Qadr, qudra is already "the power to do a thing to its measure".

Let us read the four verses together:

1. You were created from a worthless fluid. 2. That fluid was placed in a firm place. 3. Until a determined term. 4. We are the ones who measure, and We measure well.

The argument is: what has once been measured and made can be measured and made a second time.

And its subtlety is that the measuring is invisible the first time. The term that passes in the womb passes before no one's eyes; no one measures, no one counts — yet the term runs and at its end a human being comes out.

What the sūra says: the same invisible measure is at work for the whole of life too.

I record this as my own reading. The words of the section were given one by one above.

A limit. These verses are not to be read as a description of embryology. The verse does not tell of a process of development; it states the existence of a measure. None of the words (fluid, lodging, term) is a technical term, and all are things any person of the period knew. The force of the argument comes precisely from this: it sets out from a piece of knowledge the addressee accepts. As has been recorded earlier in this commentary, dressing a verse in modern knowledge does not strengthen the argument but weakens it — because a confirming question cannot be asked with something the addressee does not know.

The third refrain. After the proof from creation.

The meaning of its position: the section ended with "how excellent are We at measuring" — with a declaration of competence. The refrain announces the consequence of that competence. He who can measure will measure; and when the measuring is done, for some the outcome is wayl.

A lam najʿali'l-arḍa kifātā · Aḥyāʾan wa amwātā "Did We not make the earth a gatherer — of the living and of the dead?"

Root: ك-ف-ت. And this word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

There is no scattering among the lexicographers over the sense of the root; its core is clear: to draw a thing to oneself and gather it, to bring together, to take in.

• كَفَتَ — he gathered, he collected, he drew to himself; he fitted a thing into a place.
• كِفَات — the act of gathering; and the place gathered into, the vessel gathered into.
• The lexicographers record that the word carries the sense of a vessel or container: a place into which things are put and gathered.

There are two explanations of the word's pattern:

Both readings come out in the same place.

Now look at the next verse: أَحْيَآءً وَأَمْوَٰتًا — both in the accusative.

This is a point of grammar that has been dwelt on, because the accusative requires a cause. The explanations given:

The first explanation is striking, because it is grammar itself that shows the word to be a verbal noun: the accusative of aḥyāʾan wa amwātā is evidence that kifāt carries verbal force. A noun does not take an object; a verbal noun does.

That is, the structure of the sentence says: the earth is not a "gatherer"; it is an "act of gathering". The property of the earth is not that it is an object but that it is an action continually performed.

I record this as a grammatical inference; among the explanations I impose no decisive preference.

And now the real force of the word.

The verse does not say "We made the earth the place where the dead are gathered". It says "of the living and of the dead".

One ground, two different gatherings:

The earth is a two-layered vessel. It carries those who live above it and holds those who die beneath it. And for both the same word is used: kifāt.

What this single word does is this: it makes the difference between living and being buried two states of the same act. A human being is something the earth gathers when he is born, and so too when he dies. The earth does not change; the state of what is gathered changes.

And from here arises the argument of the sūra. I shall open it in the next section.

In the section on al-Zalzala the things the earth carries were called أَثْقَال (burdens). What is to be taken from there:

Root: ث-ق-ل. Thiql — a load, a heavy thing carried. Its plural is athqāl. And the exegetes differ over the scope of this word: the dead / buried treasures / both / whatever is inside the earth. And it was recorded there: "The word's coming without restriction is what produces this variety."

Also treated there was al-Zalzala's verb: أَخْرَجَ — to bring out. "The soil gives back what was put into it."

Now let us set the three words side by side:

The two sūras tell the inverse of one another and together frame a complete circle.

In al-Mursalāt the earth gathers: the living above, the dead beneath. In al-Zalzala the earth brings out: it gives up what is inside it.

And there is a logical relation between them — this is exactly al-Mursalāt's argument: a vessel that gathers is expected to give back what it has gathered. A place that has taken a thing into itself has taken it in order to hold it; and what is held may one day be asked for.

I record this as my own reading. The wordings of the two verses were given above.

And the disagreement in al-Zalzala echoes here too. There what athqāl is was disputed (the dead, treasures, everything) and the word's coming without restriction was recorded. Al-Mursalāt, by contrast, draws the limit plainly: aḥyāʾan wa amwātā. That is, al-Mursalāt fills the gap al-Zalzala left: what the earth gathers is living beings.

I record this shared feature as an observation; I do not claim a deliberate reference between the two sūras.

One detail of the word kifāt is worth dwelling on: the word conveys a vessel, not an expanse.

An expanse is unlimited; a vessel is limited. Everything put into a vessel shares the vessel's volume.

The verse does not say this — but the word carries it. And it coincides with this concrete fact: the earth is a place where those who live upon it and those who lie beneath it share the same surface. The graveyards of cities, the old settlements beneath fields, how many generations one piece of ground carries one upon another — all of this is inside a single vessel.

I record this not as a piece of information the verse conveys but as an observation the word calls to mind.

The third of the three proof sections does a different work from the first two:

• The first proof (16-18): It happened in the past → it will happen again. A proof from time.
• The second proof (20-23): It was done once → it will be done again. A proof from power.
• The third proof (25-27): The earth gathers → it will give back what it gathers. A proof from the ground.

All three follow the same method: to move from something the addressee sees to something he does not see.

And the order of the three is meaningful too: it comes from far to near. First the history of others, then his own body, then the ground beneath his feet. The sūra arranges its proofs by bringing them closer to the addressee.

I record this as my own reading.

Wa jaʿalnā fīhā rawāsiya shāmikhātin wa asqaynākum māʾan furātā "And We set in it firm, lofty mountains, and gave you sweet water to drink."

The second verse of the third proof section. The earth's gathering has been told; now two properties of that earth: its fixity and its water.

Root: ر-س-و. Its concrete sense: the fixing of a thing, its settling into place so that it does not move.

• رَسَا — it stood fixed, it cast anchor.
• مَرْسَى — the place where a ship casts anchor, a harbour. And in the Qurʾān it is used of the time of the Hour: "They ask you about the Hour: when will it cast anchor?" (al-Aʿrāf 7/187; al-Nāziʿāt 79/42) — ayyāna mursāhā.
• رَاسِيَات — those standing fixed. "And great cauldrons fixed in place" (Sabaʾ 34/13) — wa qudūrin rāsiyāt.
• رَوَاسِى — firm mountains that do not move. Regularly used of mountains in the Qurʾān.

The word's most instructive side is the field of seafaring. Marsā is the place where a ship casts anchor; irsāʾ is the casting of anchor. That is, the root tells of the fixing of something that moves.

Used of mountains, this yields an image: the mountains are told of not as weights laid upon the earth but as anchors that fix it.

And the Qurʾān says this plainly:

"He set firm mountains on the earth, lest it shake with you." (al-Naḥl 16/15) — wa alqā fi'l-arḍi rawāsiya an tamīda bikum.

The verb here is أَلْقَى — the verb of the fifth verse of this sūra (al-mulqiyāt). The same verb with two different objects: one delivers a dhikr, the other a mountain. I record this as a shared wording.

A limit must be set. The expression that the mountains "fix" the earth stands in the verse as the statement of a function. To look for a counterpart to this expression in modern earth science runs against the method of this commentary and I do not do it. The qualification recorded for suṭiḥat (the spreading out of the earth) in the section on al-Ghāshiya holds here too: the verse is not framed in order to answer a question about the physical structure of the earth or of the mountains. The addressee of the verse is a person who sees with his own eyes that a mountain does not shake, and the verse uses that observation.

Root: ش-م-خ. To rise, to be upright and high.

• شَامِخ — high, upright.
• شَمَخَ بِأَنْفِهِ — he lifted his nose in the air, that is, he grew proud. This is the Arabic idiom for pride.

The relation between the root's two branches is striking: the same word names both the height of a mountain and the pride of a human being. The difference lies in what the height rests on: a mountain rises with its root in the ground (rāsī — anchored); a proud human being merely lifts his head.

The verse sets these two words side by side: رَوَاسِىَ شَامِخَاتٍ — both fixed and lofty. That is, height is named together with fixity.

I record this as my own reading; the two senses of the root are the lexicographers' datum.

Note: the fixity of the mountains is taken up again with another word in Sūrat al-Nāziʿāt (wa'l-jibāla arsāhā). I give no reference to that section, since it is not yet complete; because the word is from the same root I confine myself to recording it here.

Root: س-ق-ي. Saqā — he gave water, he gave to drink. أَسْقَى (ifʿāl) — he gave to drink, he assigned water for irrigation.

The lexicographers record a difference between saqā and asqā: saqā is to give to drink directly (like handing someone a cup), whereas asqā is to assign water permanently — to provide a source of water, to give the means of irrigation. I transmit this distinction as a nicety the lexicographers record; I do not claim that it is applied strictly everywhere.

In the verse we have asqaynākum — that is, not a single act of giving to drink but a continuous provision of water.

Root: ف-ر-ت. Furāt — sweet water that quenches thirst. The word does not merely mean "unsalted"; it means water that satisfies when drunk, pleasant and clean.

The Qurʾān uses this word in two places together with its opposite:

"It is He who has let the two seas flow: one sweet and thirst-quenching, the other salt and bitter." (al-Furqān 25/53) — hādhā ʿadhbun furātun wa hādhā milḥun ujāj. "The two seas are not alike: one is sweet, thirst-quenching, pleasant to drink; the other salt and bitter." (Fāṭir 35/12)

In both verses its opposite is given as أُجَاج (salt and bitter).

Why does the choice of word matter? Because most of the water on the earth cannot be drunk. The verse does not say "We gave you water"; it says "We gave you sweet water to drink". What is given is not water but drinkable water.

This makes visible the condition beneath a favour that looks ordinary: there is water, but its being drinkable is another matter.

Now let us read 25-27 together:

1. The earth is a vessel: it gathers the living and the dead. (25-26) 2. In that earth there are firm, lofty mountains. (27a) 3. And We gave you sweet water to drink. (27b)

Three elements: gathering, fixity, water. That is, the three conditions of a place of settlement — shelter, firmness of ground, drinking water.

And note: the section is describing a house. This is the short form of what is done in more detail in Sūrat al-Nabaʾ; there the earth is called mihād (a bed), the mountains awtād (pegs), and an eleven-verse tableau is set up.

Al-Mursalāt does it in three verses. And its argument is the same: a place that has been built has a builder, and a builder has an expectation of the one who dwells there.

But with a difference. In al-Nabaʾ the tableau is only for the living. In al-Mursalāt the first verse counts the dead as well: aḥyāʾan wa amwātā. That is, the grave too enters the description of the house.

This is the tightest link in the sūra's argument, and I record it as my own reading: the earth is named in a single sentence as both cradle and grave. In the counting of the favour, death too is counted as part of the favour — because the vessel that gathers gathers them both.

The fourth refrain. After the last of the three proof sections.

And here there is a turning point: with this refrain the section of proofs closes. From verse 29 on the sūra stops offering proofs and moves to the scene.

The distinction recorded in the table above becomes visible here:

• 15-28: three proofs (history, body, earth). All open with a-lam, all are from this world.
• 29-40: four scenes. All are from that day.

The refrain stands as the hinge joining the two halves.

And in terms of sound there is a break here too: the verse-ending of verse 27 is furātā, that of the refrain al-mukadhdhibīn. This is one of the three ill-fitting transitions I recorded above. Coming immediately after the sweet water, this break in sound announces the change of section to the ear as well.

Inṭaliqū ilā mā kuntum bihī tukadhdhibūn "Go towards what you used to deny!"

Here the sūra passes from narration to address. For twenty-eight verses it had spoken in the third person (al-mukadhdhibīn, al-mujrimīn); now there is a direct call: "go".

Root: ط-ل-ق. The idea beneath the root is the loosing of a bond, being set free, being released.

• طَلَاق — the loosing of the bond of marriage. The Turkish talak comes from this.
• طَلِيق — one who has been set free, released.
• طَلْق — easy, unimpeded; wajh ṭalq — an open face.
• ٱنْطَلَقَ (the infiʿāl form) — he set out, he was loosed and went, he moved.

The nicety of the root lies here. Inṭaliq is not a neutral way of saying "go". Its root conveys being set free: what is loosed from its bond goes.

This produces the harshest side of the verse. The command stands like an order of consignment — but the root of the word implies that those who go are released in the direction they themselves have chosen.

And the object of the verse confirms this: "towards what you denied." The place gone to is the thing the addressee took his own position on.

I record this as my own reading; the sense of the root is not in dispute.

Another occurrence of the verb in the Qurʾān: in Sūrat al-Qalam, the morning setting-out of the men who went to gather their garden is told with this verb — fa'nṭalaqū wa hum yatakhāfatūn (68/23), "they set out, whispering to one another". There too the word tells of a group setting out together.

In the seventh verse of the sūra it was said "what you are promised", and what was promised was not said. For fourteen verses the refrain said "the deniers", and what they denied was not said.

Here the object is given — but again indirectly: "what you denied".

That is, the sūra does not name the object plainly; it describes it by the addressee's own stance. It is not named, it is pointed at.

The consequence is this: the object is defined by the addressee's own refusal. He goes towards what he denied. And in the thirtieth verse it will be seen what that thing is.

كُنتُم … تُكَذِّبُونَ — kāna + imperfect. In Arabic this combination conveys continuity and habit: "you kept denying", "denying was your constant state". Not a word said once but a position held through a lifetime.

And this pattern will occur once more in the sūra — but on the other side: bimā kuntum taʿmalūn (43) — "for what you used to do". The same pattern, in two tableaux: one telling of a continuous refusal, the other of continuous work.

I record this as a symmetry of wording.

Inṭaliqū ilā ẓillin dhī thalāthi shuʿab · Lā ẓalīlin wa lā yughnī mina'l-lahab

"Go towards a shade with three branches — that gives no shade, and does not avail against the flame."

The sūra's harshest irony and one of the densest pairs of verses in the Qurʾān.

Inṭaliqū comes twice in succession (29 and 30). Repetition is already part of the sūra's general method; but here its function is different: the first command did not say where to go (what you denied), the second does (a shade).

That is, the second command is the explanation of the first. And the explanation puts on the language of an invitation.

Root: ظ-ل-ل. Ẓill — shade. From the same root:

• ظَلَّ — to be in a state through the day, to continue in it. "His face darkens" (al-Naḥl 16/58) — ẓalla wajhuhū muswaddan.
• ظِلَال — shades (plural). This will come in verse 41 of this sūra.
• ظُلَّة — a canopy, a covering; and used of punishment as well (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/189, yawm al-ẓulla).
• مِظَلَّة — a tent, a canopy.

The place of shade in desert culture. To understand this verse one must know what the word called to the addressee's mind.

In Arabia shade is not an aesthetic element but a condition of survival. To be left without shade in the middle of the day turns dangerous in a short time. This is why the Qurʾān regularly counts shade as a favour:

• "Have they not seen that of the things God has created He has made shades for you?" (al-Naḥl 16/81)
• "Its fruit is perpetual, and its shade too." (al-Raʿd 13/35)
• "They and their spouses recline on couches in the shades." (Yāsīn 36/56)

So the sentence "go to the shade" carries, in the addressee's ear, the sound of an invitation, indeed of a hospitality. It is the best thing that can be said to someone fleeing the heat.

And the thirty-first verse destroys that sound.

شُعَب — the plural of شُعْبَة.

Root: ش-ع-ب. And this root is among those the lexicographers count as aḍdād (a word that also means its own opposite):

• شَعَبَ — recorded as meaning both he separated, he divided and he joined, he gathered.
• شُعْبَة — a branch, an arm, a diverging end.
• شِعْب — a mountain pass, the cleft road between two slopes.
• شَعْب — a people, a folk. "We made you into peoples and tribes" (al-Ḥujurāt 49/13) — shuʿūban wa qabāʾil.

I transmit the root's being counted among the aḍdād as a view the lexicographers record; I do not claim that all lexicographers agree on it. But the common idea beneath the two senses can be seen: branches diverging from a single trunk are both separated and attached to the same trunk. Separation and union are present together in branching.

The image in the verse. Ẓillin dhī thalāthi shuʿab — a shade divided into three branches.

The explanation given in the classical sources is this, and it is reasonable: this is smoke. A thick rising column of smoke branches at the top and divides into three separate arms. Seen from a distance it looks like something that casts a shade.

The Qurʾān's own expression supports this:

"And in a shade of black smoke — neither cool nor kindly." (al-Wāqiʿa 56/43-44) — wa ẓillin min yaḥmūm · lā bāridin wa lā karīm.

The two verses are of exactly the same structure: a shade + two negations. In al-Wāqiʿa "neither cool nor kindly"; in al-Mursalāt "it gives no shade and does not avail against the flame".

Why the number "three"? Various explanations are transmitted in the classical sources. None of them has support in the text, and I offer no interpretation of the number. What can be recorded is this: the branching of smoke is something observable, and the number may be telling of the branching itself. Beyond that is guesswork.

And the sharpest word in the sūra.

ظَلِيل — an adjective on the faʿīl pattern, conveying intensity: "truly shading, fully a shade".

The Qurʾān uses this word once more — and there it is positive:

"We shall admit them to gardens from which they will never depart… and We shall admit them to a deep shade." (al-Nisāʾ 4/57) — wa nudkhiluhum ẓillan ẓalīlā.

In al-Nisāʾ the construct is ẓillan ẓalīlā: the shade is intensified by its shadiness. In al-Mursalāt it is ẓillin lā ẓalīl: the shade is named with its shadiness denied.

The same two words, one affirmed and one negated. This shows the fineness of the word's selection.

And the logic of the expression: the verse does not say "there is no shade". It says "there is a shade, but it gives no shade".

That is, the object is present, its function absent. The name stands, the work is not done.

This is a structure met once before in this commentary and treated in the section on al-Ghāshiya:

"They will have no food but a dry thorn — which neither nourishes nor takes away hunger." (al-Ghāshiya 88/6-7) — lā yusminu wa lā yughnī min jūʿ.

The conclusion recorded there was: "what is described is a substance counted as food but not food."

Let us set the two verses side by side:

The same verb is used in both verses: يُغْنِى.

Root: غ-ن-ي. This root was treated in the section on ʿAbasa: "the root غ-ن-ي: istaghnā (an illusion) → yughnīh (the reality); self-sufficiency is granted to whoever wants it." And the core of the root is to suffice, to meet a need, to free from want. Ghaniyy — rich, that is, not in need of another.

In both verses the verb comes negated: lā yughnī — it does not suffice, it does not meet the need.

We can write the shared structure as a rule — and I record this as my own reading:

There is a technique repeated in the Qurʾān's descriptions of Hell: an object is named with the name of its own category and the function of that category is denied. The food does not feed, the shade does not shade, the water is not drunk.

The effect this technique produces differs from a direct description of punishment. A direct description tells of a pain. This technique tells of the frustration of an expectation — which is something other than the pain itself.

The measure recorded in the section on al-Ghāshiya holds here too: what that sūra works on from the start is the difference between the apparent and the real. The same measure was present in the section on al-Fīl: "the difference between apparent size and real durability."

This too should be recorded: what produces the irony is not the words of the verse but the mood of the command.

The verse does not say "they will be driven to a shade". It says "go to the shade" — in the mood of invitation, as though offering hospitality.

And one verse later the invitation is emptied out.

This is a manner found elsewhere in the Qurʾān as well, and it will meet us once more in this sūra: in verse 46 it will say "eat, enjoy yourselves a little" — again in the imperative, again with the sound of hospitality, again meaning the opposite.

The grammarians call this mood the imperative of threat (amr al-tahdīd) or the imperative of humiliation (amr al-ihāna): a word said in the imperative that is not a command. Its clearest example in the Qurʾān: "Do what you will!" (Fuṣṣilat 41/40).

The sūra uses this mood twice, and both do the same work: they show the addressee the outcome of what he has chosen by naming it.

Root: ل-ه-ب. Lahab — the flame itself; pure flame without smoke.

The word occurred in this commentary in the section on al-Masad — both as a by-name (Abū Lahab) and as an attribute of the fire (nāran dhāta lahab, 111/3).

And a detail of the image: lahab means flame, dukhān smoke. The verse frames the two together: what casts the shade is smoke, what one wants protection from is flame. That is, the shade is the very product of the thing one wants protection from.

To take refuge in the smoke of a fire is not to escape the fire. I record this as my own reading.

Innahā tarmī bi-shararin ka'l-qaṣr · Ka-annahū jimālatun ṣufr

"It throws up sparks like a castle · as though they were yellow camels."

Innahā — a feminine singular pronoun. Who?

Two explanations are given in the classical sources:

There is no practical difference between the two. A pronoun's referring to something not stated plainly is ordinary in Arabic; a similar case was treated in this commentary at al-ʿĀdiyāt 100/4 (bihī).

Root: ش-ر-ر. Sharar — sparks; its singular is sharāra.

This word was mentioned in this commentary in the section on al-Falaq, where the following qualification was set down:

From the same root come sharār / sharar — a spark. In the Qurʾān it is used of the fire of Hell: "It throws up sparks like a castle" (al-Mursalāt 77/32). Some lexicographers draw a link of meaning between "evil" and "spark": what leaps, what spreads, what sets alight. This association is interesting but not certain in terms of language; I record it as an association.

I repeat the same qualification here. The relation between sharr (evil) and sharar (spark) is not certain and I build no interpretation upon it.

تَرْمِى — to throw, to hurl. Root ر-م-ي. The verb conveys a thing's being flung far. And it comes in the imperfect: it throws continually, not once.

The spark's being the size of a castle is the real image the verse carries.

A spark is the smallest part of a fire — a mote that appears for an instant in the air and dies. The verse measures it by a castle: by the size of a structure, a building.

This is the reverse of the technique recorded in the section on al-Fīl. There what was great (the elephant, the army) was made small (ʿaṣf — straw). Here what is small is made great. In both cases the scale is broken, and the breaking of the scale delivers a judgement.

There is a disagreement over the reading of the word:

On the second reading the simile becomes: the sparks are like thick logs piled up.

Both are transmitted and both give a meaningful image. I give no imām's name. Nor do I impose a preference: the first reading gives the size, the second gives both the size and the shape (long, thick pieces).

A note on the root قَصْر. The primary sense of the root ق-ص-ر is to shorten, to limit, to confine (qaṣr, taqṣīr, maqṣūr). The relation of the word qaṣr (a castle) to this root is explained by the lexicographers as "an enclosed, walled structure". I transmit this explanation as a view the lexicographers record.

And the verse lays one simile on top of another. This is not something often seen in the Qurʾān.

كَأَنَّ — a particle of comparison: "as though". It is stronger than ka; ka makes a comparison, ka-anna comes close to establishing identity.

The pronoun's being masculine. Ka-annahū — masculine singular. But what is compared is sharar (a plural). The grammarians explain this by the pronoun's referring to the class of شَرَر, the singular of sharar, or to each individual spark. That is, "each one is as though…".

The second most disputed word in the sūra.

There is disagreement over the reading and more than one variant is transmitted (jimālat, jimālāt, jimāla, jumālāt). I give no imām's name.

In meaning there are two separate directions:

There are two explanations of صُفْر as well:

• Yellow — the word's established sense (aṣfar, yellow). It fits the colour of fire.
• A dark colour tending to black — the lexicographers record that in Arabic the black of camels is called ṣufr, because black camels' hair has a tone tending to yellow.

I impose no preference. I record three things:

One. The camel reading is the more widespread and is the image with the strongest counterpart in the addressee's eye. In Arabia the camel is the measure of size.

Two. The rope reading has a force of its own: sparks travel through the air lengthening; the rope simile gives that lengthening, the camel simile does not. Moreover "like a castle" (volume) and "like a rope" (shape) complete one another.

Three. Neither reading runs against the text, and the word itself already carries both senses. This is a richness often seen in the Qurʾān; as recorded in this commentary in the section on al-Ikhlāṣ, a word not locked onto a single reading is a gain, not a loss.

Ka'l-qaṣr + ka-annahū jimālatun ṣufr.

The two similes come from two different fields:

• A castle — man-made, fixed, architectural.
• A camel (or a rope) — living or manufactured, moving, from seafaring/the desert.

And both measure the same thing: size. But one is a size that stands, the other a size that moves.

For a spark, when these two measures are joined, the image that emerges is: pieces of fire the size of a building, moving in a herd.

I record this as a reading.

And a structural note. The verse-endings of the sūra break here for the second time (ṣufr, then al-mukadhdhibīn). This is one of the three ill-fitting transitions I recorded above — and its position is meaningful: immediately after the densest image, the refrain cuts the sound and returns to the judgement.

The fifth refrain. After the scene of the driving to Hell.

And exactly in the middle: the fifth of the ten refrains. It is the 34th verse of the sūra's 50; but by the count of the refrains it is the middle station.

Hādhā yawmu lā yanṭiqūn · Wa lā yuʾdhanu lahum fa-yaʿtadhirūn

"This is a day on which they will not speak · Nor will they be permitted, that they might offer an excuse."

The shortest section of the sūra (two verses) and the place where its tightest internal link is completed.

هَٰذَا — a demonstrative: "this". The scene is no longer told from a distance; it is shown by pointing.

And a grammatical detail: the word yawmu here is not in the genitive, and what it is annexed to is a clause (lā yanṭiqūn). In Arabic the annexation of an adverb of time to a clause is ordinary, and two syntactic readings are recorded (yawmu / yawma). It makes no difference to the sense: "the day on which they do not speak".

The extraordinary side of the expression is this: the day is named by something that is not on that day. Not "the day of reckoning", not "the day of separation", but "the day on which they cannot speak".

A day is named by an absence.

Root: ن-ط-ق. And the choice of word here is decisive.

Arabic has more than one word for speaking, and they do not say the same thing:

Nuṭq is being able to pronounce a word. This is why logic is called مَنْطِق in Arabic: the correct articulation of speech. And the definition used of man is ḥayawān nāṭiq — "the speaking animal".

• مَنْطِق — speech, language. "We have been taught the speech of birds" (al-Naml 27/16) — ʿullimnā manṭiqa'ṭ-ṭayr.
• أَنْطَقَ — to make speak. "God, who makes everything speak, has made us speak" (Fuṣṣilat 41/21).

The nicety in the choice of word: the verse does not say "they are silent", nor "they say nothing". It says "they cannot articulate" — that is, the sound is not formed.

This differs from silence. One who is silent can speak but does not. What is told here is that the capacity itself does not work.

And the Qurʾān uses this verb in a very meaningful place: of idols.

"Do you worship things that hear you, or profit you, or harm you?" … "Ask it, if they can speak." (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/63) "What is the matter with you, that you do not speak?" (al-Ṣāffāt 37/92)

In both verses Abraham uses this verb while mocking the idols. The definition of an idol is: that which cannot speak.

And in this sūra the same verb is used of the people on that day.

I record this as an observation. I do not claim a deliberate reference between the two sūras; but the verb's field of use in the Qurʾān sets the tone of this verse.

There are many verses in the Qurʾān stating that people speak on that day:

• "By God our Lord, we were not mushrikūn" (al-Anʿām 6/23).
• "On that day every soul comes pleading for itself" (al-Naḥl 16/111) — tujādilu ʿan nafsihā.
• The disputes of the people of the Fire with one another (al-Aʿrāf 7/38-39; Sabaʾ 34/31-33).

This is a known question of classical exegesis, and the solutions put forward are these:

The second solution is the one that best fits the verse's own structure, because verse 36 explains verse 35: not speaking is defined as not being able to offer an excuse.

The first solution is also widespread and rests on the observation that the Qurʾān's scenes of the resurrection tell of different moments. The two do not exclude one another.

I impose no preference; but the verses' internal structure (the wāw linking 35 and 36 and the relation of explanation) supports the second solution.

Root: أ-ذ-ن. And this root was treated in detail in this commentary in the section on al-Inshiqāq. What is to be taken from there makes this verse read quite differently:

At the centre of this root there is an organ: أُذُن (udhun) — the ear. All the root's derivatives come out of that organ: | أُذُن | Ear | | أَذِنَ لِـ | He gave ear, he listened | | أَذِنَ لَهُ فِى | He permitted | | إِذْن | Permission | | أَذَان | The call to prayer; the call brought to the ear | And it was recorded there: "In English 'permission' and 'ear' have no link; in Arabic they are the same word. In Arabic to permit someone is in fact to listen to him: the request has reached the ear and been accepted. Permission is the outcome of listening."

Now return to the verse: wa lā yuʾdhanu lahum.

Taking the root of the word into account, the verse says: no ear is given to them.

That is, the problem is not a procedural obstacle. The possibility of speech is absent because there is no one listening. If the root of idhn is the ear, the withholding of permission is the closing of the ear.

I record this reading as an interpretation I draw from the sense of the root. The root's relation to the ear is the lexicographers' datum and was treated with its source in the section on al-Inshiqāq.

And a contrast with al-Inshiqāq arises. There the sky adhinat to its Lord — it gave ear. Here to man lā yuʾdhanu — no ear is given.

The same root, in two sūras, in two directions: the sky listens, man is not listened to. I record this as an observation.

An indication within the Qurʾān:

"On that day no one will speak except him whom the Most Merciful permits and who speaks rightly." (al-Nabaʾ 78/38)

This verse is the best explanation of the two verses before us: speech depends on permission. And the permission carries two conditions — having been given, and speaking rightly.

"When that day comes, no soul will speak except by His permission." (Hūd 11/105)

Root: ع-ذ-ر — the root of the sixth verse of the sūra.

The nicety in grammar — and the point the grammarians have dwelt on. The نَ at the end of the verb stands: فَيَعْتَذِرُونَ. That is, the verb is nominative, not accusative.

This looks like a detail but it changes the meaning, and this verse is regularly cited as an example in the classical works of grammar.

In Arabic a فَ coming after a negative clause can work in two ways:

The verse has the second. And the difference is this: on the accusative reading the existence of an excuse would be implied and the only obstacle would be permission. On the nominative reading two things are announced separately: permission is not given, and no excuse is offered either.

That is, the failure to offer an excuse is not tied to the withholding of permission. It is stated as an independent fact.

This detail is decisive, because it gives exactly the meaning of the link framed with the sixth verse of the sūra: in the sixth verse the ground of excuse had already been removed. There is nothing to offer. Even were permission given, since there is no excuse to offer, the two negations stand independent of one another.

I ground this on the syntactic difference the grammarians record for this verse; the interpretation of the difference's effect on the meaning is my own reading.

Now let us complete the link.

The sūra closes the door of excuse in the sixth verse and shows in the thirty-sixth that the door is closed.

And the chain of reasoning between them is this:

The warning was sent (5) → no ground of excuse remained (6) → … → permission to offer an excuse is not given (36).

The second step makes the third necessary. If the ground of excuse has already been removed, there is no point in hearing an excuse. The withholding of permission is not an arbitrariness but a consistency.

The logic of al-Nisāʾ 4/165 is completed here: "so that after the messengers people would have no argument against God." If no argument remains, no session for presenting arguments is opened either.

I offer this link as my own reading; the roots and wordings of the two verses are plain in the text.

Other verses of the Qurʾān look the same way:

• "On that day their excuses will not profit the wrongdoers." (al-Rūm 30/57; similarly Ghāfir 40/52)
• "Do not offer excuses today; you are only being repaid for what you did." (al-Taḥrīm 66/7) — lā taʿtadhirū'l-yawm. The same verb, the same form.

The last verse is the counterpart of the verse before us: in al-Mursalāt it is said that permission is not given, in al-Taḥrīm it is forbidden outright.

The sixth refrain. After the scene of silence.

And here something should be recorded: the refrain is itself an act of speech. For two verses those who cannot speak have been described; immediately afterwards the text speaks and delivers a judgement.

The side that speaks on that day and the side that cannot are separated in this two-verse transition. I record this as my own reading.

Hādhā yawmu'l-faṣl · Jamaʿnākum wa'l-awwalīn · Fa-in kāna lakum kaydun fa-kīdūn

"This is the day of separation · We have gathered you and the former peoples · So if you have a scheme, then scheme against Me!"

The construct yawm al-faṣl occurs three times in the sūra:

The three occurrences trace a line of distance. In the thirteenth verse the day is a point ahead; in the fourteenth it is too far to be known; in the thirty-eighth it is near enough to be pointed at.

This is the sūra's narrative technique: within the text the day draws towards the reader. And verse 35 too had begun with the same demonstrative (hādhā yawmu lā yanṭiqūn). Two hādhās show that we have entered the scene.

I record this as my own reading; the wordings of the three verses are plain in the text.

And the name keeps its link with the fourth verse of the sūra. The link between the oath's al-fāriqāt and the day's al-faṣl was framed at verse 13. Here we are inside that day.

Root: ج-م-ع. To gather, to bring together. This root was treated in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt (jamʿan — a company).

The verb is in the perfect: jamaʿnā — "We have gathered". The past tense for an event that has not yet happened — the taḥaqquq pattern recorded above at verses 8-11. But there is a difference here: there the verbs were passive, here they are active and the agent is the first person plural. The scene is now told from the agent's own mouth.

وَٱلْأَوَّلِينَ — and the former peoples.

This word occurred in the sixteenth verse of the sūra: a lam nuhliki'l-awwalīn.

The two verses close a circle. Destruction was not the end of the matter: those destroyed too are gathered. The sūra's first proof (history) is here tied to the hereafter.

And this completes the argument of the first proof: the end of those destroyed in the past was not merely to disappear; they too are summoned to the same day. That is, the destruction in history was not an end but a sign.

I record this as my own reading.

A change of address. Jamaʿnākum — "you". The addressee is the second person plural. But al-awwalīn is third person. In one sentence two groups are named with two different grammatical persons: the listeners are "you", the others "they". And both are gathered in the same place.

The sūra's harshest sentence, and a typical example of the Qurʾān's manner of taʿjīz (demonstrating incapacity).

كَيْد — root: ك-ي-د. This root was treated twice in this commentary: in the section on al-Fīl (a lam yajʿal kaydahum fī taḍlīl) and in the section on al-Ṭāriq (innahum yakīdūna kaydā wa akīdu kaydā). What is to be taken from there:

The root k-y-d: to try to do something secretly and by indirect means; to prepare an arrangement the other side cannot see. The word's most defining feature is secrecy — an open attack is not called kayd. This is why the Qurʾān generally uses the word kayd of the scheme the strong lays against the weak.

And what was added in the section on al-Ṭāriq: when kayd is ascribed to God it is "not a malicious trick; it is the response that turns a scheme back upon its author."

Here the word's position is different. In al-Fīl the kayd was brought to nothing; in al-Ṭāriq kayd was answered with kayd. Here, by contrast, they are invited to scheme.

And the invitation is plainly a mockery.

Why? Because the definition of kayd is secrecy; and on that day no secrecy remains. Verses 35-36 of the sūra said that even speech is not possible. For someone who cannot speak to lay a secret plan is impossible in the word's own logic.

That is, the challenge is not an empty threat but is made by definition: a scheme cannot be laid where the ground on which it is laid has disappeared.

I record this as my own reading.

فَكِيدُونِ — the kasra at the end. At the end of the verb there is a نِ with a kasra beneath it; this is the dropped form of يَاء المتكلم (the first person singular pronoun). Its original is fa-kīdūnī — "scheme against me". The yāʾ has been dropped to fit the verse-ending, and the kasra has remained.

This is a preference often seen at verse-ends in the Qurʾān; there are parallels in Sūrat al-Fajr and elsewhere. And the dropped letter does not change the meaning: the object is still the first person singular.

And the object's being first person singular is striking. The preceding sentence was plural: jamaʿnākum — "We gathered". In this sentence it moves to the singular: fa-kīdūnī — "scheme against Me".

Transitions between the plural of majesty and the singular are ordinary in the Qurʾān. But the transition here has a function: the challenge is directed to a single addressee, and directly. I record this as an observation.

The same pattern in the Qurʾān:

"Then scheme against me, all of you, and give me no respite." (Hūd 11/55) — fa-kīdūnī jamīʿan thumma lā tunẓirūn. The words of Noah to his people. "Call your partners, then scheme against me, and give me no respite." (al-Aʿrāf 7/195) — thumma kīdūni fa-lā tunẓirūn.

In both verses there is the same verb and the same pattern — and in both the speaker is a prophet, the addressee his own people.

In al-Mursalāt, by contrast, the speaker is God. The same challenge, spoken by a prophet, is an expression of courage; here it is a verdict.

I record this difference as an observation.

Let us read the two verses together:

1. This is the day of separation. 2. We have gathered you and the former peoples. 3. If you can scheme, then scheme.

The third sentence is the consequence of the first two. When the gathering is complete, the only remaining means of escape is kayd — because kayd is the one thing the weak has against the strong: secrecy.

And that too is gone.

The finding recorded in the section on al-Fīl finds its exact place here: "There is no battle scene in the sūra at all. The army does not resist, does not flee, does not fight. This is a judgement the telling frames by its own means: the other side never found the chance to be the subject of the event."

Al-Mursalāt frames the same judgement by another route: the other side is invited to be the subject, and the invitation goes unanswered.

The seventh refrain. After the scene of the gathering and the challenge.

And here the second half of the sūra closes. Verses 29-40 were three sections: the driving, the silence, the gathering and the challenge. The next section is the sūra's only counter-tableau.

Inna'l-muttaqīna fī ẓilālin wa ʿuyūn · Wa fawākiha mimmā yashtahūn

"The godwary are in shades and springs · and fruits of the kind they desire."

The sūra's only counter-tableau. For forty verses a single side has been told of; here a four-verse other side enters.

The sentence begins with إِنَّ and there is no conjunction. The preceding verse had ended with wayl; this verse begins straight off with inna'l-muttaqīn.

In Arabic this transition is called isti'nāf: a new sentence without a conjunction. And the dropping of the conjunction between two sentences (faṣl), as recorded in the section on al-Ṭāriq, shows that the second sentence is in a tight relation with the first.

Here the relation is contrast. And the absence of the conjunction does not soften the contrast but sharpens it: the two tableaux are set side by side with no transitional word between them.

Root: و-ق-ي. Waqā — he protected, he was a shield. ٱتَّقَىٰ (the iftiʿāl form) — he protected himself, he guarded himself. مُتَّقِى — one who guards himself.

• وِقَايَة — protection, a shield.
• تَقْوَىٰ — the state of being guarded.
• أَتْقَىٰ — the most guarded.

The concrete sense of the root is a shield: the thing placed between a person and harm.

And here there is an observation which I record as my own reading: the first thing counted as the godwary's reward is shade.

What is shade? What comes between the sun and a person — that is, a shield.

A muttaqī is one who guards himself. And the place he is put in is a place that guards. The root of the word and the character of the reward do the same work: a shield.

I record this not as a claim of shared root — و-ق-ي and ظ-ل-ل are separate roots — but as a conceptual correspondence, and I state that it is my own reading.

Here is the sūra's plainest internal contrast.

There is a contrast in all six rows. And the most striking is the last: beside the false shade there is fire, beside the real shade water.

The singular/plural difference is meaningful too. In the thirtieth verse there was a single shade and it had been divided into three — that is, what was one had been broken up. In the forty-first verse the shades are plural and undivided.

I record this as my own reading; the wordings of the two verses are plain in the text.

And the difference of mood is perhaps the most important. In the thirtieth verse the addressee was told "go" — he was asked to move. In the forty-first there is no command at all; the godwary are already there: fī ẓilāl.

One is on the way, the other has arrived.

Root: ع-ي-ن. ʿAyn — both eye and spring. The same word.

This root was treated in the section on al-Ghāshiya (ʿaynin āniya / ʿaynun jāriya) and there the contrast of two springs was framed: one boiling, one flowing.

That the eye and the spring are named with the same word is one of Arabic's striking preferences. Both are an opening from which a liquid comes out of a surface. And the Qurʾān sometimes uses this shared name.

The meaning of a spring in the desert. Like shade, a spring in Arabia is not an aesthetic element but a condition of life. A ʿayn is the centre of an oasis; settlement is built around it.

In its description of the Garden the sūra places two things side by side: shade and water. That is, the two basic needs of the daytime.

And the link with verse 27. In the third proof section of the sūra it was said: "We gave you sweet water to drink" — māʾan furātā.

Here there are springs. The water in this world was a proof; the water there is a reward.

I record this as a link of wording: the sūra gives also the counterpart of what it counted as a proof.

Root: ف-ك-ه. And the root has two branches:

• فَاكِهَة — fruit. Its plural is fawākih.
• فُكَاهَة — pleasant conversation, jesting, cheerfulness. تَفَكُّه — to pass the time pleasantly, to take one's enjoyment.

The link between the two branches is framed by the lexicographers thus: fākiha is not necessary food (qūt, ṭaʿām) but what is eaten for pleasure. That is, the definition of fruit is not need but delight.

This distinction is at work in the Qurʾān: fākiha and ṭaʿām are not the same thing. What fills the belly is ṭaʿām; fākiha is what comes on top of it.

And the verse confirms this: مِمَّا يَشْتَهُونَ — "of the kind they desire".

ٱشْتَهَىٰ — root: ش-ه-و. Shahwa — a strong wanting felt for something. The usual English rendering, "lust", has narrowed in the same way; in Arabic the word is used for any strong desire whatever.

What the verse says is this: the fruit given is not a determined fruit; it is the desired fruit. The measure comes not from outside but from the one who desires.

This sets up a contrast with another measure in the sūra. In the tableau of Hell there was no food; in al-Ghāshiya there was ḍarīʿ — something unwanted, uneaten. Here, by contrast, the choice is left to the one who wants.

And a note: the verb ishtahā is of the iftiʿāl form, and this form often conveys effort, the person's own participation. That is, the desire is not a passive longing but an inclination proceeding from the person himself.

Kulū wa'shrabū hanīʾan bimā kuntum taʿmalūn · Innā kadhālika najzi'l-muḥsinīn

"Eat and drink with relish, for what you used to do · Thus indeed do We reward those who do good."

In verse 30 the sūra used the imperative: inṭaliqū — and that command was not a real invitation.

Here there is the imperative again: kulū wa'shrabū. And this time it is real.

The difference between the two commands lies not in the mood itself but in what follows:

The sūra uses the same mood twice, with two opposite functions. And it will use it a third time in verse 46 — where it will again be a threat.

This shows that the mood itself carries no meaning: what an imperative is is determined by the words beside it.

Root: ه-ن-أ. Hanaʾa — it was pleasant, easy and harmless. هَنِيء — pleasant to eat, leaving no trouble behind.

The lexicographers' description is decisive: hanīʾ does not merely mean "tasty". It means easy to digest, leaving no discomfort behind.

It occurs once more in the Qurʾān, as part of a pair:

"If they of their own accord remit to you a part of it, then consume it with relish and ease." (al-Nisāʾ 4/4) — fa-kulūhu hanīʾan marīʾā.

There hanīʾ comes together with marīʾ, which also conveys ease of digestion.

The nicety in the choice of word: every favour in this world has a price, an aftermath, a reckoning. Hanīʾ announces that this is not so — a pleasantness with nothing behind it.

This is meaningful when the sūra is looked at as a whole: from beginning to end the sūra speaks of the reckoning. And one of the first words used in the tableau of the godwary is the word that announces what has no reckoning.

I record this as my own reading.

And here there is a question classical exegesis has long debated.

The particle بِ does more than one work in Arabic. Two of them have been debated here:

This question has been debated in the literature of theology as well, and the source of the debate is the apparent tension between the verse and a well-known report meaning "no one enters the Garden by his deed". I do not cite the source of the report here, because I cannot give it with certainty.

The solutions put forward in the classical sources:

All three solutions have been defended in the classical sources. I impose no preference and I frame no legal or theological ruling.

But this should be recorded: the wording of the verse does mention the deed, and does not stop at mentioning it — the next verse gives the rule of the reward as well.

كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ — the pattern of continuity. As recorded above at verse 29, this pattern occurs twice in the sūra:

• Kuntum bihī tukadhdhibūn (29) — you kept denying.
• Kuntum taʿmalūn (43) — you kept doing.

The same pattern, in two tableaux. And the contrast is in the wording itself: in one what is sustained is a refusal, in the other a work.

I record this symmetry as my own reading.

The same sentence within the Qurʾān:

"Eat and drink with relish, for what you used to do." (al-Ṭūr 52/19) — exactly the same expression. "Eat and drink with relish, for what you sent ahead in the days gone by." (al-Ḥāqqa 69/24) — bimā aslaftum fi'l-ayyāmi'l-khāliya.

The difference in al-Ḥāqqa is striking: there the verb is aslafa — to send ahead. The deed is named as something sent on in advance.

And here there is a symmetry with verse 18.

The two sentences are on the same pattern and are the rule-sentences of the sūra's two tableaux.

In one mujrimīn, in the other muḥsinīn — both attributes, both definite (al-), both plural, not both in the same metre but both in the same position.

And the difference between the two verbs should be recorded:

• نَفْعَلُ (18) — "we do". A general, neutral verb. What is done is not said.
• نَجْزِى (44) — "we reward". Root ج-ز-ي: to give the equivalent of a thing, to pay its counterpart.

That is, to the guilty something "is done", to those who do good "a recompense is given". The second verb conveys an equivalence, the first does not.

I record this as my own reading.

ٱلْمُحْسِنِين — root: ح-س-ن. Ḥusn — beauty, goodness. إِحْسَان — to do a work well; and to do good without return.

The word has two aspects and both are at work in the Qurʾān:

• The quality of the work: to do a thing completely, well.
• Goodness to another: to give more than is deserved.

And an observation: in this tableau the sūra does not name those addressed muʾminīn. It says muḥsinīn — that is, not by the name of a belief but by the name of a work.

This is symmetrical with the addressee of the refrain: mukadhdhibīn too is the name of a work (denying). The sūra names both sides by what they do.

I record this as an observation.

The eighth refrain. And after the tableau of the Garden.

The function of this placement was taken up above under the heading "The function of the repetition"; I do not repeat it. In brief: the refrain's being placed here suggests that the tableau of the Garden is not an independent section but is set up to show what the addressee is losing.

One further detail: verse 44 ends with al-muḥsinīn, verse 45 with al-mukadhdhibīn. The two verse-endings are in the same sound (-īn) and the two words are in the same position. Sound puts the two groups side by side; meaning separates them.

And this is the very operation from which the sūra's name is taken: yawm al-faṣl.

Kulū wa tamattaʿū qalīlan innakum mujrimūn "Eat, enjoy yourselves a little — you are the guilty."

From this point in the sūra the sections come down to a single verse. And the addressee changes: the preceding section told of the godwary, this verse calls directly to the deniers.

Kulū — "eat". This verb occurred in the preceding section too (verse 43).

The same verb, three verses apart, in two opposite functions.

And what produces the difference is not the verb itself but the two words set beside it: hanīʾan (with relish) and qalīlan (for a little while).

This is one of the most economical places in the sūra. By changing a single adverb, the same command ceases to be hospitality and becomes a threat.

I record this as my own reading; the wordings of the two verses are plain in the text.

Root: م-ت-ع. Matāʿ — a temporary benefit, a thing used up, a provision.

• مَتَاع — temporary goods, property, provision. The Qurʾān regularly uses this word of this world: "These are the temporary enjoyment of the life of this world" (Āl ʿImrān 3/14 — this verse was treated in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt).
• تَمَتُّع (the tafaʿʿul form) — to benefit from something, to take one's enjoyment of it.
• مُتْعَة — temporary enjoyment.

The root's defining feature is transience. Matāʿ is not lasting property; like a traveller's provision, it runs out as it is used.

And the verse stresses this transience a second time: قَلِيلًا — a little. That is, the word itself already conveys transience, and "a little" is added on top of it.

The syntax of قَلِيلًا: it is either an adverb of time (zamanan qalīlan — a short time) or an absolute object (tamattuʿan qalīlan — a small enjoying). Both readings are recorded; there is no great difference in sense.

This manner occurs in several places in the Qurʾān and in all of them does the same work:

• "Do what you will; He sees what you do." (Fuṣṣilat 41/40)
• "Enjoy yourselves a little; then your journey's end is the Fire." (Ibrāhīm 14/30) — tamattaʿū fa-inna maṣīrakum ila'n-nār.

The second verse is almost identical with the one before us: the same verb, the same note of transience, and the judgement that follows.

The logic of the pattern is this: the imperative commands what the addressee is already doing. No one is stopped; only the name and the term of what is being done are stated.

And this is the same logic as inṭaliqū in verse 30 of the sūra: there too the addressee was already going "to what he denied"; the command only named the direction. As recorded earlier in this commentary (the sections on al-Ghāshiya and al-Ṭāriq), the limit the Qurʾān draws for the messenger is to convey, not to produce the outcome — and this manner is the expression of that limit: no intervention, only naming.

مُجْرِمُون — this word occurred in the eighteenth verse of the sūra: kadhālika nafʿalu bi'l-mujrimīn.

There it was third person and a general attribute. Here it is second person and direct: innakum mujrimūn — "you are the guilty".

And this frames one of the most important connections in the sūra.

The forty-sixth verse joins the two attributes. In the eighteenth verse it had said "thus do We deal with the guilty"; the refrain said "woe to the deniers". Now, directly to the addressee: "you are the guilty."

That is, the sūra says here that the mujrim of the rule-sentence and the mukadhdhib of the refrain are the same person.

This is the same movement recorded in the section on al-Muṭaffifīn:

The muṭaffif of the first verse and the mukadhdhib of the tenth are the same person — one named by his act, the other by his belief.

Al-Mursalāt does the same work, but keeps the chain longer: across an interval of twenty-eight verses.

The structure of the sentence is meaningful too. Innakum mujrimūn is a nominal sentence and is emphasised with inna. As recorded in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt, a nominal sentence conveys fixity: not an event but a state.

The verse does not say "you have committed a crime". It says "you are the guilty" — it announces not the act but the position.

The ninth refrain. After a section of a single verse.

And here the distance between the refrain and the preceding verse falls to its minimum. Verse 46 ends with mujrimūn, verse 47 with al-mukadhdhibīn. The two verse-endings are in the same sound and the two words name the same group.

The sūra has begun to close by accelerating.

Wa idhā qīla lahumu'rkaʿū lā yarkaʿūn "And when they are told 'bow', they do not bow."

The sūra's last diagnosis. And in a text of fifty verses, the only verse that tells what the addressee does.

Note: throughout the sūra the addressee has been named by an attribute — deniers, guilty. What they do was not said. The forty-eighth verse gives a single behaviour.

Qīla — "it was said". Passive. Who says it is not said.

This preference is meaningful: what is told is not the source of the command but the answer given to the command. Whoever says it, the outcome is the same.

Root: ر-ك-ع. Its concrete sense: to bend, to bend at the waist, to go down forward.

The word's technical sense within the prayer settled later; the root itself is a general bending. It is recorded as being used in Arabic of an old man bent at the waist, or of a person leaning towards something.

Its use in the Qurʾān divides in two directions:

• As an element of the prayer: "O Mary, be devout to your Lord, prostrate yourself, and bow with those who bow" (Āl ʿImrān 3/43); "Bow and prostrate" (al-Ḥajj 22/77).
• As submission in general: "And he fell down bowing" (Ṣād 38/24) — of David.

Both views have been defended and they do not exclude one another. The prayer is the bodily form of submission; whoever refuses one has refused the other.

I impose no preference. But this should be recorded: when the word's general sense is preserved the verse works more broadly — and it accords better with the sūra's method of describing its addressee by an attribute.

In this commentary this root was treated at al-Baqara 2/43. The finding there:

"Perform the prayer, give the alms, and bow with those who bow." The first two commands are familiar; the third is striking. It does not say "bow" — it says "bow with those who bow". That is, what is asked is not merely that the act of worship be performed but that it be performed together… The meaning of this command within its context is important too: the addressee is a community that has received a scripture but has become divided. That the command given to a divided community should be "bow together" is no coincidence.

Now let us set the two verses side by side:

The two verses are the two ends of the same command. Al-Baqara gives the command and says how it is to be done; al-Mursalāt records its refusal.

And there is a relation between them — I record it as my own reading: in al-Baqara the command was a command to join a community (maʿa'r-rākiʿīn). What is refused in al-Mursalāt is also a joining. That is, what is refused is not merely a bodily movement but a taking of one's place in a rank.

This accords with the whole argument of the sūra. The sūra's name is yawm al-faṣl — the day of separation. And the criterion of the separation is not set on that day; it is set in this world, in what is done when "bow" is said.

The answer is given in the imperfect: lā yarkaʿūn — "they do not bow". Not the perfect.

The imperfect conveys continuity. That is, not a single refusal but a refusal repeated every time it is said.

And this sets up a formal correspondence with the sūra's refrain: the refrain is repeated ten times, the refusal is repeated every time. I record this as my own reading.

The closest counterpart of this verse in the Qurʾān is bowing's being demanded in the hereafter and proving impossible:

"On the day the shin is bared and they are called to prostrate, and they cannot. Their eyes cast down, humiliation covering them. And they used to be called to prostrate while they were sound." (al-Qalam 68/42-43)

The relation between the two verses is direct:

And al-Qalam's last sentence frames the link itself: "And they used to be called to prostrate while they were sound." That is, the incapacity of that day is named as the counterpart of the unwillingness of this world.

I record this parallel as an observation. I do not claim a deliberate reference between the two sūras; but the content of the two verses tells the same idea from two times.

And this suits the sūra's general technique. Al-Mursalāt 35-36 said that the capacity for speech does not work. Now verse 48 says that the capacity for bowing is not used in this world. One capacity is not used; then one capacity does not work.

The tenth and last refrain.

And its position sums up the whole structure of the sūra: the refrain comes after a diagnosis of a single verse. The sūra had begun with a section of seven verses; it ends with a section of one.

One further observation: between the last refrain and the sūra's last verse there is no section at all. That is, the refrain stands immediately before the closing sentence — the last judgement before the sūra's last word.

Fa-bi-ayyi ḥadīthin baʿdahū yuʾminūn "In what discourse after this will they believe?"

The last verse of the sūra. And it closes not with a judgement but with a question.

This is not a question that expects an answer. The grammarians call it istifhām inkārī: a question asked because it has no answer. The closest English rendering: "What else is there left for them to believe in?"

And the logic of the question is this: the strongest discourse available has already been presented. There is no next in line; the line ends here.

What was recorded for the question "does he not know?" in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt holds here too: "the question is a question of reproach, and its answer is known." But there is a difference. In al-ʿĀdiyāt the question asked for a diagnosis (does he know or not?). Here the question announces an impossibility.

Root: ح-د-ث. And the root's two branches work together here.

• حَدَثَ — it became new, it came about, it came into being where it had not been.
• حَادِث / حَدَث — what is new, what has come into being afterwards. In theology the concept of ḥudūth (coming into being in time) is from this root; its opposite is qidam.
• حَدِيث — both "new" and "discourse, report".

That the two senses are in the same word is no coincidence: a report is by definition something new. What is already known is not a report. Arabic puts the same word between "discourse" and "new".

This word was treated in this commentary in the section on al-Ḍuḥā, and this very verse was cited there:

حَدِيث (ḥadīth) — both "new" and "discourse, report". The Qurʾān uses it of itself as well: "In what discourse after this will they believe?" (al-Mursalāt 77/50).

The Qurʾān's using this word of itself is seen in several places:

• "God has sent down the best of discourse." (al-Zumar 39/23) — aḥsana'l-ḥadīth.
• "Do you marvel at this discourse?" (al-Najm 53/59) — a-fa-min hādha'l-ḥadīth.

Baʿdahū — "after it". After what?

All three have been defended and there is no great difference between them: all come out in the same place — the discourse that has reached the addressee.

The first view is the more widespread.

This verse occurs in one other place in the Qurʾān with exactly the same wording:

"…In what discourse after this will they believe?" (al-Aʿrāf 7/185)

And a similar one once more:

"These are the signs of God; We recite them to you in truth. In what discourse after God and His signs will they believe?" (al-Jāthiya 45/6)

In all three places the sentence is the close of a section. And in all three it does the same work: after the proofs presented, it announces that there is nothing beyond the proof.

What precedes al-Aʿrāf 7/185 is particularly striking: there they are asked to look at the dominion of the heavens and the earth, at the things created, and at the nearness of their term — that is, proofs of the same kind as al-Mursalāt's three proof sections. And it closes with the same sentence.

I record this shared feature as an observation.

Now let us look at where the sūra ends.

Across fifty verses:

• Five oaths were sworn.
• A judgement was set down: what is promised will come to pass.
• The four ruptures of the resurrection were told.
• Three proofs were presented: history, the body, the earth.
• Four scenes were framed: the driving, the silence, the gathering, the challenge.
• One counter-tableau was drawn.
• One diagnosis was made: they do not bow.
• And the judgement was repeated ten times.

After all this the sūra asks a question. And the meaning of the question is: there is no other instrument left.

This is one of the plainest statements the Qurʾān makes about its own position. The text says that there is no proof to come after it. This is not a boast but a statement of a limit: the instrument of persuasion is exhausted.

And this has a consequence, recorded several times before in this commentary (al-Ghāshiya 88/21-22, al-Aʿlā 87/9-10, al-Baqara 2/6): the messenger's task is to convey, not to produce the outcome. In the section on al-Ghāshiya it was recorded: "Not being a musayṭir is not a deficiency but an exemption."

Al-Mursalāt draws the same limit from another place. Al-Ghāshiya limited the messenger's authority; al-Mursalāt announces the limit of the discourse itself. The word has been spoken; there is nothing else to say.

And this frames a circle with the first verse of the sūra.

The sūra had opened with al-mursalāt: those sent. And in the fifth verse what those sent carry was said: ذِكْرًا — a reminder.

There is no fifty-first verse; the sūra ends at fifty. And its last word is يُؤْمِنُونَ — will they believe?

The sūra opens with a certain oath and closes with an open question. The certainty at the head belonged to the discourse's having been sent; the uncertainty at the end belongs to whether it will be accepted.

The difference between the two is the whole matter of the sūra: the delivery was completed, the acceptance was not.

I record this as my own reading.

The structure of the sūra was given in a table above under the heading "The function of the repetition". Here I interpret that table as a whole.

The sūra is divided at three separate levels, and the three levels lie one on top of another:

The first level — the refrain. The waylun yawmaʾidhin li'l-mukadhdhibīn repeated ten times closes ten sections. This is the sūra's most visible division and is heard by the ear.

The second level — the أَلَمْ sequence. Three sections open with the same pattern: a-lam nuhlik (16), a-lam nakhlukkum (20), a-lam najʿal (25). These three sections are the sūra's argument and are bound to one another.

The third level — mood. The sūra speaks in three separate moods, and the changes of mood coincide with the section boundaries: