al-Nāziʿāt 79:27-33 — The table of creation

A-antum ashaddu khalqan ami'l-samāʾ · Banāhā · Rafaʿa samkahā fa-sawwāhā · Wa aghṭasha laylahā wa akhraja ḍuḥāhā · Wa'l-arḍa baʿda dhālika daḥāhā · Akhraja minhā māʾahā wa marʿāhā · Wa'l-jibāla arsāhā · Matāʿan lakum wa li-anʿāmikum

"Are you harder to create, or the heaven? He built it: He raised its height and set it in order; He darkened its night and brought forth its forenoon. And the earth, after that, He spread out: from it He brought forth its water and its pasture; and the mountains He set firm — as a provision for you and for your cattle."

The narrative is over. And immediately after the word ʿibra in the twenty-sixth verse the sūra asks a question.

And the question returns to the objection in the twelfth verse. They had said "when we have become decayed bones?" The twenty-seventh verse answers: "Are you harder to create, or the heaven?"

That is, the sūra has placed a narrative of twelve verses between the objection and its answer. And when the narrative is over it returns to the argument where it left off.

This is the same structure as what Sūrat al-Nabaʾ does: there too there was an objection, and by way of answer a table of creation was set up (78/6-16).

A comparison of the two tables will be made below in a separate section.

The logic of the question: one who can make the greater can make the lesser. In logic this is called the argument a fortiori (from the stronger).

أَشَدُّ — Root: ش-د-د. And this root was used of the heaven at al-Nabaʾ 78/12: سَبْعًا شِدَادًا — seven firm ones.

What was recorded there was this: the concrete sense of the root is to bind, to bind tightly; shidād means that which does not slacken.

And now the two neighbouring sūras side by side:

The two sūras use the same two roots for the heaven — in reverse order and in a different mood.

This is one of the most concrete verbal links between the two sūras and it is a datum that can be verified. That the order has been reversed is, however, an observation.

خَلْقًا — in the accusative as a specifying complement: "in respect of creation".

The Qurʾān sets up this argument more explicitly elsewhere:

"The creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of mankind; but most people do not know." (Ghāfir 40/57)

"Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them? Indeed He is." (Yāsīn 36/81)

بَنَىٰهَا is a separate sentence (istiʾnāf) and stands as though it were the answer to the question: "…or the heaven? — He built it."

Some of the grammarians count it an adjective of al-samāʾ; some count it an independent sentence. The second is the more widespread.

And the series of verbs begins here. From the twenty-eighth verse to the thirty-second there are eight verbs, and all have the same agent, all are in the perfect, all are third person singular:

banā · rafaʿa · sawwā · aghṭasha · akhraja · daḥā · akhraja · arsā

And the object of all of them ends in a pronoun: banāhā, sawwāhā, daḥāhā, arsāhā…

This also sets up the verse-ending of the sūra: -āhā. With the exception of the thirty-third verse.

سَمْك — Root: س-م-ك. The height of a structure, the distance of its roof from the ground.

The lexicographers distinguish thus: samk is the distance measured from above downwards; that is, the "depth" of a building.

A note. The word سَمَك (fish) is also written with the same letters. The lexicographers treat these separately and I set up no connection between them.

And the construction is worth recording: "He raised its height." The sentence does not say "He raised the heaven"; it says He raised "its height".

That is, the heaven was already high; its height was increased. Or: the height of the heaven is a measure given to it.

I record this as an observation about the language.

Root: س-و-ي. This root was treated in the section on Sūrat al-Shams and what was recorded there is not repeated.

In brief: سَوَّىٰ — to set in order, to bring into balance, to make things equal to one another. At al-Shams 91/7 it was used of the self: "by the self and Him who set it in order"; and it was recorded there that the verb is repeated at the two ends of that sūra (at 91/14 in the sense of "He levelled it flat").

What is to be added here is this: the verb is joined with فَ — that is, the setting in order comes after the raising.

The order is meaningful: first the measure is given, then the balance is set. The building first rises, then is levelled.

And the verb is used of the heaven in several places in the Qurʾān:

"Then He turned to the heaven and set them in order as seven heavens." (al-Baqara 2/29 — fa-sawwāhunna; this verse was treated in this commentary)

Root: غ-ط-ش. To be dark; أَغْطَشَ (Form IV) — He made dark, He darkened.

The root appears to occur only here in the Qurʾān. I do not offer this finding as the result of an exhaustive search.

And that the verb is transitive is worth recording.

The verse does not say "night fell" or "darkness came down". It says "He darkened" — that is, the darkness is not an emptiness formed of itself by the withdrawal of light; it is something done.

This coincides with the finding recorded for غَاسِق in the section on Sūrat al-Falaq. What was written there was: "In the conception carried by this Arabic root, darkness is not something that 'happens' but something that flows. Not the cutting-off of light, but the pouring of darkness."

Al-Nāziʿāt 79/29 gives the same idea with another root and more explicitly: darkness is made.

I record this as an observation; the two roots are different and I claim no kinship between them.

ضُحَىٰ — Root: ض-ح-و. This root was treated in detail in the section on Sūrat al-Ḍuḥā and the finding there will be relied on.

In brief: ḍuḥā is the forenoon, when the sun has risen and the light has spread fully.

The contrast between the two verbs:

Both verbs are transitive and both are of the ifʿāl form. That is, both darkness and light are things done.

And a grammatical point: the pronouns.

Laylahā — "its night". Ḍuḥāhā — "its forenoon".

The pronouns refer back to the heaven. That is, night and day are ascribed not to the earth but to the heaven.

This is a striking choice. Night and day are experienced in the place where a person lives; but the verse counts them attributes of the heaven.

I record this as an observation. And I add a reading, stating that it is mine: night and day are the business of the heaven, not of the earth — that is, they are part of an order not under human control. The same idea was counted as a favour at al-Nabaʾ 78/10-11; here it becomes a question of ownership.

دَحَىٰ — Root: د-ح-و / د-ح-ي. To spread, to lay out, to spread flat.

This word was mentioned in the section on al-Shams: there, in treating طَحَا (ṭaḥā — al-Shams 91/6), it was recorded that daḥā is very close to it both in sound and in meaning and that the lexicographers count the two near to one another.

There is no disagreement about the meaning of the word: to spread, to level out and lay flat.

This word is one of the Qurʾānic words most strained in the modern period and the rule recorded in the method (Method) will be applied here.

The ground of the straining is this: in Arabic there is the word أُدْحِيَّة (udḥiyya) and it names the place where the ostrich lays its eggs. Setting out from this, it is argued that the verb daḥāhā means "He made it egg-shaped" and that the verse announces the sphericity of the earth.

I do not accept this reading and I must write out the grounds:

One — the word names not the egg but the nest. Udḥiyya is not the ostrich's egg itself; it is the hollow in which it lays. And the ostrich opens that hollow by spreading the soil with its foot. That is, the word confirms the original sense of the root (to spread) — it does not take us away from it.

Two — the verb itself does not give this sense. Daḥā means "He spread". Udḥiyya is a noun derived from this verb and its sense is "a hollow opened by spreading". The road that runs from verb to noun cannot be run backwards from noun to verb.

Three — it ruins the argument. As was recorded in the section on al-Nabaʾ, the function of this table is to enumerate things the one addressed can verify. Something that cannot be verified cannot be used as evidence.

Four — the word's context in the sūra does not support it. The continuation of the verse is this: "from it He brought forth its water and its pasture." That is, the verse speaks not of the shape of the earth but of its being made usable.

Is there a tension between the earth's being spherical and the Qurʾān? There is not — and that is a separate question. The Qurʾān issues no ruling about the shape of the earth. What was recorded for firāsh (a bed) at al-Baqara 2/22 holds here too: "this expression does not say that the earth is flat… What the word says is not shape but function."

The verse does not state the shape of the earth; neither that it is flat nor that it is round. To make the text say something in either direction is a strain.

And here is one of the old questions of Qurʾānic exegesis.

This verse describes the creation of the heaven and then says "and the earth after that He spread out".

But the Qurʾān appears to give a different order elsewhere:

"It is He who created for you all that is on the earth. Then He turned to the heaven and set them in order as seven heavens." (al-Baqara 2/29)

"Say: do you really deny Him who created the earth in two days, and set up equals to Him?… Then He turned to the heaven while it was smoke." (Fuṣṣilat 41/9-11)

In al-Baqara and in Fuṣṣilat the earth is first and the heaven after; in al-Nāziʿāt the heaven is first and the earth after.

The exegetes' solutions:

The second view is the most widespread and it has a support in the text: the verb used for the earth in al-Nāziʿāt is دَحَىٰ (He spread out), whereas the verb used in al-Baqara is خَلَقَ (He created). Two different verbs, two different operations.

The third view also deserves to be taken seriously and agrees with a principle recorded several times in this commentary: the Qurʾān is not a textbook of cosmology; the verses set up evidence within their own contexts.

I prefer the second view; it is not binding. My ground: the difference of verb stands in the text and the solution comes from the text itself.

And a warning: claims of the sort "the Qurʾān announced the order of the universe's formation" should not be built out of this ordering. The verses do not give a timetable; and that the exegetes are not even in agreement about how the ordering is to be understood shows this.

أَخْرَجَ — this verb occurs in these verses for the second time: in the twenty-ninth verse "He brought forth its forenoon", here "He brought forth its water and its pasture."

And the verb had occurred at al-Nabaʾ 78/15 as well: "that We may bring forth with it grain and plants." What was recorded there was this: this verb is at the very centre of that sūra's argument, because the Qurʾān describes the resurrection with the same verb (Nūḥ 71/17-18; al-Rūm 30/19; Fāṭir 35/9).

The same note holds here too and is not repeated.

مَرْعَىٰ — Root: ر-ع-ي. And the two branches of this root carry a shared element worth recording:

1. To pasture, to graze. مَرْعَىٰ — pasture. رَعِيَّة — a flock. 2. To watch over, to keep. رَاعٍ — a shepherd; and one who watches over. رِعَايَة — watching, tending.

The connection the lexicographers set up: the shepherd, while pasturing the flock, at the same time watches over it. The two tasks are inseparable.

And the Qurʾān uses the second sense: "Those who keep their trusts and their covenants" (al-Muʾminūn 23/8; al-Maʿārij 70/32 — rāʿūn).

This is an observation about the language. The meaning of the word in this verse is plainly "pasture".

The ordering of مَاء and مَرْعَىٰ. First water, then pasture. The order is natural: pasture is the result of water. And at al-Nabaʾ 78/14-16 there was the same order: first water, then grain and plants, then gardens.

Root: ر-س-و. To make firm, to fix in place, to cast anchor.

Its derivatives:

• رَاسِيَات — those that are fixed. "…and cauldrons fixed in place" (Sabaʾ 34/13).
• مُرْسَىٰ — the place or the time of anchoring. In the Qurʾān: "Embark in it; its sailing and its anchoring are in the name of God" (Hūd 11/41 — majrāhā wa mursāhā, of Noah's ark).

The nautical sense of the word is decisive: irsāʾ is a ship's casting anchor. The bringing to a halt of something that moves.

And now we come to the most striking internal link of this sūra.

The same root comes back in the forty-second verse of the sūra:

"They ask you about the Hour: when will it cast anchor?" (79/42 — ayyāna mursāhā)

The same root, at the two ends: in the table of creation and in the closing question of the sūra.

And what the link sets up is this: the mountains have been set firm — that is, their time of anchoring is past and is known. The Hour, on the other hand, has not yet cast anchor, and its time is being asked about.

This is a repetition of a word that can be verified. The meaning the link sets up is, however, my own reading.

And the image of the ship gives the forty-second verse a flavour: the question "when will the Hour cast anchor?" is like asking when a ship that is under way will enter harbour. The forty-fourth verse will give the answer: "Its final end belongs to your Lord."

A note about the mountains. The warning recorded for أَوْتَاد (pegs) at al-Nabaʾ 78/7 holds here too and is not repeated: the verse names the function of the mountains, not their geological structure; and to draw a modern theory out of it is a strain.

The two verbs the two sūras use for the mountains are worth recording:

The two sūras describe the same function with two different images. One from the tent of the land, the other from seafaring.

And the table closes with a ground.

مَتَاع — Root: م-ت-ع. To benefit, to make use of. مَتَاع — a thing made use of, a means of livelihood.

And the word's use in the Qurʾān carries a qualification:

"The life of this world is nothing but the enjoyment of delusion." (Āl ʿImrān 3/185 — matāʿu'l-ghurūr)

"This life of the world is only an enjoyment; the hereafter is the abiding home." (Ghāfir 40/39)

"…a little enjoyment; then their abode is the Fire." (Āl ʿImrān 3/197)

In the Qurʾān the word almost always carries a qualification of transience. Matāʿ is not what is owned but what is used; it is the provision a traveller carries with him.

That is, the closing sentence of the table carries the table's transience in its own word.

This is the counterpart in this sūra of the reading recorded for mihād (a cradle) at al-Nabaʾ 78/6: there the earth was read as "a place not stayed in"; here the same thing is said with the word matāʿ.

I record this as an observation; the word's distribution in the Qurʾān is, however, a datum that can be verified.

لَّكُمْ — "for you". This expression was treated at al-Baqara 2/29. What was recorded there was this: it can be read in two ways — as a right of use and as a trust; and the Qurʾān has set the two side by side, because immediately afterwards the human being is called a "successor".

The same note holds here.

وَلِأَنْعَٰمِكُمْ — "and for your cattle".

This addition is worth recording. The table does not end with the human being; the animals are counted too.

أَنْعَام — Root: ن-ع-م. And the root is the root of the word niʿma (favour). Anʿām is used of the domestic animals (camel, cattle, sheep, goat) — that is, the animals a person lives from.

That the word is from the same root as niʿma is the language's own note: these animals have been named a favour.

And the distinction recorded at al-Nabaʾ 78/15 is confirmed here. There it was written that the distinction between ḥabb (grain — what the human being eats) and nabāt (plants — what the animal eats) was not certain, but that a later part of the sūra might support it.

Al-Nāziʿāt 79/33 makes this distinction explicitly: "for you and for your cattle."

And now a textual observation.

From the fifteenth verse to the forty-sixth all the verse-endings close with the sound -ā: Mūsā, ṭuwā, ṭaghā, tazakkā, takhshā, al-kubrā, ʿaṣā, yasʿā, nādā, al-aʿlā, al-ūlā, yakhshā, banāhā, sawwāhā, ḍuḥāhā, daḥāhā, marʿāhā, arsāhā…

And one single verse stands outside this order: the thirty-third.

مَتَٰعًا لَّكُمْ وَلِأَنْعَٰمِكُمْ — …li-anʿāmikum.

In an unbroken sequence of sound running thirty-two verses, this is the only break.

I record this as a textual observation and it is a datum that can be verified.

And I add a reading, stating that it is mine: the verse that breaks is the verse that states the ground of the table. Through eight verbs the works done were enumerated; then a sentence comes and says "these are for you."

That sentence steps out of the sound of the series — and addresses the one spoken to directly (lakum, anʿāmikum — "you").

I must state that I am the one setting up this relation and that I do not claim the verse intends it. The sequence of sound is, however, in the text and can be counted.