al-Infiṭār 82:19

Yawma lā tamliku nafsun li-nafsin shayʾā • wa'l-amru yawmaʾidhin lillāh "The day on which no soul has power over anything for another soul. On that day the command belongs to God alone."

The last verse of the sūra, and it answers both questions at once.

The word is in the accusative, and there are several views about what it attaches to:

The first view appears best suited to the context: two verses in succession had asked "do you know what the day of reckoning is?"; this verse describes that day. This is a preference; it is not binding.

Root: م-ل-ك. This root was treated in the section on al-Fātiḥa (māliki yawmi'l-dīn and the mālik / malik difference of variant reading).

The idea at the centre of the root is the power of disposal. Mulk is not merely ownership but the authority to act upon a thing. In Arabic the verb malaka means "to have power over a thing, to have a say in it".

For this reason it is not enough to render the verse "no soul owns another". What is said is: there is no operation any soul can perform for another. No authority is left in its hand.

And the verb's coming in the negative imperfect conveys continuity: not a one-time lack of authority, but the structure of that day.

The densest place in the sentence.

Both words are indefinite: "a soul", "for a soul". In Arabic an indefinite noun coming in a negative sentence conveys generality — it covers all without exception.

So the sentence does not say "such-and-such a person cannot do anything for such-and-such another"; it says that no soul can do anything for any soul. And there is a third indefinite as well: شَيْـًٔا — "a thing", again in a negative context, again general.

Three indefinites one upon another. Every door of the sentence is shut.

Further, the repetition of the word is meaningful. The verse does not say "no one for anyone"; it uses the same word twice: nafsun li-nafsin. This conveys that the two parties are of the same kind. That is, there is no difference of rank between the one who cannot help and the one who cannot be helped; both are the same thing, both are a soul.

And this connects with the first half of the sūra. The fifth verse ran: ʿalimat nafsun mā qaddamat wa akhkharat. The same word, in the same indefinite state.

The first soul of the sūra came to have knowledge about itself; the last soul is left without authority over another. The two sentences make a pair: the knowledge is yours, the authority is not.

The closest relative of this verse is in Sūrat al-Baqara, and the two texts must be set side by side.

"And guard yourselves against a day on which no soul shall pay anything on behalf of another soul; no intercession shall be accepted from it; no ransom shall be taken from it; and they shall not be helped." (al-Baqara 2/48)

This verse was treated in the section on al-Baqara, and the four negations were given there in a table:

And the conclusion recorded there was this: "All four together say a single thing: the reckoning cannot be transferred."

Now let us compare with al-Infiṭār 82/19:

The difference between them is that the two verses speak from different places.

Al-Baqara 2/48 enumerates one by one the roads that might be tried: payment, mediation, ransom, help. Four separate doors, and all four shut. As was stated in the section on al-Baqara, the verse addresses the community that in the preceding verse was told "you were favoured", and declares that lineage, belonging and past privilege will not work on that day.

Al-Infiṭār 82/19 does not count the doors; it removes the authority of the hand that would open a door. Lā tajzī means "it will be of no use"; lā tamliku means "it is not in a position to do it". One refuses the outcome, the other the possibility.

What emerges when the two are read together is this: al-Baqara says that every road that might be tried is closed, al-Infiṭār says that the trying itself is not possible.

Here a connection made within this sūra, and pointed to above, is completed.

The word occurring in the third item of al-Baqara 2/48 is عَدْل, and it was stated openly in the section on al-Baqara: "the word here means not 'justice' but ransom; the basic sense of the root is 'that which is equivalent'."

The same root had occurred in al-Infiṭār 82/7: فَعَدَلَكَ — "He balanced you."

So the same root is used at the two ends of the sūra for two different works:

He made you equivalent (82/7) → on that day no equivalent (ransom) is of any use (the road closed by al-Baqara 2/48).

Man is a being who has himself been balanced; but he can find no equivalent to put in his own place.

I present this link as my own reading. The unity of root stands in the text; the opposition set up between the two usages is an interpretation, and I do not ascribe it to any classical exegete.

A boundary must be drawn, because this verse read on its own leads to a disputed heading in the history of theology.

This matter was treated in the section on al-Baqara and a balance was set up there: al-Baqara 2/48 on its own looks like an absolute rejection of intercession; but al-Baqara 2/255 ("Who is there that can intercede with Him except by His leave?") qualifies it. The conclusion reached there was this: "there is no intercession that stands of itself, as a right, that a person may count on as a guarantee; what is bound to leave is a separate matter."

The same balance holds here. The verse refuses a person's doing anything for another by his own authority. And indeed the second half of the sentence says this openly: wa'l-amru yawmaʾidhin lillāh — where the authority lies is being declared.

In this commentary no side is taken on this matter; setting the two verses side by side is all that is done.

The last sentence of the sūra.

ٱلْأَمْر — root أ-م-ر. The word carries two senses in Arabic, and both are at work here:

1. Command, order. Its plural is awāmir. 2. Affair, matter, situation. Its plural is umūr.

That the same word means both "command" and "affair" shows the idea beneath the root: the authority to decide how a matter shall go. The one who commands is the one who determines the course of the affair.

The sentence is a nominal sentence and its predicate is a prepositional phrase: lillāh. The Arabic letter ل here conveys possession and exclusive attachment: His alone.

And in the middle of the sentence the adverb يَوْمَئِذٍ — "on that day" — has come between subject and predicate. This position gives it emphasis.

A legitimate question arises here: is the command not God's today? Why is the qualification "on that day" laid down?

The answers given in the classical sources:

One. The command is His today as well; but today others too have authority in appearance. People rule, decide, command. On that day this appearance will be removed.

Two. Today a field of disposal has been given to people: they can choose, they can act, they can help one another. On that day that field will be taken back.

The Qurʾān sets up this distinction itself:

"The command belongs to God, before and after." (al-Rūm 30/4)

By saying "before and after" the verse widens the note of time. So al-Infiṭār's qualification "on that day" does not say that it belonged to another before it; it says that on that day no claim of partnership will remain.

And the closest parallel:

"On that day they come forth; nothing of theirs is hidden from God. To whom belongs the kingdom today? To God, the One, the Overwhelming!" (Ghāfir 40/16)

This verse asks a question and answers it itself. Al-Infiṭār 82/19 says the same thing without asking a question.

Further: "Say: the command belongs entirely to God." (Āl ʿImrān 3/154).

Something happens here in the sound structure of the sūra, and it is worth recording.

From the ninth verse onward the verse-endings of the sūra had been built on a nasal sound: al-dīn, ḥāfiẓīn, kātibīn, tafʿalūn, naʿīm, jaḥīm, al-dīn, ghāʾibīn, al-dīn, al-dīn. A rhyme unbroken for ten verses.

The last verse ends with لِلَّهِ. Outside the rhyme.

So the sūra lets go, in its last word, of the sound it had kept up for ten verses — and that word is the name of God.

I record this not as a claim of a miracle but as an observation of form. That the pattern of the verse-endings changes in the last verse stands in the text; the meaning I draw from it is an interpretation. But the interpretation's agreement with the text is plain: as the sūra says "on that day the command belongs to God", the sentence itself steps outside its own order.

The links the last verse makes with the sūra must be gathered up:

• The word نَفْس occurs once in verse 5 and twice in verse 19. The sūra closes with this word the account it opened with it.
• The root عدل in verse 7 (ʿadalaka), and in al-Baqara 2/48 in the sense of ransom. The being that was balanced can find no equivalent for itself.
• The link of مالك / يوم الدين attaches to al-Fātiḥa: the master of that day is one.
• The word ٱلْأَمْر answers the absence of a doer in the first four verses of the sūra. By whose command was the sky split? By whose command did the seas overflow? At its beginning the sūra did not say; at its end it says.

This last completes the structure of the sūra. In the first four the doer was concealed; in the seventh verse it was partly opened with alladhī khalaqaka; in the last verse it is said in full: al-amru yawmaʾidhin lillāh.