ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَكَ فَسَوَّىٰكَ فَعَدَلَكَ
Alladhī khalaqaka fa-sawwāka fa-ʿadalak "He who created you, then set you in proportion, then balanced you."
The sentence is a qualifier of Rabbika'l-Karīm in the preceding verse: "that generous Lord of yours, who…"
Three verbs, joined by two فَ. In Arabic the letter fāʾ conveys succession and joining without an interval (treated in the section on al-Māʿūn). So there is no gap between the three verbs: when creating ends, proportioning begins; when proportioning ends, balancing.
This is the repetition of a pattern recorded in the section on al-Shams: in recounting the creation of man the Qurʾān follows the order first creation, then proportioning, then the giving of a faculty (al-Sajda 32/9, al-Ḥijr 15/29, Ṣād 38/72, al-Aʿlā 87/2). That is, taswiya is the stage at which the raw material is brought into working condition.
Here the third step of the series is different: instead of the breathing of the spirit or the giving of hearing and sight, عَدَلَ comes.
Root: خ-ل-ق. The concrete sense of the word is worth dwelling on: khalaqa in Arabic was used for measuring and cutting a thing to shape, especially for cutting and shaping leather. Khulq — character, the nature that comes with creation. Khilqa — build, constitution.
So the idea beneath the root is not "to bring into being from nothing" but "to shape according to a measure". The idea of bringing into being from nothing is more marked in the root of the sūra's first verse (ف-ط-ر). The difference between the two is recorded in the classical sources:
| Root | Its emphasis |
|---|---|
| ف-ط-ر | For the first time, on no model, to begin out of nothing |
| خ-ل-ق | To measure and cut, to make by determining |
| ب-ر-أ | To separate, to bring a thing cleanly out of another |
The three come side by side in al-Ḥashr 59/24: "He is God, the creator (al-Khāliq), the maker out of nothing (al-Bāriʾ), the fashioner (al-Muṣawwir)."
This verse is directly meaningful for al-Infiṭār 82/7-8, because al-Infiṭār sets up the same order: khalaqa → … → fī ayyi ṣūratin (concerning form). The three names in al-Ḥashr and the series of verbs in al-Infiṭār recount the same process in different words.
This verb was treated in detail in the section on al-Shams. In brief: the root س-و-ي, the idea beneath it equality and equivalence; in Form II (sawwā) the verb means "to bring the parts of a thing into correspondence with one another, to get its proportions right, to bring it to a complete and faultless state". The Turkish borrowing tesviye etmek, "to level, to grade", comes from this root.
As was stated there, al-Shams 91/7 and al-Infiṭār 82/7 use the same root; in al-Shams what is proportioned is the soul, here it is the body.
One addition must be made. In al-Shams sawwāhā had come absolutely: what was brought into correspondence with what was not said. Here the verb is attached to the one addressed: sawwā-ka — "you". So what is meant is not an abstract ordering but the structure of the very person standing before it.
ʿAdl in Arabic is first a word of the scales. عِدْل (ʿidl) means the counterweight loaded on one side of a camel; two ʿidls balance the animal's two flanks. So at the centre of the word stands the two sides being equal to one another.
1. Equivalence, balance — the equalising of two sides. 2. Justice — the equal distribution of what is due. The name of justice is "equivalence". 3. Ransom, substitute — the equivalent thing given in exchange for something.
The third sense occurred in the section on al-Baqara: al-Baqara 2/48 says "no ransom (ʿadl) shall be taken from it", and as was recorded there the word means not "justice" but "that which is equivalent".
This is the first link of a connection that will be made towards the end of the sūra; it will be returned to at verse 19.
Over the sense of the verb in the verse there are two views, and they depend on a difference of variant reading:
| Reading | Sense | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| فَعَدَلَكَ (undoubled) — "He made you equal" | He made your limbs equal to one another, symmetrical, proportioned | The basic sense of the root; it continues on the same line as sawwā |
| فَعَدَلَكَ (undoubled) — "He turned you" | ʿAdala ʿan — to turn from something; "He turned you into whatever form He willed" | It joins directly to the next verse: fī ayyi ṣūratin mā shāʾa rakkabak |
| فَعَدَّلَكَ (doubled) — "He balanced you thoroughly" | The tafʿīl form, intensification: He set the balance up fully and densely | The pattern conveys that the work was done with care and repeatedly |
Both readings are transmitted among the imams of the variant readings. Because I cannot give with certainty which reading belongs to which imam, I give no name.
Both senses work in the text and do not exclude one another: He made you balanced, and He directed you into whatever form He willed. The advantage of the second reading is that the link it makes with verse 8 is tighter.
The human body is doubly axed: two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet, two lungs, two kidneys. And these pairs are symmetrical — each is the measure of the other's mirror. This symmetry is not merely a matter of appearance; it is the condition of standing, of walking, of seeing and of hearing. The position of the two eyes gives the perception of depth, the position of the two ears the direction of a sound.
And this sets up a contrast with the first four verses of the sūra. There the undoing of balances was recounted: the arrangement of the stars is scattered, the dyke of the seas is broken. Here the setting up of a balance is recounted. The same sūra shows first a balance undone and then a balance built — and the second is the body of the one addressed.
In the section on al-Balad it was recorded that when the Qurʾān enumerates what has been given to man it mentions the paired organs separately: "Have We not given him two eyes, a tongue and two lips?" (al-Balad 90/8-9). There the meaning of the count's being made in the form "two, one, two" was dwelt on. Al-Infiṭār 82/7 compresses the same fact into a single verb: ʿadala.
The proof the verse gives is the body of the one addressed; and this proof has one property: it is invisible.
A man does not notice his own structure, because he has never lost it. Balance is not a datum until it is lost. Illness is needed for health to be noticed, dizziness for balance, a fracture for the hand.
The link with the question of the sixth verse is here: deception develops most of all against what is continuous. When a thing is given without interruption, its being given is forgotten and it is perceived as a ground. And a ground produces no gratitude.
The two favours named in the hadith transmitted in the section on al-Takāthur — health and free time — are exactly of this kind: favours that cannot be counted, cannot be stored, and are not noticed as they are being used up.