يُسْقَوْنَ مِن رَّحِيقٍ مَّخْتُومٍ • خِتَٰمُهُۥ مِسْكٌ
Yusqawna min raḥīqin makhtūm • Khitāmuhu misk "They are given to drink of a pure wine, sealed; its seal is musk."
Root: س-ق-ي. To give water, to irrigate, to give to drink. Siqāya — the work of distributing water; it was the name of an office at the Kaʿba. Suqyā — a turn at drinking water (taken up at al-Shams 91/13: nāqata'llāhi wa suqyāhā).
The verb is passive: yusqawna — "they are given to drink". They do not take for themselves; it is given to them.
This sets up a contrast with the opening verses of the sūra, and I offer it as my own reading: the muṭaffif was the person who did the taking with his own hand and held the measure in his own hand (iktālū — he measured for himself). Here the abrār are on the side that is given to. The measure is not in their hands.
The sense the lexicographers give: the purest, the most unmixed drink; without sediment, admitting no admixture.
At the centre of the word lies purity. This bears directly on the subject of the sūra: taṭfīf is an intervention in the measure. For a drink to be raḥīq is for no intervention whatever to have been made in it.
The particle مِن here conveys the partitive (some of it) or the point of origin. The widespread reading is the partitive: some quantity of that drink.
Root: خ-ت-م. It was taken up at al-Baqara 2/7, and the description recorded there is the key here:
"The root kh-t-m = to come to the end of a thing, and to set a seal. A seal does two things: it closes and it certifies. When an envelope is sealed it both becomes impossible to get into and is declared to have its contents settled."
And it was said there that both these functions are at work: "the situation has been closed and registered."
| al-Baqara 2/7 | al-Muṭaffifīn 83/25 | |
|---|---|---|
| What is sealed | The heart | A drink |
| Result | Cannot be entered — deprivation | Untouched — a gift |
| In whose favour | Against him | In his favour |
| What it conveys | Being closed | Being kept safe |
A similar observation was made in the section on al-Humaza: "Being closed is of two kinds: the closedness that protects and the closedness that imprisons. The only difference between them is which side of the door you are on."
The sealing of a good guarantees that no one has touched it. A sealed vessel has not been opened in transit; nothing has been taken out of it; it has not been adulterated. The seal is the instrument that closes the gap of trust between the carrier and the receiver.
A muṭaffif is a person with access to the measure. The condition of his being able to shave at the edge is his being able to touch the vessel. A sealed vessel cannot be shaved.
That is, after saying wayl to those who steal from their measure, the sūra describes the drink of the good as unshaveable.
| al-Muṭaffifīn 83/1-3 | al-Muṭaffifīn 83/25 | |
|---|---|---|
| Object | Measure and balance | A sealed vessel |
| Access | Present — can be shaved | Absent — cannot be shaved |
| Who intervenes | The muṭaffif | No one |
I offer this link as my own reading. The function of the seal in trade is a historical datum; the relation I set up with the opening verses of the sūra is an interpretation, and I ascribe it to no classical exegete.
But the link has support from the text: the sūra is woven from beginning to end with words of measure, record, document, mark. Marqūm (marked) and makhtūm (sealed) both belong to the same field — both convey the unalterability of a document or of a good.
| View | Sense | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| Its seal is of musk | The seal closing the mouth of the vessel is not clay or wax; it is musk | In this world a seal is made of a worthless substance. The gift here is that the seal itself is precious |
| Its ending is musk | Khitām is in the sense of "ending": the last sip of the drink, the taste it leaves in the mouth, is like musk | The sense "to come to the end of a thing" in the root kh-t-m — this sense was recorded at al-Baqara 2/7 |
| Both together | The word bears both senses | The root itself carries the two senses |
The idea the first reading carries is this: the seal is the packaging. In this world the packaging is worth less than what is in it; it is thrown away. Here even the packaging is of musk.
The idea the second reading carries is deeper: the taste of the ending. What the drinks of this world have in common is that their ending is worse than their beginning — the taste left in the mouth, the state the next day. Here the opposite is said: its ending is better than its beginning.
And this accords with the whole sūra. From the start the sūra has been concerned with outcomes: the record, the reckoning, the requital. The sense "ending" in the root kh-t-m is the subject of the sūra.
I record this not as a preference but as the contribution each of the two readings makes to the text.
The most valuable scent known in that period. It is obtained from the musk deer and is worth its weight.
(It is widely said that the word entered Arabic from outside; since I can say nothing certain, I do not go into its etymology.)
Everything enumerated across the sūra is measurable: kayl, wazn, book, record, mark. Everything that can be measured is something whose measure can be played with.
Scent is not measured. It cannot be weighed, cannot be taken by the measure, cannot be shaved at the edge. And its presence is known not because it is measured but because it is smelt.
I offer this as my own reading; I make no claim that the sūra has made a deliberate choice, only that the word belongs to a different field from the rest of the sūra.