إِذَا ٱلسَّمَآءُ ٱنشَقَّتْ
In Arabic there are two conditional particles for future time, and the difference between them is one that has to be treated several times in this commentary:
- إِنْ (in) — for what is doubtful, what may or may not happen.
- إِذَا (idhā) — for what will certainly happen, only whose time is unknown.
The Qurʾān opens its scenes of the Resurrection with idhā almost without exception: Idha'sh-shamsu kuwwirat (al-Takwīr 81/1), Idhā zulzilati'l-arḍu (al-Zilzāl 99/1), Idhā waqaʿati'l-wāqiʿa (al-Wāqiʿa 56/1). The particle itself carries a ruling: what is at issue is not "will it happen" but "when".
This connects directly with the sūra's later argument. In the twenty-second verse it will be said that "those who disbelieve are giving the lie". What is being given the lie has already been set down, in the first verse, in the mood of certainty.
Root س-م-و: to rise, to be high. Samāʾ is "what is above"; from the same root come ism (a name — the mark that raises a thing, that brings it forward) and asmāʾ.
In Arabic the word does not indicate a single thing: everything above the head is samāʾ — the atmosphere, the cloud, the stars, and the unseen upper realm. The Qurʾān preserves this breadth and does not narrow it. In descriptions of the Resurrection the text does not say which layer of the "sky" is meant; where it does not say, neither do we.
Root: ش-ق-ق. Its concrete sense is to split, to divide in two, to break apart by cracking. The derivatives of the root show the direction in which the sense opens out:
- شِقّ (shiqq) — one of the two parts split off; a half. In Turkish the borrowed word şık, "one of the options", comes from this root: a separated part of a whole.
- شَقّ (shaqq) — the crack, the fissure itself.
- شَقِيق (shaqīq) — a full brother. The lexicographers' explanation: one split off from the same root. The Turkish use of şakîk comes from here as well.
- مَشَقَّة (mashaqqa) — difficulty, hardship. The explanation the lexicographers transmit: hardship is what splits a person, what wears him down.
- شِقَاق (shiqāq) — separation, division, hostility. The Qurʾān uses this of communities: "But if they turn away, then they are only in a state of division (shiqāq)" (al-Baqara 2/137).
These last two derivatives are important. Within the root there is physical splitting, and hardship, and separation all together. The same root names the cracking of a rock, the wearing down of a person, and the breaking apart of two communities from one another.
The verb in the verse is in the إِنْفِعَال (infiʿāl) pattern: inshaqqa. In Arabic this pattern conveys muṭāwaʿa — that is, accepting an external effect, undergoing that effect. The counterpart of the verb shaqqa (he split) is inshaqqa (it was split, it yielded to being split). The sky is not cracking of itself; it is submitting to something done to it.
This detail is a preparation for the next verse: the sky is split, and immediately afterwards it is said "it listened to its Lord". The splitting is already presented as a form of obedience.
| Verse | What is split | What it opens onto |
|---|---|---|
| al-Qamar 54/1 | وَٱنشَقَّ ٱلْقَمَرُ — the moon was split | A sign |
| ʿAbasa 80/26 | ثُمَّ شَقَقْنَا ٱلْأَرْضَ شَقًّا — We split the earth | Onto the grain, onto provision |
| Qāf 50/44 | يَوْمَ تَشَقَّقُ ٱلْأَرْضُ عَنْهُمْ سِرَاعًا — the earth is split from over them | Onto the coming out of the dead |
| al-Furqān 25/25 | وَيَوْمَ تَشَقَّقُ ٱلسَّمَآءُ بِٱلْغَمَٰمِ — the sky is split with the clouds | Onto the descent of the angels |
| al-Raḥmān 55/37 | فَإِذَا ٱنشَقَّتِ ٱلسَّمَآءُ فَكَانَتْ وَرْدَةً كَٱلدِّهَانِ — it is split and becomes like a rose, like oil | Onto a change of colour |
| al-Ḥāqqa 69/16 | وَٱنشَقَّتِ ٱلسَّمَآءُ فَهِىَ يَوْمَئِذٍ وَاهِيَةٌ — it is split, and on that day it is frail | Onto a coming apart |
The occurrence at ʿAbasa 80/26 is particularly striking: the same verb is used in the sense of the soil's being split so that provision may come out. The root by itself, that is, does not convey destruction; what a splitting is depends on what the split thing leaves behind.
The Qurʾān describes the opening of the sky with three separate roots, and the three are not the same thing. Setting up this distinction is necessary in order to see what the verse is saying.
ف-ل-ق (falaq). This was treated in detail in this commentary in the section on Sūrat al-Falaq. The observation there was this: falq is the splitting of something closed and the coming out of something from inside it — the cracking of the seed, the morning's coming out from inside the night. The splitting is a form of birth; at its end there is life.
ف-ط-ر (faṭr). The concrete sense of this root is likewise to split; but the real weight of this root is on beginning. From the same root come fāṭir (the one who brings into being from nothing), fiṭra (the state of first creation) and ifṭār (the breaking of the fast, the beginning to eat). Faṭr, that is, is to split a thing for the first time and so bring it into being; here splitting is the name of a founding.
ش-ق-ق (shaqq). In this root there is neither birth nor founding. What happens here is the breaking up of a whole. And the other branches of the root — mashaqqa (wearing down), shiqāq (separation) — all look the same way: something was holding together, and now it is not.
If we gather the three in one sentence: falaq opens what is closed; faṭr splits from nothing and founds; shaqq divides what has been founded.
And this is the root Sūrat al-Inshiqāq has chosen. The whole subject of the sūra is the scattering of things that were holding together: the wholeness of the sky is undone, what is inside the earth is thrown out, whatever a man has held together through a lifetime is laid open. The choice of root fits the content of the sūra.
I present this as a comparison of roots; the lexical senses of the three roots are given in this way in the classical sources of the language. The conceptual division of labour I set up among the roots, however, is my own reading, not a transmitted report.