al-Inshiqāq 84:24-25

Fa-bashshirhum bi-ʿadhābin alīm · Illa'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti lahum ajrun ghayru mamnūn "So give them the good news of a painful punishment! Except those who believe and do righteous deeds; for them there is a reward unceasing."

Root: ب-ش-ر. The centre of this root too is an organ: بَشَرَة (bashara) — the outer surface of the skin, the complexion. From the same root بَشَر (bashar) — man; by the lexicographers' explanation, the being whose skin is exposed, not covered with fur.

بِشَارَة (bishāra, good news) comes from here as well: the person who receives good news has the skin of his face change — the blood runs, the expression opens. Good news, that is, is a thing first seen in the skin.

What the verse does is a tahakkum — a scornful, inverted use. The object of the verb "give good news" is given as "a painful punishment".

In Arabic, as in English, this is a figure of style and its effect is sharp: the mismatch between a word and its object gives the utterance a point. It is like the ironic use of "congratulations" in English.

The Qurʾān repeats this usage in several places: "So give them the good news of a painful punishment" (Āl ʿImrān 3/21; al-Tawba 9/34; and al-Inshiqāq 84/24 here).

There is a point of context too. Through the sūra it was told what each would receive: one took his book from the right and rejoiced, one took it from behind and cried out. Now a command is given to the Prophet: give them the "good news". That is, the work of distributing joy is turned inside out and put into the Prophet's hand.

It has no root; it is a particle. Illā separates a portion from a ruling.

How this construction works was treated in the section on Sūrat al-Tīn. There too a general negative ruling had been laid down ("then We returned him to the lowest of the low"), and then an exception came with the same construction:

إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ فَلَهُمْ أَجْرٌ غَيْرُ مَمْنُونٍ (al-Tīn 95/6)

Al-Inshiqāq 84/25 and al-Tīn 95/6 are almost word for word the same. The only difference is that al-Tīn has fa-lahum and al-Inshiqāq lahum.

This is the plainest link between the two sūras, and it joins the two sūras' description of man:

As was recorded in the section on al-Balad as well, in the Qurʾān's short Meccan sūras this construction of exception is a structure repeated after a general negative diagnosis.

There is a grammatical question: from which word is illā making the exception?

The nearest referent is the pronoun هُمْ in the twenty-fourth verse (bashshirhum) — that is, "them" (those who disbelieve). But those who believe cannot be a subset of those who disbelieve.

The grammarians' explanation: this is the kind called istithnāʾ munqaṭiʿ — a disconnected exception; what is excepted is not in fact of the same kind as that from which it is excepted. In English it is carried by "but these are not like that". The function of the construction is comparison, not subtraction.

That is, the verse does not say "except for these among them"; it says "as against this, there are these".

Root: م-ن-ن. This construct was treated in detail in the section on Sūrat al-Tīn. The observation there was this: the root has two branches —

1. To cut, to diminish. Manna'l-ḥabl — he cut the rope. In this sense ghayru mamnūn = unceasing, inexhaustible. 2. To hold a favour over someone. Minna is the throwing of a kindness done in someone's face. In this sense ghayru mamnūn = not held over one's head.

There both senses were left in place; here too I leave them so.

But in the context of this sūra the second sense has a particular flavour. The sixth verse of the sūra had named man's life kadḥ: scraping with the nail, working oneself away. And the last verse says that the return for that scraping will not be held over his head.

That is, the reward is given, and in the giving it is not brought up again. This is a close that agrees with the sūra's description of man: to the one who toils, his toiling is not thrown in his face.

I record this as my own reading; both senses are in the classical sources, and there is no indication making a preference necessary.