al-Inshiqāq 84:4

Wa alqat mā fīhā wa takhallat "And it casts out what is in it and empties itself."

Root: ل-ق-ي. This root works in two directions in the Qurʾān, and both directions will be used in this sūra:

• لَقِيَ — he met, he came face to face. Liqāʾ — a meeting.
• أَلْقَىٰ (Form IV) — he threw, he cast, he brought out to face. Causative: to bring a thing into the position of meeting.

That is, "to throw" and "to meet" are from the same root. To throw a thing is to bring it out before you.

This detail will confront us two verses later. The sixth verse will say fa-mulāqīhi (you shall meet Him) — Form III of the same root. That is:

The earth casts out what is in it (alqat). Man meets his Lord (mulāqīh).

The two verbs are from the same root. What the earth does and what happens to man stand, within the language, as two faces of the same movement: what was covered comes out to face.

I record this as a reading; the sharing of the root, however, is an incontestable datum of the language.

The verse does not say what it casts out. Mā fīhā — "whatever is in it".

This indefiniteness is deliberate, and when it is joined with the Qurʾān's descriptions elsewhere it becomes clear what is meant:

"When the earth brings out its burdens (athqālahā)." (al-Zilzāl 99/2)

As was recorded in the section on al-Zilzāl, of the athqāl there the exegetes say two things: the buried dead and the buried treasures. Al-Inshiqāq leaves it even more open: whatever there is.

The difference of verb between the two verses is meaningful as well:

Ikhrāj is a neutral carrying; ilqāʾ, however, is throwing — the movement of someone casting a load off himself.

Root: خ-ل-و. To be empty, to have nothing inside. Khalāʾ — emptiness; khālī — empty; khalwa — being alone, being emptied.

The verb in the verse is in the تَفَعُّل (tafaʿʿul) pattern: takhallat. In Arabic this pattern conveys two things, and both are working here:

1. Takalluf — doing by making an effort. Taṣabbur is trying to be patient; taḥallum is trying to show forbearance. On this, takhallat: the earth forced itself to be emptied; it laboured to bring out whatever was in it.

2. Taking on a state completely. Takhallat: it was emptied entirely, nothing was left.

The two senses do not conflict; they join. The earth is emptied, and the emptying is told as its own work.

The nicety of word order is here. The verse gives the two verbs in this order:

1. أَلْقَتْ مَا فِيهَا — it cast out what was in it. 2. وَتَخَلَّتْ — and it emptied itself.

The second looks like the result of the first and might have been counted a surplus: whatever casts out what is inside it is already empty. But it is not a repetition.

The difference is this: the first verb describes an act, the second a state. The earth does not merely cast out what is inside it; after the casting is done it remains in a state of emptiness. And that emptiness is the ground of the scene described for man: a level, entirely empty surface with nowhere at all to hide.

The Qurʾān says the same idea from the other side in another sūra: "On that day man will say, 'Where is the place of escape?' No — there is no refuge" (al-Qiyāma 75/10-11).

The emptying of the earth is the lifting of the refuge.