فَجَعَلَهُۥ غُثَآءً أَحْوَىٰ
Again the fāʾ. And its function here differs from the previous ones: in verses 2 and 3 the fāʾ stated the completion of a work (He created → He proportioned). Here it states the ending of a work (He brought out → He turned it into scum).
And the choice of the particle is meaningful. Thumma (then, with time passing in between) could have been said. It was not; fāʾ (immediately after) was said. The turning of the greenery into refuse, that is, is described not as a long process but as an adjacent result.
This is a choice that fits the experience of a lifetime itself. A season is long while it is being lived; once it has passed it is short.
Root: ج-ع-ل. This verb was dwelt on in the section on Sūrat al-Fīl: when it takes two objects it states transformation — putting a thing into another state.
What was recorded there was this: "The plan was put into a state; then those who made the plan were put into a state. The same hand does both works."
Here too the same hand: the one who brings out the pasture and the one who turns it into scum are the same. The verse binds the two verbs to a single subject. In the section on Sūrat al-Shams, about the verb sawwā being used at the two ends of that sūra — one for building up, one for tearing down — this was recorded: "The one who gives and the one who takes are the same." al-Aʿlā 4-5 sets up the same principle within a single pair of verses.
Root: غ-ث-و / غ-ث-ي. Ghuthāʾ is the mixture of foam, refuse, broken branches and dry grass that a flood drags along and brings down. The heap that stays on the bank after the flood has drawn back, good for nothing.
First, lightness. Ghuthāʾ is carried on the surface of the water; had it weight it would not be carried. In the section on Sūrat al-Qāriʿa the likening of the mountains to "carded wool" (al-ʿihni'l-manfūsh) was treated, and it was shown there that the backbone of that sūra is the concept of weight. Ghuthāʾ belongs to the same family: a thing that once stood in its place becoming a thing that can be carried off.
Second, mixedness. Ghuthāʾ is not a single thing; it is the mixture of everything that has been dragged along. It has no distinguishable identity left.
"We made them scum (fa-jaʿalnāhum ghuthāʾan). Away with the wrongdoing people!" (al-Muʾminūn 23/41)
The same verb, the same word — but its object is not a plant but a community. The Qurʾān, that is, uses this image both for the pasture and for human beings.
This is something to be kept in view when reading al-Aʿlā 5. The verse speaks of a plant, but the word's other use in the Qurʾān shows that the plant is an example. In the sixteenth verse of the sūra the ruling to be drawn from this example will be stated plainly: "You prefer what is near."
Root: ح-و-و / ح-و-ي. Ḥuwwa — a dark colour; a green tending to black, or a redness tending to black. Aḥwā — that which is of this colour. In classical Arabic it is used in descriptions of lips and eyes as well: dark, swarthy.
The colour word itself carries an indeterminacy, and the lexicographers record this: aḥwā is not pure black; it is what has darkened. The state in which black has been mixed into the green or into the red.
| Reading | Meaning | Its basis | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aḥwā is the attribute of ghuthāʾ | "Then He made it dark scum" — scum dried up and blackened | The word order gives this directly; the attribute stands immediately after what it qualifies | The easiest reading |
| Aḥwā is the attribute of marʿā (with inversion of order) | "He brought out the dark green pasture, then made it scum" — the attribute has been moved to the end for the sake of the verse-ending | A view transmitted in the classical commentaries; the sense "dark green" of aḥwā fits the pasture better | The verse-ending ground is strong, but it requires the assumption of an inversion |
Both readings have been defended in the classical sources. And both come out at the same place, because in both the colour is inside the cycle:
- On the first reading: the green dries, darkens, becomes refuse.
- On the second reading: what is dark green turns into refuse.
Whether at the beginning or at the end, then, aḥwā is the mark of the colour. I do not impose a preference; but this must be stated: because the first reading requires fewer assumptions, it is the sounder in point of language.
1. Coming out — rising from the soil, growing green. 2. Drying and darkening — the spoiling of the colour. 3. Being dragged along — becoming the mixture the flood carries off.
And among these three stages one thing is not said: the moment when it is greenest and fullest. The verse skips that moment.
There must be a reason for this, and this is what appears: that moment is the moment already being lived. The addressee is standing exactly there, and what needs to be described to him is not where he is but where he is going.
The Qurʾān's fullest account of this cycle is in Sūrat al-Ḥadīd, and it is like an expanded form of al-Aʿlā 4-5:
"Know that the life of this world is play, diversion, adornment, mutual boasting among you, and rivalry in the increase of wealth and children. It is like a rain: the growth it brings forth pleases the farmers; then it dries, and you see it turned yellow; then it becomes scum" (al-Ḥadīd 57/20).
"…then it becomes dry refuse that the winds scatter" (al-Kahf 18/45).
At first sight it is strange. In the first verse the tasbīḥ was commanded; verses 2-4 introduced the Lord by the good works He has done: He created, He proportioned, He measured, He guided, He brought out the pasture. The fifth verse looks as though it breaks this sequence — it speaks of a spoiling.
But it does not break it. For the verse presents the drying not as a malfunction but as part of the order. The same subject does it. The pasture's coming out is a determining of measure, that is, exactly as much as its turning into refuse is.
This is directly connected with qaddara in the third verse. To set a measure is also to set how long a thing will last. What was recorded in the section on Sūrat al-Qadr was this: "The value of a stretch of time is measured not by its length but by its content." al-Aʿlā states the complement of this: everything has a duration, and the duration too is part of the determining of measure.