al-Ghāshiya 88:25-26

Inna ilaynā iyābahum — thumma inna ʿalaynā ḥisābahum "Truly their return is to us. Then truly their reckoning is ours."

The sūra's last two verses. And the sūra's quietest, least discussed move is here.

Root: أ-و-ب. To return, to come back, to make a return.

Its derivatives:

• أَوَّاب (awwāb) — one who turns back often, who returns continually. The Qurʾān uses this attribute for the prophets again and again in Sūrat Ṣād (Ṣād 38/17, 30, 44) and in one place mentions it as a general quality: "This is what is promised to everyone who turns back often and keeps guard" (Qāf 50/32).
• مَآب (maʾāb) — the place to which one returns, the destination. "To Him the return is beautiful" (al-Raʿd 13/29).
• إِيَاب (iyāb) — return, the act of returning. It occurs in the Qurʾān only here.

The choice of the word is meaningful. For "return" the Qurʾān more often uses the root rujūʿ (ر-ج-ع): "Then your return is to me" (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/8). Here iyāb has been chosen.

The difference the lexicographers record is this: awb conveys returning to the place one came from — it presupposes a point of departure. Rujūʿ is more general. I transmit this difference as the lexicographers have transmitted it; I do not claim that the distinction works sharply everywhere.

But if the difference is correct, its sense is this: the return is not an arrival at a place one has not been; it is a coming back to the place one set out from.

Sūrat al-Fajr will end with this sentence:

"O soul at peace! Return to your Lord, well pleased and well pleasing" (al-Fajr 89/27-28).

The verb there is irjiʿī — return.

Two neighbouring sūras, the same movement, two different moods:

The same movement, set up in two different ways. al-Ghāshiya announces the return as a fact: they will return, whether they wish it or not. al-Fajr sets the same return up as a call: return.

And the difference between them is the difference between the sūras' addressees. The "they" in the last verses of al-Ghāshiya are those who turn away and cover over; their return is a piece of news. The addressee of al-Fajr is the nafs muṭmaʾinna, the soul at peace; its return is an invitation.

The return is there in both cases. What changes is how the return is met. I record this link as an observation; the same link is made in the section on al-Fajr too.

The word order is the same in both verses: inna + preposition with its noun (brought forward) + noun.

• inna ilaynā iyābahum
• inna ʿalaynā ḥisābahum

The expected order would be inna iyābahum ilaynā. The prepositional phrase has been drawn forward — and in Arabic a fronted element conveys particularisation. This rule has been treated in several places in this commentary (al-Fātiḥa 1/4, al-Humaza 104/8, al-Qadr 97/5). Here the sense becomes: the return is not to any other place, but to us.

But the real nicety is in the change of the particles.

Ilā conveys a direction; it shows the point the movement will reach. ʿAlā, on the other hand, conveys obligation and debt in Arabic: ʿalayhi daynun means "there is a debt upon him".

That is, the second verse says this: the taking of the reckoning is a work written upon us.

One has to see how out of the ordinary this sentence is. The expected construction would be: "then we shall call them to account" — a verbal sentence, subject we, object them. The verse does not say this. It takes the reckoning upon itself as an obligation.

This has two consequences:

One. The reckoning is written upon the one who takes it, not upon the one punished. That is, the reckoning is presented not as an element of threat but as an undertaking. A thing's being "taken upon oneself" means that it will certainly be done.

Two. This means the setting up of justice as a promise. The reckoning will be taken, because a word has been given. The Qurʾān uses this language elsewhere too: "Your Lord has written mercy upon Himself" (al-Anʿām 6/54); "To help the believers is a duty upon us" (al-Rūm 30/47).

The same pattern — ʿalā + "we" — is used for both mercy and reckoning. Both are set down as an obligation undertaken.

ثم (thumma) conveys in Arabic sequence and delay: order and interval. The letter fāʾ conveys immediate sequence (right after); thumma places a distance between.

That is, a gap has been placed between the two verses: return — [interval] — reckoning.

What this interval is, is not stated. But its existence is stated. The Qurʾān has passages in its scenes of the resurrection that recount waiting, gathering, standing; thumma here leaves a width of time.

I add as an observation: the interval also conveys that the reckoning is not being hurried. Judgment is not passed at the moment of the return.

Now we come to the sūra's last move, and I present this as my own reading.

Let us look at the addressees of the last six verses:

The sūra ends with "we" a section that began with "you".

And what is said is this: you will remind, but producing the result is not your work. The return is ours, the reckoning is ours.

That is, the sūra ends by taking the burden off the Prophet's shoulder and taking it upon itself.

To see what this means one has to think of the Prophet's position. In the Meccan period the call was not advancing, the addressees were turning away, and the messenger had no sanction at all in his hand. In this situation the most natural feeling is to take the result upon oneself: "I could not explain it well enough."

The sūra's last two verses answer exactly this feeling. And they give the answer not with a sentence of consolation but with an announcement of a division of labour: the reminding is yours, the rest is ours.

This reading is completed when it is joined with the sūra's twenty-second verse. Not to be a muṣayṭir is not a deficiency but an exemption. The messenger is not held responsible for a result he cannot produce.

And this is a pattern within the Qurʾān itself. As was treated in the discussions of al-Ḍuḥā and al-Inshirāḥ, the verses directed to the Prophet most often carry the same structure: a task is given, then the limit of that task is drawn, then the burden is taken upon God.