al-Fajr 89:23-24

Wa jīʾa yawmaʾidhin bi-jahannam, yawmaʾidhin yatadhakkaru'l-insānu wa annā lahu'dh-dhikrā • Yaqūlu yā laytanī qaddamtu li-ḥayātī "And on that day Hell is brought; on that day man remembers — but what use is the remembering to him? He says: 'Would that I had sent something ahead for my life.'"

The verb is passive: "it was brought / it is brought." Who brings it is not said.

The note recorded for the same choice in the section on al-Humaza holds here as well: the passive form is not the concealing of the subject but its removal from the stage; the attention is on the act, not on the one who performs it.

But what is really striking is the word itself.

Hell is "brought." That is, not a place to be gone to but a thing that comes.

This turns the accustomed conception upside down. Hell is generally thought of as a place: something standing at a distance, to which a person is dispatched. The verse does not do this; it mentions Hell like an object, like something carried onto the stage.

The verbs the Qurʾān uses elsewhere point the same way (such as Hell's being "brought near"). The common point is the disappearance of distance: on that day man does not go to Hell, nor does Hell stand far off; the two are on the same stage.

And this agrees with the preceding verse of the sūra: the earth was levelled, distances were removed, everything came onto the same plane.

The expression occurs twice in the same verse: "on that day Hell is brought; on that day man remembers."

The repetition conveys emphasis and also establishes a simultaneity: the coming of Hell and the beginning of the remembering are the same moment.

That is, the remembering does not happen of itself. It happens with the appearing of something. This is necessary in order to understand the second half of the verse: what is remembered was already known; what was lacking was not the knowledge but the sight.

Root: ذ-ك-ر. The verb is in Form V (tafaʿʿul): tadhakkara — to remember of oneself, to bring to mind, to think out. This form generally conveys the verb's turning back upon the subject and its containing an effort.

And a link is established with the neighbouring sūra — one of the most striking pairs between sūras:

Sūrat al-Ghāshiya says to the Prophet:

"So remind; you are only a reminder." (al-Ghāshiya 88/21 — fa-dhakkir, innamā anta mudhakkir)

And al-Fajr says:

"On that day man remembers — but what use is the remembering to him?" (al-Fajr 89/23)

Two neighbouring sūras hold the two ends of the same root. One shows the time at which reminding is commanded, the other the time at which remembering is of no use. The difference between them is not a word but a time.

And when the two sūras are read together a measure emerges: why is the work of reminding done now? Because remembering has a time, and when that time has passed the operation is void. I record this in the section on al-Ghāshiya as well.

أَنَّى (annā) — an interrogative particle: "from where, how, by what way." The question here conveys impossibility: "from where should he get any use?" — that is, he cannot.

And what the verse says is fine: the remembering itself is not denied.

The verse does not say "he does not remember"; it says yatadhakkaru — he remembers. The verb is positive. What is denied is the function of the remembering at that time.

That is, man at last thinks the right thing. The knowledge comes, the grasp forms, the judgment is rightly built — but there is nothing left to do. The value of knowledge depends on the time at which it arrives.

This is another form of the distinction established in Sūrat al-Takāthur. There the difference between ʿilm al-yaqīn and ʿayn al-yaqīn was treated: knowledge given by report has a limit, knowledge that comes by seeing is another thing. In al-Fajr that transition takes place — and at the moment it takes place, it is too late.

And it is a relative of the finding recorded in the section on al-Humaza 104/5: "the description is not a definition but an indication. The sūra describes what it describes after saying that it cannot be described." Both sūras point to the same matter: the difference between what a report can carry and what seeing gives, and why the moment at which that difference closes is a late moment.

لَيْتَ (layta) is in Arabic the particle of wishing, and it has an important difference from لَعَلَّ (laʿalla):

• Laʿalla — hoping. It is used for something whose realisation is possible.
• Layta — wishing. It is used for something whose realisation is impossible or remote.

That is, the particle announces the outcome at the very moment the sentence is built: this wish will not be granted. That this particle should come immediately after the verse's question "what use is the remembering?" is no accident; the question and the particle say the same thing.

Root: ق-د-م. Qadima — to be in front, to go ahead. In Form II qaddama — to send ahead, to put forward, to dispatch in advance.

The Qurʾān uses this verb often for deeds, and each time it builds the same image:

• "Whatever good you send ahead for yourselves, you will find it with God." (al-Baqara 2/110; the same expression recurs at al-Muzzammil 73/20)
• "Let every soul look to what it has sent ahead for tomorrow." (al-Ḥashr 59/18)
• "On that day man is told of what he sent ahead and what he left behind." (al-Qiyāma 75/13)

The image is this: man is on a journey and can send his provision on ahead.

This is a concrete image taken from Arab life: a caravan setting out on a long road would send some of its loads ahead. What is sent waits for its owner at the place of arrival.

And the choice of the verb says one thing more: a deed is not something left here but something sent there. The work done does not stay here; it is carried. This is why the Qurʾān often says "you sent" instead of "you did".

And the man's regret is exactly here: he had a great deal in his hand, and he sent none of it. In the nineteenth and twentieth verses what he did was stated — he ate and he loved. Both are verbs of consuming.

This is the finest point of the sūra and it is generally flattened in translation.

The person calls the life he is in at that moment "my life". That is, he no longer calls the lifetime he left behind a life.

There are two readings:

The first reading is widespread and strong, and its ground is al-ʿAnkabūt 29/64. There the Qurʾān uses the word ḥayawān for the hereafter — "living itself", the most intense state of life. The life of this world, in the same verse, is called lahw and laʿib.

And from here the most striking finding of the sūra emerges. I present it as my own reading:

When the man voices his regret he does not make a correction of action. He does not say "would that I had done this, would that I had not given that". What he does is a correction of naming: what he called "life" all his life he no longer calls life.

And this is the same as the diagnosis at the beginning of the sūra.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth verses too what was wrong was not an action. The man was not charged with acquiring wealth; he was charged with naming it wrongly — with calling it "honouring" and "abasing". That is, the sūra's diagnosis at the outset was an error of naming.

The same matter stands at the two ends of the sūra:

The sūra opens with a man using words wrongly and closes with his beginning to use them rightly. The only difference between the two is at what time it happens.