لَآ أُقْسِمُ بِهَٰذَا ٱلْبَلَدِ
The literal rendering of the sentence is this: "I do not swear by this land." But almost all translations give it as "I swear". The reason is the dispute over what the lā at the head is doing.
- "No — I swear by the Day of Resurrection; and no, I swear by the self that reproaches itself" (al-Qiyāma 75/1-2)
- "No — I swear by the places where the stars fall" (al-Wāqiʿa 56/75)
- "I swear by what you see and by what you do not see" (al-Ḥāqqa 69/38-39)
- "I swear by the Lord of the easts and the wests" (al-Maʿārij 70/40)
- "No — I swear by the stars that recede and hide" (al-Takwīr 81/15)
- "I swear by the twilight" (al-Inshiqāq 84/16)
- And here, al-Balad 90/1
This is not, then, an oddity met with in one place; it is a settled form in the Qurʾān. That makes it impossible to say "it is a copyist's error" or "it is a chance usage".
| View | What it says | Ground | Its weak side |
|---|---|---|---|
| A redundant (zāʾida) lā | The lā carries no meaning, it merely reinforces the sentence. There are other examples in Arabic of the particle of negation being used for reinforcement | The frequency of the form in the Qurʾān; that it leaves no need for any other explanation | To say "redundant" is to accept that a letter has no function; in the language of the Qurʾān one has to approach that explanation with caution |
| A rejection of something said before | The lā is rejecting something the addressee has said: "No, it is not so — I swear that…" | In al-Qiyāma and al-Takwīr the context looks as though it is answering an objection; the Qurʾān's coming down inside a live dispute | Sūrat al-Balad does not begin in the middle of a dispute; the saying rejected does not appear in the text |
| The magnifying of the oath (nafy al-qasam) | To say "I do not swear" is to say "this is so plain that it needs no oath" | A known manner in Arabic: to refuse to prove a thing in order to say that it is obvious | This reading creates a tension with what follows — because the oath is in fact sworn |
| A shortened form of "alā" | The lā at the head is a form of alā, the particle that calls attention: "Look! I swear that…" | The nearness of sound | It has no counterpart in the writing; it has been found weak |
My assessment — it is not binding: the first and third views come out in practice at the same place, and both allow the text to be read without damage. In my judgement the third reading is nearer to the spirit of the language, and for this reason: to refuse to swear by a thing is to count it too plain to require an oath. We do the like in English: "No need to swear to it — it's plain to see." Read in that tone, the lā does not stay without function and the oath keeps its validity.
Even so one has to be honest: none of these views is certain, and the dispute has not been closed since the classical period. The result that reaches the translation ("I swear") is the same on all three readings; the divergence is in how the tone is set.
The analysis of the root of balad was made in Sūrat al-Tīn (b-l-d: a settled place with definite boundaries), and the function of the demonstrative hādhā was treated both there and in Sūrat Quraysh: to bring the proof out before the eyes of the addressee.
There is a difference from al-Tīn here, and it matters. In al-Tīn the city took an attribute: al-amīn. Here it takes none. The city is left bare: hādhā'l-balad — only "this land".
This gap is filled in the next verse, but not with the expected attribute. What gets said about the city is not its safety but the Prophet's situation there.