كَذَّبَتْ ثَمُودُ بِطَغْوَىٰهَآ
The tenth verse closed with a ruling: he who buried his soul has lost. The eleventh verse begins, without any connective, with the name of a people.
This is a structure often seen in the Qurʾān and it is a literary choice: the general principle is laid down, then a case in which the principle was realised is shown. That the transition is without a connective shows that the relation between the two parts is not explanation but exemplification. The text does not say "because" or "indeed"; it puts the file on the table.
The connection is left to the reader. And the connection is this: Thamūd is a people that buried its soul. They had been inspired — as everyone is inspired. They were given, besides, a messenger and a sign. Even so they covered it over.
Root: ك-ذ-ب. In Form II it is transitive and intensive: not "he told a lie" but "he counted it a lie, he gave it the lie".
The difference matters. Kadhaba (Form I) is a person's own telling of a lie. Kadhdhaba (Form II) is declaring what another has said to be a lie. The verse describes not Thamūd's telling of a lie but their counting as a lie what was said to them.
The object of the verb is not stated here. There is no answer to the question "what did they give the lie to?" In Arabic this is a deliberate leaving-open: when the object is dropped the verb becomes general. Giving the lie becomes not the rejection of a single proposition but a stance.
Root: ط-غ-ي. Its concrete sense is to exceed the limit, to pass the boundary, to overflow. Water overflowing its vessel is described with this verb; in the Qurʾān it is used of the flood of Noah: "When the water overflowed (lammā ṭaghā'l-māʾu), We carried you in the ship" (al-Ḥāqqa 69/11).
- طَاغُوت (ṭāghūt) — an authority that oversteps the boundary and knows no bounds. In the Qurʾān it is used of the false reference-point that is worshipped.
- طُغْيَان (ṭughyān) — overstepping. It occurs at al-Baqara 2/15: "and leaves them floundering in their overstepping."
- طَاغِيَة (ṭāghiya) — both the one who oversteps and the overstepping itself; interestingly, at al-Ḥāqqa 69/5 it is used of the thing by which Thamūd was destroyed.
The matter of the pattern. Where the expected word in the verse is ṭughyān, ṭaghwā has been used. This pattern (faʿlā) is rare in Arabic, and there is an obvious reason for its being chosen here: the sūra's -āhā verse-ending. And indeed three verses earlier taqwā was of the same pattern.
This is too regular to be left as a coincidence. In the eighth verse the sūra had said تَقْوَاهَا; in the eleventh it says طَغْوَاهَا. The same pattern, the same rhyme, the opposite sense:
| تَقْوَى | طَغْوَى | |
|---|---|---|
| Root | و-ق-ي — to protect, to shield | ط-غ-ي — to exceed the limit, to overflow |
| Movement | To stay within, to hold oneself in | To spill outside, to break down the boundary |
| Outcome | Deliverance | Destruction |
And note: ṭaghwā and fujūr look to the same place. Fujūr too was splitting and overflowing. Thamūd is presented as a people that chose the first of the two directions inspired in the eighth verse. The link between the two halves of the sūra has been made at the level of the words.
| Reading | Sense |
|---|---|
| Causal (the majority) | "They gave the lie because of their overstepping." The cause of the giving of the lie is the overstepping. |
| Accompaniment / state | "They gave the lie together with their overstepping, in a state of overstepping." |
The first is the more widespread and the stronger. The sense it gives is this: the giving of the lie does not come first, the overstepping comes first. Thamūd did not examine the proof and then reject it. First they passed the boundary, then they counted a lie the word that would have kept them from passing it.
This agrees with the Qurʾān's understanding of unbelief. The observation treated at al-Baqara 2/6 was just this: the matter is not ignorance but the covering over of what is known. Here the same thing is shown by way of a people — the rejection is the result not of a want of knowledge but of a way of life.
The side of this that looks to the present is direct: people very often do not live in a certain way because they believe something; they believe it because they live that way. The idea comes very often after the deed and justifies it.