92. Sūrat al-Layl

Revealed in Mecca. Twenty-one verses. It takes its name from its first word.

Al-Layl comes in the muṣḥaf immediately after al-Shams, and the two sūras look as though they had come out of the same mould:

The same skeleton, two buildings that end in opposite directions. Al-Shams closes with a ruin, al-Layl with contentment.

It starts from where al-Shams left off. There the measure of deliverance had been laid down — zakkāhā (to purify one's soul and make it grow) — but it had not been filled in. Al-Layl uses the same root again and this time gives a concrete return: "He who gives his wealth, to purify himself" (92/18).

Al-Layl, that is, is the economic translation of al-Shams's abstract ruling. The answer it gives to the question of what purifying the soul means is: parting with what is in your hand.

As in al-Shams, here too there is a single rhyme: all twenty-one verses end with the sound of a long ā (yaghshā, tajallā, unthā, shattā, ittaqā, ḥusnā, yusrā, istaghnā, ḥusnā, ʿusrā, taraddā, hudā, ūlā, talaẓẓā, ashqā, tawallā, atqā, yatazakkā, tujzā, aʿlā, yarḍā).

This rhyme has a function. The sūra builds two triads that are exactly symmetrical (5-7 and 8-10) and carries the symmetry through at the level of sound as well. The two sides speak in the same metre; the only difference between them is in the verbs.

The function of the oath (qasam) was taken up in Sūrat al-ʿAṣr, and the structure of the long series of oaths in Sūrat al-Shams. It will not be repeated here. What al-Layl adds is what the arranging of the same elements in a different order does.

Wa'l-layli idhā yaghshā "By the night when it covers."

The same verb occurred in Sūrat al-Shams: "wa'l-layli idhā yaghshāhā" (91/4) — "when it covers it". There there was an object: هَا. Here there is none. Only يَغْشَىٰ — "when it covers".

This is a difference that is lost in translation but bears directly on the meaning. In Arabic, when the object of a transitive verb is dropped, the verb becomes general: the act is no longer done to a particular object but to everything.

In al-Shams the night was covering something (the sun, the earth, the darkness — the referent was disputed). In al-Layl the night covers, full stop. Covers what? Whatever there is.

This difference separates the character of the two sūras:

Al-Shams points to an object — because the subject of al-Shams is a particular thing: the soul. Al-Layl does not point — because the subject of al-Layl is a distinction, not an object.

The distinction treated in the discussion of al-Shams is preserved here too: the night comes with the imperfect (yaghshā — it covers), the day with the perfect (tajallā — it came out). The same in both sūras. The imperfect conveys continuity and renewal, the perfect completedness.

I stated in the discussion of al-Shams that this is not a rule valid everywhere in the Qurʾān (at al-Ḍuḥā 93/2 and al-Takwīr 81/17 the night comes with the perfect). But its being consistent in these two sūras suggests that the choice is deliberate.

The root gh-sh-y — to cover, to overspread, to come over and envelop — was treated at al-Shams 91/4; its derivatives (ghishāwa, ghāshiya) were given there. There is one thing to be added here:

Besides the night's covering, the Qurʾān uses this root for the overspreading of fear and of the loss of consciousness: "as though a swoon of death had come over them" (al-Aḥzāb 33/19; similarly at Muḥammad 47/20). To cover, that is, is not only to close off the sight; it also means closing off perception.

This is related to the content of the sūra further on. The person who will be described in the eighth verse — the one who is miserly and does not see himself as in need — is not seeing something: his own situation. The night's covering can be read as the picture of that blindness. I record this as a possibility of interpretation, not as the certain intent of the verse.

Wa'l-nahāri idhā tajallā "And by the day when it comes out."

The root j-l-w was treated at al-Shams 91/3: to polish, to lift what lies over a thing and make the real surface visible.

The difference is in the form. In al-Shams the verb was in Form II (jallā — it displayed it): transitive, doing something to something. Here it is in Form V (tajallā): reflexive, happening of itself. "It showed itself, it came out, it appeared."

The Qurʾān uses the same form in one of its weightiest places: "When his Lord manifested Himself to the mountain, He made it crumble to dust" (al-Aʿrāf 7/143).

Its use for the day sets up this picture: the day does not come, it opens. Not as a curtain is drawn back, but as a thing itself becomes visible.

This is the most visible difference between the two sūras, and it is worth dwelling on.

• al-Shams 91/3-4: wa'l-nahāri… wa'l-layli — first the day, then the night.
• al-Layl 92/1-2: wa'l-layli… wa'l-nahāri — first the night, then the day.

The same pair, in reverse order. The explanations offered are these:

To these I want to add a fourth, and I state that it is my own reading:

The order of the oaths in each of the two sūras gives in advance the direction of the whole of that sūra.

• Al-Shams begins with light and continues with darkness — and the sūra ends with the damdama that comes down upon a people, with a covering-over. From light to darkness.
• Al-Layl begins with darkness and continues with light — and the sūra ends with "and he will surely be well pleased" (92/21), with an opening. From darkness to light.

The order of the oaths, that is, is a small-scale model of the direction in which the sūras run.

A qualification has to be entered on this reading: in the middle of al-Layl (5-10) the order runs from good to bad, so the matter lies not in every duality but in the general arc of the sūra. The sūra's last movement is between verses 14 and 21, and there the order is clear: first the fire and al-ashqā (14-16), then al-atqā and contentment (17-21). The sūra closes moving from darkness to light.

Wa mā khalaqa'l-dhakara wa'l-unthā "And by Him who created the male and the female."

The last link of the series of oaths, and the counterpart of "wa nafsin wa mā sawwāhā" in al-Shams.

The debate over مَا taken up at al-Shams 91/5-7 is repeated here exactly: is it maṣdariyya or relative?

The grounds and the objections were given in the discussion of al-Shams; I do not repeat them. This much has to be added: here the maṣdariyya reading works a little more easily than it does in al-Shams, because in al-Layl the following verse does not turn back to an agent. In al-Shams the eighth verse said "fa-alhamahā" (then He inspired it) and so attached itself to a hidden subject; here the fourth verse says "inna saʿyakum la-shattā" — it turns to the one addressed.

Even so, in point of meaning all three readings come out at the same place: the distinction between male and female is not a thing that came about of itself but a created distinction.

There is a report about this verse found in the hadith sources, and it needs to be recorded.

According to a report transmitted in al-Bukhārī and Muslim, when ʿAlqama, of the Successors, went to Syria he met Abū'l-Dardāʾ; Abū'l-Dardāʾ asked him how Ibn Masʿūd used to read this verse. ʿAlqama read it as "wa'l-dhakari wa'l-unthā" (وَالذَّكَرِ وَالْأُنْثَى) — that is, without wa mā khalaqa. And Abū'l-Dardāʾ said that he had heard it so from the Prophet.

Two things have to be kept apart about this reading:

1. The report is found in the sound sources. There is no reason to deny the transmission. 2. This reading is not the text of the muṣḥaf. In the science of variant readings it is counted "anomalous" (shādhdh, not transmitted by mass transmission); it is not recited in prayer and is not written as the text of the Qurʾān. The form that stands in the muṣḥaf and is read by all the imams of the variant readings is وَمَا خَلَقَ الذَّكَرَ وَالْأُنثَىٰ.

There is a difference in meaning: on the anomalous reading the oath is sworn directly by the male and the female; in the text of the muṣḥaf it is sworn by the one who created / the creating. The text of the muṣḥaf agrees with the other links of the series (mā banāhā, mā ṭaḥāhā, mā sawwāhā in al-Shams): the oath moves not to the object but to the one who brought the object into being.

My reason for recording this matter is the following: reports of this kind are sometimes put into circulation with the claim that "the Qurʾān has been altered". The correct frame is this — in the first generations the readings of certain Companions, readings that opened out or shortened the sense of a verse, were known and transmitted; these did not enter the muṣḥaf, and their not entering it is itself a sign of how the science of variant readings works.

ذَكَر (dhakar). The root is ذ-ك-ر. Interestingly, this root also means to remember, to mention: dhikr, tadhkira, dhikrā. How the two senses come together is disputed among the lexicographers; on one explanation maleness has been connected with "the one who is mentioned, whose name is carried on". There is no settled conclusion; the dictionaries give the two senses side by side.

أُنْثَى (unthā). The root is أ-ن-ث. The dictionaries connect the root with softness: al-anīth — soft, easily bent. The soft kind of iron is also given a name from this root.

Why this pair?

The subject of the sūra is the difference of human strivings and two opposed moral types. The series of oaths lays a ground for this, and the ground is built upon dualities:

1. Night / day — the duality of time 2. Male / female — the duality of the living 3. (In the answer) The giver / the miser — the duality of man

The sūra, that is, passes from the idea that "everything has been created in pairs" to a moral distinction. The Qurʾān states this idea openly elsewhere: "And of everything We created pairs, that you might reflect" (al-Dhāriyāt 51/49); "Glory be to Him who created all the pairs — of what the earth brings forth, of themselves, and of what they do not know" (Yā-Sīn 36/36).

And the verb matters: خَلَقَ — He created. The male-female distinction is not an accident but an act of creation.

And there is this as well: the duality stands as both the model and the opposite of the sūra's next section. Night and day complete one another; male and female complete one another. But the pair that is to come from the fifth verse onwards is not complementary but opposed: the giver and the withholder do not complete one another.

I say this as my own reading: the sūra sets side by side the fact that the duality in nature is a "balance" and the duality in morals a "separation". Night and day are parts of one and the same order; the miser and the open-handed man are not parts of one order.

Inna saʿyakum la-shattā "Your strivings are indeed scattered."

The answer to the oath. The three-verse series is attached here.

As in Sūrat al-ʿAṣr, here too there are emphases piled one on another:

1. The oath — the three-verse series. 2. إِنَّ — assuredly. 3. لَ — the lām of emphasis at the head of inna's predicate (what the lexicographers call the "displaced lām"). 4. A nominal sentence — it conveys fixity and permanence.

In al-ʿAṣr we saw that this piling up shows the one addressed to be in the position of a denier. Here there is the same piling up, and what is said is not at first sight anything to be objected to: people's strivings are of course different. Why, then, so much emphasis?

The answer comes out when one looks carefully at what the sentence says. The verse does not say "people do different work". It says "your strivings are separate from one another" — that is, they are not going to the same place. It is this that is being objected to: the thought that everyone is doing something good in his own way, and that in the end they all come out at the same place.

Root: س-ع-ي. Its concrete sense is to walk fast, to go at a pace close to running. The state between walking and running.

From there the word widened in Arabic to mean to strive, to labour, to run after some business — the English "to run after" carries both of these senses, which makes it a good rendering.

The uses in the Qurʾān show both directions:

• Physical running: "Call the birds, and they will come to you running" (al-Baqara 2/260); "And from the far end of the city a man came running" (Yā-Sīn 36/20; similarly at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/20).
• Striving: "Man shall have only what he has worked for" (al-Najm 53/39); "And whoever wants the hereafter and makes for it the striving it deserves, being a believer…" (al-Isrāʾ 17/19).
• Hastening to a command: "When the call to prayer is made on the day of congregation, hasten to the remembrance of God" (al-Jumuʿa 62/9).

The choice of the word is meaningful. It could have said ʿamal (work), fiʿl (act), kasb (earning). Saʿy was said — that is, a state of being in motion, in haste, after something.

This says something about the sūra's conception of man: man is not a being that stands still but a running being. Everyone is going somewhere. The question is not "are you going?" but "where?"

It joins with the finding in Sūrat al-ʿAṣr: there it was said that time passes without stopping, here it is said that man runs without stopping. The two together establish that there is no neutral position.

Root: ش-ت-ت. Its meaning is to scatter, to separate, to break into pieces. Shatta'l-shayʾu — a thing scattered, came apart from itself.

شَتَّى is the plural of the word shatīt and means "separate from one another, scattered, of many kinds".

Two of its uses in the Qurʾān show the flavour of the word:

"You would think them united, but their hearts are all scattered" (al-Ḥashr 59/14). This verse is the perfect companion of al-Layl 92/4: single from outside, separate within.

"We have brought forth pairs of plants of many kinds (shattā)" (Ṭāhā 20/53).

There is a detail here that escapes notice.

سَعْي is singular: "your striving". شَتَّى, on the other hand, is plural: "scattered ones".

In Arabic it is not usual for a singular subject to take a plural predicate. The discordance here is deliberate, and it is explained thus: since the word saʿy is a verbal noun it can bear both a singular and a plural sense; the expression "your striving" covers the striving of each one of those addressed, and so is plural in meaning.

But the effect the choice produces is more interesting: the sentence sets "striving" up as one single thing and then breaks it apart. First it joins them with "your striving", then it separates them with "are scattered". A tension that does not carry over fully into English: you are all running, but not in the same direction.

This short sentence lays down the programme for the rest of the sūra. The seventeen verses that follow will show what that "scatteredness" is — and what they will show is not an endless number of directions but two.

A question arises here: if the strivings are scattered, why are they brought down to two?

The answer is in the verse itself: shattā conveys not multiplicity but separateness. The idea beneath the word is dispersal, not variety. And a thing that disperses can come apart into two pieces as well as into a hundred. The sūra says that hundreds of different ways of living come down in the end to two balances.

Fa-ammā man aʿṭā wa'ttaqā wa ṣaddaqa bi'l-ḥusnā fa-sanuyassiruhū li'l-yusrā "As for him who gives and guards himself, and confirms the finest as true, We shall ease him toward the easiest."

Wa ammā man bakhila wa'staghnā wa kadhdhaba bi'l-ḥusnā fa-sanuyassiruhū li'l-ʿusrā "And as for him who is miserly and counts himself in no need, and gives the lie to the finest, We shall ease him toward the hardest."

The centre of the sūra. Two triads, exactly symmetrical.

The structure has to be seen first, because the structure carries a claim:

The number of words is the same, the order the same, the pattern the same, the rhyme the same. Only the verbs change. The two triads are mirror images of one another.

The pattern أَمَّا … فَـ is used in Arabic for tafṣīl (detailing): after a whole has been named it is divided into its parts. In the fourth verse it was said "your strivings are scattered"; the fifth verse begins to open that scatteredness out.

This pattern has one further property: it conveys a condition and carries certainty. "Whoever does thus" — without exception.

The ordering is not accidental and cannot be reversed:

1. Act (to give / not to give) — what shows on the outside. 2. Stance (to guard oneself / to see oneself as sufficient) — the position within. 3. Assent (to confirm / to give the lie) — belief.

It goes, that is, from the outside inwards. And this is the reverse of the accustomed order: normally one expects belief first, then attitude, then behaviour.

I interpret this as my own reading: the sūra places belief not as the consequence of the act, but the act as the proof of the belief. The answer to the question of who believes what is given by looking at what his hand does. The third step stands like the explanation of the first two: he gave, he guarded himself — because he was confirming it as true.

This relation is established elsewhere in the Qurʾān too: in Sūrat al-Māʿūn the description of the one who denies the religion is given directly through behaviour — repelling the orphan, not urging the feeding of the needy (al-Māʿūn 107/1-3). There too a ruling about belief is measured by economic behaviour.

Root: ع-ط-و. Its meaning is to give, to hold out, to let go from the hand. From the same root come ʿaṭāʾ (a gift, a bounty) and taʿāṭī (giving and taking).

Its object is not stated. There is no answer to the question "gave what?" In Arabic this generalises the verb: he gave — whatever it was he gave.

This openness will narrow further on in the sūra: in the eighteenth verse it will say "he who gives his wealth". But here it is left open deliberately; giving is set down as an attitude before it is reduced to wealth.

The choice of the word is meaningful too. It could have said "he gave alms", "he spent", "he paid the zakāt" — all of these are religious terms. أَعْطَىٰ, on the other hand, is a bare verb: he gave. Not a term, a behaviour.

The root و-ق-ي (to guard, to shield) was treated at al-Baqara 2/2 and at al-Shams 91/8. In Form VIII (ittaqā) the verb becomes reflexive: he guarded himself.

That giving and guarding oneself stand side by side is striking. The usual English rendering of taqwā — "piety" — brings to mind worship and abstaining from sin; here taqwā stands right next to giving.

There must be a reason for this, and the reason may be this — my own reading: to give is a form of guarding oneself. When a man gives his wealth away he puts a distance between himself and something. Taqwā already meant "to put something in between".

The sharpest diagnosis in the sūra is here.

Root: غ-ن-ي. Its meaning is to have no need, to be sufficient, to be rich. Ghaniyy — rich, not in need; and one of the names of God (al-Ghaniyy).

Form X (istifʿāl) does two jobs in Arabic: to ask for (istaghfara — he asked for forgiveness) and to count or see as (istaḥsana — he saw as beautiful, he approved).

اسْتَغْنَى is in the second sense: to count oneself in no need, to think one has no need.

The difference is vital: the word does not say "he became rich". It says "he saw himself as sufficient". This is not a state of wealth but a state of conviction. A poor man too can carry this attitude; a rich man may not carry it.

The same diagnosis is set up in one other place in the Qurʾān, with the same word:

"No indeed! Man transgresses, because he sees himself as self-sufficient (an raʾāhu'staghnā)." (al-ʿAlaq 96/6-7)

The two texts say the same thing: the origin of insolence is not wealth but the supposition of needing nothing. In al-ʿAlaq this supposition is bound to ṭughyān (overstepping the bound); in al-Layl it is bound to bukhl (miserliness) and to takdhīb (giving the lie).

The connection is reasonable: why should a man who does not see himself as in need give? To give is the acknowledgement of a bond — with the one you give to, and with the one who gave you what you give. The supposition of needing nothing cuts that bond.

And the sūra will break this supposition three verses later: the eleventh verse will say "his wealth will not avail him when he tumbles down" — and the verb used there, يُغْنِي, is exactly the root of this word. The man who supposed himself ghanī will not be made ghanī by his wealth. The sūra gives the man his own word back.

Root: ب-خ-ل. To hold on to what is in one's hand, not to give. Turkish bahil (miserly) is from this root.

In the Qurʾān miserliness is presented not merely as a trait of character but as an error of calculation: "And let not those who are miserly with what God has given them of His bounty suppose it is good for them; on the contrary it is evil for them" (Āl ʿImrān 3/180).

بَخِلَ is not the exact opposite of أَعْطَىٰ. Its opposite would be "he did not give" (mā aʿṭā). Bakhila says more than that: not to give when one could, to withhold what is in one's hand. Miserliness, that is, is not an impossibility but a choice.

صَدَّقَ. The root is ص-د-ق. In Form II: to count true, to confirm. From the same root come ṣidq (truthfulness), ṣādiq, ṣadāqa, and, strikingly, ṣadaqa (alms).

That the word ṣadaqa comes from this root is not for nothing: the wealth given is counted the proof of the truth of a person's faith. This is the very link the verse establishes — to give and to confirm are two works from one root.

كَذَّبَ. The root is ك-ذ-ب, in Form II: to count a thing false. It was treated at al-Shams 91/11.

This is the most disputed word of the sūra.

The pattern: al-ḥusnā is the feminine of the word aḥsan (finer) — an elative on the fuʿlā pattern. Not "fine", then, but "the finest", or "that which is finer".

Its object is not specified. The word comes on its own, without a construct. What it points to has therefore been debated:

An assessment. The first view is the strongest, and the reason is this: inside the sūra the word stands side by side with giving. The one who gives is the one who believes that what he gives does not go to waste. To confirm "al-ḥusnā", that is, is to count the promise of a return true.

And indeed what the miserly man does is exactly the reverse: he holds on to what is in his hand, because he thinks that if he gives he will lose. Miserliness is an error of calculation, and the source of the error is a giving of the lie — the supposition that "there is no return".

The fourth view should not be excluded either: since the word comes unrestricted, it can be read so as to take in all of them. I make no definite narrowing.

Root: ي-س-ر. Its meaning is ease, comfort. From the same root:

• يُسْر (yusr) — ease. "God desires ease for you, He does not desire hardship for you" (al-Baqara 2/185).
• مَيْسُور (maysūr) — what is easy, what is given with ease (al-Isrāʾ 17/28).
• مَيْسِر (maysir) — gambling. The explanation for attaching the word to this root is that gambling was counted "easy gain".
• يَسَار (yasār) — both the left side and means, wealth.

In Form II, يَسَّرَ — to make easy. In the Qurʾān: "And We have certainly made the Qurʾān easy for remembrance" (al-Qamar 54/17, repeated four times in that sūra).

Three details:

The first — سَ (sīn). The sīn at the head of the verb conveys the near future: "We shall make easy". The outcome is not now, but neither is it far off.

The second — نُ (nūn). Not "I shall make easy" but "We shall make easy" — the Qurʾān's plural of majesty. The agent of the verb is plainly God. The easing, that is, does not happen of itself.

The third — لِ (lām). The verb comes not with ilā (towards) but with لِ: yuyassiruhū li'l-yusrā. This particle conveys direction and assignment. The person is not being pushed towards ease; he is being prepared for ease, being made fit for it.

Both are elatives on the fuʿlā pattern (feminine): the feminine of aysar is yusrā, the feminine of aʿsar is ʿusrā. Not "ease" and "hardship", then, but "that which is easiest" and "that which is hardest".

The noun these words qualify is not stated — there is no answer to the question "the easiest what?" In the classical explanations supplements such as "the easiest state", "the easiest road", "paradise" are supplied. The text itself does not specify.

Note the symmetry of sound here: al-yusrā / al-ʿusrā. There is a single letter's difference between the two words (yāʾ / ʿayn). Outcomes so close to one another in sound, so far apart in meaning.

This is the most striking expression in the sūra and it has to be dwelt on.

The expected sentence would be: "We shall make it hard for him" (fa-sanuʿassiruhū). But the verse uses the same verb: fa-sanuyassiruhū li'l-ʿusrā — "We shall ease him toward hardship".

This is not a contradiction; it is a deliberate expression. And what it says is heavy:

The road that goes to the bad becomes easy too.

The form of the punishment is not the closing of the road but its opening. Miserliness is not being made harder for the miser — it is being made easier. Giving the lie is not being made harder for the denier — it is being made easier.

The psychological counterpart of this is plain to see: a behaviour becomes easier the more it is repeated. The person who found it hard the first time does not find it hard the tenth. Habit dissolves resistance. The verse positions that dissolving as a punishment.

And the fine point here is this: the person does not live it as a punishment. On the contrary, he lives it as relief. The uneasiness of the first days has passed, the thing has settled. That the punishment should feel good is the heaviest part of the punishment.

The same logic holds for the good side as well: for the one who gives, giving becomes easier. The difficulty of the first giving disappears with time.

The sūra is thus saying: the first step is decisive, because what comes after it feeds itself. Both directions become easier with time — and becoming easier is not proof that the direction taken is the right one.

There is a counterpart to this within the Qurʾān: "Those who give the lie to Our signs, We shall draw them on little by little from where they do not know" (al-Aʿrāf 7/182; similarly at al-Qalam 68/44). There too the punishment is described not as a hindrance but as a flow.

The three pairs of verbs produce three separate questions for today:

Giving / miserliness. The measure is not the amount possessed but the amount let go. The sūra does not ask how rich anyone is.

Taqwā / istighnāʾ. The measure is where a person puts himself. The sentence "I need nothing from anybody" is, in the language of the sūra, a moral position — and not a good one. Self-sufficiency is presented in the modern world as a virtue: independence, being beholden to no one, standing on one's own feet. The sūra does not see this as a virtue; it sees it as the gateway to insolence. This is an inversion of angle worth thinking about.

Assent / denial. And this third has been placed as the cause of the first two. The sūra counts miserliness not as a fault of character but as a consequence of belief: the one who does not believe the return will come holds on.

Wa mā yughnī ʿanhu māluhū idhā taraddā "And his wealth will not avail him when he tumbles down."

Three verses earlier it said اسْتَغْنَى: he did not see himself as in need. Now from the same root comes يُغْنِي: it will not avail, it will not meet his need.

This is the sharpest irony the sūra sets up. The man supposed himself ghanī (not in need); his wealth will not make him ghanī.

The Qurʾān uses this pattern in other places too: "His wealth and what he earned did not avail him" (Tabbat 111/2 — there mā aghnā); "Neither their wealth nor their children will avail them anything against God" (Āl ʿImrān 3/10, similarly at 3/116).

But the use in al-Layl is special, because within one and the same sūra it answers the man's own claim. What he said in the eighth verse is refuted in the eleventh — and in the refutation his own word is used.

Root: ر-د-ي. Its concrete sense is to fall from a high place, to roll down, to tumble into an abyss. Radā — destruction, perishing; because what falls perishes.

Its derivatives:

• مُتَرَدِّيَة (mutaraddiya) — an animal that dies by falling from a height. It is counted in the Qurʾān among the animals whose flesh is forbidden (al-Māʾida 5/3). This use shows the concrete sense of the root beyond dispute: an animal that has tumbled down and died.
• رَدَى (radā) — destruction. Ṭāhā 20/16: "Let it by no means turn you away from it, or you will perish" (fa-tardā).
• تَرْدِيَة — to bring down, to push into an abyss.

Form V (taraddā) gives a reflexive and gradual flavour: he tumbled, he went tumbling down.

Three readings are transmitted for its meaning:

The three do not exclude one another — when a person dies all three take place in turn. The word's being left unrestricted in this way is so that it may cover all three at once.

The force of the image. The word does not say "when he dies"; it says "when he tumbles down". Death is pictured not as a stopping but as a falling.

And this is connected with the first half of the sūra: in the fourth verse man was described as a running being (saʿy). Now the end of that running arrives: the runner tumbles. The same movement, the same speed — but now there is no control.

There is also the relation between wealth and this image. When someone carrying a weight in his hands begins to tumble, the weight does not save him; it speeds him up. I do not present this as the intent of the verse — it is my own reading — but it is a possibility standing ready in the image the word has chosen.

Inna ʿalaynā la'l-hudā ۝ Wa inna lanā la'l-ākhirata wa'l-ūlā "The guidance is surely upon Us. The hereafter and this world are surely Ours."

Two sentences of principle, coming in the middle of the sūra after the two sides have been described.

This expression is one of the patterns in the Qurʾān most in need of being dwelt on.

The particle عَلَى in Arabic conveys obligation and debt. "ʿAlayhi daynun" — there is a debt upon him. "ʿAlayka an tafʿala" — it falls to you to do this.

The verse places guidance upon God. Not as a favour, that is, but as a work He has taken upon Himself.

At first sight this is disquieting. No one can place anything upon God. The answer lies in the verse's own logic: the one who placed the obligation is also He. The Qurʾān states this idea openly:

"Your Lord has written mercy upon Himself" (al-Anʿām 6/54; also 6/12: "He has written mercy upon Himself").

What is in question, then, is not a debt laid on from outside but an undertaking laid upon oneself. And the undertaking's being self-imposed does not make it any less binding — the verb the Qurʾān uses is "wrote".

The Qurʾān gives the same idea in Sūrat al-Naḥl with a different pattern: "And upon God rests the showing of the straight way (wa ʿalā'llāhi qaṣdu'l-sabīl)" (al-Naḥl 16/9).

A distinction has to be made here, because without it the verse can be read as a claim of compulsion (jabr).

In classical theology guidance is divided in two:

It is generally accepted that al-hudā in this verse is in the first sense, and its ground is the text itself: had the second sense been meant, everyone would have had to arrive at guidance, whereas the sūra speaks of two groups.

The Qurʾān shows this distinction with two separate verbs as well: "You cannot guide whom you love, but God guides whom He wills" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56) — the second sense here; "And indeed you guide to a straight path" (al-Shūrā 42/52) — the first sense here. Two verses, describing two different works.

The function of the verse within the sūra. Up to the eleventh verse two human types were described, and this question may come to mind: who is responsible for that distinction? The twelfth verse answers: the road was shown. Nobody is on that side because he did not know the road.

It does the same work as "fa-alhamahā fujūrahā wa taqwāhā" in Sūrat al-Shams (91/8). There at the level of equipment — inspiration into the soul; here at the level of announcement — the showing of the road is a debt upon Us. The two sūras close the same door: there is no defence of "I did not know".

The thirteenth verse: "The hereafter and this world are surely Ours."

Note: the hereafter is named first, this world second. The accustomed order is the reverse of this.

There are two explanations and both may be valid:

The first — the requirement of the verse-ending. The word al-ūlā (this world) fits the sūra's ā rhyme, al-ākhira does not. This world therefore has to come at the end. This explanation is correct but does not suffice on its own.

The second — where the emphasis lies. What is in dispute throughout the sūra is the hereafter. What the miserly man gave the lie to was al-ḥusnā — that is, the promise that the return will come. The hereafter's being named first is the bringing forward of what is in dispute.

The function of the sentence. This verse is the natural continuation of the twelfth. If the obligation of showing the road belongs to God, the end of the road must belong to Him too. Both worlds being in the same hand establishes an unbroken link between what is given in this world and what is received in the hereafter.

And this completes the economic logic of the sūra: why does the one who gives give? Because he knows that the place he gives in and the place he will receive in have the same owner. Miserliness is supposing the two worlds to be separate.

The particle لِ conveys ownership. And in the sentence it has been brought forward: wa inna lanā la'l-ākhirata wa'l-ūlā. The usual order in Arabic would be "al-ākhiratu lanā"; the bringing forward of the predicate conveys takhṣīṣ (only).

That is: not "the hereafter and this world are Ours" but "the hereafter and this world are Ours alone."

Fa-andhartukum nāran talaẓẓā "So I have warned you of a fire that blazes."

The root ن-ذ-ر was taken up in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/6. In brief: indhār is the giving of advance notice of a danger to come. Two conditions lie inside the word — the danger will be real, and the notice will be given before the danger arrives.

The tense of the verb is striking. Andhartukum — perfect, past tense: "I have warned you". Something that is to happen in the future is spoken of, but the verb is past.

This is a technique of emphasis in Arabic: a matter whose occurrence is certain is told with the perfect, as though it had already happened. Here it has two layers: both that the warning has actually been given (this sūra is the warning itself), and the certainty of the thing warned of.

And the shift in the subject. In the thirteenth verse the subject was plural (ʿalaynā, lanā — We). In the fourteenth it turns to the singular: andhartu — I have warned. Then in the fifteenth it will pass to the third person. In the Qurʾān the shifting of the direction of address is called iltifāt, and it is used to draw attention.

Who is speaking in this shift has been debated: is the agent of the verb God or the Prophet? The majority say God; the context (the "We" of the two preceding verses) supports this. Some exegetes read it as the Prophet's word.

The word has tanwīn: nāran — "a fire", indefinite.

What was said about khusrin in Sūrat al-ʿAṣr holds here too: indefiniteness can convey indescribability and dread. "Such a fire as that."

Root: ل-ظ-ي. Laẓā — flame, the purest state of fire, bare flame without smoke.

لَظَىٰ occurs in the Qurʾān as one of the names of hell: "No indeed! It is Laẓā, tearing away the limbs" (al-Maʿārij 70/15-16).

The original form of the verb is تَتَلَظَّىٰ (tatalaẓẓā); one of the two tāʾs has been dropped to avoid the heaviness of their standing side by side. This lightening is often met with in the Qurʾān.

Form V (talaẓẓā) conveys reflexivity and continuance: to blaze of itself, to be all flame. The fire is not kindled from outside; it produces its own flame.

This agrees with the general logic of the sūra. In the seventh and tenth verses the outcomes arose out of the person's own act, by being made easy. Here too the fire is described as something that burns of itself.

Lā yaṣlāhā illā'l-ashqā ۝ Alladhī kadhdhaba wa tawallā "None will enter it but the most wretched — he who gave the lie and turned away."

Root: ص-ل-ي. Its meaning is to enter the fire, to be roasted in the fire, to be exposed to the fire. Ṣalā — roasting on the fire; in Arabic the holding of meat to the fire and cooking it is expressed with this root.

It is often used in the Qurʾān: "He will soon enter a flaming fire" (Tabbat 111/3 — sayaṣlā); "Enter hell" (similar uses at al-Inshiqāq 84/12).

The voice of the verb matters and it comes out when it is compared with the seventeenth verse:

Entering the fire is the person's own act; being protected from the fire is a work done to him. Deliverance is set up not as the person's achievement but as something done to him. This agrees with the general line of the Qurʾān — at al-Baqara 2/5 too guidance was qualified as something coming "from their Lord".

The word is an elative on the afʿal pattern: "more / most wretched". It occurred at al-Shams 91/12 as ashqāhā.

The problem is this: the sentence "None will enter the fire but the most wretched" looks as though it implied that the moderately wretched will not enter. This does not agree with the Qurʾān's statements in other places.

The answers given:

The first answer is the soundest from the side of the language. The second fits the text as well. I state no definite preference.

And there is a symmetry: in the seventeenth verse ٱلْأَتْقَى will come — in the same measure, in the same pattern. Two elatives face to face. The sūra builds the two extreme types with one and the same grammatical pattern.

Two verbs, two separate works:

كَذَّبَ — he counted it false. What happens inside. تَوَلَّىٰ — he turned his face away, he turned his back. What happens outside.

Root: و-ل-ي. This root is rich: walī (friend, near one), walāya, mawlā, awlā — all convey nearness. In Form V (tawallā), however, it carries two opposite senses: both "to take charge of, to take as one's own" and "to turn away and go". The second sense is the one that holds here.

The two verbs coming together repeats the structure the sūra has kept up from the beginning: the accord of the inside with the outside. In the fifth verse the one who gave was at the same time confirming; here the one who gives the lie is at the same time turning away.

And note: the same verb was there in the ninth verse too — "wa kadhdhaba bi'l-ḥusnā". In the fifteenth verse the sūra comes back to that person. The sixteenth verse is the summary of the type described in verses eight to ten.

Wa sayujannabuhā'l-atqā ۝ Alladhī yuʾtī mālahū yatazakkā "But the most guarded will be kept away from it — he who gives his wealth, to purify himself."

Root: ج-ن-ب. Its concrete sense is side, flank. Janb — the side of a thing. Jānib — a direction. From the same root comes ajnabī (foreigner — the one at the side, the one outside).

In Form II, جَنَّبَ — to take a thing aside, to keep it away. The same root occurs in Abraham's (Ibrāhīm's) prayer too, in a request to be kept away: "Keep me and my sons away from worshipping idols" (Ibrāhīm 14/35) — the verb there is in Form I, but the work asked for is the same.

The verb here is passive and carries the sīn: sayujannabuhā — "he will be kept away from it".

The picture is this: the person is led past the side of the fire; he does not touch the fire. Deliverance is not the destroying of the fire; it is the person's being taken aside from it.

The root و-ق-ي was treated at al-Shams 91/8 and at the fifth verse of this sūra.

The debate about the elative stated for al-ashqā holds here too: the word may be conveying the attribute absolutely ("the guarded one"), or it may be conveying a superiority ("the most guarded").

The opposition of the two words:

The tense of the verb has changed. In the sixteenth verse the verbs were perfect (kadhdhaba, tawallā — he gave the lie, he turned away). Here it is imperfect: يُؤْتِي — "he gives, he is giving".

This difference is meaningful. Giving the lie and turning away are given as completed acts; giving, on the other hand, as an act that is going on. To give is not a finished piece of work but a continuing state.

The verb آتَى (root: أ-ت-ي, Form IV) means "to give" and is used in the Qurʾān particularly for the zakāt: "perform the prayer and give the zakāt" (al-Baqara 2/43 and in many places — ātū'l-zakāt).

مَالَهُ — "his wealth". In the fifth verse the object was not stated (aʿṭā — he gave); here it is stated. What the sūra left open it makes concrete at the end.

Root: م-و-ل. Māl in Arabic properly means the thing possessed; an explanation is transmitted to the effect that the word comes from the same root as mayl (inclination) — because the heart inclines towards it. This etymology is not certain; I record it but build no ruling upon it.

And here the sūra binds itself to al-Shams.

Root: ز-ك-و — treated at al-Shams 91/9: cleanness and growth together. Zakāt is from the same root.

In al-Shams the verb was in Form II: zakkāhā — "he purified it" (transitive, its object the soul). Here it is in Form V: yatazakkā — "he purifies himself, he strives to be purified" (reflexive).

The link between the two sūras is established exactly here:

• al-Shams 91/9: "He who purifies his soul has prospered." — What that meant was not said.
• al-Layl 92/18: "He who gives his wealth, to purify himself." — Here is what it means.

Al-Shams laid down the abstract ruling, al-Layl filled it in. And what it filled it in with is economic: purifying the soul comes about by letting go of wealth.

This link was already standing ready in the language itself. The word zakāt is derived from this root and is the name of the share taken out of wealth. The link between "purification" and "giving out of wealth", that is, is not a metaphor the Qurʾān sets up; it is something standing inside the word.

The grammatical position of يَتَزَكَّىٰ has been debated:

The second reading is the widespread one and agrees with the two verses that follow, because there the reason for giving will be discussed. But the third reading has a force of its own too: giving and being purified are not two separate works but two names for one and the same work.

Wa mā li-aḥadin ʿindahū min niʿmatin tujzā ۝ Illā'btighāʾa wajhi Rabbihi'l-aʿlā "No one has with him a favour to be repaid — only seeking the good pleasure of his most high Lord (does he give)."

The definition of giving without return. Its barest form in the Qurʾān is here.

The sentence begins with a negation: مَا — there is not. And what is negated is one of the reasons for giving:

"No one has with him (ʿindahū) a favour to be repaid."

That is: this man is in debt to nobody. The person he gives to has done him no earlier kindness. There is no account he is settling.

Word by word:

• لِأَحَدٍ — "of anyone". Aḥad — one, single; in a negative sentence, "no one". (This word was treated in detail in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ.)
• عِندَهُ — "with him, in his keeping". The address of the obligation.
• مِن نِّعْمَةٍ — "a favour". The مِنْ at the head is a redundant (emphatic) particle; it generalises the negation: "no favour at all".
• تُجْزَىٰ — "to be repaid". Root ج-ز-ي: to give a return, to repay. From the same root jazāʾ (requital — for the good and for the bad alike).

The exception introduced by إِلَّا is of the kind the lexicographers call munqaṭiʿ (disconnected): the thing excepted is not of the kind of the set it is excepted from.

That is, the sentence does not say: "he has nobody's favour, only the favour of his Lord's good pleasure". It says: "there is no debt he has to repay; on the contrary he seeks only his Lord's good pleasure."

Though it is rendered into English as "only" or "except", its logical function is "on the contrary".

To see the boundary the verse draws, the reasons that may lie behind an act of giving have to be counted:

1. Repaying a debt — a kindness has been received from him before. 2. Investment — something is expected from him later on. 3. Standing — to be seen, to be well thought of. 4. Relief — to be rid of a feeling of guilt. 5. Compulsion — social pressure, family, custom.

The verse eliminates the first item openly: "there is no favour with him to be repaid." And it closes off all the rest with a single positive expression: إِلَّا ٱبْتِغَآءَ وَجْهِ رَبِّهِ — only seeking his Lord's face.

Root: ب-غ-ي. Its original sense is to want, to seek, to go after. Baghy — wanting; the word also has a sense of "overstepping the bound, wronging" (wanting to excess).

Form VIII (ibtighāʾ) — to seek with effort, to demand. Frequent in the Qurʾān: "and seek of God's bounty" (al-Jumuʿa 62/10).

There is effort in the word. The one who seeks the good pleasure is demanding it; he is not waiting for it.

Root: و-ج-ه. Wajh — face, countenance; and from there direction (jiha, wajīh).

The expression "to seek God's face" recurs in the Qurʾān: "those who are patient, seeking their Lord's face" (al-Raʿd 13/22); "We feed you only for the face of God; we want from you neither return nor thanks" (al-Insān 76/9).

This last verse is the closest counterpart of al-Layl 92/19-20 and says the same thing: we want neither a return nor thanks.

On the meaning of the expression. Without entering into the theological debates about the attributes, it is enough to say this: "wajh" here conveys orientation. To do a work "for someone's face" is to seek in that work no addressee other than that person. This usage is widespread in Arabic and requires no tashbīh (likening).

Root: ع-ل-و. Height. And again an elative — the sūra's third elative pattern (al-ashqā, al-atqā, al-aʿlā).

The word is an attribute of Rabbihi: "the face of his most high Lord".

The placing of the attribute here is not for nothing. In enumerating the reasons for giving, the verse sets up a hierarchy: when people give something, whose face do they look at? The one they give to, the people around, themselves. The verse states the one face that is to be looked at, and places it at the very top.

And there is this: aʿlā (most high) stands like the opposite of the word shattā (scattered) at the beginning of the sūra. The strivings were scattered — because everyone was looking in a different direction. Here a single direction is shown. I record this as my own reading.

Wa la-sawfa yarḍā "And he will surely be well pleased."

The last verse of the sūra. Three words.

لَ — the lām of emphasis. سَوْفَ — the particle of the future; it conveys a wider future than the sīn. When the two come together, certainty and expectation are joined: "surely, in time to come, without fail".

The use of sawfa is interesting: the word normally indicates a distant future and is sometimes used for a threat (sawfa taʿlamūn — you will soon know). Here it is used for a promise, and the lām at its head turns it into certainty.

Root: ر-ض-و/ر-ض-ي. Its meaning is to be content, to be well pleased, to accept, to approve. From the same root riḍā, marḍī (the one approved), riḍwān (good pleasure).

In the Qurʾān this root is used in both directions, and the two directions come together in one verse: "God is well pleased with them, and they are well pleased with Him" (al-Bayyina 98/8; repeated at al-Māʾida 5/119 and al-Tawba 9/100).

The verse does not say what he will be pleased with. Yarḍā — unrestricted.

This is a deliberate leaving-open in Arabic. When the object is not stated the verb becomes unbounded: whatever it is he is to be pleased with, he will be pleased with it.

After describing for eighteen verses people who measure and weigh, who calculate, who give and who withhold, the sūra ends with a sentence in which the whole account is closed. And the closing sentence announces not a quantity but a state.

There is a small disagreement:

The first fits the context better: the subject of verses 17-20 is al-atqā. But the second reading too rests on the two-way use of the word and is not rejected outright.

In fact the two readings require one another: as in the verse of al-Bayyina 98/8 above, being well pleased is mutual.

Al-Shams ended "and He does not fear its outcome" — a sentence announcing, after a destruction, the absoluteness of the ruling.

Al-Layl ends "and he will surely be well pleased".

The two sūras use the same structure and arrive at two different places. And when the two stand side by side the picture is completed: the ruling is absolute (al-Shams), and at the end of the ruling there is being well pleased (al-Layl).

There is an event widely transmitted in the exegetical sources about the last section of the sūra (17-21). Care is needed here, because the report itself and the application of the report to the sūra are two different things.

According to what is related in the biographical sources, in the Meccan period some Muslims who were slaves were subjected to torture by their masters. The best known of them is Bilāl; in Ibn Isḥāq's Sīra and in other early sources it is related that Abū Bakr bought and freed him. In the same sources it is transmitted that Abū Bakr freed other slaves as well.

In the exegetical literature there are a great many reports in which the last verses of Sūrat al-Layl — particularly the expressions "he who gives his wealth, to purify himself" and "seeking the good pleasure of his most high Lord" — are connected with this behaviour. Some of the reports say that al-atqā is Abū Bakr.

There is chronological agreement. The sūra is Meccan; the event belongs to the Meccan period. In this respect there is no contradiction.

But several qualifications have to be entered:

1. The multiplicity of the reports and their soundness are two different things. This connection is widespread in the exegetical sources, but it is not of the same degree of certainty as the text of the Qurʾān.

2. Caution is required in the matter of naming names. On the question of who al-ashqā is in particular, differing names are transmitted. I give none of these names in definite language; there is disagreement among the reports, and there is no name in the text of the Qurʾān.

3. Most important of all: the sūra's own language is the language of attribute, not the language of persons. "Whoever gives and guards himself", "he who gives his wealth" — all of these are conditional and adjectival clauses. Even if they were sent down about one person, they are not limited to that person.

In the classical method this principle is formulated thus: the specificity of the occasion is no bar to the generality of the ruling. That is, even if a verse came down upon a particular event, its ruling is not confined to that event.

This principle is especially important here, because the sūra is laying down a measure. To tie the measure to a single person makes the measure useless.

Even so, the report adds something, and it would not be right to disregard that either: the expression in the nineteenth verse, "there is no favour to be repaid", is read far more sharply in a context that stresses that a freed slave has no debt towards the one who freed him.

Among the Arabs of the Jāhiliyya the freed slave (mawlā) remained bound to the one who freed him; this bond produced both social and legal consequences. The verse says that the giver establishes no such bond, and expects no return at all.

This reading shows the meaning the verse carries even if the report is not sound: giving without return includes not putting the one given to under obligation.

Between the two sūras there is not only a resemblance of structure but a network at the level of the words.

The two sūras use the same skeleton:

`` Series of oaths (cosmic) ↓ Moral duality (the ruling) ↓ The duality shown ``

But what they fill it with differs:

Al-Shams looks to the past, al-Layl to the future. Al-Shams's proof is an event that has happened; al-Layl's proof is an outcome that will happen.

Al-Shams says that the moral capacity is given: the soul was balanced, the two directions were inspired into it. Al-Layl gives the measure of that capacity: what comes out of your hand?

The two together establish this: two possibilities were given to man, and which of them he has chosen is understood by looking at what his hand does.

Al-Shams's zakkāhā becomes yuʾtī mālahū yatazakkā in al-Layl. From the point of view of exegesis this is the most important link between the two sūras: the Qurʾān makes its own abstract concept concrete in the next sūra.

The hardest place in the sūra for today is the eighth verse.

اسْتَغْنَى — not to see oneself as in need — is in modern culture not a fault but an aim. Independence, holding out one's hand to no one, standing on one's own feet, being sufficient to oneself: these are counted today as marks of maturity.

The sūra does not see this as a virtue. And because this is a thing that can easily be misunderstood, one has to speak carefully.

What the sūra criticises is not working or earning. The Qurʾān praises earning in other places. What is criticised is a position: the supposition of needing nothing.

The difference lies here: being able to do one's own work and thinking oneself in debt to nobody are two different things. The second is a lie — nobody has produced his own birth, his own language, his own health, his own safety, or even his next breath.

And the consequence of the lie is written in the verse: the one who does not see himself as in need does not give. Because to give is to acknowledge that one is inside the web. He who thinks he has received nothing thinks he owes nothing.

The diagnosis in Sūrat al-ʿAlaq is the same: "Man transgresses, because he sees himself as self-sufficient" (al-ʿAlaq 96/6-7). The two sūras point to the same place with the same word.

The side of the expression "to ease toward hardship" that looks to the present is very concrete.

There is a finding that studies of habit repeat: the more a behaviour is repeated, the easier and the less noticed it becomes. In time it becomes automatic, done without a decision being taken.

The verse positions this not as a mechanism but as a ruling: "We shall ease him toward hardship." Becoming automatic, that is, is not a neutral psychological fact; it is the name of the acquiring of a direction.

The practical consequence of this is: a behaviour's coming easily is no proof that it is right. And a behaviour's coming hard is no proof that it is wrong. The sūra says that both sides become easier.

The measure lies not in the ease but in the direction. And what determines the direction is the first steps.

The measure laid down by the nineteenth and twentieth verses takes a sharp position over against today's culture of philanthropy.

Today the visibility of giving has become a system: announcements of donations, corporate social responsibility reports, buildings given names, shared images of aid. None of these is bad in itself; some of them can be defended because they encourage others to give as well.

But this is not what the verse asks. The verse does not discuss the amount given or the usefulness of what is given. It asks what the giver is looking at.

And the measure it lays down is heavy: "there is no favour to be repaid" — that is, the one given to owes the giver nothing. Neither thanks, nor attachment, nor loyalty.

This touches the hardest side of the relation of giving. To give naturally sets up a superiority; the one who receives is put in debt. Among the Arabs of the Jāhiliyya the freed slave's remaining bound to the one who freed him was the institutionalised form of this.

The verse cuts that bond. And this holds for today as well: the person who expects gratitude from the one he gives to has in fact made a transaction.

The twelfth verse — "The guidance is surely upon Us" — stands like a sentence of theology, but it has a practical consequence.

If showing the road is a work God has taken upon Himself, this means: nobody is lost through ignorance. The road has been shown.

There is a further consequence from the other side, and it is important for today: those who take upon themselves the work of showing the road are taking over a work already taken on by another. The verse ascribes this work to God; those who appear to be doing it on people's behalf have no right to use it as their own property.

This is a boundary for every structure that sets up religious authority. The road that is shown belongs not to the one who shows it.

The fourth verse — "your strivings are scattered" — may be the most familiar description of today.

Everyone is running. This is a fact the sūra accepts too; the word saʿy already tells of running. The sūra says "stop" to nobody.

What it says is that the runnings do not go to the same place. The description in Sūrat al-Ḥashr is very close to this: "You would think them united, but their hearts are all scattered" (al-Ḥashr 59/14). Seen from outside, similar lives — similar work, similar possessions, similar calendars. But the balance is not the same.

By what does the sūra measure the balance? By three things: what has come out of the hand, where a person puts himself, what he counts true. None of the three is measurable in appearance — except the first.

And that the first is measurable is probably no accident. The sūra binds what cannot be measured to what can. What belief is can be disputed; where wealth goes cannot be disputed.