al-Inshirāḥ 94:4

Wa rafaʿnā laka dhikrak "And We raised for you your remembrance."

This is the clearest point of word order in the sūra, and it is liable to be missed.

Waḍaʿa (to put down, to set down) and rafaʿa (to lift, to raise) are in Arabic the classic opposites of one another. The two are used together in order to establish a contrast.

The second verse says waḍaʿnā, the fourth says rafaʿnā. The same form, the same mood, the same first person plural — and opposite verbs:

• وَضَعْنَا عَنكَ — We set down from you
• وَرَفَعْنَا لَكَ — We raised for you

Down and up. Taking and giving. And between them stands the third verse — the description of the burden — so that the opposition does not come immediately side by side, but it stands.

Two things that can be done for a person: to take away what is on top of him and to lift him up. The sūra names both.

Root: ذ-ك-ر. It carries two fields of meaning, and the two are bound to one another:

• To remember, to keep in mind. Tadhakkur, dhikrā (a reminding), tadhkira.
• To mention, to give utterance to. Dhikr, dhākir.

The link between the two is direct: to mention a thing is the way of keeping it in memory.

The Qurʾān gives itself this name: "It is We who sent down the reminder, and it is We who will guard it" (al-Ḥijr 15/9). And the Prophet's task is described with this word: "So remind; you are only one who reminds" (al-Ghāshiya 88/21).

Here dhikraka — "your remembrance" — is in a third sense: repute, standing, the fact that your name is spoken.

Several explanations are given in the classical commentaries:

1. That his name is mentioned together with the name of God. In the call to prayer, in the testimony of faith, in the tashahhud. This explanation is the most widespread in the commentaries and is also grounded on a report. In the report it is transmitted that God said "When I am mentioned, you too are mentioned with Me"; this account occurs frequently in the books of exegesis, but its chain is disputed and one must approach its being transmitted in the language of certainty with caution.

2. The proclamation of the prophethood and his name's occurring in the scriptures. "…that Prophet whom they find written down with them in the Torah and the Gospel…" (al-Aʿrāf 7/157); and at al-Ṣaff 61/6 the good tidings given by Jesus (ʿĪsā) are related.

3. Standing and honour in general.

These do not exclude one another. The text does not narrow it.

Here is the real matter.

This sentence is said in the period when the addressee's name was most heavily blackened.

The Qurʾān itself records the epithets fastened on him in that period: majnūn, possessed (al-Ḥijr 15/6, al-Qalam 68/2, al-Takwīr 81/22), shāʿir, poet (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/5, al-Ṣāffāt 37/36), sāḥir, sorcerer, and kāhin, soothsayer (al-Ṭūr 52/29, al-Dhāriyāt 51/52). These are not random insults; they are the standard ways in that culture of voiding a man's speech — classifying the speaker instead of debating what is said.

It is in just this setting that "We raised your remembrance" is said.

And the verb is in the past tense. Rafaʿnā — "We raised". Not "We shall raise".

This is the same as the point about the past tense in Sūrat al-Kawthar (innā aʿṭaynāka — "We have given you", when no visible abundance was there). As was treated there: the sentence speaks not with the situation the addressee can observe but with what has been brought about.

The difference from al-Ḍuḥā also becomes visible here: al-Ḍuḥā had used the future (la-sawfa yuʿṭīka — "he will give"), al-Sharḥ uses the past (rafaʿnā — "We raised"). The two together hold the two ends of a promise: what will be and what has been.