أَرَءَيْتَ إِن كَانَ عَلَى ٱلْهُدَىٰٓ • أَوْ أَمَرَ بِٱلتَّقْوَىٰٓ
A-raʾayta in kāna ʿala'l-hudā • aw amara bi't-taqwā "Tell me — what if he (that servant) is upon guidance, or is enjoining godfearing?"
These two verses are grammatically an incomplete conditional sentence. "If he is such-and-such…" is said, and its answer is not stated.
The classical grammarians explain this gap as ḥadhf (suppression) and say that the answer is left to be completed in the mind of the one addressed. The suppressed answer is roughly this: "…what a great thing it would be to restrain that!" or "…what will become of the one who restrains him?"
The effect of the gap is this: a judgment left unsaid stands heavier than a judgment said. Because it forces the reader to construct the answer himself, and no one can reject an answer he has constructed himself. We saw that the gap between the first two verses of al-Māʿūn does the same work.
The analysis of the root was done in al-Fātiḥa in the discussion of ihdinā: ه د ي, to show the way; within the word there is both the road itself and the direction of the journey. I rely on that treatment.
What is to be attended to here is the particle عَلَى (ʿalā): ʿala'l-hudā — "upon guidance". In the discussions of al-Fātiḥa and al-Baqara we dwelt on this particle: in al-Baqara 2/5 it says of the believers ʿalā hudan min rabbihim (upon a guidance from their Lord), while of those who go astray it says fī ḍalālin (in error). ʿAlā conveys being on top, having the mastery, standing firm; fī conveys being buried inside.
Root: و ق ي. To protect, to be protected, to guard oneself. Wiqāya (protection), ittiqāʾ, muttaqī come from the same root.
The concrete sense of the root matters: to put a barrier in front of something, to make a shelter. The Arabs used this root for a shield and for the covering that protects an animal from the cold. That is, taqwā is first of all a concept of protection; not of fear.
In English taqwā is most often rendered "fear of God", and that rendering is deficient. What the root says is not to fear but to put oneself under protection. Fear is a feeling; taqwā is a conduct — a person's placing a distance between himself and what will harm him.
The verse uses this word together with the verb to enjoin: amara bi't-taqwā — he enjoined godfearing. That is, the person being restrained is not only performing his own prayer; he is also saying something to others.
1. Being upon guidance — concerning himself, turned inward. 2. Enjoining godfearing — concerning others, turned outward.
That is, the two possibilities cover the two directions of religious life: your own state and what you say to another. Whichever of these two the person restrained is doing, the restraining is out of place.
I think the ordering is meaningful: first his own state, then what he says to another. This is the Qurʾān's general arrangement; in Sūrat al-ʿAṣr too, faith and righteous work come first and the counselling of truth after. This is an observation, not a transmitted report.
What these two verses do is this: instead of defending the person restrained, they make the restraining itself impossible.
The verse does not say "that servant is on the right path" — it builds a conditional sentence: "what if he is on the right path?" This pulls the one addressed out of a defensive position and forces him to think. The man who restrains may not know what it is he is restraining. The verse sets that possibility in front of him.
And it gives rise to this question: on what reckoning can one restrain a human being from turning to his Lord? If what is restrained is right, the restrainer stands against the right. And even if it is wrong, who gave the restrainer this authority? The sūra does not ask this second question, but the gap in the sentence takes it in as well.