كَلَّآ إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ لَيَطْغَىٰٓ
The hinge word of the sūra. It occurs three times: in verses 6, 15 and 19. The second half of the sūra opens with this word, the threat begins with this word, and the last verse comes again with this word.
| View | Explanation | To whom it is ascribed |
|---|---|---|
| Only rejection and deterrence (radd and zajr) | "No, it is not so!" — it rejects a prior thought or attitude | Sībawayh and the Basran lexicographers |
| Sometimes affirmation (taḥqīq: certainly, indeed) | It is also used as an opening particle reinforcing a sentence | al-Kisāʾī and some Kufan lexicographers |
The first view is the widespread one. In this verse too the sense of rejection suits the context — but the question of what is being rejected remains open, because there is no preceding statement to reject.
One of the classical explanations is this: what is rejected has not been stated, but it has been described. Through five verses it was recounted that everything was given to the human being; kallā rejects the path the human being takes in spite of that picture. That is, the "no" is said not to a sentence but to a conduct.
Its distribution within the Qurʾān. This word occurs in more than thirty places in the Qurʾān and has a striking feature: all the places where it occurs are in the sūras of the second half of the codex, and all of them are Meccan sūras. This observation is recorded in the classical sources. The reason given for it is this: the word is a sharp particle of rejection and belongs to the polemical atmosphere of Mecca. I do not give the exact count; but that the distribution runs in this direction is correct.
The sentence begins with inna and a lām comes at the head of the predicate: inna'l-insāna la-yaṭghā. In Arabic this is one of the strongest structures of emphasis. Two particles of emphasis side by side.
Emphasis is not used idly in Arabic; it presupposes that the one addressed is in a state of denial or hesitation. That is, the sentence implies: this is a finding that will meet with objection. No one says of himself "I am a transgressor." The sūra speaks knowing this.
The verb is in the imperfect: yaṭghā. It conveys continuity and renewal. Not "he transgressed once"; the tendency to transgress is something continuously at work.
Root: ط غ ي / ط غ و. The root's original, concrete sense is water's exceeding its bounds, overflowing.
There is a very clean proof of this from within the Qurʾān: "When the water overflowed (ṭagha'l-māʾ), We carried you in the running ship" (al-Ḥāqqa 69/11). Here the word describes the water in the flood of Noah and carries no moral sense at all; it is simply water's exceeding its limit.
The root's moral use comes from this concrete image. Transgression (ṭughyān) is a thing's exceeding its own limit. When water exceeds its bed it becomes a flood; flood water is no longer water that nourishes but water that destroys. The same water, in the same quantity, is life when it stays inside its bed.
This image explains the whole weight of the word: transgression is not possessing something bad; it is carrying something good outside its own limit. Power is not bad; unlimited power is transgression. Knowledge is not bad; knowledge that gives no account is transgression.
The emblem of transgression in the Qurʾān. This root is used in the Qurʾān most of all for Pharaoh: "Go to Pharaoh; he has transgressed (innahu ṭaghā)" (Ṭāhā 20/24; al-Nāziʿāt 79/17). And the content of Pharaoh's transgression is given in al-Nāziʿāt: "He said: I am your lord, the most high" (79/24).
That is, the furthest point of transgression is to put oneself in the position of a lord. And note: Sūrat al-ʿAlaq had begun with the word Lord. In the first verse the human being is introduced to his Lord; in the sixth verse the human being's tendency to reject that introduction and put himself in that place is recounted. This bond within the sūra stands in the words themselves.
The word comes again with the definite article: al-insān. That is, not a particular person but the genus.
This is a familiar pattern in the Qurʾān. The word "the human being" occurs many times together with a diagnosis:
The common feature of these diagnoses is this: almost all of them are followed by an exception. In al-ʿAṣr: "except those who believe and do good works." In al-Maʿārij: "except those who pray." That is, the Qurʾān describes the human being not as a fate but as what he becomes when left untended.
In Sūrat al-ʿAlaq this exception is not written openly; but the last verse of the sūra stands in its place: "prostrate and draw near." The diagnosis has been made, and the treatment has been put at the very end.
One more thing must be noted, per the method (Method): the verse does not describe a group, a class, a section of people. It describes a tendency. Whoever goes after that tendency is the one the verse is speaking of.