An-Nabaʾ 78:37–40

The Questions These Verses Raise

The closing verses connect Allah’s universal lordship with the creatures’ submission. They then turn from the future gathering to the response possible now.

Q1. Why name the Lord of everything and al-Raḥmān after describing the reward?

Paradise is described as both a reward and a gift. A reward answers a deed; a gift comes from generosity. Can both descriptions be true? Verse 37 answers by naming the Giver: the Lord of all creation, the Most Merciful. His promise gives His servants reason to expect the reward, while His lordship and mercy explain why it remains His gift.

Summary of the explanation

1. The Lord who rewards is the Lord of everyone

The connection begins in the preceding verse:

The description continues:

“Your Lord” addresses and honours the Prophet ﷺ. The following words prevent a narrower conclusion: his Lord is the Lord of everything, including the people who deny his message. Worshipping another does not place them under a different creator or outside Allah’s authority. The One who grants Paradise is also the One before whom every creature must answer. (Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Biqāʿī.)^[2]

The word ⁧رَبّ⁩, rabb, includes ownership, governance and care. “The heavens and the earth” includes their inhabitants as well as the places themselves. Arabic can name a place with both in view:

A city’s people commit wrongdoing; its buildings fall into ruin. Both are included in the same expression. Likewise, Allah’s lordship in 78:37 embraces the heavens and earth together with all they contain. (Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[3]

What, then, does ⁧وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا⁩, wa-mā baynahumā, “whatever is between them,” add? It makes the inclusion explicit: clouds, rain and every other intervening creature belong to Him, whether known to us or known only to Him. The declaration ⁧وَلَهُ كُلُّ شَيْءٍ⁩, “and to whom [belongs] all things” (27:91), leaves nothing under an independent lord. (Ibn ʿĀshūr, Ibn ʿUthaymīn.)^[4] This does not mean that passages mentioning only the heavens and earth exclude what lies between them. That shorter expression can already encompass the whole creation; the fuller wording removes any possible doubt about its extent. (Ibn Taymiyyah.)^[5]

Lordship also explains how the believers reach their reward. Allah created them, provided for them, guided them and enabled their good deeds. His generosity did not begin at the gates of Paradise. The reward completes His care for servants who have depended on Him throughout their lives. Even their existence is His beneficence. Thus “the Most Merciful” follows naturally after “Lord”: the One who owns and governs all also bestows these blessings. (Al-Saʿdī, al-Biqāʿī, Ibn Kathīr.)^[6]

2. Mercy gives hope without cancelling judgment

Naming ⁧الرَّحْمَن⁩, al-Raḥmān, first explains the blessings just described: Paradise is given through His mercy. It also answers those who refused the Name:

The Most Merciful whom they refused to acknowledge is the Lord of the entire creation. Their refusal changes nothing about His dominion; the reward of the believers displays the mercy they rejected. (Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[7]

The same Name appears as the sūrah moves towards judgment. Does mercy make punishment inappropriate? That would require goodness and rebellion to receive the same end. Just judgment preserves the difference between them. Mercy is not indifference to what people do. (Sayyid Quṭb.)^[8]

Another passage makes the relationship explicit:

Vast mercy gives reason to seek forgiveness; it does not promise safety to those who persist in wrongdoing. The warning is all the more serious because the Lord whose punishment cannot be repelled is Himself the possessor of that mercy. Al-Raḥmān in 78:37 likewise gives hope without removing accountability. (Al-Zarkashī.)^[9]

Nor does Allah command worship to satisfy a need of His own. He owns His creatures and needs nothing from them. Obedience benefits them; disobedience harms them. His command therefore directs them towards their own good, and the Name al-Raḥmān invites them to seek mercy and hasten towards forgiveness. This prepares the answer to the question about reward: the servant’s obedience benefits a servant already receiving Allah’s gifts. (Al-Māturīdī.)^[10]

3. A promised reward remains a gift

The two words in verse 36 describe different aspects of the same blessing. ⁧جَزَاءً⁩, jazāʾ, relates it to the obedience Allah rewards. ⁧عَطَاءً⁩, ʿaṭāʾ, describes His generosity in bestowing it. Allah’s promise establishes the servant’s entitlement; the deed does not independently make Allah indebted to its doer. The reward is therefore assured without ceasing to be a gift. (Al-Rāzī.)^[11]

The deed cannot be an equal payment for Paradise. The servant has already received blessings he could never repay, including the ability to perform that very deed. Allah nevertheless accepts it and rewards it. Calling the blessing a reward honours the obedience; calling it a gift explains why the obedient person remains dependent on divine generosity. (Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ, al-Saʿdī.)^[12]

Why can a creature not impose its own claim upon Allah? Two arguments explain the distinction between such a claim and Allah’s own promise:

• Ownership: everything besides Allah belongs to Him. No creature possesses an independent authority from which to impose terms on its Creator.
• Independence: suppose fulfilling a creature’s demand made Allah worthy of praise, while not fulfilling it made Him worthy of blame. Fulfilling it would then give Him a perfection He otherwise lacked. His perfection would depend on something besides Himself. Allah is free of that dependence.

These are the arguments al-Rāzī develops from ownership and independence. They explain why an obligation imposed by a creature differs from a promise Allah freely makes.^[13]

A different argument begins with the absence of wrongdoing: Allah knows evil to be evil and has no need of it; therefore He does not do it, and no one has a rightful complaint against Him. Al-Rāzī presents this as the Muʿtazilī argument, while associating the preceding two with Ahl al-Sunnah. On the third approach, no rightful complaint exists because Allah does no evil. The ownership and independence arguments instead deny a creature’s supposed power to bind its Creator. For the reward described here, the servant’s entitlement rests on Allah’s promise.^[14]

4. Greater bounty to another person does not take away one’s right

A further objection concerns differing rewards. If one person receives more than another, has the second been wronged? The answer depends on what the second person was entitled to receive. Giving someone else an additional gift does not withhold any part of his own promised reward.

The Prophet ﷺ explains the distinction through workers hired for different portions of a day. Ibn ʿUmar رضي الله عنهما narrated that he said:

A qīrāṭ is the unit of payment in the example. The first workers completed their work and received the amount agreed. Their complaint arose when later workers received more for a shorter period. Allah’s question returns them to their own entitlement: had any of it been withheld? They acknowledge that it had not. Their full payment establishes justice; the extra payment to others displays bounty.

The shorter period also illustrates this ummah’s shorter lives and fewer deeds, together with greater reward. On al-Maẓharī’s explanation, the two qīrāṭs express abundant bounty rather than a ceiling of exactly twice as much. He compares:

He understands ⁧كَرَّتَيْنِ⁩, karratayn, here as repeated examination, not a limit of two looks. His explanation of the two qīrāṭs likewise emphasizes abundance. The hadith’s reason for denying injustice remains precise: nothing of the earlier workers’ entitlement has been withheld.^[16]

This helps explain the transition to ⁧لَا يَمْلِكُونَ مِنْهُ خِطَابًا⁩, “They possess not from Him [authority for] speech.” No recipient controls Allah’s distribution or can demand another’s larger gift as his own right. Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ suggests this connection with differing degrees of reward, while also allowing the clause to begin a fresh description of the gathering: no one speaks without permission. His proposed connection is tentative; both explanations lead from the reward to Allah’s sole authority.^[17]

The description of lordship can likewise continue “your Lord” or begin a new grammatical statement. Either way, it identifies the same Giver. The grammatical alternative does not change the relationship developed here between His universal authority, His mercy and His gift. (Abū al-Suʿūd.)^[18]

Conclusion

The Names explain the reward by identifying its source. The Lord of all gives through mercy, fulfils His promise and wrongs no recipient. Reward does not become a debt imposed on Him, and greater generosity to one person does not diminish what another was promised. The same Lord who bestows the gift alone grants permission to speak before Him.

And Allah knows best.

Q2. Who is al-rūḥ, and what does standing in ranks establish?

Verse 38 names the Spirit beside the angels:

The title ⁧الرُّوح⁩, al-rūḥ, is used in the Qurʾān for more than one thing. Identifying it here therefore requires both comparison with other passages and attention to this scene: standing, silence and speech by permission. The strongest contextual case is for Jibrīl. The early explanations of humanity and of another created being must nevertheless be considered on their own evidence.

Summary of the explanations

1. Why Jibrīl is the strongest contextual interpretation

The first question is whether the title already identifies someone in Qurʾānic usage. Of the bearer of revelation, Allah says:

This is Jibrīl, the angel who brings revelation to the Prophet’s ﷺ heart. The correspondence becomes closer in the description of Laylat al-Qadr:

Here, too, the Spirit is named alongside the angels. The identification thus rests on a known title and a closely matching expression. It also fits the actions in 78:38: Jibrīl can literally stand, speak and receive permission. No figurative explanation of standing is needed. These are the reasons al-Qāsimī adopts; al-Rāzī records the same preference and argument from al-Qāḍī.^[22] Among the early authorities, al-Shaʿbī, al-Ḍaḥḥāk and Saʿīd b. Jubayr also identify the Spirit as Jibrīl. (Al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr.)^[23]

Does naming him separately mean he is not an angel? A distinguished member can be mentioned separately from the class to which he belongs. In Sūrat al-Qadr the angels precede the Spirit; here the Spirit precedes the angels. Neither order requires a different kind of creature. Singling out the bearer of revelation honours him, while showing that he too stands obediently before Allah. Al-Shaʿbī and al-Ḍaḥḥāk give this explanation of honour, as Ibn ʿAṭiyyah records. (Ibn ʿĀshūr, ʿAṭiyyah Sālim.)^[24]

The Sunnah likewise names the Spirit beside the angels. ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها relates that the Prophet ﷺ would say in rukūʿ and sujūd:

This wording affirms Allah’s lordship over both. It does not, by itself, settle which being is called the Spirit; the argument for Jibrīl comes from the Qurʾānic parallels and their fit with the scene.

2. Could the Spirit mean the human beings being judged?

A different interpretation starts from the gathering’s participants. Human beings are brought for judgment, while the angels also stand before Allah. Al-rūḥ can then name humanity as a class: the singular refers to those who possess a spirit, not to one individual. This is the explanation of al-Ḥasan and Qatādah; Ibn ʿĀshūr explains the generic use of the expression.^[26]

This alternative has early exegetical support, not merely a conceivable linguistic meaning. Ibn Kathīr considers humanity the likelier interpretation after discussing the others. Ḥikmat b. Bashīr b. Yāsīn grades ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s isnād from Qatādah as ṣaḥīḥ.^[27] Qatādah’s further remark, “This was something Ibn ʿAbbās used to keep to himself,” is soundly attributed to Qatādah, but he did not hear from Ibn ʿAbbās. The remark therefore does not provide a connected attribution to Ibn ʿAbbās.^[28]

“Human souls” can describe the same people, provided the souls are understood to be in their restored bodies. Ibn ʿAṭiyyah records this explanation from Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḥasan and Qatādah: after the new creation, human beings and angels stand together. Naming people through their souls does not make their resurrection bodiless.^[29]

Why distinguish souls in bodies from souls between the blasts? The latter explanation changes the time of the scene. An athar attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās through the ʿAwfī family places the souls between the two blasts, before their return to their bodies. But the surrounding passage concerns judgment, the assembled creatures and permission to speak. That is the contextual objection: the interval before bodily resurrection is not the gathering just described. Al-Ālūsī finds this timing strongly contrary to the context; when discussing al-Bayhaqī’s narration, he also questions its sound attribution to Ibn ʿAbbās.^[30]

Humanity in resurrected bodies therefore remains a serious alternative. It explains who stands for judgment and rests on early interpretation. Jibrīl has the stronger contextual case here because the Qurʾān already uses the title for him and pairs it with the angels in closely similar wording.

3. What supports another great angel or a distinct host?

The next group of explanations concerns creatures whose identity cannot be established from the ordinary meaning of the title alone. The evidence must describe the particular being intended. An athar attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās through ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭalḥah calls the Spirit an angel greater in creation than the other angels. Ḥikmat b. Bashīr b. Yāsīn grades al-Ṭabarī’s isnād for that statement as ḥasan. More elaborate descriptions require their own assessment: Ibn Kathīr calls the extended account attributed to Ibn Masʿūd “very strange,” and questions whether another such account was correctly attributed to the Prophet ﷺ.^[31]

An angel and a separate kind of creature are different interpretations. Mujāhid describes beings resembling humans who are neither humans nor angels. A separate athar from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما says:

The descriptions of this host also occur in versions attributed to the Prophet ﷺ, but those attributions have significant weaknesses. One isnād contains Muslim b. Kaysān al-Aʿwar; the editors of Mawsūʿat al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr at the Qurʾānic Studies and Information Centre judge the narration very weak.^[33] Ibn Mardawayh records a marfūʿ version framed as an answer to Jewish questioners. A note in Fatḥ al-bayān, in the edition reviewed by ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibrāhīm al-Anṣārī, questions that isnād and suggests that the description may derive from Isrāʾīliyyāt.^[34]

Can an analogy decide between this great angel and Jibrīl? The human spirit directs the body’s faculties. By analogy, a great Spirit might direct or stand above other angels. This is the reasoning in Rūḥ al-bayān. Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī prefers a mighty angel to Jibrīl, and adds an objection to identifying a single separate rank with Jibrīl: claiming agreement that Isrāfīl is greater, he considers Isrāfīl likelier to occupy it alone. But neither premise is stated in this verse. It does not identify the Spirit as the angel with the greatest body, and the word ṣaffan does not require one being to equal the size of the remaining angels. The analogy explains a proposed hierarchy; it does not establish that unseen hierarchy or displace the Qurʾānic use of the title for Jibrīl.^[35]

The collective interpretation can instead identify a distinguished group within the angels. Al-Qurṭubī records the noblest angels from Muqātil b. Ḥayyān, and guardians over the angels from Ibn Abī Najīḥ; al-Māturīdī also records the latter explanation. The first concerns honour, the second a supervisory role. These are proposed identities, each requiring evidence that the particular group is meant here.^[36]

The methodological question is therefore important: how should a Companion’s account of an otherwise unknown creature be treated? Such an account differs from explaining a familiar word or comparing two verses. It concerns the unseen, which ordinary reasoning cannot discover. Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār states that when a Companion explains unseen matters beyond independent reasoning, the starting point is to accept the explanation unless there is an indication that he did not receive it from the Prophet ﷺ. He observes that al-Ṭabarī did not make this principle decisive here and calls for closer examination of his treatment of the early generations. This gives the great-angel athar a different evidentiary basis from a linguistic possibility. It does not give every differing description the same strength, nor remove the need to assess its attribution.^[37]

4. Could revelation itself be standing?

The interpretation of revelation begins from an established Qurʾānic use of rūḥ:

Revelation gives life through guidance, and Zayd b. Aslam understood al-rūḥ in 78:38 as the Qurʾān, as reported by his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.^[39] The remaining difficulty is the action: what does it mean for the Qurʾān to stand among those who remain silent and speak by permission?

The answer takes standing figuratively. Revelation’s truth becomes manifest, its promises and warnings are fulfilled, and the consequences of accepting or rejecting it confront its recipients. What they dismissed is now vindicated. That explains how the interpretation works. It also shows why it requires more explanation than Jibrīl or humanity literally standing. Ibn ʿAṭiyyah develops this answer but still finds the interpretation strained.^[40]

The interpretation can extend to the revealed books generally. Another passage says:

The books then stand as witnesses against those who neglected them and intercede for those who fulfilled their rights and acted upon them. The same figurative explanation applies: revelation confronts its recipients with the truth they accepted or cast aside. This gives the books a role in judgment, but it does not remove the difficulty concerning their standing. (Al-Māturīdī.)^[42]

5. Why prefer one interpretation when some scholars reserve judgment?

A contextual preference and a conclusive identification are not the same claim. The preference for Jibrīl rests on the title used elsewhere, the pairing with angels and the literal actions described. Al-Ṭabarī asks whether there is a binding narration or decisive proof that requires one identity. Finding none, he withholds a definite identification. Not knowing which of these creatures is intended does not prevent understanding their submission or the warning of judgment.^[43]

A different reason for reserve appeals to:

Al-Māturīdī records an explanation that understands the Spirit here as something whose knowledge has been withheld, citing this passage. That argument depends on identifying the spirit of 17:85 with the Spirit of 78:38. Al-Ṭabarī’s reserve instead arises from his assessment of the competing evidence. The two approaches reach reserve by different steps.^[44]

Al-Naḥḥās likewise finds no decisive proof selecting one identity and says that not knowing it does no harm. He also allows that someone combining compatible meanings would not be faulted. But allowing such a proposal differs from adopting every identity. Meanings can be compatible without all being intended in a particular verse. A combined interpretation still needs evidence that the expression embraces them together.^[45]

6. Does ṣaffan require one row, two rows or many?

The identity of those standing does not by itself settle their arrangement. ⁧صَفًّا⁩, ṣaffan, expresses alignment. As a ⁧مَصْدَر⁩, maṣdar, used to describe their condition, its singular form can apply to an assembled multitude standing in ranks. It need not change to match the number of those present. (Al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿĀshūr, Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal.)^[46]

Two Qurʾānic parallels clarify the distinction:

The first uses the same singular form, while the second repeats it to describe rank upon rank. These passages establish ordered presentation before Allah without requiring every creature to occupy one immense line. Al-Shinqīṭī brings them together in explaining 18:48. Particular arrangements are nevertheless proposed: al-Shaʿbī describes two ranks, one for the Spirit and one for the angels. Al-Samīn understands the repetition in 89:22 as successive ranks, not mere emphasis, while understanding 18:48 as one unobscured line. For 78:38 he records both a Spirit standing alone opposite the angels and Jibrīl singled out for honour. The proposed identity helps shape these explanations; the singular word alone does not decide among them.^[48]

What these arrangements share becomes clear in the angels’ own words:

Their known positions and ordered standing express obedience, not independent power. Even these honoured creatures stand where Allah appoints them. (Al-Qāshānī, quoted by al-Qāsimī; Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[50]

The explanation of successive ranks also has a more detailed account of descent. Ibn ʿUthaymīn describes angels descending from successive heavens and surrounding the assembled creation. The related athar from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما begins:

It continues through the higher heavens, each group more numerous than those previously described. This is how the account describes the fuller picture; ṣaffan alone does not state those stages. Al-Ḥākim transmits the athar as mawqūf and calls it extraordinary, excepting ʿAlī b. Zayd b. Judʿān from his statement that its narrators were used as authorities. Al-Dhahabī calls its isnād strong. The details and their assessment belong to that athar, while ordered standing is explicit in the verse.

Tarjīḥ

Jibrīl is the preferred contextual interpretation of al-rūḥ. The established Qurʾānic title, its pairing with the angels and the literal fit of standing and speaking give this interpretation the clearest combined case. Al-Qāsimī, Ibn ʿUthaymīn and al-Qāḍī as recorded by al-Rāzī prefer it; al-Zuḥaylī identifies it as the majority interpretation.^[52] Humanity remains an early, substantial alternative, and reserve about a conclusive identification has its own basis.

Ṣaffan establishes ordered submission, not a required number of rows. Whatever their honour or arrangement, those assembled do not possess a right to speak independently of Allah. The next Question examines that permission.

And Allah knows best.

Q3. How can no one possess speech when other verses describe people speaking?

A gathering in which nobody speaks seems difficult to reconcile with the questions, answers and pleas described elsewhere in the Qurʾān. But verse 37 denies something more precise: nobody possesses authority to address Allah. Verse 38 then permits speech on His terms. We must distinguish that rule from descriptions of actual silence at particular stages, and from the failure of a guilty person’s defence.

Summary of the explanations

1. Receiving permission does not mean possessing authority

The wording is:

⁧يَمْلِكُونَ⁩, yamlikūna, means having something at one’s disposal. The denial therefore concerns authority to address Allah independently or demand a response from Him. It is followed by:

The second verse explains how speech takes place: Allah grants permission. An intercessor who receives that permission has been favoured, not given power over Allah’s judgment. Intercession can therefore be real while no creature possesses an independent right to it. (Al-Rāzī, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[55]

The denial extends beyond intercession. ⁧خِطَاب⁩, khiṭāb, is address directed to another, whether a statement, request, praise or objection. A plea for someone else is one instance of it, not its entire meaning. This explains the relationship between the early interpretations: Ibn al-Sāʾib identifies intercession; Muqātil, Mujāhid and Qatādah retain the wider meaning; Ibn Zayd brings out the impossibility of contending with Allah as people contend with one another. Their explanations converge on the same restriction: nobody can demand an audience or a response as a right of his own. (Al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[56]

Mujāhid expresses the distinction directly:

Al-Bukhārī includes his explanation as a muʿallaq; Ibn Ḥajar identifies its connected narration through al-Firyābī, from Warqāʾ, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from Mujāhid.^[57]

Could the verse instead deny that Allah addresses them? That possibility compares the unbelievers’ exclusion with:

On this interpretation, the deprivation is being denied Allah’s address, rather than being forbidden to address Him. That distinction is possible in itself. Here, however, the next verse describes creatures speaking when permitted. Taking both verses together therefore favours their address to Allah. (Ibn Juzayy, who also records the alternative.)^[59]

2. Does “they” mean unbelievers, believers or everyone?

One way of narrowing the denial is to contrast the two groups: believers will intercede and be accepted, whereas unbelievers have no plea that can deliver them. The passages quoting unbelievers’ speech can then concern other stations of the Day; silence at one station need not mean silence throughout it. (Ibn ʿAṭiyyah.)^[60]

But that contrast cannot give believers an independent right to speak. They intercede after permission has been given. Their honour explains why they are permitted; it does not remove their need for permission. Thus the very evidence used to exempt them confirms the rule under which they stand. (Al-Qurṭubī.)^[61]

The opposite restriction, to believers alone, draws on the description of Paradise immediately before this verse. They receive their reward in full, while unbelievers suffer no injustice in their punishment. Neither group therefore has grounds to challenge the justice of the judgment. This explains why no rightful complaint can be made, and connects the denial with the preceding promise. It does not, however, explain why the angels introduced next must also await permission. (Al-Qāḍī, as recorded by al-Rāzī.)^[62]

The whole passage provides the answer. Believers are mentioned before the denial, and the Spirit and angels after it. Both the rewarded believer and the honoured angel remain servants before their Lord. The restriction can include them all without denying any intercession Allah grants. The same general rule is stated elsewhere:

The same universal dependence appears in the sound of the gathering:

“No soul” includes the righteous as well as the guilty. Honour does not create independence, and permission does not create a right to dispense with it. The general interpretation therefore accounts for both the surrounding passage and the explicit restriction in 11:105; narrower accounts describe particular people or occasions within that rule. (Al-Rāzī, who adopts the general interpretation; Ibn Taymiyyah; Ibn Kathīr, who adduces 11:105.)^[65]

3. Why does the angels’ silence strengthen the warning?

The Spirit and angels stand in ordered ranks. If “they will not speak” refers immediately to them, their submission warns the rest of the gathering: even these honoured servants await permission. If it refers to everyone assembled, the restriction is stated directly for all. Both constructions preserve the same dependence. (Abū Ḥayyān, Abū al-Suʿūd, al-Ālūsī.)^[66]

The move from speech generally to addressing Allah makes the restriction more emphatic. Addressing Him is a particular, more momentous form of speech. If even speaking awaits leave, no one can claim that addressing Him is at his own disposal. (Abū al-Suʿūd, al-Ālūsī.)^[67]

Does the warning depend on angels being superior to humans? If angels are held to be superior, their fear makes the warning immediate: even these exalted creatures stand submissive, so others have still more reason to fear. That is the argument al-Rāzī addresses to those who accept angelic superiority.^[68] But it cannot establish a lower rank for every human if the elect of humanity are superior to the elect angels. The objection concerns the premise of that comparison, not the angels’ submission itself. (Ibn Kamāl.)^[69]

The comparison need not depend on that premise. Immediate access through service and superiority in reward are different things. A ruler’s household attendants may have access unavailable to ministers or relatives without being more highly esteemed. Likewise, the angels’ heavenly service and access to what others cannot see make their waiting for permission especially striking. Their submission warns the gathering without deciding the final rank of every angel and human being. (Al-Ālūsī.)^[70]

There is therefore no need to settle the ranking question before understanding this warning. Angelic superiority was itself held by Sunni scholars including al-Ḥalīmī, al-Bāqillānī and al-Rāzī; the warning remains intelligible on either ranking once service and access are distinguished from reward and esteem. (Al-Ālūsī.)^[71]

Their fear also appears in:

Their waiting in terror makes the reference to angels particularly telling: beings whom people wrongly worshipped are themselves afraid before Allah. They cannot be powers alongside Him when they must await His leave. The comparison with 34:23 accordingly favours angels, rather than unbelievers, as the immediate referent. (Al-Suyūṭī.)

The great messengers likewise do not presume upon their honour. In the hadith of intercession, people appeal to Nūḥ عليه السلام as the first messenger to the people of the earth and a grateful servant. His answer includes:

The concern of an honoured messenger for his own safety makes the gathering’s gravity plain. The permission eventually given to Muḥammad ﷺ is an additional honour Allah bestows, not a claim a creature can enforce.

4. Words uttered are not necessarily a defence that succeeds

The rule of permission answers the claim to independent speech. Some other passages raise a different question: how can the guilty be described as unable to speak when their very denials are quoted?

Yet they also say:

The denial of guilt is an utterance, but it is no defence. It cannot answer the evidence or establish innocence. In that sense, being unable to speak means having nothing effective to say in one’s favour: words are uttered, yet the speaker cannot avert the judgment through them. This explains the silence in al-Mursalāt without treating the quoted denial as an accepted excuse. (Ibn Kathīr.)^[76]

That answer does not require every description of silence to be figurative. Other passages describe actual silence at a particular stage. We must therefore also consider the sequence of events.

5. Denial, exposure and silence occur at different stages

Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما was asked how the denial of shirk agrees with:

His answer follows the attempted lie through to its exposure. Seeing forgiveness granted to those who worshipped Allah alone, the mushrikūn try to present themselves as sinners who had not committed shirk. Their tongues then lose the control they tried to exercise over the account. In Ibn al-Mundhir’s narration, Ibn ʿAbbās says:

The Qurʾān describes that bodily testimony:

First they attempt to conceal; then their own bodies disclose what they denied. The lie and the exposure are different events. “They will not conceal” can therefore describe their inability to conceal successfully, while preserving the account of their attempt. Ibn al-Mundhir also records the explanation that nothing is hidden from Allah even while their tongues try to hide it.^[80]

Questioning also differs according to the occasion. One passage says:

Another says:

Ibn ʿAbbās assigns the absence of questioning to the first blowing of the Horn, and the questioning to their rising after the later blast. Distinguishing the occasions lets each statement describe its own event. Permission at one stage does not establish permission at all stages. (Ibn Kathīr, Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ.)^[83]

The two answers are thus complementary. Sometimes the question is when people speak; sometimes it is what their speech can achieve. The permission stated in 11:105 and 78:38 prevents a denial at one occasion from becoming an absolute denial of speech throughout the Day. (Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā.)^[84]

The Sunnah gives a particularly clear setting. Abū Hurayrah رضي الله عنه narrates that the Prophet ﷺ said:

The ṣirāṭ is the bridge across Hell, and the hadith describes its crossing. The messengers’ prayer is the speech named for that perilous occasion. Ibn Taymiyyah places the crossing after reckoning and weighing; he reasons that if speech is so restrained even then, the awe of the earlier gathering is greater still.^[86]

Verse 38 therefore both strengthens verse 37 and places the exception beside it: the denial is confirmed, then speech by permission is admitted. (Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[87]

Conclusion

No creature possesses an independent right to address Allah; permitted speech remains entirely under His authority. This general explanation fits believers, unbelievers, the Spirit and the angels. Other passages describe different stages of the Day or distinguish an utterance from an effective defence. Their questions, denials and pleas do not turn granted permission into a power of their own.

The next Question examines the conditions attached to that permission and the benefit of intercession.

And Allah knows best.

Q4. What do permission and right speech require, and how does intercession benefit anyone?

If Allah alone determines the judgment, what does an intercessor’s request accomplish? Among people, an influential advocate may persuade a reluctant ruler. Intercession before Allah cannot work that way. Its benefit is real, but Allah Himself authorizes the request and grants its result. The verse begins by identifying the permitted speaker and the speech that is accepted.

Summary of the explanation

1. The permitted speaker and the approved beneficiary

The exception says:

The most direct construction describes one person: he receives permission and he speaks rightly. A second construction understands the person as the one for whom intercession is permitted. “Said what is right” then refers to the beneficiary’s profession of tawḥīd in this life. The first concerns the speaker’s conduct; the second concerns a condition of salvation in the person helped.

The beneficiary’s tawḥīd is a condition of salvation, but that does not settle the grammar of this sentence. Its natural sequence keeps the permitted person as the speaker: he receives leave, then speaks rightly. Making him the beneficiary requires a change of reference. We should therefore take this sentence first in its direct sense, and establish the conditions concerning the beneficiary from the passages that name him explicitly (Al-Wāḥidī’s grammatical objection; al-Rāzī records the beneficiary interpretation).^[89]

Of the angels, Allah says:

A permitted intercessor cannot simply choose any beneficiary or demand any result. The permission concerns who speaks, what he speaks about and how far he may speak. It gives authority for the approved request, not unrestricted disposal of the judgment (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[91]

Why state right speech as well as permission? Permission to begin can precede the particular words spoken. The servant waits for leave, then speaks only what is true and fitting. The clauses describe obedience before speech and obedience within it (Al-Rāzī).^[92]

On the beneficiary construction, the two conditions instead concern different times: permission at judgment and tawḥīd professed in this life. This gives an argument for intercession benefiting a sinful believer, though the grammatical objection remains. On the speaker construction, ⁧قَالَ⁩, qāla, “said,” can describe the certain future as already accomplished. Alternatively, the clause is a ⁧حَال⁩, ḥāl, describing the permitted person in the state of speaking rightly. The past form need not move the speech back to earthly life. The direct sense is that permission and right speech describe the servant’s obedience in the scene before us (Al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[93]

2. What makes the speech right?

⁧صَوَابًا⁩, ṣawāban, means what is right, as opposed to error. The contrast appears in the poetry attributed to Aws b. Ghalfāʾ:

⁧خَطَئي وصَوْبي⁩ places “my errors” against “my sound judgments.” The witness explains the contrast contained in the word.

The contrast also prevents a mistake: obtaining the desired result is not enough to make speech right. Purpose, judgment and outcome can differ. A good purpose may be correctly carried out; it may be pursued through mistaken judgment after ijtihād; or an outside occurrence may frustrate it, as when a shot aimed at game strikes a person. Conversely, an evil purpose does not become good merely because its intended outcome fails to occur. Here the speaker’s words must be right in themselves, not merely successful in obtaining his request (Al-Rāghib’s fourfold distinction).^[95]

What, then, is the foremost instance of such speech? Tawḥīd: ⁧لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ⁩, “There is no true god except Allah.” Its truth makes it central to the early explanations. Yet the word ṣawāb is wider than one formula. Truth professed and acted upon in this life, as Mujāhid explains, and truthful speech at judgment both fall within it. Nothing in the general wording requires us to exclude either. The adopted meaning is therefore right speech generally, with tawḥīd foremost within it (Al-Ṭabarī).^[96]

That breadth matters in the scene of judgment. When angels ask where groups are being taken, the answer concerning the Fire attributes punishment to their deeds without injustice from Allah; the answer concerning Paradise attributes entry to His mercy. Both are right speech: one acknowledges justice in punishment, the other mercy in salvation. This is the concrete application given by ʿIkrimah.^[97]

The terror of the occasion does not make such speech impossible: Allah keeps the permitted intercessor firm upon truth. Requests and answers must be right, and the manner of addressing Him must be fitting. The exception describes obedient speech throughout (Al-Māturīdī, al-Māwardī, Ibn ʿAjībah).^[98]

3. A real benefit without influence over Allah

The conditions now allow us to answer the opening difficulty. A human ruler may need an advocate’s influence, supporters or service, or fear what he could do if refused. Allah needs none of His creatures. The Qurʾān removes the reasons of such influence in sequence:

Those invoked besides Allah own nothing independently, share no part of His dominion and provide no assistance He needs. After ownership, partnership and needed assistance have been denied, could they nevertheless obtain a result through intercession? The next verse answers:

Intercession is not a remaining independent power after the others have been removed. Its benefit depends upon permission. Allah authorizes the intercessor, accepts the request and grants the benefit; He receives neither missing information nor needed assistance from the creature (Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Shinqīṭī).^[101]

Why make a request if Allah already wills the mercy? Because He grants benefits through means. A servant prays and Allah answers; a servant repents and Allah forgives. The servant’s act and its granted consequence are real, while both remain within Allah’s creation and decree. Intercession works in the same way: Allah appoints the request as a means to the result (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[102]

The great hadith of intercession shows this order. The Prophet ﷺ says:

Worship precedes permission, and permission precedes the accepted request. Even the praise is given by Allah. The intercessor’s honour appears in the very manner of his dependence.

A further question follows: how does the intercessor know when to seek leave, or for whom a request will be approved? On Ibn ʿĀshūr’s explanation, that knowledge is given through inspiration. He appeals to ⁧أَهْل الْمُكَاشَفَات⁩, ahl al-mukāshafāt, people of spiritual unveiling, and relates the explanation to the hadith’s sequence of granted praise, permission and acceptance. He likewise attributes knowledge of the approved beneficiary to inspiration. On this account, even readiness to make the request depends on what Allah gives the servant.^[104]

Nor does the earlier prophets’ reluctance contradict their forgiveness. Forgiveness removes a fault’s liability; it does not erase reverence before Allah. Someone who has recovered from an illness may still avoid what caused it. The analogy explains continuing caution after deliverance from its cause. In the intercession hadith, ʿĪsā عليه السلام directs people onward without naming a fault at all. Their reluctance therefore need not mean unforgiven guilt; it also reveals the gravity of the occasion and the particular honour granted to Muḥammad ﷺ (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[105]

Could the whole purpose be to honour the intercessor? That explanation protects an important truth: no request changes Allah’s will. Muḥammad ʿAbduh emphasizes that honour. But honour alone does not explain why the beneficiary is relieved through the request. The distinction between a cause Allah appoints and influence exerted over Him resolves the difficulty. Allah wills the mercy, grants it through the authorized plea, and honours the servant who makes it. The intercessor’s honour and the beneficiary’s relief are both real (Ibn Taymiyyah on intercession as a means).^[106]

4. Occurrence, permission and acceptance are different

The word ⁧إِذْن⁩, idhn, can concern what Allah decrees to occur as well as an act He authorizes and approves. In the discussion of magic:

The harm remains under His decree; the magic is not thereby lawful or pleasing to Him. This distinguishes ⁧إِذْنٌ قَدَرِيٌّ⁩, idhn qadarī, concerning occurrence under divine decree, from ⁧إِذْنٌ شَرْعِيٌّ⁩, idhn sharʿī, authorization of an approved act. Accepted intercession requires particular authorization. If permission here meant merely that words occurred, false prayers and sinful requests would satisfy the same description, and the restriction would distinguish nothing (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[108]

What about prophetic requests that were refused? Nūḥ عليه السلام appealed concerning his son; Ibrāhīm عليه السلام asked forgiveness for his father; and the Prophet ﷺ prayed over ʿAbd Allāh b. Ubayy. These cases distinguish making a request from obtaining its result. A teacher may teach without the pupil learning: the attempt takes place without its intended benefit following. Likewise, a plea can occur without becoming accepted intercession (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[109]

Nūḥ’s response to the correction is:

His request did not deliver his son. Ibrāhīm’s request arose from a promise; once his father’s enmity to Allah became clear, he dissociated himself from him (9:114). Family attachment did not override the judgment.^[111]

Ibn Ubayy’s funeral prayer likewise has to be considered with what followed. Ibn ʿUmar رضي الله عنهما narrates:

The prayer occurred, but it did not establish forgiveness. The prohibition in 9:84 and the declaration in 63:6 that forgiveness would not be granted make the outcome clear. An honoured person’s request does not compel its acceptance.^[113]

5. Who benefits, and what benefit is granted?

⁧شَفَاعَة⁩, shafāʿah, joins another person’s petition: the intercessor adds his plea to that person’s need. In worldly matters such support can serve a good or a wrongful cause, as 4:85 distinguishes. Helping someone obtain a desired result is not enough to make the act good; its object and authorization matter (Al-Shinqīṭī).^[114]

The recipient benefits from what Allah grants, while the intercessor receives honour and reward. The Prophet ﷺ taught concerning people’s needs:

Both parties can therefore be intended when passages such as 20:109 and 34:23 speak about benefit and permission. In Arabic, shafāʿah is a ⁧مَصْدَر⁩, maṣdar, a noun naming the action; it can relate that action to the one performing it or to the one for whom it is performed. The particular sentence determines which relationship is meant (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[116]

The benefits themselves also differ:

• At the gathering: intercession asks that judgment begin and the people be relieved of waiting.
• At entry to Paradise: the Prophet ﷺ is instructed to admit members of his community who face no reckoning through its right-hand gate.
• For sinful believers: intercession concerns people liable to punishment, and others besides the Prophet ﷺ also intercede for them.

Ibn Taymiyyah records the view that the first two are particular honours of the Prophet ﷺ. The requests must be understood in their own settings.^[117]

A condition concerning salvation from the Fire cannot simply be transferred to every benefit sought for the gathering. Nor is reduced punishment the same as salvation. Concerning Abū Ṭālib, the Prophet ﷺ said:

The benefit described is a reduction within the Fire. Al-Shinqīṭī preserves this exception while explaining that intercession which brings salvation belongs to the people of tawḥīd.^[119]

6. Does the exception in 43:86 grant ownership of intercession?

Another verse appears to raise a difficulty for the denial of ownership:

The exception names those who knowingly testify to the truth. It can concern the witness making the intercession, such as an angel or prophet wrongly worshipped by others, or the believer benefiting from it. These are the alternatives attributed respectively to Qatādah and Mujāhid and recorded by Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Baghawī. They identify different participants, but neither allows a request independent of Allah’s permission.

The harder issue is the apparent exception to the denial of ownership. Must it mean that truthful witnesses own what the others do not? An ⁧اسْتِثْنَاءٌ مُنْقَطِعٌ⁩, istithnāʾ munqaṭiʿ, or disconnected exception, gives a different construction: none of those invoked besides Allah owns intercession, but truthful witnesses do intercede by permission. The second statement affirms an authorized act without transferring ownership to its performer (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[121]

Two consequences favour that construction. First, intercession is not confined to beings whom others wrongly worshipped: other servants also intercede, and the Prophet ﷺ has its foremost station. Being worshipped cannot be what gives an intercessor his standing. Second, treating wrongful worship as the feature marking out owners of intercession would allow worshippers to imagine they had secured an advocate by worshipping him. Yet 21:28 makes even the angels’ intercession depend on Allah’s approval of the beneficiary. Their righteousness gives no warrant to worship them. The exception must be understood in a way that preserves both truths.

The phrase ⁧مِنْ دُونِهِ⁩, “besides Him,” describes the beings people invoke. It need not describe a special kind of intercession possessed apart from Allah. Thus the permitted act of a truthful witness leaves the denial of ownership intact.^[122]

7. Approval of faith does not mean approval of sin

If the beneficiary must be approved, how can someone with an unforgiven major sin benefit? One answer excludes him: the approved person must already be free of that liability, or must have had his repentance accepted. The latter is Muḥammad Fārūq al-Zayn’s explanation; Ibn al-Munayyir identifies the former consequence in al-Zamakhsharī’s wording. On either account, intercession cannot rescue a believer who reaches punishment with an unforgiven major sin.^[123]

The premise to examine is whether approval or disapproval must cover everything about a person together. The Qurʾān distinguishes the acts:

The distinction is between the person’s faith and his wrongdoing. Allah can approve his tawḥīd while condemning his injustice. Approval of the first does not legalize the second; condemnation of the second does not by itself turn faith into unbelief. The same distinction appears in 35:32: Allah’s chosen inheritors of the Book include someone who wrongs himself. Being chosen and having sinned are therefore not mutually exclusive descriptions. The objection fails because it treats approval as though it must apply to everything about a person or to nothing (Ibn al-Munayyir; al-Ṭībī’s evidence from 35:32).^[125]

The hadiths then establish rescue after punishment. In Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī’s رضي الله عنه narration, believers plead for their brothers in the Fire:

The plea recalls their faith and worship; their presence in the Fire shows that wrongdoing nevertheless brought punishment. Their release does not declare the wrongdoing innocent. It is a granted end to the punishment of believers whom Allah permits to be rescued. It therefore establishes benefit for sinful believers without guaranteeing that a particular sinner will avoid punishment altogether.

8. Does asking for intercession amount to asking to sin?

The objection confuses the danger with the ground for hoping to escape it. A believer asks for mercy because of faith, reverence for Allah and whatever good he has done. His sin is what threatens him; it is not what makes him worthy of rescue. Asking for a share in the Prophet’s ﷺ intercession can therefore ask for faith, obedience and mercy, rather than for a major sin that would make rescue necessary (Al-Māturīdī).^[127]

The case of Yūnus عليه السلام makes the reasoning concrete:

The glorification precedes and explains the deliverance. Yūnus عليه السلام did not need to seek distress in order to benefit from rescue. Likewise, earlier good gives a believer reason to hope for mercy if he falls into danger; it does not make the danger something to pursue (al-Māturīdī).^[129]

The objection also fails on the Muʿtazilah’s own premise. They regard minor sins as forgiven when major sins are avoided, yet they ask Allah for forgiveness. Their request does not ask to commit the minor sins whose forgiveness they seek. For the same reason, seeking intercession does not ask for the wrongdoing from which it brings relief. In both cases the object of the request is mercy (Al-Māturīdī).^[130]

9. Hope of mercy is not an assurance of rescue

Abū Hurayrah رضي الله عنه asked who would be happiest through the Prophet’s ﷺ intercession. The answer identifies sincere faith:

The profession is from the heart, not a formula detached from conviction. A believer who dies on tawḥīd may suffer punishment, but his final destination is Paradise; he does not remain eternally in the Fire. Hope of intercession belongs with repentance, obedience and fear of judgment (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[132]

Kinship does not give anyone possession of that outcome. The Prophet ﷺ warned his daughter:

He can give from wealth he owns; he does not own Allah’s judgment. The warning about ⁧غُلُول⁩, ghulūl, theft from the spoils of war, applies the same distinction to conduct. The offender arrives carrying the stolen property and appeals:

The warnings call people to obey the message, rather than presume that familiarity with its Messenger ﷺ assures rescue. Permitted intercession remains true; an assured personal claim to it does not follow.

Nor can attachment to a holy person operate as an independent means of controlling the unseen. Love for the Prophet ﷺ and the prescribed prayer for blessings upon him are acts of obedience, not powers that compel intercession (Ibn Taymiyyah).^[135] The Qurʾān describes those wrongly invoked:

They themselves seek nearness to their Lord, hope for His mercy and fear His punishment. Worshipping them cannot overcome the dependence on Allah expressed in their own worship.

Conclusion

Intercession is a real means of mercy appointed by Allah, not influence exerted over His judgment. He authorizes the speaker, approves the beneficiary and grants the result. The direct wording of 78:38 concerns a permitted speaker whose words are right; other passages establish the conditions of beneficial intercession.

A sinful believer can receive that mercy without his sin becoming approved or his freedom from every punishment being guaranteed. Faith and obedience give the hope its proper direction. Neither kinship, attachment nor the act of asking creates an independent right to rescue.

And Allah knows best.

Q5. If everyone returns to Allah, what return can a person choose?

Resurrection is not optional: everyone will be brought before Allah. Yet verse 39 invites whoever wills to take a return to his Lord. The choice must therefore concern something other than whether that meeting happens. It concerns preparing a good return through faith and obedience. “The True Day” gives the reason to prepare, and “whoever wills” brings that responsibility before each person.

Summary of the explanation

1. Why call it “the True Day”?

The description and invitation belong together:

“That” gathers up the appointed Day of Decision and what follows: punishment, reward and the assembly awaiting permission to speak. The opening presented people questioning the great news; the close declares the reality of the Day about which they questioned. The invitation follows from the judgment already set before them. (Ibn ʿĀshūr, Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Sayyid Quṭb.)^[138]

Certain occurrence. ⁧الْحَقُّ⁩, al-ḥaqq, can mean established and certain. The gathering is not a possibility that may fail to happen:

This answers denial of resurrection. A related explanation concerns the deniers’ recognition: what they doubt now becomes undeniable when they encounter it. The event is certain already; their recognition comes later. (Al-Ṭabarī, al-Wāḥidī.)^[140]

Truth and justice. A day can also be described through what occurs within it. Here judgment establishes right:

In this life, appearances can conceal intentions and a successful defence can hide wrongdoing. At judgment, hidden realities are disclosed and falsehood cannot secure a different verdict. “True” can therefore describe the justice established within the Day as well as the certainty of its coming. A further contrast concerns duration: earthly days pass, whereas the reality awaiting people is enduring. These explanations answer different questions, what occurs on the Day and how it compares with the life that has passed. (Al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[142]

The Day surpassing other days. Arabic could call a famous battle a “Day,” as in the Day of Ḥalīmah or the Day of Buʿāth. Such a day meant victory for one people over another. Here the reckoning embraces everyone: no community stands outside it, and victory or loss is no longer measured by a temporary worldly triumph. The description “the True Day” can mark that incomparable consequence. A parallel description is:

There is a similar use of “true” in the description of those who:

A true recital fulfils what recital requires through understanding the Book’s meanings and purposes. Likewise, calling this “the True Day” can distinguish the Day that fulfils the description beyond the limited triumphs people commemorate. This is an alternative explanation alongside certainty of occurrence and the establishment of right; it need not displace them. All three make the same demand intelligible: prepare for a judgment whose reality and consequence surpass the days by which people presently measure success. (Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[145]

2. An inevitable return and a good return are different

⁧مَآبًا⁩, maʾāban, comes from ⁧آبَ⁩, āba, “to return.” The witness attributed to ʿUbayd b. al-Abraṣ contrasts an absent person’s return with the loss of someone who has died:

Its subject is return to ordinary earthly life. The contrast establishes the verb’s meaning.

Must the return occur at night? Its frequent use for returning in the evening led al-Aṣmaʿī to the narrower explanation. But frequency is not a condition of meaning. In the poem just quoted, the distinction is between a traveller who can return and the dead person who does not return to earthly life; nothing in it requires evening. The same objection can be tested against:

That return is not defined by a time of night. Both the poem and the verse therefore permit the broader meaning. Acknowledging the common evening use does not require restricting every occurrence to it. This is Abū Ḥātim’s answer to al-Aṣmaʿī, including his concession about common usage. (Ibn Fāris.)

Nor does the noun itself make a return favourable. In 78:22, maʾāb describes Hell as the transgressors’ destination. Here the invitation cannot simply ask someone to choose resurrection, since believer and unbeliever must both be raised. What can be sought is the return leading to Allah’s approval and reward. (Al-Māwardī, al-Ālūsī, Jabal.)^[148]

The form can mean the return itself, a ⁧مَصْدَر مِيمِيّ⁩, maṣdar mīmī, or its destination, an ⁧اسْم مَكَان⁩, ism makān. One emphasizes how the person meets his Lord; the other emphasizes the place he prepares for. ⁧اتَّخَذَ⁩, ittakhadha, describes taking or acquiring. Both constructions fit the good return sought through faith and righteous action. (Al-Rāghib, Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[149]

The same relationship explains the interpretation ⁧سَبِيلًا⁩, sabīlan, “a way.” A return is the outcome; obedience is the way by which a favourable return is prepared. “Way” thus develops the practical force of the invitation rather than supplying an unrelated meaning of the noun. (Qatādah, recorded by al-Ṭabarī and explained by Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār.)^[150] The parallel invitation makes that means explicit:

The way is taken now; the return is encountered at judgment. Believing in that Day and doing what delivers a person from its terrors are therefore how the invitation is answered. The meeting cannot be avoided, but the person can prepare for a different outcome. (Al-Ṭabarī.)^[152]

3. “Whoever wills” calls for a response to the warning

The ⁧فَـ⁩, fa-, “so,” connects the invitation to the completed promise and warning. Having seen the two destinations and the judgment between them, a person should choose the response appropriate to that meeting. Hope and fear give the invitation its urgency. (Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[153]

The object of willing is understood from the sentence. One explanation is: whoever wishes to be saved from that Day takes a return through obedience. Another is: whoever wishes to take that return, let him do so. The first makes salvation and its means explicit; the second emphasizes the invitation to take the return. (Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr al-Rāzī.)^[154]

Does addressing choice approve refusal as well? Elsewhere the Qurʾān says:

The same verse immediately describes the Fire prepared for wrongdoers. The command form does not approve unbelief. Likewise, the invitation in 78:39 follows the two destinations and is followed by the warning in 78:40. Choice carries consequences; it does not remove them. (Abū Ḥayyān, ʿAṭiyyah Muḥammad Sālim.)^[156]

4. Real human willing remains under Allah’s will

The invitation attributes willing to the person addressed. It does not describe obedience as an act in which the servant has no choice. But that willing is not independent of the Creator. The Qurʾān states both together:

The first verse affirms the person’s will; the next places it under Allah’s will. The second does not cancel the first, and the first cannot be detached from the second. Responsibility and dependence belong together. (Ibn ʿUthaymīn.)^[158]

The invitation in 76:29 is followed by:

The Muʿtazilī inference from human willing treats the servant’s act as independent. The answer follows the dependence step by step:

1. A voluntary act proceeds from the servant’s will.
2. That will depends upon divine power.
3. An act proceeding through a dependent will does not escape the power upon which that will depends.

Dependence at the beginning of that sequence remains dependence at its end. The act is voluntary because the servant wills it; neither the act nor that willing becomes independent of the power that makes it possible. This answers the inference of independence without denying the willing explicitly affirmed by the verse. (Al-Ṭūfī, presenting the majority’s reply.)^[160]

Guidance also explains how a person comes to choose that way: when Allah wishes good for him, He guides him until he takes a return to his Lord. This explanation is attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما through ʿAṭāʾ. It brings Allah’s gift of guidance to the foreground, while the direct wording still attributes willing to the servant. The two points agree with the supporting verses: a real human response made possible by divine guidance. (Al-Rāzī; al-Wāḥidī records the attribution through ʿAṭāʾ.)^[161]

The result is neither independent self-reliance nor inactivity. Understanding, willing and acting are gifts to use in obedience. Ask Allah for guidance and act upon it: asking acknowledges dependence, while obeying fulfils responsibility. (Al-Biqāʿī, Ibn ʿUthaymīn.)^[162]

5. What does a return “to his Lord” require now?

Everyone will stand under Allah’s judgment, but nearness to His approval is sought through righteous action. Evil does not bring that nearness. Al-Qurṭubī connects “to his Lord” with the Prophet’s ﷺ opening supplication in prayer:^[163]

The hadith’s “to You” is connected with the verse’s “to his Lord”: righteous action brings its doer towards Allah’s pleasure. Wishing for a favourable destination while rejecting its way is therefore insufficient. Faith and righteous deeds prepare the good return. (Al-Qurṭubī, al-Shawkānī, Ibn ʿĀshūr.)^[165]

For one who has sinned, preparation includes repentance. Turning back now, followed by righteous deeds, prepares the return after death. The invitation comes while repentance and obedience are possible. (Muṣṭafā Muḥammad ʿUmārah.)^[166]

Conclusion

The return a person can choose is a good return prepared through faith, repentance and obedience. The Day is certain and its judgment true. Its inevitability does not make preparation pointless; it makes the response urgent. The servant really wills and acts, while successful guidance remains Allah’s gift. Seek that guidance and take the way to His approval before the meeting nobody can avoid.

And Allah knows best.

Q6. In what sense is the punishment near?

If “near” meant that the resurrection had to occur within a few years of the warning, the centuries since revelation would seem to contradict it. But the verse gives no such interval. We need to distinguish the certainty of the event, the length of time as people will experience it, and the beginning of each person’s Hereafter. These are different answers, not different dates for the Hour (Mawdūdī).^[167]

Summary of the explanations

1. Which punishment does the passage describe?

“We have warned you” looks back to what the sūrah has already made known. Hell has been described, the conduct leading to it exposed, and the way to a good return explained. The final declaration tells the hearer that the warning has been delivered: the danger and the means of escaping it have not been left unknown (Ibn ʿĀshūr, Muḥammad Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī).^[169]

The words immediately following identify the occasion:

The Spirit and angels have stood in ranks, the True Day has been declared, and now each person confronts his deeds. Understanding the punishment within this continuous scene points to the Hereafter. This contextual argument must be considered before assigning “near” to a particular event in worldly history (al-Qurṭubī, al-Shawkānī).^[170]

2. Certainty is different from a countdown

The first answer challenges the assumption that a long delay makes the warning remote enough to disregard. The Qurʾān sets the deniers’ estimate against Allah’s declaration:

An event can seem remote because people do not expect to encounter it at all. Calling the promised punishment near denies that supposed safety. Its arrival is assured, so it must govern their conduct now rather than be put aside as an unreal possibility. “Every coming thing is near” expresses that certainty; it does not disclose how many years remain (Ibn Kathīr, al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿĀshūr; al-Sāmarrāʾī on presenting the future threat as near).^[172]

A related explanation considers nearness in relation to Allah rather than the interval that seems long to the hearers. Their estimate of distance is not the measure of His declaration. This, too, answers their assessment of the warning without giving a human timetable (al-Ālūsī).^[173]

The same distinction appears in:

The command’s coming is assured, yet people are told not to demand that it be hastened. Certainty and present occurrence are therefore different things. What they imagine to be far away is approaching them, whether or not they acknowledge it (al-Māturīdī).^[175]

The world itself is moving towards its end; the present order will not continue endlessly (Ibn Juzayy).^[176] Its remaining interval is fixed in Allah’s knowledge. Not knowing its length does not make that interval unlimited. The warning concerns an appointed end, not a postponement that can continue for ever (Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad Ismāʿīl al-Muqaddim).^[177]

3. How long will the preceding life seem then?

A second answer concerns the person who finally encounters the Day. An interval can be long by the calendar and seem brief when looked back upon. The Qurʾān describes that experience:

Once the Day is seen, the stay that preceded it appears no longer than an afternoon or a morning. Even the hypothetical continuation of the world for millions of years would not overturn that description: the comparison concerns how the interval appears when its end arrives. Present impressions of a long future therefore cannot decide how distant the encounter will feel (Ibn ʿUthaymīn, al-Rāzī).^[179]

Another passage gives the question and answer:

Here years are explicitly asked about, yet the answer is a day or part of one. The exchange explains the reason for speaking of perceived brevity (al-Khaṭīb). Mawdūdī develops this answer through the difference between earthly life, in which a person measures passing time, and the soul’s state after death: on his explanation, the soul does not measure the intervening earthly centuries, and the person raised feels as though only a few hours have passed.^[181]

That answer concerns the experience of the interval. A further question remains: must every consequence of a person’s conduct wait until the whole interval has ended?

4. Death brings the first encounter with the Hereafter

The Hereafter includes the barzakh, the life between death and resurrection. Its beginning is therefore near to each person in a more immediate sense. Someone who reaches morning may not reach evening, and someone who reaches evening may not reach morning. At death the coming joy or pain begins to be disclosed; the person’s opportunity in this life is over even though the world continues (Ibn ʿUthaymīn, al-Ālūsī, Muḥammad ʿAbduh).^[182]

This also gives a reason for a more specific interpretation of “the Day” and “seeing deeds”: they may concern death and the encounter in the grave. That is a possibility Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ gives through al-Maẓharī, while retaining resurrection as the apparent setting. The evidence for the possibility is what the Sunnah describes happening before the Hour.^[183]

ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān رضي الله عنه would weep at a grave until his beard became wet. Asked why he wept there when mention of Paradise and the Fire did not bring the same response, he quoted the Prophet ﷺ:

The grave is called the first stage. The Hereafter has therefore begun for the dead person before the general gathering takes place.

That stage can already include punishment. Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما describes the Prophet ﷺ passing a garden:

These people were being punished while the Prophet ﷺ was still living in this world. Their conduct had consequences before the end of the world.

Al-Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib رضي الله عنه narrates a fuller account. After the believer’s questioning and the opening of his grave towards Paradise, the Prophet ﷺ says:

The corresponding account of the unbeliever says:

The requests concerning the Hour establish the sequence. The believer asks for it to begin; the unbeliever asks that it not begin. Neither encounter is being placed after that still-future event. Yet each person already faces his deeds in visible form. This is the evidence for allowing an encounter with deeds in the grave as well as at resurrection (al-Maẓharī).^[188]

Questioning, joy and punishment in the barzakh are thus established. They concern what is experienced after death; the explanation of perceived brevity concerns awareness of the elapsed earthly interval. Passing centuries on earth do not give the deceased further earthly lives in which to prepare.^[189]

5. Could the warning instead mean worldly punishment?

The alternative begins with a straightforward reason: punishment in this world is closer to the first hearers than the general resurrection. On this interpretation, “near” concerns an event within their worldly lives. Muqātil identifies it with the killing of Quraysh at Badr and recalls earlier peoples destroyed in this life; al-Māwardī also records the broader worldly interpretation from Qatādah.^[190]

The word “punishment” can certainly have that scope. In the context of fighting the hostile opponents addressed in Sūrat al-Tawbah, Allah says:

Another passage states:

The worldly interpretation therefore has a basis in Qurʾānic usage, not merely in the desire to find a nearby event. It can also extend beyond Badr: the conquest of Mecca and Ḥunayn are further instances included on this explanation (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[193]

Its difficulty is the following Day-clause. If “on the Day when a man will observe” tells us when the threatened punishment occurs, the punishment belongs to that final judgment. The alternative answer takes the worldly warning as an intervening statement, then reconnects the Day-clause with the earlier Day when the Spirit and angels stand in ranks. That construction explains how the worldly interpretation can read the whole passage. Nevertheless, keeping the punishment within one continuous description of judgment requires the more direct connection (Muqātil and Ibn ʿĀshūr on resuming the earlier Day; al-Shawkānī and al-Ālūsī on the contextual objection).^[194]

Does “near” merely mean that the punishment is at hand on that Day? One grammatical construction attaches ⁧يَوْمَ⁩, yawma, to ⁧قَرِيبًا⁩, qarīban. But saying that punishment is near when it is already occurring does not answer why it is called near at the time of warning. Every event is present once it has arrived. The construction still needs to convey that the coming Day itself is near; it cannot remove the original question by shifting attention to a point after the waiting has ended (al-Ālūsī).^[195]

Conclusion

The punishment of the Hereafter is the more direct interpretation.^[196] The surrounding account of judgment and the following display of deeds establish that setting. Its certainty, the brevity of the interval as it will be experienced, and death’s approach explain nearness without fixing a date for the Hour. The worldly interpretation has a linguistic basis and a grammatical answer, but a less direct connection with the scene.

The purpose of ⁧إِنْذَار⁩, indhār, is to warn while the danger can still be avoided. The sūrah addresses people during their opportunity to respond, before the regret with which it ends (Muḥammad Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī).^[197]

And Allah knows best.

Q7. Who sees what their hands sent ahead, and what do they see?

The verse first describes “the person” looking at his deeds, then names “the unbeliever” wishing to be dust. Does that second clause identify the person already mentioned, contrast him with a believer, or single out one group from a scene embracing everyone? The answer depends on the wording and the sūrah’s argument. We must then ask what seeing deeds means and why deeds are attributed to the hands.

Summary of the explanations

1. The wording and the wider reckoning

⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩, al-marʾ, need not identify a particular individual. The definite noun can express ⁧الِاسْتِغْرَاق⁩, istighrāq, inclusion of the whole class: the person as a human being. On that construction, the first clause describes everyone’s encounter with his conduct, and the second selects the unbeliever’s response for particular attention (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[199]

The broader scope has explicit parallels:

“Every soul” leaves neither group outside the encounter, and good as well as evil is named. Sūrat al-Zalzalah likewise says:

The next verses bring that general statement down to each deed:

The two destinations already described explain why the final scene embraces both groups. Whoever brings the conduct of the righteous has the great reward to meet; whoever brings the conduct of the deniers faces the punishment described. Both therefore belong within the statement about facing one’s deeds (al-Rāzī). The sūrah’s sequence reinforces that scope: the Day of Decision leads through both destinations to an invitation to prepare a good return. Naming the unbeliever’s response afterwards can select one group from this wider scene; it need not make the first noun mean only his opposite (al-Ṭībī, al-Kūrānī, Ibn Juzayy).^[203]

The contrast can still determine the emphasis within that general scene: the believer meets the good he prepared, while the unbeliever faces his evil. That presentation highlights the differing outcomes without attempting to list everything in each person’s account. It is a further possibility within the inclusive interpretation, rather than a reason to confine the noun to one group (al-Māwardī).^[204]

Nor does the English “a man” exclude women. The masculine noun follows ordinary Arabic address; the Sharīʿah establishes accountability and shared duties for men and women, with particular differences where revelation specifies them. Here the person, male or female, confronts what he or she has done (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[205]

The hadith of ʿAdī b. Ḥātim رضي الله عنه gives that personal encounter a concrete form. The Prophet ﷺ said:

Looking in either direction brings the person back to his own deeds. The command to protect oneself even with half a date turns the future encounter into a reason to do good now.

2. Does the contrast single out the believer first?

The believer-specific interpretation draws on two features. First, the explicit mention of “the unbeliever” can introduce the second side of a contrast. Second, ⁧يَنْظُرُ⁩, yanẓuru, can convey waiting: someone who has done both good and evil awaits the result with hope and fear. The unbeliever confronting punishment has no corresponding expectation that his unbelief will be pardoned. Together these reasons explain why the first clause has been understood as the believer’s anxious expectation (al-Ḥasan and Qatādah, as recorded by al-Rāzī; al-Ṭabarī and al-Shawkānī adopt this interpretation).^[207]

The athar from al-Ḥasan puts that concern plainly:

The force of these reasons depends on what the wording requires. If the verb describes seeing deeds already displayed, the unbeliever can see them too. And a clause about the unbeliever can select him from a general gathering just as naturally as contrast him with a believer. The narrower interpretation explains a real difference between their expectations, but does not establish that “the person” must exclude either group (al-Ālūsī; al-Rāzī records the waiting argument).^[209]

What, then, gives the sinful believer hope? The distinction concerns faith and pardon, not an assurance that every believer avoids all punishment:

A person who dies on tawḥīd may be pardoned for sins below shirk, or may be punished before entering Paradise. His eventual destination is Paradise; what remains uncertain is whether punishment precedes it. Accepted good deeds and forgiven sins therefore give the believer a different expectation from that of the unbeliever. “For whom He wills” allows hope of pardon without promising immediate safety to every sinner (al-Māturīdī, al-Rāzī, Rashīd Riḍā).^[211]

There is also positive good before him. The reward of faith is the greatest reward, and his other good deeds have their recompense. Seeing sins may make him fear punishment, but does not remove his hope of eventually reaching that blessing (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[212]

Hope before entry is illustrated in the description of the people at the Elevations:

Their desire for Paradise precedes their entry into it. Ibn ʿĀshūr compares the believers under discussion, or people resembling them, with that scene while acknowledging the different explanations of the passage. The point of comparison is hope before entry: fear of what precedes it and hope of eventual blessing can be present together.^[213]

3. Does the warning instead restrict the noun (الْمَرْءُ⁩) to the unbeliever?

The opposite restriction begins from the audience: the sūrah warns deniers of resurrection, so “the person” can mean the denier finally facing his deeds. Naming him explicitly as “the unbeliever” in the next clause then explains his ruin and intensifies the censure, where a simple “he” might otherwise have sufficed. A further reason concerns what he expects: the believer can look for pardon as well as recompense, while the unbeliever facing judgment sees the punishment earned by his unbelief (ʿAṭāʾ’s explanation recorded by al-Rāzī; al-Zamakhsharī, al-Nasafī).^[214]

The hands expression can indeed occur in a warning of punishment. After commanding the wrongdoers to taste the burning punishment, Sūrat al-Anfāl says:

But the surrounding words give that passage its particular scope. The expression itself does not mean evil deeds alone: the earlier parallels include good. Warning also benefits believers who must avoid sins. Neither the noun nor the fact of warning therefore requires restriction to unbelievers. The whole sūrah’s description of both groups remains the stronger contextual guide (al-Ālūsī, al-Ṭībī).^[216]

Explanations naming particular Meccans apply these contrasts to individuals. The general wording and the wider account of the two groups give no reason to limit the verse to one person or household (al-Qurṭubī records these applications; al-Rāzī adopts the general interpretation).^[217]

4. In what form does a person encounter his deeds?

One explanation begins with the record. The person receives his book and reads the conduct entered in it:

His own record is sufficient to confront him with what he did. This explains seeing deeds through seeing them recorded, rather than leaving the encounter as a recollection of the past (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[218]

A second possibility is that the deeds themselves appear in visible form. The distinction is between seeing an account of an act and seeing the act represented before its doer. Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ allows both possibilities at resurrection. His further explanation concerning the grave, developed in Q6 through al-Maẓharī, places an encounter with embodied deeds before the general gathering.^[219]

“Seeing” can also express finding the recompense. What a person did is encountered in the good or evil that follows it, and that recompense includes things he sees. The expression can thus name the outcome through the sight by which it is encountered (Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Khaṭīb).^[220]

The record and recompense need not be rival explanations: a person can see his conduct recorded and meet its consequences. Visible embodiment is a further possibility. In each case, the encounter reaches beyond what the person currently remembers. Revelation says:

And:

Together these passages include good and bad, early and recent. An act does not cease to belong to the account because its doer has put it out of mind (Ibn Kathīr).^[222]

The verb also allows a distinction between seeing, examining and awaiting. With ⁧مَا⁩, mā, as ⁧مَوْصُولَة⁩, mawṣūlah, a relative word, the person sees or awaits “that which” he sent ahead. With mā as ⁧اسْتِفْهَامِيَّة⁩, istifhāmiyyah, an interrogative, the thought is: “What have my hands sent ahead?” The wording then makes his scrutiny explicit. These constructions explain different aspects of the encounter and also show why waiting could support the believer-specific interpretation discussed above (al-Rāzī, Abū Ḥayyān, Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[223]

5. Why attribute all this conduct to the hands?

Hands are the familiar means of doing and putting things forward. An action can therefore be attributed to them even when another faculty performed it. The relationship is like calling speech a “tongue” because it is uttered through that organ, or calling rain Allah’s “mercy” because it descends through His mercy. Naming the connected means does not limit the thing described to that means. “What his hands sent ahead” accordingly includes the person’s nonmanual acts (al-Māturīdī, al-Ālūsī).^[224]

The wording can convey more than that familiar association: it can picture all the person’s conduct as the work of a maker. The person has fashioned what now confronts him. The proverb expresses responsibility in the same concrete way:

The responsibility remains one’s own even when the act was speech with the tongue or walking with the feet. The image joins varied actions through the person who produced them (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[225]

This explains the difference between the rhetorical analyses. ⁧تَغْلِيب⁩, taghlīb, starts from the frequency of manual work and includes other acts under its name. ⁧تَمْثِيل⁩, tamthīl, instead represents the whole person as a maker of his work. It does more than explain why hands are named: it pictures what the person himself has produced. This is why Ibn ʿĀshūr prefers representation. A related analysis, ⁧مَجَاز مُرْسَل⁩, majāz mursal, lets the hands stand for the other instruments of action. All include nonmanual deeds, but representation also makes the person’s authorship of his conduct vivid (Ibn ʿĀshūr; al-Ālūsī on predominance).^[226]

6. Why voice only the unbeliever’s response?

A scene embracing everyone can still give its final words to one group. Stating the unbeliever’s despair while leaving the saved believer’s words unspoken sets extreme disappointment against a joy left beyond description. That is one explanation of the contrast (al-Ṭībī).^[227]

The believer’s joy has words elsewhere:

The recipient of the record in his right hand invites others to read it. That invitation gives an expression to the joy left unstated here (Ibn ʿAjībah).^[228]

An-Nabaʾ nevertheless ends with the other response because its warning has addressed deniers of resurrection. After describing both destinations, the ending returns to those who doubted the news at the beginning. Singling out their regret completes that warning; it does not narrow the earlier account to them alone (Ibn ʿĀshūr; Ibn ʿAjībah also records the warning-context explanation).^[229]

Conclusion

“The person” includes believers and unbelievers, men and women.^[230] The general wording, the account of both destinations and the explicit parallels favour that scope. The narrower explanations bring out real differences in hope, fear and outcome, but do not require either group to be excluded.

The person encounters what he did through the record and its recompense; visible embodiment is a further possibility. The hands expression includes his other acts and brings his responsibility into view. The unbeliever’s final words are then selected to complete the sūrah’s warning.

And Allah knows best.

Q8. Why does the unbeliever wish to be dust?

Once his deeds and their consequences confront him, the unbeliever wants to escape the existence in which he must answer for them. Dust has neither awareness of punishment nor an account to face. The explanations differ over the escape he imagines: never having lived, never having risen from the grave, or becoming dust after redress like the animals. Their common subject is his regret, not a choice still open to him (Ibn ʿĀshūr, Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[231]

Summary of the explanations

1. The denial has become a wish to escape

Earlier, the deniers treated bodily decay as a reason not to believe in resurrection:

Now the very condition used in their objection has become what they desire. Their decayed bodies did not escape Allah’s power: they have been raised and must answer for their deeds. The ending thus returns to the sūrah’s opening challenge. Questioning whether the news could be true has given way to wishing to escape its reality (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[234]

The wish follows the sight of deeds because the person can no longer put his conduct away from himself. His record confronts him with it. The joyful recipient of the record welcomes what he sees; the guilty person wishes to escape the very life in which its consequences must be borne. That connection between the record and the desire for escape explains why the wish occurs at this point (ʿAbd al-Salām Aḥmad al-Rāghib).^[235]

2. Never having lived, or never having risen?

The first explanation looks back beyond birth. If he had remained dust, he would never have become a living person charged with Allah’s commands. He wishes to undo the accountable life whose consequences are now before him. This is the never-created interpretation developed by Ibn ʿĀshūr and Mawdūdī and included among the possibilities by Ibn ʿUthaymīn.^[236]

The second leaves the earthly life in place but wishes death had ended it permanently. It is the desire voiced by the recipient of the record in his left hand:

The regret moves from receiving the record, to knowing the reckoning, to wishing death had finished the matter. Likewise, wishing to be dust can mean wishing never to have been raised out of the grave. The distinction is between a life that never began and a life that never resumed after death (al-Zajjāj, al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[238]

Another passage describes the unbelievers’ desire to disappear beneath the earth:

On one early explanation, the earth opens to receive them and closes level over them (Ibn Jurayj). Another relates the wish to their exposed concealment: after they deny their shirk, their hands and feet testify, and they long for the earth to hide them (Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما). Both make escape from the reckoning concrete, though they explain the scene differently.^[240]

The reversal also concerns death itself. In worldly life it had been the thing most hateful to the denier; after seeing his deeds and facing Allah’s anger, he longs for it as an escape. What he fled has become what he desires (Qatādah).^[241]

Fearful believers may also wish, during this life, to have been insignificant creatures without an account to face. That resemblance expresses fear of responsibility; it does not make their faith and hope identical to the unbeliever’s despair after the judgment has confronted him (Ibn ʿAṭiyyah).^[242]

3. The animals’ outcome gives the wish a particular occasion

A third explanation concerns something the unbeliever sees at the gathering: animals receive redress for injuries and are then made dust. The Qurʾān says of creatures on earth and birds:

Gathering has been explained through their death and through their resurrection. These need not exclude one another: Allah gathers them by death and gathers them again at resurrection. The word itself does not restrict the gathering to only one occasion (al-Ṭabarī).^[244]

The Prophetic hadith establishes the redress at resurrection explicitly:

The horns that enabled one sheep to injure another will not leave the injured animal without redress. The example brings the restoration of rights down to a particular injury between creatures unable to assert a human legal claim (al-Ṭībī, al-Burūsawī).^[246]

Abū Dharr رضي الله عنه describes a further incident. The Prophet ﷺ saw two sheep butting one another and asked:

The observer did not know why they were butting; Allah knew and would judge between them. The redress concerns an injury known to Him, not an indiscriminate punishment of animal life.

The subsequent return to dust is explicit in Abū Hurayrah’s رضي الله عنه mawqūf athar, which al-Ḥākim grades ṣaḥīḥ according to Muslim’s conditions:

The sequence gives the occasion: gathering, redress, becoming dust, then the unbeliever’s wish to share that outcome. Al-Ṭabarī adopts this explanation; Ibn Kathīr records it alongside the wish never to have been created.^[249]

An athar from ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr رضي الله عنهما likewise describes the spreading of the earth, the gathering of creatures and redress between animals, then states:

Its isnād has differing assessments. Al-Ḥākim calls its narrators trustworthy but identifies Abū al-Mughīrah as unknown. Al-Dhahabī records Sulaymān al-Taymī’s criticism of him; the Dār al-Minhāj al-Qawīm edition also records favourable judgments from Ibn Maʿīn and Ibn Ḥibbān.^[251]

An explanation from Mujāhid develops the correspondence between injury and redress:

Pecking, kicking and butting each have their corresponding redress. Once that settlement ends and the animals become dust, the unbeliever wishes for the same end. He may wish to become dust now, like them, or to have lived as an animal, so that he too would reach that outcome. These are two forms of the animal explanation recorded by al-Māwardī. The imagined route differs, but the desired escape is the same.^[253]

4. Why give redress if the animals then become dust?

The first distinction is between an injury and a religious offence. ⁧قِصَاصُ الْمُقَابَلَة⁩, qiṣāṣ al-muqābalah, is redress corresponding to an injury. ⁧تَكْلِيف⁩, taklīf, makes a creature responsible for duties and prohibitions. Restoring the hornless sheep’s right does not make either animal a believer or an unbeliever subject to the human religious account. The injury can be set right without those further conditions (al-Burūsawī).^[254]

A separate objection concerns the end of life after redress. Some Muʿtazilī theologians reasoned as follows: an animal raised after suffering receives compensation or a freely bestowed benefit; making it dust would terminate that benefit; terminating it would be a new injury. On this premise, compensation must be followed by continued life. The step to examine in that reasoning is whether ending the animal’s life must itself inflict another injury (al-Rāzī and al-Nīsābūrī record the objection).^[255]

That premise leads to proposals for the animals’ continued existence: beautiful animals might become rewards for the people of Paradise, and ugly animals a punishment for the people of Hell. These are proposed destinations within the argument for continued life, as al-Rāzī records, rather than consequences established by the redress hadith itself.^[256]

But continued life does not follow even within that discussion if the last step is denied. Once compensation is complete, a creature lacking full rational capacity can have its life ended without experiencing pain. In that case there is no further suffering requiring compensation. Redress and a subsequent painless end of life are therefore compatible. This is al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s qualification, recorded by al-Rāzī.^[257]

What actually happens in the unseen must be established through revelation. Al-Thaʿālibī records an objection to a living creature’s extinction, but makes sound revelation decisive rather than a proposed rational necessity. He states that he had not encountered a sound Prophetic hadith about the return to dust; Muṣṭafā al-ʿAdawī likewise distinguishes the sound redress hadith from that further statement.^[258]

The texts differ in their attribution and scope. Muslim’s Prophetic hadith establishes redress. Abū Hurayrah’s Companion athar adds the dust outcome and is graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Ḥākim. The marfūʿ version in al-Ṭabarī that also includes the command to become dust has a weak isnād. Thus the particular dust explanation rests on the Companion athar, while the general fact of animal redress has the sound Prophetic proof already quoted.^[259]

5. Does that outcome extend to believing jinn?

Being a creature gathered at judgment does not by itself determine the creature’s final destination. Jinn, unlike animals, are addressed with religious duties and are answerable for faith and conduct. The animal account therefore raises a new question about them rather than resolving it (al-Qurṭubī, al-Burūsawī).^[260]

An early position does extend the dust outcome to believing jinn: Abū al-Zinād, ʿAbd Allāh b. Dhakwān, is quoted to that effect, as is Layth b. Abī Sulaym. A further statement attributed to Layth describes their reward as protection from the Fire, followed by becoming dust. The isnād to Abū al-Zinād in al-Thaʿlabī has weaknesses identified in the Dār al-Tafsīr edition: two narrators lack recorded assessments and two others are described as truthful but liable to error.^[261]

Continuing recompense leaves a further question about its location. The two positions place believing jinn around Paradise, in its outskirts and open spaces, or inside Paradise itself. Both affirm continuing reward rather than the animals’ return to dust; they differ over where that reward is received. To assess entry into Paradise, we must therefore consider the promise addressed to jinn, not infer their destination from the animal account (al-Qurṭubī favours the outskirts here; al-Qinnawjī records entry as the majority position; al-Burūsawī affirms continuing reward).^[262]

The Qurʾānic promise gives a reason for affirming entry. Sūrat al-Raḥmān addresses humans and jinn together:

Its description of their companions also names both:

The promise to those who fear their Lord belongs to the two communities addressed, and the description itself mentions both. This supports Paradise for believing jinn rather than their extinction with the animals. Al-Qurṭubī takes 55:56 as evidence of their entry, although his explanation of 78:40 favours the outskirts. His treatments differ over location while affirming recompense. Neither position makes the animal outcome the rule for religiously accountable jinn (al-Qurṭubī, al-Qinnawjī, al-Burūsawī).^[265]

6. Could the wish refer specifically to Iblīs?

Iblīs’s earlier claim gives the proposed contrast:

An explanation applies the wish to him: seeing Adam’s honour and his believing descendants’ reward, together with his own punishment, he wishes to belong to the earthly creation he despised. Al-Thaʿlabī records this through Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥasan b. Ḥabīb, who says he read it in a tafsīr he does not name.^[267]

The difficulty is restricting the verse to that individual. الْكَافِر, al-kāfir, can name the class of unbelievers. Arabic uses a definite noun in this way: الدِّينَار وَالدِّرْهَم, al-dīnār wa-l-dirham, can describe gold and silver currency generally, not two particular coins. The sūrah has warned deniers of resurrection throughout. Its definite noun does not exclude those human hearers in order to identify Iblīs alone. The application may include him, but the general warning remains (Abū Ḥayyān, al-Ālūsī).^[268]

Could “dust” instead mean humility? A secondary spiritual interpretation takes it figuratively: would that I had been humble in obedience, rather than arrogant and rebellious. “Dust” then means lowliness before Allah rather than lifeless earth. The literal interpretation fits the immediate scene more directly: the unbeliever sees the judgment he denied and wishes to escape it. The figurative explanation is recorded by al-Rāzī and al-Nīsābūrī; al-Ālūsī favours the preceding literal interpretations.^[269]

The futility of regret after its opportunity has passed is expressed in the anonymous line quoted by al-Māwardī:

The first half leaves the wish unfinished; the second denies that saying “if only” can avert what has arrived.

Conclusion

The verse describes unbelievers generally wishing to escape the reckoning they denied.^[271] The animal explanation gives the wish a concrete occasion through the Companion's athār. Never having been created and never having been raised are related explanations of the escape desired. The wish is real, but does not grant any of those outcomes.

The denier cannot undo his deeds or turn himself into an unaccountable creature. The preceding invitation addresses people while they can still prepare a good return; the final wish shows the regret of refusing that opportunity (al-Māwardī, Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[272]

And Allah knows best.

How the Commentators Read These Verses

Al-Qushayrī (d. 465 AH): recognizing the dependence we already live in

The silence of the gathering reveals a dependence that has been true throughout life. A creature does not first become dependent upon Allah when the Judgment begins. Even the breath with which a person would speak depends upon Him. Al-Qushayrī asks:

From this dependence he draws a distinction between what everyone will recognize then and what an attentive worshipper recognizes now. On that Day, awe becomes common to the whole gathering. Those who are already mindful of Allah’s greatness do not have to wait for that assembly to become aware of it. His reflection turns the scene toward the worshipper’s present awareness: the Lord before whom the angels stand is the Lord upon whom every breath already depends.^[2]

Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1323 AH): understanding the warning without knowing every unseen reality

The verse makes the creatures’ submission clear while leaving much about their nature undescribed. We are told that the Spirit and the angels stand, and that they cannot speak without permission. We are not given a complete account of what these unseen creatures are like or how their standing takes place. Muḥammad ʿAbduh distinguishes accepting what Allah tells us from an obligation to investigate those undisclosed details. A person can understand that even these great creatures have no authority of their own before Allah without first knowing their exact nature. The scene establishes who commands and who obeys; knowledge of every feature of the assembly is not a condition of understanding that relation.^[3]

Saʿīd Ḥawwā (d. 1409 AH): how the final warning bears on the opening question

The closing warning also bears on what the sūrah calls “the great news.” Saʿīd Ḥawwā prefers to understand that expression as the Qurʾān. His further argument from the ending concerns the means by which the warning has reached its hearers. ⁧إِنَّا أَنْذَرْنَاكُمْ⁩, “Indeed, We have warned you” (78:40, excerpt), refers, in his explanation, to the warning conveyed through this revelation. The Qurʾān questioned at the beginning is thus the Qurʾān through which its hearers have now been warned.^[4]

The intervening argument gives that connection its force. The signs of creation establish the power to raise the dead; the descriptions of judgment show what the revelation has announced. When the deniers are raised, they will encounter the truth of the Qurʾān’s warning. For Ḥawwā, the progression joins the announcement to its fulfilment: the news they question will be shown true by the very event it foretells. The closing warning thus adds a reason for his preference: it directs attention back to the revelation that has announced the coming judgment.^[5]

Iʿrāb: Grammatical Structure

The word and clause tables follow Dār al-Ṣaḥābah’s Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm. The first table follows the recitation with ⁧رَبِّ⁩, rabbi, and ⁧الرَّحْمَنِ⁩, al-Raḥmāni, both in jarr. The alternatives below explain how other constructions connect the statements.^[1]

The clause relationships follow Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, with Ṣāfī’s fuller explanation and his alternative for the predicate of conditional man.^[2]

Where the grammar changes the meaning

1. ⁧رَبِّ … الرَّحْمَنِ⁩: continuing a description or beginning a sentence (37)

Verse 36 ends with ⁧مِنْ رَبِّكَ⁩, min rabbika, “from your Lord.” The question in verse 37 is whether ⁧رَبّ⁩, rabb, and ⁧الرَّحْمَن⁩, al-Raḥmān, continue that description or begin a new statement.

With both words in ⁧جَرّ⁩, jarr: ⁧رَبِّ⁩, rabbi, follows the earlier ⁧رَبِّكَ⁩ as a ⁧بَدَل⁩, badal, naming the same Lord more fully. ⁧الرَّحْمَنِ⁩ then describes or names that Lord. The English continues across the verse boundary: “from your Lord … the Lord of the heavens and the earth … the Most Merciful.”

Both descriptions may instead be attached directly to ⁧رَبِّكَ⁩. Al-Samīn questions treating each as a separate badal of the same noun. Attaching ⁧الرَّحْمَنِ⁩ to the second ⁧رَبِّ⁩ avoids that difficulty. This difference in attachment does not require a different English translation: the descriptions still identify the same Lord.^[3]

With both words in ⁧رَفْع⁩, rafʿ: ⁧رَبُّ⁩, rabbu, can begin a sentence instead of following ⁧رَبِّكَ⁩. The principal constructions are:

The first two constructions can be shown directly in English:

• With an understood ⁧هُوَ⁩, huwa, the sense is “He is the Lord … He is the Most Merciful.” The nouns are ⁧خَبَر⁩, khabar, telling us who He is.
• With ⁧رَبُّ⁩ as ⁧مُبْتَدَأ⁩, mubtadaʾ, and ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ as khabar, the sense is “The Lord of the heavens and the earth is the Most Merciful.”

The other two constructions make ⁧لَا يَمْلِكُونَ مِنْهُ خِطَابًا⁩, “they possess no authority to address Him,” complete the statement:

• If ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ is a ⁧نَعْت⁩, naʿt, describing ⁧رَبُّ⁩, the subject is “the Lord … the Most Merciful.” The following clause tells us that no one possesses authority to address this Lord.
• In al-Akhfash’s construction, ⁧رَبُّ⁩ begins the outer sentence. Inside it, ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ begins a second sentence, completed by ⁧لَا يَمْلِكُونَ⁩. That whole inner sentence serves as the outer khabar. English can make the relationship clearer with: “As for the Lord of the heavens and the earth: He is the Most Merciful, from whom they possess no authority for speech.” The two divine names refer to the same Lord; that shared reference connects the sentences.

With ⁧رَبِّ … الرَّحْمَنُ⁩, rabbi … al-Raḥmānu: ⁧رَبِّ⁩ continues “from your Lord,” but ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ begins a fresh statement. The English may mark the break: “from your Lord … the Lord of the heavens and the earth. He is the Most Merciful.” Alternatively, ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ begins the sentence completed by ⁧لَا يَمْلِكُونَ⁩, as just explained (al-Samīn, al-ʿUkbarī).^[4]

Al-Ālūsī favours the independent praise construction for both words in rafʿ, ⁧الرَّفْعُ عَلَى الْمَدْحِ⁩, al-rafʿ ʿalā al-madḥ. With “He is” understood, the praise identifies Allah just as the continuing description does in jarr. He also permits ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ as a naʿt of ⁧رَبُّ⁩. By contrast, Abū ʿUbayd’s preference for the mixed form rests on distance: ⁧رَبِّ⁩ is closer to the earlier ⁧رَبِّكَ⁩, while ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ is farther away. The alternatives change the sentence structure; none identifies a different Lord (al-Ālūsī; al-Thaʿlabī recording Abū ʿUbayd).^[5]

Makkī also explains the possible construction ⁧رَبُّ … الرَّحْمَنِ⁩. Here “He is the Lord of the heavens” intervenes as a complete statement, and ⁧الرَّحْمَنِ⁩ returns to describe ⁧رَبِّكَ⁩ in verse 36. The grammatical possibility is distinct from the three combinations established for the Ten in Qirāʾāt.^[6]

2. ⁧بَيْنَهُمَا⁩: why a dual pronoun follows “the heavens and the earth” (37)

The ending ⁧هُمَا⁩, humā, refers to two groups, not two individual objects: the heavens form one group, and the earth is the other. Thus “whatever is between them” does not reduce the plural heavens to a single heaven.

Al-Quṭāmī uses a dual verb for the bonds of two tribes:

⁧حِبَال⁩, ḥibāl, “bonds,” is plural. Yet ⁧تَبَايَنَتَا⁩, tabāyanatā, “the two have parted,” treats the bonds of Qays as one set and those of Taghlib as another. ⁧بَيْنَهُمَا⁩ likewise counts the two groups (al-Durrah).^[7]

A plural noun can itself take a dual ending when two collections are intended. ʿAmr b. al-ʿAddāʾ al-Kalbī complains about excessive collection of alms:

⁧عِقَال⁩, ʿiqāl, means a year’s alms; the collector criticized is ʿAmr b. ʿUtbah. The last word, ⁧جِمَالَيْنِ⁩, jimālayn, makes the plural ⁧جِمَال⁩, “camels,” dual. It means two herds, with male and female camels kept separately. Each herd contains many animals. The same distinction between two groups and two individuals explains the dual in verse 37 (Ibn Manẓūr, al-Durrah).^[8]

3. ⁧مِنْهُ خِطَابًا⁩: “from Him” or “to Him”? (37)

The pronoun in ⁧مِنْهُ⁩, minhu, refers to Allah. What changes is the grammatical attachment of the phrase:

1. Attached to ⁧يَمْلِكُونَ⁩, yamlikūna, “possess”: ⁧مِنْ⁩ marks the source. The sense is “They possess no independent authority for speech from Him.” Ṣāfī explains the verb through ⁧يَنَالُونَ⁩, yanālūna, “obtain.” Dār al-Ṣaḥābah uses this attachment.
2. Explaining ⁧خِطَابًا⁩, khiṭāban, “address”: the sense is “They possess no authority to address Him on their own.” Here the address is directed to Allah.
3. Describing an understood part of Allah’s address: the sense is “They control no part of His pronouncement” concerning reward and punishment. ⁧مِنْهُ⁩ stands before ⁧خِطَابًا⁩, with “from among Allah’s addresses” understood.

The first construction identifies Allah as the source of authority for speech. The third concerns control over His own pronouncement. The second directs the creature’s address to Allah. Al-Ālūsī finds the first construction more direct than the third.^[9]

The “to Him” sense also has a different grammatical explanation: ⁧مِنْ⁩ can function here in the sense of ⁧لِـ⁩, li-. Attached to ⁧خِطَابًا⁩, the phrase then means an address directed to Him. The English “to Him” stays the same, but the explanation of the preposition changes (ʿUḍaymah recording al-Jamal).^[10]

4. ⁧يَوْمَ يَقُومُ⁩: what happens “on the Day”? (38)

⁧يَوْمَ⁩, yawma, is a ⁧ظَرْفُ زَمَانٍ⁩, ẓarf zamān, locating an action in time. The following words identify the Day: the Spirit and the angels stand. Three attachments are recorded:

• To ⁧لَا يَمْلِكُونَ⁩ in verse 37: “They possess no authority for speech on the Day when the Spirit and the angels stand.”
• To ⁧لَا يَتَكَلَّمُونَ⁩ in verse 38: “On the Day when the Spirit and the angels stand, they do not speak except by permission.”
• To ⁧خِطَابًا⁩: the denied address itself is “address on that Day.” Al-ʿUkbarī records this noun as a third possible governor.

The attachments change which expression is directly dated. The first two can retain the same English word order, but the grammatical connection runs backwards to ⁧يَمْلِكُونَ⁩ or forwards to ⁧يَتَكَلَّمُونَ⁩.^[11]

The connection also affects who is speaking. In the immediate construction, ⁧لَا يَتَكَلَّمُونَ⁩ describes the Spirit and the angels: “They stand … without speaking, except whoever is permitted.”

Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī records another interpretation in which ⁧يَوْمَ يَقُومُ الرُّوحُ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ صَفًّا⁩ interrupts the earlier restriction on speech. The exception then resumes that earlier restriction. The permitted intercessors in this explanation are believers. The sense becomes “They possess no authority for speech … except those permitted to intercede,” with the angels’ standing describing the occasion. Angelic intercession is not established by that particular construction; al-Nasafī points to its explanation elsewhere. His other interpretation takes the clauses in their immediate order and includes the Spirit and angels in the permitted speech.^[12]

5. ⁧صَفًّا⁩ and ⁧لَا يَتَكَلَّمُونَ⁩: describing the gathering (38)

⁧صَفًّا⁩, ṣaffan, gives the condition in which the Spirit and angels stand. Two analyses produce the same English, “standing arrayed in ranks”:

• ⁧مَصْدَرٌ فِي مَوْضِعِ الْحَالِ⁩, maṣdar fī mawḍiʿ al-ḥāl: a noun naming alignment serves as a ⁧حَال⁩, ḥāl, describing their condition.
• ⁧مَفْعُولٌ مُطْلَقٌ⁩, mafʿūl muṭlaq: ⁧صَفًّا⁩ belongs to an understood verb of forming ranks. That whole understood clause describes their condition.

Neither analysis fixes the number of ranks. ⁧لَا يَتَكَلَّمُونَ⁩ can likewise describe their condition, “not speaking,” or begin a fresh statement, “They do not speak.” Darwīsh also treats the silence clause as reinforcement of the preceding denial (Ṣāfī, Darwīsh).^[13]

Al-Shinqīṭī illustrates the use of a maṣdar as a ḥāl with Ibn Mālik’s verse:

⁧بَغْتَةً⁩, baghtatan, names sudden occurrence, yet explains how Zayd appeared. A noun used this way need not take an adjective’s plural ending to describe several beings. Thus the singular form ⁧صَفًّا⁩ can describe the whole gathering.^[14]

6. ⁧إِلَّا مَنْ⁩: the speaker or the beneficiary? (38)

Two case analyses leave the English unchanged:

• ⁧مَنْ⁩, man, is a ⁧بَدَل⁩, badal, of the subject ⁧وَاو⁩ in ⁧يَتَكَلَّمُونَ⁩. The relative therefore occupies ⁧رَفْع⁩, rafʿ.
• ⁧مَنْ⁩ is ⁧مُسْتَثْنًى⁩, mustathnā, the exception, occupying ⁧نَصْب⁩, naṣb.

Both mean “They do not speak, except the person whom He permits.” Al-Samīn favours badal after the negative clause.^[15]

An understood preposition produces a real change of referent. Al-Muntajab records ⁧لِمَنْ⁩, li-man, “for the person,” with ⁧لِـ⁩ left understood. The sense becomes “They do not intercede for anyone except the person for whom permission is given.” ⁧مَنْ⁩ now identifies the beneficiary, not the speaker. Q4 develops the interpretive reasons for and objections to that construction.^[16]

7. ⁧وَقَالَ صَوَابًا⁩: whose speech, and when? (38)

In Dār al-Ṣaḥābah’s construction, ⁧وَقَالَ⁩, wa-qāla, joins the relative clause ⁧أَذِنَ لَهُ الرَّحْمَنُ⁩. The subject of ⁧قَالَ⁩ is the person identified by ⁧مَنْ⁩. The meaning is “the person whom the Most Merciful permits and who speaks rightly.” It is not “the Most Merciful permitted him and the Most Merciful spoke rightly.”

Ibn ʿĀshūr also permits ⁧وَقَالَ صَوَابًا⁩ as a ⁧حَال⁩, ḥāl: “having spoken rightly.” He explains the past form as expressing the certainty of the future speech: “and will speak rightly.” Other interpretations connect the right speech with earthly life. The form ⁧قَالَ⁩, though past in form, does not by itself settle when that speech occurred.^[17]

For ⁧صَوَابًا⁩, ṣawāban, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah and Ṣāfī understand ⁧كَلَامًا صَوَابًا⁩, kalāman ṣawāban, “right speech.” The described noun ⁧كَلَامًا⁩ is omitted. Darwīsh understands ⁧قَوْلًا صَوَابًا⁩, qawlan ṣawāban, with ⁧صَوَابًا⁩ retaining the place of the maṣdar naming the act of saying. Both constructions can be translated “speaks rightly.”^[18]

8. ⁧ذَلِكَ الْيَوْمُ الْحَقُّ⁩: two English arrangements (39)

The difference concerns what serves as the ⁧خَبَر⁩, khabar, the assertion made about the subject:

• If ⁧الْيَوْمُ⁩ explains ⁧ذَلِكَ⁩ and ⁧الْحَقُّ⁩ is the khabar: “That Day is true.”
• If ⁧الْيَوْمُ⁩ is the khabar and ⁧الْحَقُّ⁩ describes ⁧الْيَوْمُ⁩: “That is the true Day.”

The English emphasis changes slightly: the first affirms the Day’s truth; the second identifies the scene as the true Day. Both affirm the same coming reality (Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, Darwīsh).^[19]

9. ⁧فَمَنْ شَاءَ اتَّخَذَ⁩: a choice still open (39)

The ⁧فَاء⁩, fāʾ, draws a consequence from the Day’s certainty. Dār al-Ṣaḥābah explains a ⁧شَرْطٌ مُقَدَّرٌ⁩, sharṭ muqaddar, an understood condition: “If that Day is true, then whoever wishes for deliverance should take a return to his Lord.”

⁧شَاءَ⁩, shāʾa, gives the condition; ⁧اتَّخَذَ⁩, ittakhadha, gives its answer. Both verbs are past in form, but the conditional construction does not mean that the opportunity has ended. English therefore says “whoever wishes … should take,” rather than recounting a completed past choice.

Ṣāfī permits either the condition alone or the condition together with its answer to serve as the khabar of ⁧مَنْ⁩. That difference leaves the English invitation unchanged.^[20]

10. ⁧اتَّخَذَ إِلَى رَبِّهِ مَآبًا⁩: one object or two? (39)

One object: ⁧مَآبًا⁩, maʾāban, is what the person takes. ⁧إِلَى رَبِّهِ⁩, ilā rabbihi, attaches directly to the return. The English is “take a return to his Lord.” The means of that return are understood from the context (Darwīsh).

Two objects: Dār al-Ṣaḥābah understands ⁧الْإِيمَانَ⁩, al-īmāna, “faith,” as the omitted first object. ⁧مَآبًا⁩ is the second, saying what faith is taken as: “take faith as a return to his Lord.” ⁧إِلَى رَبِّهِ⁩ then describes ⁧مَآبًا⁩ through an understood ḥāl.

The second explanation names faith within the grammatical expansion; the first leaves the means of return to the surrounding teaching. The understood word is an explanation of the construction, not an additional recited word.^[21]

Al-Naḥḥās explains the favourable return through an understood expression of deliverance. His poetic comparison illustrates how a noun may be left understood. Ibn Manẓūr gives al-Khansāʾ’s complete line:

Al-Zajjāj understands ⁧ذَاتُ⁩, dhātu, “possessed of”: she is possessed of coming and going. Sībawayh instead explains the direct identification with the movement as an expansive expression. Only al-Zajjāj’s explanation requires the omitted noun. The witness shows why an understood word must be identified as part of a particular grammatical explanation, rather than assumed in every explanation.^[22]

11. ⁧يَوْمَ يَنْظُرُ⁩: dating the punishment or identifying the Day? (40)

Two attachments give the same timing:

• Attached to ⁧عَذَابًا⁩, ʿadhāban: “punishment on the Day when the person sees.”
• Attached to an understood description of ⁧عَذَابًا⁩: “punishment occurring on the Day when the person sees.”

Al-Samīn also allows ⁧يَوْمَ⁩ as a ⁧بَدَل⁩, badal, of ⁧يَوْمَ⁩ in verse 38. The English then identifies the earlier Day more fully: “the Day when the Spirit and the angels stand … the Day when the person sees.”^[23]

Al-ʿUkbarī records a badal construction understood as “the punishment of a Day.” He also permits a connection to ⁧قَرِيبًا⁩, qarīban, “near.” Al-Samīn finds a description of ⁧عَذَابًا⁩ more appropriate than a description of ⁧قَرِيبًا⁩. The latter attachment raises a question: “near on that Day” must still explain the warning’s nearness to its hearers now. Q6 presents al-Ālūsī’s answer.^[24]

12. ⁧مَا قَدَّمَتْ يَدَاهُ⁩: seeing a thing or considering a question? (40)

⁧مَا الْمَوْصُولَة⁩, mā al-mawṣūlah, “what” as a relative word: ⁧مَا⁩ is the object of ⁧يَنْظُرُ⁩, yanẓuru. English gives “he sees what his hands sent ahead.” Ṣāfī uses this sense of seeing. Al-Akhfash records an understood ⁧إِلَى⁩, ilā, giving “he looks at what his hands sent ahead.” Al-Samīn also explains ⁧يَنْظُرُ⁩ as waiting: “he awaits what his hands sent ahead.”^[25]

⁧مَا الِاسْتِفْهَامِيَّة⁩, mā al-istifhāmiyyah, “what?” as a question: ⁧مَا⁩ is the object of ⁧قَدَّمَتْ⁩, placed before that verb. The person considers “What have my hands sent ahead?”

The question as a whole completes ⁧يَنْظُرُ⁩. The verb does not directly govern the individual words inside the question. This is ⁧التَّعْلِيق⁩, al-taʿlīq. Al-Samīn explains the whole question’s position through an understood preposition. The English changes from seeing or awaiting an object to considering a question (al-Samīn, al-Durrah).^[26]

13. ⁧قَدَّمَتْ يَدَاهُ⁩: identifying the subject (40)

The subject is ⁧يَدَاهُ⁩, yadāhu, “his two hands.” The final ⁧تْ⁩ of ⁧قَدَّمَتْ⁩ marks feminine agreement; it is not a separate pronoun meaning “she.” Arabic puts the singular-form verb before the dual subject here.

In ⁧يَدَاهُ⁩, the alif marks the dual in rafʿ. The dual’s final nūn is omitted because the possessive ⁧هُ⁩, “his,” follows. English remains “what his hands sent ahead,” without an additional “she” or “they.”^[27]

14. ⁧وَيَقُولُ الْكَافِرُ⁩ and ⁧يَا لَيْتَنِي⁩: joining the scene and introducing the wish (40)

Dār al-Ṣaḥābah joins ⁧وَيَقُولُ الْكَافِرُ⁩ to ⁧يَنْظُرُ الْمَرْءُ⁩: “the person sees … and the unbeliever says.” Both actions belong to the description of the Day. Darwīsh also allows a new statement, “And the unbeliever says,” or a ḥāl, “while the unbeliever says.” The English connection changes, but the wish remains within the same scene.

In ⁧يَا لَيْتَنِي⁩, yā laytanī, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah takes ⁧يَا⁩ as ⁧حَرْفُ تَنْبِيهٍ⁩, ḥarf tanbīh, drawing attention to the exclamation: “If only I were dust!” Taking ⁧يَا⁩ as ⁧نِدَاء⁩, nidāʾ, a call, requires an understood addressee, such as “O people, if only I were dust!” The attention-particle explanation needs no such addressee; al-Durrah regards the omitted-addressee explanation as weak.^[28]

15. ⁧كُنْتُ تُرَابًا⁩: what completes “if only”? (40)

There are two grammatical levels:

• ⁧لَيْتَ⁩, layta, governs the pronoun ⁧ي⁩, “me.” The whole clause ⁧كُنْتُ تُرَابًا⁩ is its khabar: what the speaker wishes about himself.
• Inside ⁧كُنْتُ تُرَابًا⁩, the ⁧تُ⁩, “I,” is ⁧اسْمُ كَانَ⁩, ism kāna. ⁧تُرَابًا⁩ is ⁧خَبَرُ كَانَ⁩, khabar kāna, completing “I were” with “dust.”

English combines those levels as “If only I were dust!” The entire wish is what the unbeliever says (Ṣāfī, al-Hararī).^[29]

Al-Naḥḥās records the linguistic example ⁧لَيْتَنِي قَائِمًا⁩, laytanī qāʾiman, “if only I were standing.” Some grammarians explain its naṣb by an understood ⁧كَانَ⁩. In verse 40, ⁧كُنْتُ⁩ is already present: “dust” completes ⁧كُنْتُ⁩, and that whole clause completes ⁧لَيْتَ⁩. The example therefore explains an omission possible elsewhere, not an omitted verb needed here.^[30]

Ṣarf: Roots and Word Formation

The forms below distinguish the action, its doer, the condition in which it occurs, and the return toward which it leads. Repeated words are identified by their verses. The table concentrates on words with lexical content.^[1]

The analyses of ṣawāb, the dual yadāhu, and the two derivations and object patterns of ittakhadha are given by Ṣāfī and al-Samīn.^[2]

Where the morphology changes the meaning

The form ⁧رَبّ⁩, rabb, and the qualified use “my master.”

The doubled bāʾ belongs to the noun’s form. One derivation treats rabb as a shortened ⁧رَابِب⁩, rābib, an ⁧اسْم فَاعِل⁩, ism fāʿil: the alif is removed and the two bāʾs are joined by ⁧إِدْغَام⁩, idghām. Al-Durrah gives this analysis alongside the meanings owner, master and one who cares for something.

The word can therefore describe a human master when its reference is qualified. Al-Aʿshā says:

Abū ʿUbayd identifies the master as al-Nuʿmān b. al-Mundhir and explains the second half as granting gifts when asked through written awards. The line establishes the qualified use rabbī, “my master.” The unrestricted title “the Lord” belongs to Allah; ordinary expressions such as “the owner of the house” identify a limited possession or responsibility. In verse 37, the heavens, the earth and everything between them define the universal reach of His Lordship.^[3]

The same letters do not make “angels” a form of “possessing.”

In yamlikūna, the root is ⁧م ل ك⁩, m-l-k, possession. For ⁧مَلَك⁩, malak, “angel,” Ibn Manẓūr records a derivation from the language of messages. On that account, ⁧مَأْلَك⁩, maʾlak, becomes ⁧مَلْأَك⁩, malʾak, through a change in the order of its consonants, ⁧قَلْب مَكَانِيّ⁩, qalb makānī. The hamzah is then eased: its vowel moves to the preceding lām and the hamzah is dropped, giving malak. The plural malāʾikah retains the hamzah. Thus the shorter singular and the longer plural belong to one formation, while the verb of possession is a separate lexical item.^[4]

An Arabic praise verse preserves the longer singular:

Ibn Barrī identifies the retained hamzah of malʾak as evidence for the singular’s formation. The same line also uses ⁧يَصُوبُ⁩, yaṣūbu, for descending, providing another clear use of the root behind ṣawāb. It is a praise comparison, with more than one recorded attribution.^[5]

Address, a matter that prompts address, and a speaker.

⁧خِطَاب⁩, khiṭāb, names the exchange of speech. Ibn Fāris gives the root two bases: speech between two people, and a colour-related branch. The first explains the word in verse 37. Al-Rāghib relates the important matter called ⁧خَطْب⁩, khaṭb, to the much discussion it occasions. Ibn Manẓūr records khaṭb for an affair whether small or great. The speech family is common to these accounts. Al-Rāghib’s definition of khaṭb is narrower than Ibn Manẓūr’s.^[6]

Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal proposes a broader unification through drawing attention. His examples connect address, request and the matter that calls for attention. In this verse the object is an act of address, not every meaning attached to the root.^[7]

Spirit and breath: what a poetic witness establishes.

The relation between rūḥ and breath is visible in an ordinary use of the word. Al-Rāghib quotes Dhū al-Rummah describing the revival of a fire:

The fire is revived by blowing upon it. Here rūḥ denotes the breath used to feed it. Al-Rāghib relates the word to life and movement; Ibn Fāris places the family under breadth and spaciousness, while Jabal develops the connections among lightness, expansion and life. The poem establishes the use for breath; it does not identify the Spirit in verse 38.^[8]

Standing and alignment describe an action and its condition.

Yaqūmu names the standing; ṣaffan names the alignment in which it takes place. Jabal distinguishes the direct sense of standing upright from the root’s extensions to maintaining something or undertaking its affairs. Here he places the verb among the direct uses. Ṣaff likewise concerns ordered adjacency. Ibn Fāris does not force every derivative into one account: he leaves the word for sliced meat outside his principal analogy, although other lexicographers explain its relation to a row. Jabal connects the family through a thin, level extension. The word alone does not state the geometry of the gathering.^[9]

There is also an ordinary Arabic example of a singular ṣaff naming a collective gathering. Ibn Qutaybah records the festival’s designation as ⁧يَوْمُ الصَّفِّ⁩, yawm al-ṣaff, “the day of the rank.” People gather in ranks, while the action noun remains singular.^[10]

Rightness, descent and reaching the mark.

The form ⁧صَوَاب⁩, ṣawāb, names rightness, while its root includes other uses. Ibn Fāris begins from descent and settling in the proper place. He relates a right judgment to something that has come to rest where it belongs. Jabal gives greater emphasis to reaching a fitting target.^[11]

Attaining an aim and doing what is right are also different things. Al-Rāghib explains rightness both as the goodness of the act itself and as reaching the object intended. The root’s relationship to hitting a target therefore does not by itself establish moral approval.^[12]

Taking a return: the formation of ittakhadha and maʾāb.

Al-Rāghib explains ittakhadha as Form VIII of ⁧تَخِذَ⁩, takhidha, “took.” On that derivation, the root’s first tāʾ meets the form’s added tāʾ, giving the doubled consonant. Al-Samīn also records derivation from ⁧أَخَذَ⁩, akhadha: the hamzah is replaced by yāʾ, which then becomes tāʾ and joins the form’s tāʾ. Both explain the occurring verb as Form VIII; one begins from takhidha, the other from akhadha.^[13]

The simpler verb takhidha has its own Arabic evidence. Al-Rāghib quotes a line that his muḥaqqiq, Ṣafwān ʿAdnān al-Dāwūdī, attributes to al-Mumazzaq al-ʿAbdī:

The foot has worn away the camel’s hair where it strikes her side. Takhidhat means “made” or “took” in this description. The line gives evidence for the simpler verb from which the first account derives ittakhadha. Ibn Manẓūr explains the rubbed-away hair; the image is a bare patch on the camel, not a hole in the earth.^[14]

The verb’s objects depend on its sense, not simply on belonging to Form VIII. Al-Samīn explains that it takes two objects when it means making something into something else. The word’s form does not by itself require an unspoken “faith” in every occurrence.^[15]

⁧مَآب⁩, maʾāb, is explained on ⁧مَفْعَل⁩, mafʿal, from ⁧آبَ يَؤُوبُ⁩, āba yaʾūbu, “returned.” Al-Muntajab gives that formation. Al-Rāghib allows the word to name the return, its place or its time. The noun’s long vowel reflects the weak middle consonant. In verse 39 the favourable sense comes from the invitation to seek a return through obedience.^[16]

The use of maʾāb for a place is illustrated by the sun’s setting-place:

Here maʾābihā names its setting-place. The witness illustrates how a noun formed from returning can name the place associated with that return.

The same lexical family also includes ⁧تَأْوِيب⁩, taʾwīb, travelling through the daylight hours until night. Salāmah b. Jandal describes two kinds of day:

The last word names the day’s travelling. Its daytime use helps explain why this family cannot be confined to returning at night, although night return is a familiar use. Verse 39’s maʾāb remains the return or destination sought through obedience.

Al-Rāghib further distinguishes awb from general returning: its ordinary use concerns a living creature’s voluntary return. The apparent counterexample is a returning hand. His answer is that the archer directs the hand; the action is attributed to it while the will belongs to its agent. A camel’s returning leg movement similarly belongs to a living creature. This lexical distinction explains the family’s use; it does not make the gathering before Allah a matter of human choice.^[19]

Warning names a danger before it is encountered.

The hamzah of ⁧أَنْذَرَ⁩, andhara, belongs to Form IV; the word conveys making another aware of a threatened consequence. Al-Zamakhsharī explains the underlying use through people learning of an enemy, taking care and preparing. He gives both “I warned them about it” and “I warned them of it.” Verse 40 names the people and the punishment directly. Al-Rāghib likewise distinguishes warning, which arouses fear, from good tidings, which bring joy.^[20]

Al-Khansāʾ’s line shows the element of forewarning:

The people’s mutual warning concerns a danger known before the approach. The poem praises Ṣakhr’s courage in approaching it. The line illustrates advance knowledge of a danger, what indhār conveys.^[21]

Two hands, one person and a wish to be dust.

The dual in ⁧يَدَاهُ⁩ is visible in its alif, while the possessive construction explains the absent nūn. Ṣāfī compares the same loss in the sound masculine plural when a possessive follows. The shortened form still names two hands; the possessive pronoun identifies the person whose deeds are being examined.^[22]

There is another shortening in ⁧كُنْتُ⁩, kuntu. Al-Durrah gives two accounts of its formation. One proceeds through the change of the middle wāw into alif, followed by the loss of that long vowel before the closed nūn; the ḍammah on the kāf then indicates the original wāw. The other proceeds through a change of vowel class when the subject pronoun is attached, transfer of the wāw’s vowel to the kāf, and loss of the wāw before the following consonant. Both accounts produce the same past form, kuntu, “I was,” within the wish.^[23]

The final noun is ⁧تُرَاب⁩, turāb, dust. Al-Samīn distinguishes the kind-name from its unit turābah. Ibn Fāris gives the root two bases, dust and equality, rather than deriving every use from dust. Jabal instead proposes a common relationship through the accumulation or succession of fine things.^[24]

Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

From “your Lord” to the Lord of all

Where it is. ⁧رَبِّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا⁩, “the Lord of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them,” following “your Lord” in verse 36.

The plain way. “Your Lord” already identifies the giver. The description now names the whole creation over which He is Lord.

What it does. The heavens and earth name the great domains; ⁧مَا⁩, mā, “whatever,” includes everything between them. The places also bring their inhabitants within the description. The change in scale connects the particular gift just promised to universal ownership: the One who rewards the righteous is the Lord before whom every creature must stand. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains the general force of mā and the inclusion of what the heavens and earth contain.

On the raised construction, an understood “He” lets the description become a fresh statement: “[He is] the Lord of the heavens.” Ibn ʿĀshūr relates this to the Arabic practice of leaving the subject unspoken when the person described is already known. This is ⁧النَّعْت الْمَقْطُوع⁩, al-naʿt al-maqṭūʿ: the description becomes a new assertion, with its already-known subject left unspoken.^[1]

The effect. Reward and judgment belong to the same Lord. No creature named in the following scene stands outside His authority.

Naming mercy again instead of using a pronoun (⁧الإِظْهَار فِي مَوْضِعِ الإِضْمَار⁩, al-iẓhār fī mawḍiʿ al-iḍmār)

Where it is. ⁧الرَّحْمَنِ⁩, “the Most Merciful,” in verse 37, and ⁧إِلَّا مَنْ أَذِنَ لَهُ الرَّحْمَنُ⁩, “except for one whom the Most Merciful permits,” in verse 38.

The plain way. After the first mention, “except for one whom He permits” would identify the same giver of permission. Repeating the Name makes its meaning present at the exception itself.

What it does. The first mention connects the gifts of Paradise with mercy. The second locates mercy within the scene of awe: the permission that makes beneficial speech possible comes from the Most Merciful. Al-Hararī describes the point as

Ibn ʿĀshūr similarly relates the Name to speech that benefits those gathered, including intercession and seeking forgiveness.^[2]

The effect. The exception directs hope toward Allah’s mercy. Honour among the creatures does not itself confer a right to speak before Him.

Denial repeated before the exception

Where it is. ⁧لَا يَمْلِكُونَ مِنْهُ خِطَابًا⁩, the denial of authority for speech, followed by ⁧لَا يَتَكَلَّمُونَ إِلَّا مَنْ أَذِنَ لَهُ الرَّحْمَنُ⁩, “they will not speak except for one whom the Most Merciful permits.”

The plain way. A single denial followed immediately by its exception could state the condition. Here the description of the Day and the standing ranks intervenes, and the denial is then stated again.

What it does. The repeated statement confirms the absence of independent speech and brings the exception close to the clause it qualifies. The indefinite ⁧خِطَابًا⁩, khiṭāban, under negation gives the denial breadth. The following permission then identifies its limit. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains both the repetition and its argumentative consequence: intercession is itself speech, so a creature unable to speak independently cannot independently secure intercession either.^[3]

The following ⁧وَقَالَ صَوَابًا⁩, “and he will say what is correct,” uses the past form qāla for this future speech. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains the choice through its certainty in Allah’s knowledge: the permitted person’s right speech is presented as assured.^[4]

The effect. The scene establishes silence before showing how it may be broken. The permission is the governing condition of the speech, rather than a minor qualification added to an otherwise unrestricted power.

The Spirit named before the angels (⁧ذِكْر العَامّ بَعْدَ الخَاصّ⁩, dhikr al-ʿāmm baʿda al-khāṣṣ)

Where it is. ⁧يَوْمَ يَقُومُ الرُّوحُ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ صَفًّا⁩, the Spirit and the angels standing in rows.

The plain way. On the interpretation that the Spirit is Jibrīl عليه السلام, “the angels” would already include him. Naming him separately gives him particular attention before mentioning the whole company.

What it does. Jibrīl is mentioned once individually and again within the angels. His role in conveying revelation explains the honour of the separate mention. This is the general following the particular on the Jibrīl interpretation adopted here. (Ibn ʿĀshūr; al-Hararī)^[5]

Muḥammad Hilāl compares the order with 70:4, where the angels precede the Spirit in the description of ascent. He relates that order to their repeated ascending and their number; here he relates Jibrīl’s first mention to his rank among those standing before Allah.^[6]

The effect. Distinction and servitude appear together. Jibrīl’s special mention honours him, while his place among the standing servants preserves their common submission to Allah.

Standing in ranks gives obedience a visible form

Where it is. ⁧يَقُومُ⁩, yaqūmu, “stands,” and ⁧صَفًّا⁩, ṣaffan, “in rows.”

The plain way. Merely saying that the angels are present would identify the gathering. Standing and alignment describe how they are present.

What it does. Standing conveys readiness for serious service; alignment conveys order before an event of great consequence. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains:

The maṣdar ṣaffan describes their aligned condition, not how many ranks there are.^[7]

The effect. Submission is shown in posture and arrangement before the verse describes speech. Their ordered presence prepares the reader to understand why no voice proceeds on its own authority.

“That is the True Day”: pointing back to the whole scene

Where it is. ⁧ذَلِكَ الْيَوْمُ الْحَقُّ⁩, “That is the True Day.”

The plain way. “The Day will occur” would state certainty. The demonstrative “that” gathers up what has just been described and identifies the Day through those events.

What it does. The description follows the promised reward, threatened punishment and gathering before Allah. Those preceding accounts give the demonstrative its weight. Al-ḥaqq may describe certain occurrence or the justice enacted in the Day. On the latter explanation, the description of what takes place is attached to its time: ⁧مَجَاز عَقْلِيّ⁩, majāz ʿaqlī. Ibn ʿĀshūr also explains the definite “Day” as the Day deserving that name above the celebrated days of human victories.^[8]

Al-Māturīdī records another explanation:

Here too the Day is characterized through what occurs in it, specifically true speech. He then allows the description to concern the Day itself: its occurrence is inevitable. The speech explanation belongs beside the preceding requirement of ṣawāb, correct speech. This explanation should not erase the distinction among the stations and kinds of speech mentioned elsewhere in the Qurʾān.^[9]

The effect. The verse closes the description with a judgment about the Day as a whole, then makes that established reality the reason for the invitation that follows.

The fāʾ turns knowledge of the Day into a present choice (⁧فَاء الفَصِيحَة⁩, fāʾ al-faṣīḥah)

Where it is. ⁧فَمَنْ شَاءَ اتَّخَذَ إِلَى رَبِّهِ مَآبًا⁩, “so he who wills may take to his Lord a [way of] return.”

The plain way. The invitation could begin as a separate statement. Its opening fa- makes it follow from what the hearers have just learned.

What it does. An understood condition connects the two: once this Day and its outcomes are known, let the person who seeks a good return prepare for it. Ibn ʿĀshūr calls the particle fāʾ al-faṣīḥah because it makes that unstated connection apparent. The sentence moves from the future scene to the hearer’s present opportunity. The conditional form does not make the outcomes morally interchangeable; the preceding account has already shown their difference.^[10]

The effect. Information becomes admonition through a reason the reader can follow. The response is sought now, before the Day being described arrives.

“To his Lord” comes before the return (⁧التَّقْدِيم⁩, al-taqdīm)

Where it is. ⁧إِلَى رَبِّهِ مَآبًا⁩, with “to his Lord” preceding maʾāb, the return.

The plain way. In English, the unmarked explanation would be “take a return to his Lord.”

What it does. The fronted phrase gives attention to the One toward whom the return is sought. Al-Hararī names ⁧اهْتِمَامًا بِهِ وَرِعَايَةً لِلْفَوَاصِلِ⁩, “attention to it and regard for the verse endings.” The destination is placed before maʾāb, which retains the ending pattern. Fronting sometimes expresses restriction, but that rule does not decide this occurrence; al-Hararī explains it by attention and the verse’s close.^[11]

The effect. The return is understood in relation to the person’s Lord from the outset. Its place in the sentence also connects the invitation’s sound with the surrounding endings.

“We have warned you”: emphasis and an accomplished warning

Where it is. ⁧إِنَّا أَنْذَرْنَاكُمْ عَذَابًا قَرِيبًا⁩, “Indeed, We have warned you of a near punishment.”

The plain way. The warning could simply be given. This sentence also declares that the warning has been delivered, with inna affirming the statement.

What it does. The hearers already know that the preceding account warns them. The sentence therefore does more than tell them what kind of speech they have heard: it establishes that they have received the warning and can no longer treat the danger as undisclosed. The past form andharnā is appropriate because the description of punishment has already been given. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains inna and the emphatic sentence construction through this removal of an excuse.^[12]

The effect. Responsibility follows clear notice. The closing scene concerns the hearers’ response to a warning already placed before them.

Nearness expresses the certainty that makes delay dangerous

Where it is. ⁧عَذَابًا قَرِيبًا⁩, “a near punishment.”

The plain way. A future event can be described by its date. Here nearness also conveys how firmly its coming should govern the hearer’s conduct.

What it does. On Ibn ʿĀshūr’s explanation, certain arrival is presented as nearness: an event that will assuredly come has the force of something approaching. Other explanations concern death, the life of the grave and the brevity of the remaining worldly opportunity. The adjective itself gives no calculation of the number of years.^[13]

The effect. The future is prevented from becoming an excuse for inaction. The person hearing the warning must prepare without waiting for a timetable.

Hands stand for the person’s deeds (⁧المَجَاز المُرْسَل⁩, al-majāz al-mursal, or ⁧التَّمْثِيل⁩, al-tamthīl)

Where it is. ⁧مَا قَدَّمَتْ يَدَاهُ⁩, “what his hands have put forth.”

The plain way. “What the person did” would state the broad meaning. Naming the hands gives those deeds a concrete agent and the sense of something sent ahead.

What it does. One explanation names the familiar instruments of action for the person’s activities more generally. Another compares the person producing deeds to a craftsman producing work with his hands. Ibn ʿĀshūr preserves both, preferring the fuller representational account over merely calling the wording taghlīb, naming the predominant case. Al-Hararī explains the part-for-whole expression through the many deeds performed by the hands.^[14]

The effect. The deeds are recognized as the person’s own work, now encountered after having been sent ahead. Speech and other actions remain included.

The unbeliever is named at the point of despair

Where it is. ⁧وَيَقُولُ الْكَافِرُ⁩, “and the disbeliever will say,” after the more general ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩, “a person.”

The plain way. If the same unbelieving person were intended throughout, a pronoun could continue his account. If al-marʾ includes everyone, the explicit noun selects one group from the general gathering.

What it does. On the first construction, naming unbelief instead of saying “he” identifies the condition responsible for this despair. Al-Samīn calls it the explicit noun in the place of a pronoun. On the inclusive interpretation adopted here, Ibn ʿĀshūr explains why the unbeliever is singled out: warning those who denied resurrection is the sūrah’s purpose. The mechanism depends on the scope of the earlier noun.^[15]

The effect. Universal accountability and the unbeliever’s final wish remain distinct. The verse names the cause of this despair without assigning it indiscriminately to every person who faces an account.

A wish becomes an expression of regret (⁧التَّحَسُّر⁩, al-taḥassur, and possible ⁧التَّجْرِيد⁩, al-tajrīd)

Where it is. ⁧يَالَيْتَنِي كُنْتُ تُرَابًا⁩, “Oh, I wish that I were dust!”

The plain way. The wish could be described from outside: the unbeliever regrets his condition. The verse lets his own words disclose it.

What it does. Yā before layta expresses lament and regret. Al-Maydānī also explains a form of tajrīd in which a person addresses or reproaches himself as though another self were before him. His poetic example is al-Aʿshā:

The speaker turns his command and question upon himself. Al-Maydānī then includes expressions such as yā laytanī under self-reproach. This explains a possible rhetorical relation within the lament; grammatically, yā is also explained as an alerting particle or, on another analysis, a vocative with its addressee understood.^[16]

The effect. The wish is heard as the person’s own regret. The past opportunity for action is gone, while his words reveal how urgently he now wants another condition.

The ending answers the opening warning (⁧رَدّ العَجُز عَلَى الصَّدْر⁩, radd al-ʿajuz ʿalā al-ṣadr)

Where it is. The final unbeliever’s wish, following the opening challenge about the great news and the warnings directed to its deniers.

The plain way. A description of the gathering could close with its general events. This sūrah ends with the voice of someone overtaken by the reality he had denied.

What it does. The account moves from denial and threatened discovery to actual reckoning and regret. Ibn ʿĀshūr names the return of the ending to the opening and calls the close ⁧بَرَاعَة مَقْطَع⁩, barāʿat maqṭaʿ, an apt conclusion. Its warning about the unbeliever also recalls those earlier described as transgressors. The close gathers the two outcomes into its final account, while the invitation of verse 39 shows the response available before it.^[17]

The effect. The sūrah finishes its warning through an outcome, rather than another abstract assertion. Its last wish gives the present invitation its urgency.

Qirāʾāt: The Readings

The verse-specific variation, ⁧فَرْش⁩, farsh, concerns the endings of ⁧رَبّ⁩ and ⁧الرَّحْمَن⁩ in verse 37. The remaining differences apply the readers’ general principles, ⁧أُصُول⁩, uṣūl: how adjoining sounds, hamzah and long vowels are pronounced. The sections below identify the words, reader or narrator, relevant ⁧طَرِيق⁩, ṭarīq, and whether the rule applies in ⁧وَصْل⁩, waṣl, continuing, or ⁧وَقْف⁩, waqf, stopping.^[1]

1. ⁧رَبّ … الرَّحْمَن⁩: three combinations among the Ten (37)

Status and assignment. All three combinations belong to the registered Ten. Ibn al-Jazarī assigns jarr at ⁧رَبّ⁩ to Ibn ʿĀmir, Yaʿqūb and the Kufans. At ⁧الرَّحْمَن⁩, he assigns jarr to Ibn ʿĀmir, Yaʿqūb and ʿĀṣim. Those two assignments place al-Kisāʾī with Ḥamzah and Khalaf in the mixed form. The grammatical possibility ⁧رَبُّ … الرَّحْمَنِ⁩ discussed by Makkī is not a fourth combination in this assignment.^[2]

Meaning. The giver of the reward remains the same Lord. The ending changes whether a description continues or a sentence begins; Iʿrāb explains the constructions in detail. Al-Ṭabarī accepts the three received combinations and prefers the mixed form. Abū ʿUbayd also prefers that form because ⁧رَبِّ⁩ is closer to ⁧رَبِّكَ⁩ and ⁧الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ farther away. Al-Naḥḥās records the response that distance alone does not require rafʿ.^[3]

2. Other attributed forms: distinguish the form from its path

⁧رَبُّ … الرَّحْمَنُ⁩ from ʿĀṣim. Ibn Mujāhid and Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī preserve al-Mufaḍḍal’s narration of both words in rafʿ from ʿĀṣim. This is a named historical attribution. The registered Ten assignment for ʿĀṣim remains both words in jarr.^[4]

The additional four readers. In al-Dimyāṭī’s fourteen-reader collection, al-Yazīdī and al-Ḥasan have both words in rafʿ; Ibn Muḥayṣin and al-Aʿmash have both in jarr. These are the additional readers beyond the Ten in that collection. The grammatical meanings are those explained above.^[5]

⁧الْمُرْءُ⁩ instead of ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩ (40). Ibn Abī Isḥāq is reported with ḍammah on the mīm: al-murʾu, rather than al-marʾu. Abū Ḥātim objects; al-Samīn answers that the form is established Arabic, with the first root consonant following the vowel of the last. Both mean “the person.” Al-Samīn’s linguistic defence does not assign the form to a canonical ṭarīq of the Ten.^[6]

3. Joining ⁧الْمَلَائِكَةُ صَفًّا⁩ and ⁧أَذِنَ لَهُ⁩ (38)

In ⁧الْإِدْغَامِ الْكَبِيرِ⁩, al-idghām al-kabīr, the first consonant originally has a vowel. That vowel is removed, and the consonant merges into the next as a doubled sound. The two locations here are:

Ibn al-Jazarī names ⁧الْمَلَائِكَةُ صَفًّا⁩ among the tāʾ-to-ṣād examples and gives the preceding-vowel condition for nūn before lām.^[7]

The related choices must remain together. For Abū ʿAmr, Ibn al-Jazarī establishes three combinations involving ⁧هَمْزٌ سَاكِنٌ⁩, hamz sākin, and major assimilation:

• ⁧إِظْهَار⁩, iẓhār, pronouncing the adjoining consonants separately, with the sākin hamzah fully pronounced.
• Iẓhār with ⁧إِبْدَال⁩, ibdāl, replacement of that hamzah.
• Major idghām with its ibdāl.

He rejects combining major idghām with full pronunciation of those hamzahs. The idghām performance also takes ⁧قَصْر⁩, qaṣr, in ⁧الْمَدِّ الْمُنْفَصِلِ⁩, al-madd al-munfaṣil, where the lengthening vowel and following hamzah belong to separate words.^[8]

Yaʿqūb’s wider attribution. Through al-Miṣbāḥ, Ibn al-Jazarī narrates the wider Abū ʿAmr-style assimilation through al-Zubayrī from Rawḥ, Ruways and Yaʿqūb’s other companions. This preserves the specific narration; it is not a general assignment to every Yaʿqūb ṭarīq.^[9]

Why ⁧كُنْتُ تُرَابًا⁩ is excluded (40). The first tāʾ, in ⁧كُنْتُ⁩, is the subject pronoun “I.” Ibn al-Jazarī gives a personal tāʾ as an agreed barrier to major assimilation and names this phrase. Its grammatical explanation is that the subject cannot be omitted, while assimilation resembles its omission. Thus the two tāʾs remain distinct under this rule.^[10]

Arabic evidence for the mechanism. Before discussing the recitational carriers, Ibn al-Jazarī quotes ʿAdī b. Zayd:

He identifies ⁧تَذَكَّرَ⁩, tadhakkara, as a past verb and ⁧رَبُّ⁩ as its subject. The rāʾ marked with sukūn illustrates its merging into the next rāʾ. Despite the displayed sukūn, the verb is not a command to remember.

An anonymous witness follows:

The adjoining tāʾ sounds illustrate the same easing. The poems establish the Arabic mechanism; the Qurʾānic performance and its reader are established through the received recitation.^[11]

4. Other differences in joined recitation

⁧صَفًّا لَا⁩: tanwīn before lām (38)

The final n-sound of ⁧صَفًّا⁩ is tanwīn. Before the lām of ⁧لَا⁩ it assimilates. This is different from major assimilation in ⁧أَذِنَ لَهُ⁩: the tanwīn is already unvowelled.

Al-Taysīr and al-Shāṭibiyyah give assimilation without ⁧غُنَّة⁩, ghunnah, the nasal sound. Other paths retain ghunnah. Ibn al-Jazarī includes al-Nahrawānī through al-Mustanīr, named Ibn Kathīr, Qālūn, Abū ʿAmr and Ibn ʿĀmir paths, and specified Ḥafṣ and other paths. Sālim therefore records a path-dependent ghunnah choice at ⁧صَفًّا لَا⁩.

Abū ʿAmr’s major assimilation of the vowelled nūn in ⁧أَذِنَ لَهُ⁩, however, is complete without ghunnah, including for a reciter retaining it in the ordinary nūn/tanwīn category. The nasal-sound difference leaves the meaning unchanged.^[12]

⁧مِنْهُ خِطَابًا⁩ and ⁧يَدَاهُ وَيَقُولُ⁩: Ibn Kathīr’s pronoun connection (37, 40)

The difference is the audible connection of the pronoun, not a change in its referent.^[13]

⁧مَآبًا⁩: the length after hamzah (39)

For al-Azraq from Warsh, the lengthening vowel after hamzah has three received levels: ⁧قَصْر⁩, qaṣr, short; ⁧تَوَسُّط⁩, tawassuṭ, intermediate; and ⁧إِشْبَاع⁩, ishbāʿ, full extension. This is ⁧مَدُّ الْبَدَلِ⁩, madd al-badal.

Ibn al-Jazarī preserves the three levels and the earlier preferences among them. Sālim applies them to ⁧مَآبًا⁩ here. The assignment is al-Azraq’s, according to its received paths; it is not a rule of every Warsh ṭarīq. Every length retains the meaning “return.”^[14]

⁧الْكَافِرُ⁩: the rāʾ in waṣl (40)

Most al-Azraq carriers, including al-Taysīr and al-Shāṭibiyyah, give ⁧تَرْقِيق⁩, tarqīq, a light rāʾ, for this kind of rāʾ with ḍammah after kasrah. Al-Tadhkirah, al-ʿUnwān and al-Mujtabā retain ⁧تَفْخِيم⁩, tafkhīm, a heavy rāʾ. Ibn al-Jazarī prefers tarqīq while preserving the other narration. Sālim gives both at this word and identifies their combinations with the sūrah transition.

This is a pronunciation difference: ⁧الْكَافِرُ⁩ remains in rafʿ and still means “the unbeliever.”^[15]

5. ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩: a brief sakt inside the word (40)

⁧سَكْت⁩, sakt, interrupts the voice briefly without taking a breath. In ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩, the sākin rāʾ precedes hamzah inside one word. The relevant path must therefore include that internal category. A rule for hamzah at the beginning of a separate word is not enough.

These are the different narrated scopes preserved by Ibn al-Jazarī, including the scope he favours. Sakt changes the performance of ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩; it does not change “the person” to a different referent.^[16]

⁧وَالْأَرْضِ⁩: moving the vowel or marking a boundary (37). Sālim also distinguishes ⁧نَقْل⁩, naql, and sakt at this word. In naql, hamzah’s vowel moves to the preceding sākin consonant and the hamzah is omitted in pronunciation. His Warsh performance uses naql.

The relevant Ibn Dhakwān, Ḥafṣ, Idrīs and Ḥamzah performances instead follow their narrated sakt scope. Sakt leaves a brief interruption before hamzah. Both treatments retain the word’s meaning, “the earth.”^[17]

6. Hamzah when stopping on a word

Waqf on ⁧مَآبًا⁩, ⁧الْمَلَائِكَةُ⁩, ⁧شَاءَ⁩ or ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩ brings the stopping rules into operation. These must be distinguished from the preceding sakt rules in waṣl.

For the internal hamzah of ⁧مَآبًا⁩, Ibn al-Jazarī gives ⁧بَيْنَ بَيْنَ⁩, bayna bayna, easing between a full hamzah and the corresponding vowel sound. He records the proposed replacement by alif, but requires received evidence for that proposal rather than analogy.

For ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩, after the vowel moves to rāʾ and the hamzah is removed, the three stopping treatments are:

• ⁧سُكُون⁩, sukūn: end without a final vowel.
• ⁧رَوْم⁩, rawm: pronounce a faint part of the ḍammah.
• ⁧إِشْمَام⁩, ishmām: indicate the ḍammah with the lips, without sounding a vowel.

The sound changes at the stop; the meanings “return,” “angels,” “willed” and “the person” remain.^[18]

Hishām’s limit. His paths preserve ⁧خُلْف⁩, khulf, a transmitted difference: ⁧تَحْقِيق⁩, taḥqīq, full hamzah pronunciation, and ⁧تَسْهِيل⁩, tashīl, easing. The paths easing final hamzah apply the ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩ treatment. This does not assign Hishām the internal-hamzah easing of Ḥamzah in ⁧مَآبًا⁩ or ⁧الْمَلَائِكَةُ⁩.^[19]

The isolated Khallād attribution. Ibn al-Jazarī records al-ʿAṭṭār through Ibn al-Bakhtarī, al-Wazzān and Khallād retaining full hamzah pronunciation at a stop. He contrasts that account with the better-known narration from al-Wazzān, in which full pronunciation concerns initial hamzah, rather than internal and final hamzah. The two attributions must remain distinct.^[20]

7. Where to stop: ⁧الْوَقْفُ وَالِابْتِدَاءُ⁩, al-waqf wa-l-ibtidāʾ

A stop can separate a complete statement or interrupt words that still belong together grammatically. This is why the grammatical alternatives affect a stopping judgment.

The authorities’ terms include ⁧تَامّ⁩, tāmm, complete; ⁧كَافٍ⁩, kāf, sufficient; ⁧حَسَن⁩, ḥasan, good; ⁧صَالِح⁩, ṣāliḥ, serviceable; and ⁧جَائِز⁩, jāʾiz, permissible. Their actual judgments and conditions are:

The decisive question is whether the next words begin another statement or complete the preceding grammatical construction. The table retains each authority’s judgment and its stated condition.^[21]

8. Joining al-Nabaʾ to al-Nāziʿāt

At the end of verse 40, ⁧تُرَابًا⁩ meets either the Basmala or ⁧وَالنَّازِعَاتِ⁩. Three terms must be kept distinct:

• ⁧بَسْمَلَة⁩, basmalah: reciting the Basmala between the sūrahs.
• Inter-sūrah sakt: briefly separating the sūrahs without the Basmala.
• ⁧وَصْل⁩, waṣl: joining the ending directly to the next sūrah.

These choices concern the sūrah boundary, not the internal sakt in ⁧الْمَرْءُ⁩. Sālim presents them together with the relevant madd, pronoun and ghunnah performances:

Each row describes a collected performance with its linked choices. In particular, internal sakt and inter-sūrah sakt are separate acts, and a choice at one location does not determine the other. The final words remain the unbeliever’s wish; the next sūrah begins its own oath.^[22]

9. Verse division and rasm

Forty or forty-one verses. Al-Sakhāwī gives forty-one for the Basran count and forty for the others. The additional verse ending is after ⁧عَذَابًا قَرِيبًا⁩. The continuing editorial note records other authorities giving forty-one to both the Makkan and Basran counts.

That note quotes ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Qāḍī on the difference within the Makkan count. He prefers not counting ⁧قَرِيبًا⁩ as an extra ending there, following al-Dānī. Al-Qasṭallānī and al-Dimyāṭī preserve the Makkan/Basran forty-one assignment. The difference concerns verse division, not additional or missing Qurʾānic words.^[23]

The alif in the ⁧رَسْم⁩, rasm, the written consonantal form. Al-Mārghinī records the retained alif in ⁧الْكَافِرُ⁩ at 78:40 and omission of the internal alif of ⁧تُرَابًا⁩ here, in al-Raʿd 13:5 and in al-Naml 27:67. The received pronunciation of ⁧تُرَابًا⁩ still has the long vowel. The written convention does not produce a shorter turāb or a separate recitation.^[24]