الإسراء · الآية 75

Commentary

The verse opens with idhan, "then," a particle of answer and requital. It does not start a speech; it hangs what follows it on what came before it.

What came before it did not happen: the leaning that was all but reached was held off by the fixing in place. So the whole requital is built on a condition that fell away, and this heavy warning is a report of what would have been, had it been.

This particle recurs three times in this place: ﴿وَإِذًا لَّاتَّخَذُوكَ خَلِيلًا﴾, "and then they would have taken you for an intimate," then this one, then ﴿وَإِذًا لَّا يَلْبَثُونَ خِلَافَكَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا﴾, "And then they would not have stayed on after you save a little." There are three answers to three nearnesses, and not one of them happened; the verses show the weight of what did not take place.

Tasting is the shortest of roads between a thing and the one who perceives it: a contact in the mouth through which knowledge falls in a single stroke, where the least of the least of it is enough.

So the verse says neither "We would have poured it upon you" nor "We would have brought it down on you." It says la-adhaqnāka, "We would have made you taste," on the pattern afʿala, that is, "We would have caused you to taste." What is doubled is not described by its quantity; it is set on the tongue so that what it is may be known.

The lām in la-adhaqnāka is the lām of an emphasised answer. So the emphasis attaches to the requital, not to what actually took place: it is certain that it would have happened, and certain that it did not happen.

It could have been said "a double of the living and the dying," so that one doubling would be spread over two things. Instead the word is repeated: a double for this one, and a double for that one.

The two shapes differ. What is shared divides, and the portion of each side grows lighter; what is repeated is completed in its own place, and its neighbour takes nothing from it. So the doubling here falls twice, whole both times, rather than being divided between two.

The two nouns are built differently. Al-ḥayāt, "the living," is a name for the running consistency itself. Al-mamāt, "the dying," is shaped with a mīm at its head, the mīm of place, of time and of the verbal noun, so that dying becomes a station one ends at, not a state that runs. A running thing is doubled, and a station is doubled.

Then there is the place where the negation falls. The verse does not say "and you have no helper," which would be a denial of existence; it says lā tajidu, "you would find yourself no helper," so what is denied is that you come upon one. The encounter is denied, not the being.

Then ʿalaynā, "against Us." This restriction shuts the door completely: the helper sought would have to stand on the other side, and among all that exists there is none who stands on that side.

The word naṣīran, "helper," is on the pattern faʿīl, the pattern of a quality that stays, not of an act that comes and goes. So what is denied is someone to whom this description holds fast, rather than someone who helps once. The root of help is the splitting of a siege away from one who has been closed in upon, so whoever has no power to split anything open is not called by that name.

This same construction returns in the sūra with another word in its place: ﴿ثُمَّ لَا تَجِدُ لَكَ بِهِ عَلَيْنَا وَكِيلًا﴾, "then you would find for yourself, concerning it, none entrusted with it against Us." The frame is one and the close changes, once naṣīr, a helper, once wakīl, one entrusted. The word itself returns five verses on, asked for rather than denied: ﴿وَاجْعَل لِّي مِن لَّدُنكَ سُلْطَانًا نَّصِيرًا﴾, "and place for me, from Your own side, an overbearing force that helps." A helper not to be found on one side stands against a helper asked for from another side.

A whole sentence is hung on what did not happen. Idhan ties it to a nearing that was held off, so the entire warning comes in the form of what would have been. The punishment is then offered as a taste, not a pouring: a contact through which knowledge falls in one stroke, and the pattern afʿala makes the one who tastes someone carried into his own tasting. What is doubled was not shared out between two; its word was repeated for each of them, so it was completed in both its places, one of them a consistency that runs and the other a station one ends at. Then the helper is denied by denying that you find him, not by denying his being, and bound by "against Us," so the side from which help would be sought is closed. What all of this serves to measure is a little thing that did not happen. The heaviest thing in the verse is that it describes a price that was never paid.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first names the two places of the doubling; the second reads, in the repeated word and in the build of the two nouns, why one doubling was not enough. This book chooses the additional listening.