طه · الآية 29

Commentary

Three lāms in one prayer: "for me" in the first request, again in the second, and again here. One letter brought back each time the thing asked for changes.

The verb is ijʿal, from j-ʿ-l: a gathering that comes up out of a depth and is then tied to a condition it holds to. It is the setting of a thing in a position, not the bringing of a thing out of nothing. That is why the request uses this verb and no other: what is asked for is a position, not a being.

And what is asked for is a wazīr. The root w-z-r is a heavy attachment that travels with its bearer and does not come loose; from it comes wizr, the load that bows the shoulder. Wazīr is built on that same material: the one who carries the weight alongside. So whoever asks for a wazīr has not asked that the load be taken off him. He has asked for a second bearer. The very word he asks with admits the weight in its letters.

It comes indefinite: some helper, unnamed and unidentified. The description is asked for first and the name held back.

Then min, the second one in this prayer; the first was in "a knot from my tongue." There it cut a place out of an organ; here it cuts one out of a company. The same particle doing the same work twice on two different wholes. And ahl, from ʾ-h-l, is whoever has come down in a place, taken it, and stayed with it; from it comes maʾhūl for ground that has been settled. So what is asked for is cut out of a circle already standing, not brought in from outside it. Four requests now, three lāms, two partitives, and still not one word about what any of it is for.

He does not ask for the weight to be lifted. He asks for a second person under it, in a word built out of the material of weight itself.

Two Readings

The two readings agree that a sharer is what is asked for, and differ over what that sharing promises. This book chooses the additional listening.