طه · الآية 34

Commentary

The verb is coordinated and holds its subjunctive from the particle in the verse before. One particle of purpose works on two verbs and is not repeated.

The nūn stays where it was. The plural that appeared in the first verb is the one that now remembers; the pronoun does not slip back into the singular once it has come out of it. Dh-k-r is a sharp entry held shut in a place and then brought back into the open, so remembering is the retrieval of a deposit and not the reception of a stranger.

So the two motions run in opposite directions under one purpose. The first is a passing through which nothing clings to the one who passes; the second is a holding in the interior that is brought out again. One clears and one recovers. Neither stands in for the other: the first cleans the channel and the second brings up through it what had been stored. An emptying, then a filling.

And this same root has already served as the reason for a different command in this Surah: "and set the prayer up for the remembering of Me." There the setting-up was hung on the remembering; here the remembering itself is asked to be much. A lām there and a kay here, and one thing tied by both.

It would have been sound Arabic to say both verbs and then close with one kathīran covering them together. That is not what was done. Each verb was given its own measure. The quantity is not divided between them and not reckoned for the two as a lump: much praising and much remembering, two counts and not one count parcelled out. Whoever repeats a word when he could have let it be shared has meant the repeating. The purpose on which six requests were hung comes out at two measures, not one.

One particle, two verbs, and two separate quantities. What was asked for was not a single output split in half, but each of two motions taken as far as it will go.

Two Readings

The two readings agree about the purpose and differ about the number: one measure or two. This book chooses the additional listening.