طه · الآية 58

Commentary

Count what stands before the verb and after it: a connective following the accusation, a prefix that prepares an oath, and a heavy emphatic ending. Three devices binding one verb. And nothing of the terms has been bound yet. No appointment, no place, no time. The first thing he does is tie himself down; then he turns to ask for the arrangement. And the plural "we" is still running as it ran in the line before: he accuses in the voice of a body and he answers in the voice of a body.

In the line before he said ﴿بِسِحْرِكَ﴾, "by your sorcery," and here he says "with a sorcery." The word he made into a charge has become, one line later, a thing he promises to bring. And between the two there is a difference of definiteness. The first is made definite by annexation to its owner, "your sorcery," stuck to him and referred to him. The second is indefinite, "a sorcery," with no annexation and no reference at all. He makes definite what belongs to the other and leaves indefinite what belongs to himself.

Then "like it." Likeness is a claim made before the meeting rather than after it. He did not say stronger than it, or greater; he said its like. And whoever asks for an appointment in order to establish likeness has announced the likeness before he has arrived.

A second connective, then an imperative. And the command is directed at the accused himself: you set it. He demanded the confrontation and then placed the fixing of it in his opponent's hand. And "between" is said twice and not once: "between us and between you." "Between us" would have been enough; the word is repeated for each side separately. Two sides named apart inside the wording of an appointment that joins them.

"An appointment" is indefinite. The root w-ʿ-d is a tie that fuses with the interior and is then fixed into the shape of an obligation. So an appointment is a knot tied inside before it appears on any ground, which is why what follows it describes not what it is but what keeps it.

The root kh-l-f is an emptiness that remains after one who has departed and waits for someone to fill it. So to break an appointment is to let its place stand empty at its hour. What is denied here, then, is not a falsehood on the tongue but a vacancy in the place. In this word an appointment is a site that is either filled or left hollow, and keeping it is a presence that stops the gap.

Then the two detached pronouns: "we, and not you." The verb already carried an attached pronoun that would have sufficed; the two sides are brought back as separate words so that each is named on its own. And he put himself first.

The demand closes on an indefinite accusative: "a place." What he asks for at the end of his line is ground to stand on, not an hour to wait through. And the answer, in the next line, will come as something other than what was asked.

And suwan is from s-w-y: the setting of a thing to its own measure, with no shortfall and no excess. So what is asked for is ground that tilts to neither side, a measure held even between the two parties. This very root is the root of the verb in the fifth verse of this sūra: ﴿اسْتَوَىٰ﴾. It is noted that the material returns here in the mouth of the one asking, as a description of ground, and nothing is built on that return about the earlier place. Two words from one material in two settings, joined by nothing but the material.

He binds himself with three devices before a single term is named, claims likeness before the meeting, and asks for ground that tilts to neither side. He will be answered with an hour instead.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first supplies the scene and describes the place; the second listens to the indefiniteness of his own and the definiteness of the other's, and to the material of breaking. This book chooses the additional listening.