طه · الآية 97

Commentary

Going, in dh-h-b, is a passing through emptiness that ends in a departure from one's place. The form is a singular imperative, joined by the particle of immediate sequence to the answer just given. That same imperative stood in this Surah before, "go to Pharaoh," governed there by the particle "to," with its end-point named. Here it comes with no "to" at all and no end-point whatever: a verb of leaving with no direction stated for the leaving.

Then the sentence itself. "Yours" is a fronted prepositional phrase in the predicate slot, with the particle of assignment: what follows it is something made his and referred to him. And what is made his is a verbal noun built from the subordinating particle and a verb: "that you should say." What is assigned him is a sentence he will utter, not a blow that falls on him and not a barrier set between him and something. Then "in the life," carrying only the article. Not "this life," not "the nearer life." The word is left bare of everything that would bound it.

Then the utterance. Touching, in m-s-s, is a light meeting that runs along a surface and does not sink in; from this material Arabic takes the word for the least that can pass between two bodies. And the negative here is the one that denies a whole kind, working on the verbal noun so that the entire class is lifted and not one instance of it. What is lifted is the lowest thing in the field, not the highest; and whoever has the lowest lifted from him has everything above it lifted without its being mentioned. That is the completeness of the ruling, in two words.

Then "yours" a second time, so what is made his is two things: a saying he will say and an appointment he will await. This material has run three times through this sitting. The people were told, "so you failed my appointment"; they answered, "we did not fail your appointment"; and here one man is told that he has an appointment that will not be failed with him. Failing, in kh-l-f, is a gap that stretches between two parties and pushes one from the other. Here the verb is built without an agent and denied with the strongest denial of the future: there is no gap in this appointment, and who will keep it is not said.

Then two pronouns move from a plural to a singular. The people said in this same sitting, "this is your god," with the plural possessive. The verse now says "your god," with the singular. One word, and the annexation has passed from the many to the one. The people said "cleaving to it," in the plural; here it is "you kept cleaving to it," in the singular. Same preposition, same participle, and the number is two. And ẓalla, in ẓ-l-l, is an overspreading that closes upon what lies beneath it and endures over it; Arabic says of one who ẓalla doing a thing that he continued at it through his day. One of the two lāms is dropped in the script, and the script is the script and is read as it stands.

The close is two verbs, each carrying the oath-particle and the heavy emphatic nūn. Arabic has nothing stronger than this for the affirming of a promise. And between them stands "then," not the simple conjunction: the second comes after the first and not with it, and the sequence is spoken rather than supposed. Burning, in ḥ-r-q, is a confined heat that runs and cuts through the structure of whatever it passes, and the verb is on the intensive pattern. Scattering, in n-s-f, is an issuing that runs out at length and then has its parts divided and driven apart; from this material comes the name of the winnowing tray by which the grain is parted from its husk. And "a scattering" is the verbal noun that confirms its own verb. That same build, verb with its own verbal noun, falls in this Surah upon the mountains: "my Lord will scatter them, an utter scattering." One root, one construction, two places. And "into the water" is the very word, al-yamm, that has run twice already through this Surah: "then cast him into the water," and "there covered them, out of the water, what covered them." Three places and one word; the adjacency is noted and no place is described or identified.

What is assigned to him is a sentence he must say. The penalty is made of speech, and the two words that make it deny the least contact there is.

Two Readings

Both readings hear the same sentence; the second halts at what the forms themselves pronounce. This book chooses the additional listening.