Commentary

The surah opens with a question, and the question opens with a word from which something has been lost. ʿAmma is ʿan and mā joined into one, and the alif of mā drops once the preposition stands before it, so that of the interrogative only a mīm remains, doubled and cut off. The very word that ought to have carried the thing asked about is the first thing in it to be shortened.

ʿAn is a particle of passing-beyond, through which an act falls around a thing rather than onto it. Hence the asking in this verse circles in the direction of its object without taking hold of it. With a particle that passes over and a noun that has shrunk joined in a single utterance, the opening closes its grip on nothing.

This is the first effect the surah has on whoever hears it: it places an emptiness at its head and leaves the listener to reach for whatever would fill it. Whoever hears ʿamma inclines his ear toward what follows it before it has been said.

The verb is on the pattern tafāʿala, the form of mutual action, in which each asks the other and is asked by him in turn, with no one outside the circle to be asked. The question passes from one of them into another and then returns exactly as it left, carrying nothing.

The root s-ʾ-l denotes a request that extends until it reaches a point and then attaches itself to whoever holds the answer. That attachment belongs to the structure of the word, for a request is at its root bound to a responder; where the circle contains no one who answers, the request remains bound to the air.

The verb is in the present rather than the past, which marks a standing condition, not an event already over: they are in the asking now, they were in it before, and they remain in it. A question that circles among people none of whom possesses its answer is not exhausted by circling; it widens as it goes.

The whole sentence is a question whose object is another question. The surah asks neither about what they say nor about what they do, but about the matter over which they question one another, so that their asking itself becomes the subject.

This involves a shift of position, in which those who were asking have become those asked about. Whoever is questioned about his own questioning stands outside it for the first time and sees from above the circle in which he had been turning.

Two words open the surah, and each part of them is deliberately short: ʿAmma has lost its alif, leaving the interrogative as a single doubled letter that cuts off; ʿan passes beyond without gripping; and the verb is on the pattern tafāʿala, so that no one stands outside the circle to be asked. The root s-ʾ-l is a request that extends and then attaches to whoever holds the answer, and when it circles among the askers themselves it remains suspended, with nowhere to rest. The sentence then reverses the positions, asking about their asking itself rather than about what they said, so that the one who asks becomes the one asked about. The surah begins with an emptiness where the answer should be, and the next verse does not fill it either.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first identifies and completes; the second stops at what the wording actually said and lets the gap stay a gap. This book chooses the additional listening.

Commentary

The same particle returns. ﴿عَمَّ﴾ held a preposition together with the noun it governed, and here the preposition is taken up again on its own at the head of the verse. Rather than arriving with some new instrument that grips, the answer repeats the instrument that passes over.

ʿAn preserves the distance it established. A thing asked about with ʿan is circled rather than placed in the hand. The verse therefore fills the noun-place left short in ﴿عَمَّ﴾ while leaving the quality of passing-over exactly as it was.

The break in the speech between the two verses has a function of its own. One sentence is divided in two at the point where breath is taken, so that the listener stops at the question before reaching what is asked about, and the pause itself forms part of the news.

Not every utterance is a nabaʾ. The root n-b-ʾ denotes an emission from an interior that opens and lets it out, after which the emerging is cut off and set firm all at once. A nabaʾ is accordingly word that has risen from a depth one cannot see, come out to whoever hears it, and settled in its place, leaving an effect there.

For that reason the term nabaʾ is not used of what passes over the ear and alters nothing. What produces nothing in its hearer is speech, whereas a nabaʾ is what descends and carries the state over with it.

The word then appears with the definite article, al-nabaʾ, "the news," not nabaʾin, "a news." The definite article points to something already known to those addressed, so the verse points rather than describes, and what it points to remains in the listener's hand, not in the wording's. The reading halts where the verse halted.

The root ʿ-ẓ-m is a fused, close-packed mass under a thick covering that screens it. Hence ʿaẓīm denotes what is massive in body or in standing and whose rim cannot be seen, not the large thing measured from outside.

This is the only description the news receives in the verse. It is called neither true, nor near, nor awaited; what is said of it is that its weight is veiled at the edge, and that alone.

What has its edge veiled cannot be agreed upon by measurement, so each person measures it by what he holds. That is why the following verse does not name it either, saying of it only ﴿الَّذِي هُمْ فِيهِ مُخْتَلِفُونَ﴾, "The one inside which they stand turned away from one another." The description prepares the ground for what follows, in that a weight with no rim gives rise to a disagreement with no end.

The noun-place left short in ﴿عَمَّ﴾ is filled, while the particle that passes over is left exactly as it was: ʿan is taken up again and preserves the distance it established. What is asked about is then named al-nabaʾ, from the root n-b-ʾ, an emission from an interior that comes out, is cut off, and lands; that is, word that carries over the state of its hearer instead of passing across him. It bears the definite article, so the verse points to something already known without describing it, and what is pointed to remains in the listener's hand. It is then qualified by al-ʿaẓīm alone, and ʿ-ẓ-m is a fused, close-packed mass under a thick covering that screens it. The verse thus names once and describes once, withholding the identification on both occasions, and leaves a massive measure whose rim is not seen and a question still open after it has been answered.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first names what is pointed at; the second reads the pointing itself and stops there. This book chooses the additional listening.

Commentary

This is the third of the verses, and still there is no name. The news was asked about first with an instrument that had gone short, then its kind was named and given a weight whose edge is veiled, and when the awaited identification finally comes it proves to be alladhī, "the one," a relative pronoun waiting for its clause.

A relative pronoun defines by an act that falls in a place, not by a self. What identifies the news here is therefore what people are doing around it rather than what it is in itself: the word comes before the term, and the role before the identity.

For three verses in succession the naming is held back, and each one draws the listener tighter. Repeated withholding is a way of directing, not concealment, in which the eye is moved from the thing itself to where people stand with respect to it.

The verse has fīhi, "inside which," rather than ʿalayhi, "over it," or ḥawlahu, "around it." The containment states something exact, that they are inside the news while they differ: it is the vessel that holds all of them and within which the split occurred, and they are not outside it contending over it.

Hence the disagreement does not remove them from it. Whoever is inside a vessel and turns his back on the one who shares it with him remains inside the vessel in any case; difference changes the direction in which faces point while the place stays the same.

The pronoun hum, "they," is placed first, then fīhi, then the predicate, so that the pronoun comes first, then the vessel they are in, then what they are engaged in within it. The ordering sets the people and their place before their act.

The root kh-l-f denotes a piercing that clings to what it has pierced and then parts from it and moves away, and whatever lies on the side of the back is khalf. On this reading, disagreement is each standing where he can see nothing but the other's back; a plurality of statements alone does not make it.

The root in itself carries no blame. Night and daylight each turn away from the other's face without being faulted for it. Judgment falls on the place, not on the motion, and the place here is one news, heavy, with its rim covered.

Mukhtalifūn is an active participle of the pattern iftaʿala. The form presents the act as one the doer takes up by his own choice rather than one that befalls him, and the participle presents it as a settled state rather than a passing incident: they are the disagreeing ones, and their disagreement is not something that happened once.

The surah keeps its answer for its proper place, saying further on ﴿يَوْمَ الْفَصْلِ﴾, "the day of the parting-apart." Whoever turns his back on his companion within one vessel is waiting for a day on which a parting is made; a turning of backs is answered by a parting, and its time is not now.

A third place where the name is awaited, and in its stead comes alladhī, "the one," which identifies by the clause and not by the self, and the news is identified by what people do around it. Then comes fīhi, "inside which," expressing containment rather than position above: the split lies within the vessel, not upon it, and does not remove them from it. Hum is set first, then the place, then the act. Mukhtalifūn comes from kh-l-f, whatever lies on the side of the back, and disagreement is accordingly each standing where he sees nothing but the other's back, the root in itself carrying no blame and judgment falling on the place. The active participle of iftaʿala makes it a state deliberately taken on and settled in. Within the surah itself an answer is waiting, ﴿يَوْمَ الْفَصْلِ﴾, "the day of the parting-apart": backs set against one another need someone to part them, and the parting is an appointment, not an argument.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first names the parties and the matter; the second reads the posture the form describes. This book chooses the additional listening.