Commentary

The Surah opens with a swearing wāw, and what is sworn by is an active participle rather than a name of anything. Al-nāziʿāt identifies its bearer by what she does and goes no further; the listener leaves the word knowing the act without knowing who performed it.

The verse names the doing and withholds the name. That is the verse's own choice, and the reading stops where the verse stops. The place a name would occupy in the sentence is taken by a description, as though the act itself were the identity.

The root n-z-ʿ denotes a pulling that brings a settled thing out of its place. Such a pull falls only on what has taken hold: a bucket is drawn from the floor of a well, a tent-peg from ground that has gripped it. In the word, resistance comes before any coming out.

One word then follows that describes the pulling, not the puller. Gharqan is built from letters other than those of the act before it, and so it serves as a limit that measures how far the deed reaches, rather than as an emphasis that repeats the deed.

Drowning, in its root, is a sinking that runs on until it closes over the one caught in it and leaves no way out. Said of a pull, it describes a pull that reaches the bottom and does not stop short of it, like a hand that goes down as far as it can go and then draws, leaving nothing on the floor.

In a verse of two words, then, two ends are held together: a depth into which the puller goes down, and a pulled thing that comes out entire. The Surah's first oath falls on bringing-out in its most extreme form.

A swearing wāw introduces the oath, and what is sworn by is an act with no named actor. Al-nāziʿāt, from n-z-ʿ, denotes a pull that falls only on what holds fast, so that severity is present in it before departure is. Gharqan, built from other letters, then measures the deed rather than repeating it: a sinking that closes over and leaves no opening, so that the pull goes down to the floor and takes up the whole. Two words hold a depth gone down into and a thing of which no remainder stays in place. The Surah begins with an act stripped of its doer, and the hearer's attention is set on the deed alone.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first identifies the one described; the second counts what the wording holds and stops there. This book chooses the additional listening.

Commentary

Another wāw follows, with the very same form: a definite plural active participle. The verse swears by a second act and, as before, names no one who performs it. The wāw joins oath to oath without placing the second after the first in rank.

The root n-sh-ṭ denotes a bringing-out that spreads open, so that what was knotted comes undone. Hence the unshūṭa, the slip-knot that comes apart at a single light tug, being neither cut nor worked at with many fingers.

Between the two oaths, accordingly, lies a difference that the tongue hears before the mind can explain it: there, a pull that goes down to the floor and overcomes what had taken hold; here, a loosening that touches the knot, and it opens. Both acts bring something out, and the distance between them is the distance between force and gentleness.

In the first verse the qualifying word was drawn from other letters and measured the pull by its farthest reach. Here it is drawn from the letters of the act itself, so it adds no limit and measures no distance; it establishes the deed and affirms it in its own sound.

This suits the act to which it is given. A loosening is gauged neither by a depth reached nor by a force spent, so there is nothing in it to be measured by anything else. Its whole verification lies in its falling as lightly as it is: a knot was there, and then it is not.

Hence nashāṭ, in Arabic speech, denotes the lightness of one from whom what bound him has been untied; one name serves for the loosening and for its effect on the thing loosed.

A second wāw joins oath to oath, in the very same form: an act that identifies its bearer without naming her. Al-nāshiṭāt, from n-sh-ṭ, denotes a bringing-out that spreads open until the knotted thing comes undone; hence the slip-knot that parts at one light tug. Placed beside "and by those that wrench out, to the drowning depth," it shows that bringing-out takes two forms in this Surah: a dive that overcomes what has taken hold, and a loosening that touches the knot, and it opens. Nashṭan, unlike gharqan, is then built from the letters of its own act; it adds no limit and measures no reach, and only affirms the deed in its own sound. The lightness in the word is that of one whose bond has been slipped.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first identifies and distributes; the second halts at the deed and its form. This book chooses the additional listening.

Commentary

A third wāw introduces a third form on the same pattern, yet the act has turned in its direction. The first two fell upon something other than themselves, a thing pulled and a knot loosed, whereas coursing is the mover's own motion within its medium: it brings nothing out and unties nothing.

The root s-b-ḥ denotes a running that opens and then comes through clean, a passage that carries away none of what it passed through. Hence swimming, in which a body parts the water, goes on through it, and carries nothing of it out when it leaves.

Taken in the order in which they came, the three oaths show a steady lightening: a pull that overcomes resistance, then a loosening that ends resistance with a touch, then a running in which there is no resistance at all. The medium that held fast in the first has become, by the third, a channel to be crossed.

The word that follows is built from the letters of its own act, as in the preceding verse. Coming twice in succession, it makes the pattern audible: participle, then its deed; participle, then its deed. The oaths are cast in one mould, and only the roots are left to carry the difference.

That repetition brings the first oath into view for whoever listens back to it. Its qualifying word came from other letters: "and by those that wrench out, to the drowning depth." The first verse departs from a mould that is established only after it, so its departure is heard some time later.

A coursing affirmed in its own sound takes on no added weight; it is a motion known by itself rather than by what it acts upon.

A third wāw, a third form on the pattern, and then the act turns: the first two fell on something else, a pulling and a loosening, whereas the third is the mover's own motion within its medium. Al-sābiḥāt, from s-b-ḥ, is a running that opens and comes through clean; hence swimming, in which the body goes on through the water and carries none of it out. Across the three oaths a lightening advances: a struggle, then a touch that unties, then a passage that nothing holds. Sabḥan, a second word built from its own act's letters, settles the mould, leaving the whole difference to the roots. Once the mould is settled, the first verse is heard to depart from it.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first names the channel; the second counts what the wording holds and stops there. This book chooses the additional listening.