النازعات · الآية 40

Commentary

The wa sets one part alongside the other, and ammā resumes the setting-out-in-parts from the second side. The construction is one on both sides: a particle, then an open relative, then two verbs describing him, then an answer with a fa.

The difference, however, is heard in the object. In the first part there was an intransitive verb with no object and a verb whose abandoned side was dropped; here both verbs have their objects stated in full: he feared the holding-place of his Rabb (the Nurturing Sustainer), and he held the self back from the falling pull. The one side is described by what it crossed without naming it, while the other names what it feared, what it held back, and from what.

The root kh-w-f denotes an emptiness that extends inside its owner and breaks up his cohesion. Fear, in its root, is accordingly the inside loosening before what comes, not the inside contracting away from it, and here that loosening is transitive, with a place upon which it falls.

The root q-w-m is a knot that closes in the depth and holds what it has gathered from within; its two sound letters contain no aspect of rising up at all. Standing, in this root, is therefore the holding of what has been gathered so that it does not come apart, and the common use of qāma for one who rises upright is a branch of that sense, not its origin.

Maqām, on the mafʿal pattern, is the place where the act falls. The holding-place of the Rabb is thus the place of His holding, not a posture with a shape to be imagined, and what is feared is a place rather than a figure.

The word is attached to "his Rabb" through the pronoun, rather than to a name at large. The root r-b-b is a running that clings to what it runs in, and the doubled bāʾ makes that clinging last, that is, a keeping-close that carries what it keeps from one stage to the next. What is feared is therefore the holding-place of the one who kept close to him and raised him stage by stage. The one who fears is held within the very place he fears.

The root n-h-y denotes a resonance that comes up from within, passes out as a faint breath and halts, and the yāʾ draws that halting out gently. Restraining, in its root, is thus a soft stopping with no breaking in it. From it come nihāya, where a thing reaches its end, and nuhya, which in the speech of the Arabs is the mind, because it holds its owner back.

This holding-back falls before the bound, not after it, and it is exactly what did not take place in the first part: there, a flood went past its bound; here, a halt comes before the crossing. The two sides meet at one and the same edge, one going over it and the other stopping short of it.

The object is "the self," with the article rather than a possessive pronoun; the verse does not say "his self." The root n-f-s is an emergence that cuts its way outward and then slides on at length, that is, a self that comes forth and does not close. What is held back is that very coming-forth, named by its kind rather than by whose it is, and the holding-back turns the emergence away from a direction without shutting it.

The root h-w-y denotes an emptiness that parts and gives onto another emptiness beyond it, and the yāʾ draws that void out so that it reaches no floor. From it come hawā, to fall downward, and hawāʾ, that which holds nothing.

ʿAn is a particle of passing beyond and of setting aside, a turning away from a direction rather than a stopping up of a door. What the self is turned from in this verse is accordingly a place with nothing standing in it and nothing holding.

The two ends thus meet face to face in one verse: a holding-place that was feared, and a void that holds nothing, from which the self was turned. The one described in this part is characterized by two acts that are both a change of direction, not by two acts crossing a bound. Whoever feared what holds him had no need of what lets him fall.

The same construction returns from the other side: a wa, then ammā, then an open relative with no name, then two verbs. The difference lies in the object: the first part had an intransitive verb and a verb whose abandoned side was dropped, while this part names what was feared, what was held back, and from what. Fear in kh-w-f is an emptiness that extends inside its owner and breaks up his cohesion, and here it is transitive, with a place of its own. That place is "the holding-place of his Rabb." Q-w-m is a knot that closes in the depth and holds what it has gathered, with no aspect of rising in its letters, and maqām on mafʿal is where the act falls; it is therefore a place of holding, not a posture. It is attached to "his Rabb" by the pronoun, and r-b-b is a running that clings and lasts and carries what it keeps from stage to stage. Next comes "he held the self back": n-h-y is a resonance that comes up, passes out faint and halts, a soft stopping that falls before the bound and not after it, which is precisely what did not happen in the first part, where the bound was crossed. The object carries the article rather than a possessive, and the self in n-f-s is an emergence that cuts its way and slides on, which restraint turns from a direction without shutting. The direction turned from is al-hawā, and h-w-y is an emptiness giving onto emptiness, where the falling thing meets nothing to hold it. The whole verse stands between a holder that was feared and a void the self was turned from, and whoever feared what holds him had no need of what lets him fall.

Two Readings

The two readings do not conflict. The first fixes the standing and describes the self with what the verse did not state; the second reads the letters of q-w-m as they are and halts at the article of kind on "the self." This book chooses the additional listening.

Tadabbur

The verse puts the two acts in an order that cannot be reversed: fear first, then restraint. Had the restraint been placed first, the description would have become an act with no place to give it its direction.

What is feared is a place that holds, and what the self is turned from is a void that holds nothing. So the whole movement of the line runs between two holders, one of which is there and the other of which is not, and not between a pleasure and a deprivation.

And note that the restraint fell upon "the self" under the article of kind, not upon something outside it. No withholder from outside is mentioned in this second part, just as no reminder from outside was mentioned in the earlier verse.

Perhaps this ordering resembles what is observed in the condition of people across their different eras: that an abstaining which lasts rarely rests on sheer overpowering, and that wherever it did last, its owner was found to have a place he returned to and clung to. It may be that this points to something: that what this verse names is not a rule for the training of behaviour but the naming of an order that occurs, namely that whoever found what holds him had no further need of what lets him fall. This is a speculation offered as such and not loaded onto the verse, for the verse itself mentioned only two acts and their two objects, and settled nothing about the description of what runs inside a human being, nor about any division of his self.