My TijarahJuz ‘AmmaReflections
Thirteen ayat where one word decideseverything, and pages to keep your own.
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Thirteen places where the Arabic said more.
You already know these surahs. You have said most of them from memory since you were small. This is somewhere to go back through them slowly, one ayah at a time, looking at the Arabic itself.
Each of the first thirteen pages takes one ayah and one word inside it, and shows you what the Arabic put there that the English had to leave behind. Everything claimed here is checked against a named tafsir, and the Arabic those works use is printed beside it so you can read it yourself or take it to somebody who can.
The English line under each ayah is a plain rendering of the meaning, written for this book. It is not a translation of the Qur’an and it is not the ayah. Recite from the Arabic.
Read the ayah first
Out loud, before the English underneath it. Let the sound arrive before the meaning does.
Find the one word
Every entry turns on a single word, or on a mark small enough to miss. It is named for you here. Later you name it yourself.
Write the last box
The bottom of each page is blank on purpose. What the word did to you is the only part of the page nobody can write for you.
The back half of this book is the identical layout with the writing taken out. Same headings, same boxes, ruled lines where the prose was. Nothing new is asked of you there. You do what you have just watched being done thirteen times.
The lens
Thirteen things to look for.
Each one is worked once in this book, on the entry with the matching number. On a blank page later, you tick which one you have found. Most ayat hold several.
The picture in the word
What the word shows you, underneath what it means.
The name He chose
Which name of Allah closes the ayah, and why that one.
The shape of the verb
Which of the forms, and who the action is for.
The root
The three letters under the word, and what they carry.
One root, both sides
The doer’s shape and the receiver’s shape, together.
The word left out
Something the sentence expected, and did not say.
The, or a
Definite or indefinite, and what changes when it repeats.
The sound
What the mouth does, and what the ear hears it doing.
The pattern
The shape the root was poured into.
One small word
A particle: عن، في، مع، بعد، على. Small words that decide the ayah.
A verb or a name
An act reported, or a description fixed to a person.
A word with no equal
A word English has to split into several to carry.
The order
What came first, and why it is not last.
Two ayat of Surah al-Mutaffifin carry at least three of these at once. One root wears two different verb shapes, one of those shapes turns the action back on the doer, and the two halves are put in an order that says something on its own. The entry on it follows one of the three. The others are still sitting there.
So the number you tick on a blank page is the one you followed, not the only one that was there. An ayah does not run out.
None of this is a new science. It is the ordinary vocabulary of the mufassirun, put into plain English and cut down to what one reader can carry in their head.
Have We not made the earth a bed laid out, and the mountains pegs?
What is there in Arabic
The verb مهّد is what you do to a bed before somebody lies down on it. Smooth it, flatten it, make it ready. The same three letters give المهد, the cradle a child is laid in, the word used of ‘Isa when he spoke as an infant.
What a translation cannot carry
“A resting place” is accurate and completely still. The Arabic has somebody doing the preparing, and it is the same somebody asking the question.
What it does to the ayah
The very next word is أوتادا, tent pegs. At-Tabari reads it as وَٱلْجِبَالَ لِلْأَرْضِ أَوْتَادًا أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ, pegs so the ground does not sway under you. So in six words the earth is bedding and the mountains hold it down, and the whole image is a tent pitched for people who slept in tents. The question is أَلَمْ, have We not. You are being asked about the ground you are standing on.
What the tafsir says
Meaning: made ready for the creatures, gentled for them, settled, still and firm.
What I take from it
O man, what has deceived you concerning your Lord, the Generous?
What is there in Arabic
Karam is generosity that gives without being asked and keeps giving after it is met badly. Of all the names that could have ended a rebuke, this is the one.
What a translation cannot carry
Every English version keeps the name. None of them can make you feel how strange it is to find it here, at the end of a sentence that is telling you off.
What it does to the ayah
You will hear it said that the name is a hint at the answer, as though the ayah were teaching you to reply “Your own generosity deceived me”. Ibn Kathir closes that door in a single line, and it is worth reading before you repeat the idea. The name is not an excuse being offered. It measures the offence: this is who you did it to. And the question is left standing without an answer, which is exactly why it was asked.
What the tafsir says
This is a threat. It is not, as some people imagine, a pointing towards the answer, on the grounds that He said “the Generous”, so that one of them ends up saying: His generosity is what deceived him.
What I take from it
Those who, when they take by measure from people, take it in full. And when they measure out to them, or weigh for them, they give less.
What is there in Arabic
Arabic pours one root into ten verb shapes, and the shape decides who the action is for. كَالَ is to measure something out to somebody else. Move the same root into the eighth shape, ٱكْتَالَ, and the action turns back on the doer: to take the measure for yourself.
What a translation cannot carry
English measures in both directions with the same verb. Reading it in translation, the two halves of the ayah look like the same act done twice, once honestly and once not.
What it does to the ayah
Watch which shape goes where. Receiving, they get ٱكْتَالُوا۟, the form that means “for me”, and then يَسْتَوْفُونَ on top of it, the tenth form, taking the thing complete. Giving, the verb drops to plain كَالُوهُمْ and the ayah ends on يُخْسِرُونَ, they cause a loss. Nothing in these two ayat calls anybody greedy. The grammar does it.
What the tafsir says
Meaning: they took from them the full amount of what was owed to them.
What I take from it
By the sky, and by the one who comes at night. And what will tell you what the night-comer is? The piercing star.
What is there in Arabic
طَرْق is striking. The hammer is called مِطْرَقَة from these letters. A man arriving after dark is a طارق because the door is shut and he has to knock to be let in.
What a translation cannot carry
“The night visitor” keeps the hour and loses the knock. The knock is the whole reason the word was chosen.
What it does to the ayah
Qatadah said it is named طارق because it is seen at night and gone by day. So the oath is sworn by a light that arrives when everything is locked, and announces itself. Read on four words and you meet what the oath was for: إِن كُلُّ نَفْسٍ لَّمَّا عَلَيْهَا حَافِظٌ. Over every soul there is a keeper. The knock at the door was the picture the warning came wrapped in.
What the tafsir says
The root of at-tarq is knocking. The hammer is named from it. So the one who makes for a house at night is called a tariq, because getting in requires him to knock.
What I take from it
O soul at rest, return to your Lord, pleased and pleased with.
What is there in Arabic
Two words, one root, and Arabic separates them by shape alone. رَاضِيَة is the doer’s shape: she is the one who is pleased. مَرْضِيَّة is the receiver’s shape: she is the one who is pleased with.
What a translation cannot carry
“Well pleased and well pleasing” is as near as English gets, and it needs four words to carry two, and it still sounds like a repetition rather than a reversal.
What it does to the ayah
As-Sa‘di reads the pair exactly as the shapes read them: she is content with Allah and with what He honoured her with, and Allah is content with her. Both directions arrive in one breath, out of the same three letters. Nowhere does the ayah add “and He was pleased with her too”. It did not need to. The form said it.
What the tafsir says
Pleased with Allah and with the reward He honoured her with, and pleased with, in that Allah is pleased with her.
What I take from it
By the morning light, and by the night when it settles: your Lord has not left you, and has not hated.
What is there in Arabic
Hold the two halves of the third ayah side by side. The first ends in a kaf: وَدَّعَكَ, He has not left you. The second does not. وَمَا قَلَىٰ, and He has not hated. The object never comes. The word Arabic was waiting for is قَلَاكَ.
What a translation cannot carry
No English version can leave a verb hanging like that, so every one of them puts the missing word back: “nor has He hated you.” The line above this one does not, which is why it stops where it stops. Everywhere else the gap closes in translation and you never learn it was there.
What it does to the ayah
Two mufassirun give two reasons for it. Al-Qurtubi says the kaf came off because the ayah ends there, and the ayat around it all close on the same open sound: ٱلضُّحَىٰ, سَجَىٰ, قَلَىٰ, ٱلْأُولَىٰ. Ibn ‘Ashur calls it إِيجَازٌ لَفْظِيٌّ, an economy of wording, because وَدَّعَكَ has already told you who is being spoken to and a second kaf would add a letter and nothing else. Arabic is allowed to leave out what it has already handed you. English is not, which is why you have never once seen this.
What the tafsir says
The sense of the ayah is: your Lord has not left you and has not hated you. The kaf was left off because this is the end of an ayah.
What I take from it
So truly, with the hardship there is ease. Truly, with the hardship there is ease.
What is there in Arabic
Said twice, and the two halves are not identical. ٱلْعُسْرِ carries the ال both times: the hardship, that one, the one already in view. يُسْرًا carries no ال either time, only the tanween.
What a translation cannot carry
English hears a sentence repeated for weight. That is a fair reading of the English. It is not what the Arabic marks are doing.
What it does to the ayah
In Arabic, a definite noun said again is the same thing again, and an indefinite noun said again can be a second one. Ibn Kathir sets that out below and draws the line everybody knows from it: one hardship will not beat two eases. Be careful with that line. It travels as a hadith and it is not one. At-Tabari transmits it mursal from al-Hasan, which does not stand, and reports the same words from Ibn Mas‘ud as his own. Whatever you settle on there, the particle in front of you is مَعَ and not بَعْدَ, which puts the ease beside the hardship instead of on the far side of it, waiting for the hardship to finish.
What the tafsir says
What this means is that the hardship is definite in both places, so it is one hardship, while the ease is indefinite, so it is more than one. That is why it was said: one hardship will not overcome two eases.
What I take from it
By the runners, panting. Striking sparks. Raiding at dawn. Throwing up dust with it. Driving into the middle of a gathering with it.
What is there in Arabic
Say the five endings before you look up a single meaning. Dabhan, qadhan, subhan, naq‘an, jam‘an. Same length, same stop, five times. Hooves.
What a translation cannot carry
Nothing. This one does not survive translation at all, in any language. It can only be recited.
What it does to the ayah
ضَبْح is the noise a horse makes at full run. At-Tabari collects the reports and one of them writes the sound down as it is: أَحْ أَحْ. As-Sa‘di calls it صَوْتُ نَفَسِهَا فِي صَدْرِهَا عِنْدَ اشْتِدَادِ الْعَدْوِ, the sound of its breath in its chest when the running gets hard. Then the raid runs in order: sparks off the hooves, the charge at first light, the dust, straight into the middle of them. Five ayat at the speed of the thing they describe. And then it stops dead: إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ لِرَبِّهِۦ لَكَنُودٌ.
What the tafsir says
There is nothing among the animals that makes this sound except the dog and the horse.
What I take from it
Woe to every slanderer, every fault-finder, who gathered wealth and counted it over.
What is there in Arabic
Both words sit in the pattern فُعَلَة. Arabic keeps that shape for a person the act has taken over. سُخَرَة is not someone who once mocked, it is a mocker by trade. ضُحَكَة, likewise.
What a translation cannot carry
“Slanderer and backbiter” hands you two job titles. The pattern is describing a temperament.
What it does to the ayah
The mufassirun divide the two words differently and never settle it. Ibn Kathir splits them by speech and by deed, below. Mujahid put ٱلْهُمَزَة in the hand and the eye and ٱللُّمَزَة on the tongue. Ar-Rabi‘ ibn Anas had ٱلْهُمَزَة to the face and ٱللُّمَزَة behind the back. Set the disagreements beside each other and watch what they do together: front and back, hand, eye and tongue, said and done. Between the two words there is no way left to belittle somebody. And the ayah after tells you what he was busy with while he did it.
What the tafsir says
The hammaz with speech, and the lammaz with action. Meaning: one who looks down on people and belittles them.
What I take from it
So woe to those who pray, the ones who are heedless away from their prayer.
What is there in Arabic
عَن and فِي both come into English as “in” or “about”, and the whole ayah turns on which one is there. عَن points away from a thing. فِي puts you inside it.
What a translation cannot carry
“Heedless of their prayer” is a fair rendering. It cannot tell you that a different two-letter word was available and was not used.
What it does to the ayah
Read what Ibn ‘Abbas said about it below, and let it be the relief it was meant to be. No one has ever prayed without a thought wandering through it, and that is not what is threatened here. ‘Ata’ put it as ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِي قَالَ عَنْ صَلَاتِهِمْ وَلَمْ يَقُلْ فِي صَلَاتِهِمْ: praise be to Allah, who said away from their prayer and did not say inside it. What is threatened is the heedlessness that keeps you off it altogether, which Ibn ‘Abbas read as ٱلَّذِينَ يُؤَخِّرُونَهَا عَنْ أَوْقَاتِهَا, the ones who push it out of its time.
What the tafsir says
Had He said “heedless in their prayer”, it would have fallen on the believers.
What I take from it
I do not worship what you worship. And you are not worshippers of what I worship. And I am not a worshipper of what you have worshipped.
What is there in Arabic
The first is a verb: I do not worship. The third is a noun, the doer’s name: I am not a worshipper. A verb reports an act. The doer’s name fastens a description to the person.
What a translation cannot carry
Both usually arrive in English as “I do not worship”, and the surah is then accused of repeating itself. It never does.
What it does to the ayah
Ibn ‘Ashur reads the switch as deliberate. Arabic moves to a nominal sentence, he says, to show that a thing is fixed rather than to report what is going on at the moment. So the verb refuses the act and the noun refuses the description, and between them there is nothing left to talk about. The reports on why the surah came down describe an offer to trade a year of worship for a year of worship. Read the two shapes again and you can hear the answer shut every door that offer had.
What the tafsir says
With the nominal sentence, to show that the thing is fixed.
What I take from it
Say: He is Allah, One. Allah, as-Samad.
What is there in Arabic
The word occurs once in the whole Qur’an, here, and nowhere else. Open four English translations and you get four different words for it: the Eternal, the Absolute, the Self-Sufficient, the Refuge.
What a translation cannot carry
Any one of them. The translators are not arguing with each other. Each has taken hold of a different side of a word English has no single container for.
What it does to the ayah
The salaf gave it several meanings and did not treat them as rivals. Ibn ‘Abbas has the one quoted below, and also ٱلسَّيِّدُ ٱلَّذِي قَدْ كَمُلَ فِي سُؤْدَدِهِ, the master who is complete in his mastery. Mujahid: ٱلْمُصْمَتُ ٱلَّذِي لَا جَوْفَ لَهُ, solid, with no hollow in Him, nothing taken in. Al-Hasan and Qatadah: ٱلْبَاقِي بَعْدَ خَلْقِهِ, the one who remains after His creation. Hold them together and the word becomes a wall. Nothing enters Him. He needs nothing. Everything needs Him. Then the ayah after it removes the last way out: لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ.
What the tafsir says
The One whom all creation turns to with their needs and their questions.
What I take from it
Say: I take refuge with the Lord of mankind, the King of mankind, the God of mankind.
What is there in Arabic
Three names, one to an ayah, and ٱلنَّاسِ said again after each of them. Arabic could have used a pronoun the second and third time. It does not.
What a translation cannot carry
The sequence survives translation intact and reads as ornament, three fine titles in a row.
What it does to the ayah
Ibn Kathir names the three below: lordship, kingship, godhood. Now take them in the order they are given. رَبّ is the One who made you and keeps you going, and that is true of every human being alive whether he admits it or not. مَلِك adds ownership and rule. إِلَٰه is the One who deserves to be worshipped, and it is the only one of the three that asks something of you. Refuge is sought by the widest claim first and the highest one last, and the last ayat of the Qur’an leave you standing in front of it.
What the tafsir says
These are three of the attributes of the Lord, mighty and majestic: lordship, kingship and godhood.
What I take from it
The rest of the book
Now it is your turn.
Everything from here is blank. The layout does not change, so you are never guessing what goes in a box. Six things worth knowing before you fill the first one in.
- Start with a surah you already pray in. You are not looking for new material. You are looking again at something you have said a thousand times.
- To find a root, say the word slowly and strip what is not part of it: the ال at the front, the prefixes of the verb, the endings. Three letters usually stay standing.
- Check before you write it down. Ibn Kathir and as-Sa‘di are both in English and both cover the whole juz. At-Tabari and al-Qurtubi go deeper on the language.
- Much of what circulates online about the “miracle” of a particular word was invented by somebody with a keyboard. If you cannot find it in a tafsir, that is your answer.
- If you find something and cannot confirm it, write it in as a question rather than a fact. A question you carry to a teacher is worth more than an answer you made up.
- One entry a week is plenty. Thirteen of them took this whole book, and Juz ‘Amma has thirty seven surahs in it.
You will get some of these wrong. A root that turns out to be four letters, a pattern you have mixed up with another, a meaning you were sure of that the tafsir does not support. Write in pencil and let it happen. Being corrected by a book, or by a teacher, is how this was always learned, and it fixes a word in your memory far harder than being right first time ever did.
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
What is there in Arabic
What a translation cannot carry
What it does to the ayah
What the tafsir says
What I take from it
After the last page
Where to go from here.
The words are the same ones you have been saying since you learned them. Nothing here was added to the Qur’an. It was already in it, sitting in a verb shape or a two-letter particle, waiting for somebody to slow down enough to notice.
That is the whole method, and it does not need a scholar to begin. It needs the ayah, a pencil, and the willingness to ask why this word and not the other one.
The same verb is used of winding a turban round a head. What does that do to the sun?
The root is used of an animal that has scored its own skin. Toiling towards whom?
One word for the whole condition of a human life. What does its root describe?
The root is used elsewhere of burying a thing in the dirt. What is being buried here?
It arrives with nothing after it, and the next ayah gives it an object. Why that order?
Three ayat, and the noun comes again each time instead of a pronoun. What does that do?
A verb shape that means two sides competing. Competing over what? The ayah never says.
The root is splitting. What is split, and why ask this Lord for refuge from the dark?
A page can hold what you found. It cannot hear you read, correct a letter you have been saying wrong for twenty years, or tell you that the thing you just worked out is right. That has always needed somebody sitting opposite you.
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