What surprised me when reading the Qur’ān was the occurrence of some twinned names in which there was a saj‘- rhyme or a parallel patterned rhyme, such as Hārūt and Mārūt. The two angels Hārūt and Mārūt and their sorcery are mentioned in the Qur’ān at verse 102 of Sūrat al-Baqara.
BY KAMIL ALI
THE TEXT OF THE VERSE runs as follows:
And they followed what the Shaytans chanted of sorcery in the reign of Sulayman, and Sulayman was not an unbeliever, but the Shaytans disbelieved, they taught men sorcery and that was sent down to the two angels at Babel, Harut and Marut, yet these two taught no man until they had said, “Surely we are only a trial, therefore do not be a disbeliever.” Even then men learned from these two, magic by which they might cause a separation between a man and his wife; and they cannot hurt with it anyone except with Allah’s permission, and they learned what harmed them and did not profit them, and certainly they know that he who bought it should have no share of good in the hereafter and evil was the price for which they sold their souls, had they but known this.
The second twinned names are Ya’jūj and Ma’jūj (Gog and Magog) which are mentioned in Sūrat al-Kahf verses 93-4:
He found on that side of them a people who could hardly understand a word. They said: O Dhū’l-Qarnayn! Lo! Gog and Magog are spoiling the land. So may we pay you tribute on condition that you set a barrier between us and them?[1]
There is also verse 96 of the Sūrat al-Anbiyā’:
Until, when Gog and Magog are let loose, and they break forth from every mound.
In addition, there are two angels, Munkar and Nakīr, tasked with interrogating the dead in the grave. When I attended over the years burial ceremonies for my relatives, family members and friends, I used to notice how the shaykh or cleric would recite and mutter some phrases and, after the grave was closed and dust scattered over it, intone over the deceased some phrases, some questions and some answers, beginning as follows:
I know that soon two angels will come to you and ask you in eloquent Arabic: “Who is your Lord?” You should say: “God Almighty.” “And what is your religion?” Say: “Islam”. “And who is your prophet?” Say: “Muḥammad” “And what is your book?” Say: “The Qur’ān”.
The shaykh would then complete the ceremonies by reciting Sūrat Yāsīn.[2]
According to Islamic belief if the deceased is an infidel, or a Muslim who does not apply the teachings of the Qur’ān, he will be tortured by Allah in the grave by these two angels, Munkarand Nakīr[3]. Ibn ‘Abbās relates the following hadith concerning the Isrā’:
The Prophet said: “O Jibrā’īl, what is this?” He replied: “Munkar and Nakīr come to each human being when they are laid alone in the grave”. I said: “O Jibrā’īl, describe them both to me.” He replied: “Indeed”. And without describing their height and breadth, he described things more terrifying: voices like deafening thunder and eyes like dazzling lightening, and fangs like swords, with flames of fire coming out of their mouths, nostrils and ears. They sweep the ground with their hair and gouge the earth with their fingernails. Each of them bears a column of iron that no amount of men together could lift. They approach the body when it is laid, and left alone, in the grave to unravel his soul from his body, God Almighty permitting.
These names, which appear in the Qur’ān and the hadiths attributed to Muḥammad, reminded me of names of cartoon characters in our childhood, in films such as Haykal and Jaykal, two quarrelsome crows who cheat, harm and perpetrate pranks.
The saj‘-rhyme among the Arabs of the period of Muḥammad’s call was a feature of the kuhhān soothsayers
This leads us onto the saj‘-rhyme in the Qur’ān. The Qur’ān is characterized by its use of rhymed prose at the end of a phrase. That is, its verses are separated by rhythmic endings, and these are some of the most important features of the Qur’ān’s style. The rhymes are either made up of a single word ending the verse, whereby the content of the verse is constructed upon it and blends with it, or it is in the form of a phrase at the end of the verse that separates it entirely from what comes after, both in terms of meaning and lexical expression, or just in lexical expression with the meaning of the text carrying over into what follows.
An example of the first type (a single word) is:
Lo! We have given thee Abundance [kawthar]
So pray unto thy Lord, and sacrifice [w-anḥar][4]
Most of the short sūras in the Qur’ān have this pattern, which is undoubtedly a form of saj‘-rhyme. The saj‘-rhyme among the Arabs of the period of Muḥammad’s call was a feature of the kuhhān soothsayers.[5]
An example of the second type (a sentence that comes at the end of the verse) is:
Allah’s commandment has come, therefore do not desire to hasten it; glory be to Him, and highly exalted be He above what they to Him do associate [subḥānahu wa-ta‘ālā ‘ammā yushrikūn]
He sends down the angels with the inspiration by His commandment on whom He pleases of His servants, saying: Give the warning that there is no god but Me, therefore be mindful of your duty to Me [lā ilāha illā anā fa-ttaqūn][6]
The phrase ta‘ālā ‘ammā yushrikūn is a rhyming phrase, as is fa-ttaqūn.
Most sūras are not separated off by just the one type of rhyme, but demonstrate the two types, as in sūrat al-Furqān:
And they say: Fables of the men of old which he has had written down so that they are dictated to him morning and evening [bukratan wa-aṣīlan]
Say: He who knows the secret in the heavens and the earth has revealed it; surely He is ever Forgiving, Merciful. [ghafūran raḥīman][7]
The first rhyme is type I and the second is type II.
From the differences between rhymes in poetry and the saj‘-rhymes in the verses of the Qur’ān, it appears that Muḥammad freed up the rhymes and dismantled the restrictions that the poets imposed in their metered and rhymed verses. He did not keep to the rules of grammatical declension or rhyming letters, nor did he care about mistakes in repetition or non-agreement between the verb and its pronominal subject.
Muḥammad did not keep to the rules of grammatical declension or rhyming letters, nor did he care about mistakes
He thus broadened the field of speech in his own way, so that the Qur’ānic style sits somewhere in between prose and poetry, or between free prose or rhymed prose. This is something new that the Arabs were unfamiliar with.
Having to observe the demands of rhyming has generated a number of errors in the Qur’ān. Here are some examples:
Reversing the order of the sense:
But unto Allah belongs the afterlife, and the former life[8]
– whereby that which comes later in time is placed before what comes first. Were it not for the need to maintain the rhyme, what comes first would have been put at the front, as it is in the verse:
All praise is due to Him in this life and the hereafter.[9]
Omission of letters as a result of taking into account the rhyme, such as:
So how (great) was My punishment and My warning! [‘adhāb-ī wa-nudhur (-ī)][10]
– as well as:
how was then My retribution! [‘iqāb (-ī)][11]
The proper original words are nudhur-ī and ‘iqāb-ī: the -ī in each case has been omitted in order to preserve the rhyme sequence.
Augmenting the word unnecessarily, such as:
and we obeyed the Messenger! [al-rasūlā][12]
The latter alif (forming the ā) was added to the end of the word rasūl in order to maintain the rhyme. If the rhyming word were an indefinite noun (rasūl-an – ‘a Messenger’) then the pause mark would be placed over the final letter alif, but since it is a definite noun the alif is redundant, much like the alif al-iṭlāq in poetry.[13]
Tautologous addition with an obscure word, as in:
That indeed were an unfair [ḍīzā] division![14]
It does not say an unfair [jā’ira] division since the verse is keeping to a rhyme set up in the preceding verses: ukhrā – unthā – ḍīzā.
We have also:
Nay! he shall most certainly be hurled into the crushing disaster [ḥuṭama][15]
Note that it did not say into Jahannum or into Hellfire [al-nār] since it was in a sequence of: akhlada – ḥuṭama – mūqada – af’ida.
Muḥammad went on to be creative in his terms for Hell:
Him shall I fling unto the burning [saqar – following bashar][16]
By no means! Surely it is a flaming fire [laẓā – followed by shawā – tawallā – aw‘ā][17]
His abode shall be the abyss [hāwiya, followed by mā hia – ḥāmia][18]
All of these have been constructed to maintain the rhymes.
Dispensing with the dual of the verb:
therefore let him not drive you both forth from the garden so that you should be unhappy [tashqā followed by ta‘rā – taḍḥā][19]
– where one would normally have to say: tashqiyā, preserving the dual form of the verb that is addressing you both, and once again preserving the rhyme sequence.
Changing the structure of the word for the sake of the rhyme. These are the oddest examples of the process, as can be seen here:
I swear by the fig and the olive, and by Mount Sinai [sīnīn]
And by this city made secure [amīn][20]
Note that the original Arabic form of the word for Sinai is Sīnā; its structure has been altered here to Sīnīn for the purposes of the rhyme.
Where is this eloquence in the Qur’ān and wherein lies its miraculous nature?
There are many examples in the verses of the Qur’ān that preserve the rhyme sequence and a conscientious student of the Qur’ān can detect these. One thing that occurs for the sake of the rhyme is the appearance of rhymes that seem odd, ill-fitting and out of place, and which if removed would not affect the meaning or disturb the sense. The following is an example of an ill-fitting rhyme:
And verily We shall test you till We know those of you who strive hard (for the cause of Allah) and the steadfast, and till We test your record [akhbārakum, following a‘mālakum][21]
That is, ‘We have heard what is related and reported, and what people say about you’. But it is obvious that after His having tested them and learned who are the ones who are striving and steadfast, there is no need for Him to hear reports about them and what people say about them. But a rhyme is being forcibly made at the end of the phrase which, as you can see, is ill-fitting and in no way adding to or confirming the intended meaning, given that the entire verse is not something befitting for One who ‘knows that which is hidden’ to utter.
Suggested Reading
In conclusion, we might ask where is this eloquence in the Qur’ān, and wherein lies its miraculous nature? The Qur’ān is the product of a human author and contains fine poetic verses and poor verses. There is no need to envelop it in an aura of sanctity that only obscures its defects and failings. And much like any human thought, it contains both wheat and chaff, and positive and negative features, and that is all.
[1] Dhūl Qarnayn (‘He of Two Horns’) is recognised as being Alexander the Great, who was represented on coins in antiquity as sporting two horns, after having traveled in 331 BC to the oasis of Siwa in Egypt to visit the sanctuary of Zeus Ammon. There he was pronounced to be Zeus Ammon’s son and adopted the Egyptian iconography of Ammon as the ram-headed god with two horns. For a work exploring Dhūl Qarnayn and early Islam, see Tommaso Tesei, The prophecy of Ḏū-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83-102) and the Origins of the Qurʾānic Corpus. It can be downloaded from the Almuslih Library here. For more on Ya’jūj and Ma’jūj see Almuslih article: Islamic myths – Yajuj and Majuj.. (Ed.)
[2] The Sūrat Yāsīn begins: Yā Sīn: I swear by the Quran full of wisdom, most surely you are one of the messengers, on a right path, a revelation of the Mighty, the Merciful. It focuses of the issue of the Day of Resurrection. Some hadith, graded as ‘weak’, speak of its value for those who have passed away: ‘Anas related that the Messenger of Allah said: “Indeed for everything there is a heart, and the Qur’ān’s heart is Yā Sīn. Whoever recites Yā Sīn, then for its recitation Allah writes for him that he recited the Qur’ān ten times.”’ [Jāmi` at-Tirmidhī 2887]. (Ed.)
[3] The ‘Denied and the Denier’. For more on the fate of the deceased in the grave, see Almuslih article Islamic myths – the Torment of the Grave. (Ed.)
[4] Qur’ān CVIII (al-Kawthar), 1-2.
[5] Saj‘ was a form of rhymed prose which was employed by the kahana soothsayers in the pre-Islamic period for oracular sayings and more generally in contexts of dignified discourse, challenges and harangues. (Ed).
[6] Qur’ān XVI (al-Naḥl), 1-2.
[7] Qur’ān XXV (al-Furqān) 5-6.
[8] Qur’ān LIII (al-Najm), 25.
[9] Qur’ān XXVIII (al-Qaṣaṣ), 70.
[10] Qur’ān LIV (al-Qamar), 18.
[11] Qur’ān XL (al-Ghāfir), 5.
[12] Qur’ān XXXIII (al-Aḥzāb), 66.
[13] The alif al-iṭlāq is the letter alif (ā ) added at the end of a word in poetry to stand in for the accusative -an ending. (Ed.)
[14] Qur’ān LIII (al-Najm), 22.
[15] Qur’ān CIV (al-Humaza), 4.
[16] Qur’ān LXXIV (al-Muddaththir), 25-6.
[17] Qur’ān LXX (al-Ma‘ārij), 15
[18] Qur’ān CI (al-Qāri‘a), 9.
[19] Qur’ān XX (Ṭā Ḥā), 117.
[20] Qur’ān XCV (al-Tīn), 1-3.
[21] Qur’ān XLVII (Muḥammad), 31.
Main image: The angels Munkar and Nakir testing the faith of the dead in their graves
