Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 58 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:58

أَفَرَءَيْتُم مَّا تُمْنُونَ

“Have you seen that which you emit?[1613]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Arabic name for the fluid is a measuring word, from the same root as the appointed term of death and the act of wishing.

A reflection

The thing is named after a weight

In a merchant's shop the brass weights sat in a boxed set, each one stamped, and they were not for sale. Everything in the shop was judged against them. A weight is not a quantity of metal. It is a standard, and its whole value is that it is exact.

One commentary, reaching this ayah, pauses over why the fluid has the name it has in Arabic, and gives two reasons.

The first is pouring. It is called maniyy for its imnāʾ, which is its being poured out.

The second is measuring, and this is the one worth stopping for. It is named for its taqdīr, its measuring, the commentary says. From the same root comes the manā, the weight used for weighing, because a manā is a measure. And so, it adds, the maniyy is a sound measure for the forming of the creation.

The lexicons agree and go further. The root gives a single sense: measuring something out, and the decree taking effect. The weight used for weighing was a manā. And death is maniyya, the term measured out for every living thing.

So in Arabic the beginning of a human being is named for exactness.

That is worth holding against the way we usually think about our own origins, which is in the language of accident. A chance meeting, a particular year, a decision somebody nearly did not make. All of that is true at the level we can see. The Arabic describes the same event with a word that means a measured amount.

One commentary at the next ayah glosses the answer with two participles: the Measurer, the Former. Nothing in the account is approximate.

The weights in the box were not the goods. Everything in the shop was true or false by them.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.