Surah Al-Waqiah: the surah that sorts everyone into three
Surah Al-Waqiah read in three commentaries - al-Muyassar, al-Safi and al-Mizan: the three groups and who the foremost are, the argument from what you already see, and "none touch it except the purified" - whether touching means the hand or knowledge.
A surah built on a sorting
Surah Al-Waqiah is Meccan. It has ninety-six verses, sits in the twenty-seventh juz, and runs from page 534 to page 537 of the Madinah mushaf this site reads from.
Its subject is the Day of Resurrection — but not as a report. The surah takes all people and divides them into three groups, describes where each one ends, and then turns back to argue that the day is coming at all.
This article gives al-Tafsir al-Muyassar first at every place, then Tafsir al-Safi and al-Mizan, and sets out where they agree before where they differ. It does not adjudicate between schools.
The Arabic of every commentary quoted below is on the Arabic version of this page and on the page of each verse; the English renderings are ours.
The opening
When the Occurrence occurs, There is, at its occurrence, no denial. It will bring down [some] and raise up [others].
Al-waqiah is one of the names the Quran gives the Day of Resurrection. It comes from a root meaning to fall or to happen — the event that cannot fail to occur. Al-Muyassar reads the third verse as a description of the day itself: it brings God's enemies down into the fire and raises His friends up into the garden.
Three groups, named twice
And you become [of] three kinds: Then the companions of the right - what are the companions of the right? And the companions of the left - what are the companions of the left? And the forerunners, the forerunners - Those are the ones brought near [to Allah]
Three, then: the companions of the right, the companions of the left, and the foremost. A few verses later the first two are named again, with different words — the companions of the right at verse 27, the companions of the left at verse 41.
The foremost get one description and no second one: they are the ones brought near. Al-Muyassar reads them as those who were foremost to good in this life and so are foremost to the ranks in the next. The surah then describes each group in turn — the foremost in verses 12 to 26, the companions of the right in 27 to 40, and the companions of the left in 41 to 56.
Who are the foremost?
Here al-Safi adds what al-Muyassar does not have. It reports from Ja'far al-Sadiq that the three groups are three kinds in creation, and identifies the foremost as the Messenger of God.
It then reports something that explains the difference between the groups. God's elect among His creation, the report says, were given five spirits: the holy spirit, by which they knew things; the spirit of faith, by which they feared God; the spirit of strength, by which they were able to obey Him; the spirit of appetite, by which they desired obedience and hated disobedience; and the spirit of motion, by which people come and go. The believers among the companions of the right were given four of these — all but the holy spirit. So on this reading what separates the two groups is knowledge, not fear and not obedience.
Al-Safi then reports from al-Amali a second identification: that the Prophet, asked about this verse, said Gabriel told him it meant Ali and his followers, that they are the foremost to the garden and the ones brought near to God by His honouring.
Where they agree: that people are three groups and not two, that the foremost are the highest of them, and that their one unshared description is the ones brought near. That is al-Muyassar's reading, and it is the ground of everything al-Safi reports.
Where they differ: al-Muyassar takes the foremost as a general description — those foremost to good — and names no one; al-Safi reports traditions that name them. The difference is over the referent, not over the description.
The argument from what you already see
Having sorted everyone, the surah turns to those who deny that any of this will happen. Its argument is not abstract. It points at four things they look at every day: their own coming into being, the crop they eat, the water they drink, and the fire they light.
We have created you, so why do you not believe? Have you seen that which you emit?
And have you seen the water that you drink? Is it you who brought it down from the clouds, or is it We who bring it down?
The same move is made each time. Whoever began a thing can repeat it; and the water, the crop and the fire are not of your making.
"None touch it except the purified"
This is the surah's most practically consequential verse, and the place where the three commentaries are most worth reading side by side.
Indeed, it is a noble Qur'an In a Register well-protected; None touch it except the purified. [It is] a revelation from the Lord of the worlds.
Al-Muyassar holds two senses together: a Quran of great benefit in a book kept hidden from the sight of creation, which is the book in the hands of the angels; none touch the Quran but the honoured angels whom God purified of faults and sins, and none touch it either but those purified of idolatry, of major and of minor ritual impurity.
Al-Safi gives the two senses as well, and adds a point about the grammar: none looks upon the Tablet except those purified of bodily impurities — or none touches the Quran except those purified of ritual impurity, in which case it is a negation with the force of a prohibition. That last phrase is where the ruling lives: the sentence is a statement in form and a prohibition in effect. Al-Safi then reports from al-Tahdhib, from Musa al-Kazim, the ruling in detail: the mushaf is not to be touched without purity, nor by one in a state of major impurity, nor is its binding thread to be touched, nor is it to be hung — for God says, none touch it except the purified.
Al-Mizan starts from a different question: what is touching here? In either construction, it says, the passage is there to magnify the Quran — so touching it is knowing it, since it is in the hidden book, as al-Zukhruf 4 indicates. Building on that, the purified is a passive participle: those whose souls God purified of the filth of sins, or of something greater and subtler still — the purifying of their hearts from attachment to any but Him; and that sense of purification is the one that suits touching understood as knowledge, rather than purity from physical or ritual impurity.
So, al-Mizan concludes, the purified are those God honoured by purifying their souls — such as the noble angels, and those of mankind whom God purified, citing Al-Ahzab 33. And it states plainly that there is no warrant for restricting the purified to the angels, which it attributes to "most commentators", because that is a restriction with nothing to restrict it.
Al-Mizan then takes the other construction — that lā is a prohibition — and arrives at the practical ruling from there: touching then means touching the Quran's writing, and purity means purity from ritual impurity, or from ritual and physical impurity together; there is also a variant reading of the word as those who purify themselves; and the import of the verse is the prohibition of touching the written Quran without purity. For that reading it quotes al-Kashshaf — a Sunni commentary — to the effect that none ought to touch it but one who is in a state of purity, meaning touching what is written of it.
Al-Kashani then settles the dispute between the two senses in his own voice: on examination there is no incompatibility between the two meanings, since both may be held together and each intended — or one of them may be the plain interpretation and the other the deeper one.
Where they agree: that the written Quran is not to be touched without purity. Al-Muyassar says it at the end of its gloss; al-Safi reports it from al-Tahdhib as a detailed ruling; al-Mizan arrives at it in the words "the prohibition of touching the written Quran without purity" — and cites a Sunni commentary for it. The practical ruling is one and the same in all three.
Where they differ: over who the purified are. Al-Muyassar puts the angels first and then adds purified human beings. Al-Mizan argues that restricting the purified to the angels — a restriction it attributes to most commentators — has no warrant, and includes among them those of mankind whom God purified. Al-Safi gives both senses and then states that there is no incompatibility between them.
And the root of the disagreement is not the ruling but the word touch. If it is the hand, the question is ritual purity; if it is knowledge, the question is purity of soul. Once that is seen, the two are not one question at all.
The moment no one owns
Among the best-known passages in the surah is the one about the moment of death:
Then why, when the soul at death reaches the throat And you are at that time looking on - And Our angels are nearer to him than you, but you do not see -
That last clause has a close parallel in Surah Qaf:
And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein
The close returns to the three
The surah ends by taking the three groups once more, two verses each, from verse 88 to verse 94. Then:
Indeed, this is the true certainty, So exalt the name of your Lord, the Most Great.
It opens with an event falling and closes with an order to glorify. Between the two: a sorting and an argument.
What the surah does not say
- It does not say the groups are two. Its wording is three kinds, and that wording occurs in no other verse of the Quran.
- It does not name any of the foremost. The naming is in the reports, not in the wording.
- It does not say who the purified are. That is exactly where the commentators divide.
Counted against the mushaf
- The word al-waqiah occurs in only two verses of the Quran: Al-Waqiah 1 and Al-Haqqah 15.
- "The companions of the right" occurs in five verses: four in this surah — 27, 38, 90 and 91 — and once in Al-Muddaththir 39. "The companions of the left" occurs nowhere in the Quran but Al-Waqiah 41.
- The other pair of names for the two groups, in verses 8 and 9, occurs in only one other surah — Al-Balad 18 and 19 — and in both surahs the two come together.
- The word rendered "the purified" occurs nowhere else in the Quran than Al-Waqiah 79.
- So does "the true certainty", at Al-Waqiah 95.
Why it is called Al-Waqiah
It takes its name from the first substantive word of its first verse, which is how many surah names work. Here the name happens to be the subject: the whole surah is about this event, of whose occurrence there can be no denial.
Sources
- The Quran text — the Madinah mushaf, Hafs from 'Asim, King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran. English renderings of verses are the Sahih International translation this site serves.
- Tafsir al-Muyassar — a panel of commentators, King Fahd Complex.
- Tafsir al-Safi — al-Fayd al-Kashani.
- Al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Quran — al-Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-Tabatabai.
The counts in this article are computed against the mushaf text this site serves, not quoted from a source.