Thafseer Lafzi 2 — Sūrat ash-Shams (91) — word by word سُورَة الشَّمْس

0 · Recap of the previous class (context only)

The class began by noting that last time they covered the sūrah that begins وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَىٰ — Sūrat al-Layl (92). Today's sūrah is the next one in the working order, Sūrat ash-Shams (91). Nothing more of al-Layl was re-taught.

1 · The sūrah at a glance

2 · The eight opening oaths — verses 1-8

The first eight āyāt are all oaths. Allah swears by one thing after another, and He does not do this for nothing — the longer the run of oaths, the weightier the matter that follows.

Āyah 1

وَالشَّمْسِ وَضُحَاهَا

"By the sun and its morning brightness."

Three pieces in وَضُحَاهَا — a ḥarf (wa), an ism (ḍuḥā), and a ḍamīr (hā). Take them apart that way for every word of this shape in the sūrah.

Āyah 2

وَالْقَمَرِ إِذَا تَلَاهَا

"And by the moon when it follows it [the sun]."

What "following" means here — the moon's light comes from the sun. The light is the sun's; the moon takes it and reflects it, and so it comes along behind it.

Āyah 3

وَالنَّهَارِ إِذَا جَلَّاهَا

"And by the day when it reveals it [the sun] in its full brightness."

Āyah 4

وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَاهَا

"And by the night when it covers it."

Āyah 5

وَالسَّمَاءِ وَمَا بَنَاهَا

"And by the sky, and by Him who built it" — by the heaven and the One who fashioned and ordered it.

Āyah 6

وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا طَحَاهَا

"And by the earth, and by Him who spread it out" — who spread it wide.

Āyah 7

وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا

"And by the soul, and by Him who proportioned it" — who shaped and balanced it.

Āyah 8

فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا

"Then He inspired it [to know] its wickedness and its God-consciousness."

He taught the soul both its corruption and its piety, so that it would know the two apart.

3 · The answer of the oath — verses 9-10

The oaths are finished at the eighth āyah. Now comes the point (jawāb al-qasam).

Āyah 9

قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا

"Truly successful is the one who purifies it."

See how important tazkiyat an-nafs is — after eight āyāt of oaths by so many things, this is what He comes to. When that many oaths are sworn, the matter that follows is of the highest importance.

Āyah 10

وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّاهَا

"And truly lost is the one who corrupts it" — who buries that soul away under sin.

4 · The people of Thamūd — verses 11-15

Āyah 11

كَذَّبَتْ ثَمُودُ بِطَغْوَاهَا

"The people of Thamūd denied [the truth] through their transgression."

Whom did they deny? The people of Thamūd denied the prophet sent to them — Ṣāliḥ عليه السلام. It was because of their own rebellious excess that they cried lies.

Āyah 12

إِذِ انبَعَثَ أَشْقَاهَا

"When the most wretched of them rose up."

Āyah 13

فَقَالَ لَهُمْ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ نَاقَةَ اللَّهِ وَسُقْيَاهَا

"So the Messenger of Allah said to them — 'the she-camel of Allah, and her turn at the water!'" i.e. leave Allah's she-camel be, and her drink.

The background the class gave. The people of Ṣāliḥ عليه السلام — Thamūd — were a powerful people, who carved out the mountains and made their dwellings inside them. That she-camel was brought into being as a sign for them, and the water was shared out by turns — one day the camel's, the next day theirs. On the camel's day they were to let her drink and leave her alone, and not harm her. Only a few conditions were laid on them.

Āyah 14

فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَعَقَرُوهَا فَدَمْدَمَ عَلَيْهِمْ رَبُّهُم بِذَنبِهِمْ فَسَوَّاهَا

"So they denied him and hamstrung her; therefore their Lord brought down upon them a crushing destruction for their sin, and levelled them all alike."

Only one man did the deed — but all were destroyed. In that people, not everyone came forward. It was one wicked man (or a small party) who actually hamstrung the camel — but the rest did not stop him. That is why the punishment came down equally on them all: the community consented to the crime by its silence and so shared in it. By the same logic, those who did try to prevent it would not be given this punishment.

Āyah 15

وَلَا يَخَافُ عُقْبَاهَا

"And He does not fear its consequence" — He has no fear of its outcome.

5 · Shamsiyyah and qamariyyah letters

The two words at the head of this sūrah — شَمْس and قَمَر — are the very words the tajwīd rule is named after, which is how to remember it.

• The 28 letters of Arabic split into two halves — 14 qamariyyah and 14 shamsiyyah.
• So whenever a word carries the alif-lām, you decide by which letter follows it.
• النَّهَار is shamsiyyah — the nūn is doubled with a shaddah and the lām swallowed.

6 · How to run a verb (the paradigm order)

The lecturer insisted on the order, and on giving the whole set for every verb.

1. māḍī (past) — then
2. muḍāriʿ (present-future) — never skip to the maṣdar before giving these two
3. maṣdar (verbal noun)
4. amr (imperative)
5. ism fāʿil (doer)
6. ism mafʿūl (the one acted upon)

• Example run — talā – yatlū – tilāwah; naṣara – yanṣuru – naṣran.
• A four-letter māḍī takes a ḍammah on the prefix of its muḍāriʿ — jallā → yujallī, dassā → yudassī.
• The maṣdar pattern tells you the bāb — bāb tafʿīl gives takdhīb, and so on.
• Telling ism fāʿil from ism mafʿūl in bāb ifʿāl — when the māḍī has four letters both derived nouns begin with mu-; the only difference is at the end, before the final letter — the ism fāʿil takes a kasrah, the ism mafʿūl a fatḥah — mulhimun vs mulhamun, both with tanwīn. Likewise akhraja → mukhrij / mukhraj, and munzil, mundhir.
• Other verbs on faʿala–yafʿulu given as examples — akala – yaʾkulu (he ate), kharaja – yakhruju (he went out), naṣara – yanṣuru (he helped).
• The lecturer put the number of verb-forming methods (bābs) at around 45, and noted that verbs run from three up to six letters — the class had now handled words up to five.

7 · Every verb in the sūrah, with its paradigm

Dashes mark what the class did not give (or what the recording lost) — do not fill them in by guess.

قُلْ — the amr of qāla — is the word met in قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ and a great many other places.

8 · The lessons the class drew at the end

1. A person's end is his own doing. A man's final outcome is determined by his own choice, his own will and his own effort — hence spending in the path of Allah, and purifying the soul with eagerness. The soul must be purified; that is what the sūrah presses on us.
2. The law of consequences. Good for those who do good, evil for those who do evil — settled as a decree. You never see good come from evil; and if you keep doing good, evil will not come to you.
3. Expect accountability, and learn from the earlier communities — as here, from Thamūd.
4. Allah is perfectly just. Their case is named for exactly that reason, so that we take the rule from it.

9 · Closing counsel on the Qurʾān (not lesson material)

The class ended with advice on a daily relationship with the Qurʾān — the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ not sleeping until he had recited Sūrat as-Sajdah and Sūrat al-Mulk; setting a daily portion; targeting at least one juzʾ a day (a juzʾ is about twenty pages, so a full Qurʾān in a month), holding yourself to account (muḥāsabah), and reciting with understanding so that the Qurʾān answers the problems of daily life. Everyone has the same 24 hours — adjust half an hour for it.

What this class did NOT settle

• The bāb of خَابَ was garbled in the recording and is left blank above.
• The muḍāriʿ of طَحَا and of انبَعَثَ were not given, nor the maṣdar of عَقَرَ.
• The lecturer's count of around 45 bābs is his own figure, given in passing.
• The recording has no speech for its first ~5 minutes and several later gaps, so the opening recitation of the sūrah and a few asides are not recoverable.