Rhetorical analysis of Sura 74, al-Muddaththir - PART 2 : verses (1-15)
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Peace,
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- THE FIRST PART (1-30)
The part is composed of two parallel subparts (1-15; 16-30), each composed of three pieces arranged concentrically, around the theme of prophetic warning and man's unbelief.
1.1 THE FIRST SUBPART (1-15)
The first piece of text (1-7)
*1 O you covers-with-a-coat.
+2 Stand up (fa) and warn.
-3 And YOUR LORD (fa) magnify.*4 And your clothing (fa) PURIFY
*5 And UNCLEANLINESS (fa) avoid.+6 And don't confer favor to acquire more,
-7 And to YOUR LORD (fa) be patient !After the address of member 1, which will be left as a common factor, the piece is composed of three synonymous bimember segments, all of which contain a verb in the imperative.
The three segments are slightly concentric. The two extreme segments have in common a first member with a command aiming at an attitude of the Prophet towards men 'warn' (2) / 'don't confer favor to acquire more' (6) and a second member aiming at an attitude of the Prophet towards his Lord 'your Lord magnify' (3) / 'towards your Lord be patient' (7). The central piece differs more, concerning orders for purity 'your clothing purify' (4) / 'uncleanliness avoid' (5) (according to one of the possible meanings of rijs). Note the correspondence between 'clothing' in the central segment and 'covers-with-a-cloak' in v. 1 (a muddaththir is one who is clothed with a dithār, 'cloak'.The second piece of text (8-10)
=8 Then when is blown in the trumpet,
=9 That Day a Day difficult,
=10 For the deniers not easy.Style, rhyme and theme differ from the previous verses the longer verses refer to the Day of Judgement, which will be terrible for the unbelievers. The piece of text is the size of a simple trimember of the form ABB' after a temporal subordinate ('8', the last two members end with terms of antithetical form (positive/negative), but synonymous and paronymic 'difficult' / 'not easy', 'asīr / yasīr.
The third piece of text (11-15)
+11 Leave Me with whom I created alone
*12 And I granted to him wealth extensive,
*13 And children present,
*14 And I spread for him ease.-15 Then he desires that I should add more.
Commentators offer several possible interpretations for the term 'alone' (waḥīdan) either 'leave me alone with the one, etc.', or 'leave me with the one I created without the help of anyone', or 'leave me with the one I created stripped of everything', or 'leave me with the 'one' I created' (irony on Walīd ibn al-Mughīra, who called himself 'the One'. Rhetoric will probably prefer the third interpretation 'Leave me with the one I created stripped of everything'. Taken in this sense, this segment is indeed an antithesis to the next although I created him destitute in all respects / I then filled him with all kinds of blessings.
The three segments form a crescendo God creates man deprived of everything / he then grants him all kinds of goods / but man always wants more. The third segment, unimember (15), is in antithesis to the central trimember segment (12-14) God's generosity
man's insatiability.The whole subpart (1-15)
*1 O you covers-with-a-coat
+2 STAND UP and warn.
-3 And your Lord magnify*4 And your clothing purify
*5 And uncleanliness avoid.+6 And don't confer favor to acquire more,
-7 And to your Lord be patient !
=8 Then when is blown in the trumpet,
=9 That Day, a Day difficult,
=10 For the deniers not easy !+11 LEAVE ME with whom I created alone
*12 And I granted to him wealth extensive,
*13 And children present,
*14 And I spread for him ease.-15 Then he desires that I should add more.
The subpart is constructed in concentrism. The extreme pieces of text begin with an imperative verb addressed by God to his Prophet "Raise up" (2) / "Leave me" (11). They end with verbs that express the greed "do not confer favor to acquire more" (6) / "he desires that I should add more" (15). This clearly suggests a correspondence between these two pieces of text. In the middle (8-10) is a short piece of text in the third person, dealing with the last Day which will be painful for the deniers. The announcement of the Day is often located in the centre of concentric constructions in the Qur'an.
Here it is the subject of the warning that the Prophet is commanded to give in v. 2 - there is a closeness of meaning between 'warn' (2) and 'when is blown' ('8'. But the threat in the centre also introduces the third piece of text, in which 'the deniers' are focused on the greedy man the person referred to is in the singular form, but it does not necessarily refer to a particular man, but rather to 'every man'.