Tafseer of The Forgiver · Ghafir · 40:1
Ha, Meem.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The explanation of His saying, the Exalted: حم (Ḥā-Mīm) (1) تَنْزِيلُ الْكِتَابِ مِنَ اللَّهِ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ (The sending down of the Book is from Allah, the Almighty, the All-Knowing).
The people of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) differ concerning the meaning of His saying حم (Ḥā-Mīm). Some of them said: they are detached letters from the name of Allah which is "al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm," namely the ḥāʾ and the mīm from it.
* The mention of who said that:
ʿAbdallāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Shabbūya al-Marwazī related to me, saying: ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of Yazīd, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: Alif-Lām-Rāʾ, and Ḥā-Mīm, and Nūn are the letters of "al-Raḥmān," in detached form.
And others said: it is an oath which Allah swore, and it is a name from among the names of Allah.
* The mention of who said that:
ʿAlī related to me, saying: Abū Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiya related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: حم (Ḥā-Mīm): it is an oath which Allah swore, and it is a name from among the names of Allah.
Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, concerning His saying حم (Ḥā-Mīm): it belongs to the letters of the names of Allah.
And others said: it is a name from among the names of the Qurʾān.
* The mention of who said that:
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning حم (Ḥā-Mīm), who said: it is a name from among the names of the Qurʾān. And others said: they are letters of the alphabet (spelling letters).
And others said: no, rather it is a name, and they adduced as evidence for their statement the verse of Shurayḥ ibn Awfā al-ʿAbsī:
"Ḥāmīm reminds me, while the spear pierces through — why then did he not recite 'Ḥā-Mīm' before advancing?" (1)
And al-Kumayt says:
"We found for you in the family of Ḥāmīm a sign, which among us a pious one and an eloquent one explained." (2)
And it was related to me on the authority of Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā that he said: Yūnus said — that is, al-Jarmī: whoever makes this statement is to be censured, because the sūra حم (Ḥā-Mīm) has letters with sukūn (the quiescent sign), and thus took on the form of spelling, whereas these are names of sūras that appear with vowels (movement). And when a sūra is named with something of these letters bearing sukūn, the case-inflection (iʿrāb) enters into it.
And the statement concerning this is, in my view, the same as the statement concerning its sisters (the other detached letters), and we have already set that forth in connection with His saying الم (Alif-Lām-Mīm); therein is enough to make repetition in this place unnecessary, since the statement concerning حم (Ḥā-Mīm), and concerning everything in the Qurʾān that occurs in this manner — I mean the spelling letters — is one and the same statement.
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The footnotes:
(1) The verse is by Shurayḥ ibn Awfā al-ʿAbsī, as Abū ʿUbayd said in Majāz al-Qurʾān (217b) and as in (al-Lisān: ḥmm), and he said: and someone other than Abū ʿUbayd attributed it to al-Ashtar al-Nakhaʿī. And he said: Ibn Masʿūd said: "the family of Ḥāmīm" is the brocade of the Qurʾān. Al-Farrāʾ said: it is like your saying "the family of so-and-so" and "the family of so-and-so." And al-Jawharī said: what the common people say, "al-Ḥawāmīm," does not belong to the speech of the Arabs. Abū ʿUbayd said: "al-Ḥawāmīm" are sūras in the Qurʾān, in a non-regular (analogical) manner, and he recited:
"And by the Ṭawāsīn that are tripled, and by the Ḥawāmīm that are sevenfold."
He said: and it is better to subsume them under "the sūras of Ḥāmīm." And Abū ʿUbayd recited concerning "Ḥāmīm" of Shurayḥ ibn Awfā al-ʿAbsī: "Ḥāmīm reminds me... the verse." He said: and someone other than him attributed it to al-Ashtar al-Nakhaʿī. And the pronoun in "reminds me" refers to Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥa, and al-Ashtar or Shurayḥ killed him (that is, on the Day of the Camel). End.
(2) The verse is by al-Kumayt ibn Zayd al-Asadī (Majāz al-Qurʾān of Abū ʿUbayda 218-1) and his dīwān, printed by al-Mawsūʿāt in Cairo, 18. And the family of Ḥāmīm and the sūras of Ḥāmīm: the sūras that begin with "Ḥā-Mīm." Al-Ḥarīrī established in Durrat al-ghawwāṣ that one says: the family of Ḥāmīm, and the sūras of Ḥāmīm, and the family of Ṭā-Sīn-Mīm, and that one does not say: al-Ḥawāmīm nor al-Ṭawāsīm. End. And the sign (the āya) is His saying, the Exalted, in sūra al-Shūrā: "Say: I ask of you no reward for it, except affection toward the kindred." And in sūra al-Aḥzāb, from the family of Ḥāmīm: "Verily Allah wishes only to remove impurity from you, O people of the House, and to purify you completely." And the "pious one" (al-taqī): the one who keeps silent about declaring it excellent, and the "eloquent one" (al-muʿrib): the one who pronounces it. The transmission of the verse in Majāz al-Qurʾān reads:
"We found for you in Ḥā-Mīm a sign, and in other sūras signs, and many a sign is pronounced."
...related to us, saying: Yūnus said: whoever makes this statement is to be censured, because the sūra "Ḥā-Mīm" has letters with sukūn, and thus took on the form of the spelling letters, whereas these are names of sūras that appear with vowels; and when a sūra is named with something of these letters (so it stands) the case-inflection (iʿrāb) enters into it. End. And the author's statement "that is, al-Jarmī": we have already pointed to this earlier, for al-Jarmī's name is Ṣāliḥ ibn Isḥāq Abū ʿUmar.
