LessonsSupplementary Practice 28 — Comparative Rhetoric of Sūrat al-Aʿlā and Sūrat al-GhāshiyahQuiz

وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ خَاشِعَةٌ ۞ عَامِلَةٌ نَاصِبَةٌ ۞ تَصْلَىٰ نَارًا حَامِيَةً ۞ تُسْقَىٰ مِنْ عَيْنٍ آنِيَةٍ
Some faces that Day will be humbled, toiling and exhausted; they enter a blazing fire and are given drink from a boiling spring. (88:2–5)

Wujūhun is an indefinite subject, with “downcast” as its predicate; “toiling, exhausted” adds further predications or descriptive information. The subsequent contrasting class of faces also clarifies why the indefinite subject is meaningful here.

Tusqā is passive: attention falls on the dreadful experience of being made to drink, not on the identity of the giver. The compact succession of clauses builds one continuous depiction of distress.

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Downcast faces and the indefinite subject

Supplementary Practice 28 — Comparative Rhetoric of Sūrat al-Aʿlā and Sūrat al-Ghāshiyah

وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ خَاشِعَةٌ ۞ عَامِلَةٌ نَاصِبَةٌ ۞ تَصْلَىٰ نَارًا حَامِيَةً ۞ تُسْقَىٰ مِنْ عَيْنٍ آنِيَةٍ
Some faces that Day will be humbled, toiling and exhausted; they enter a blazing fire and are given drink from a boiling spring. (88:2–5)

Wujūhun is an indefinite subject, with “downcast” as its predicate; “toiling, exhausted” adds further predications or descriptive information. The subsequent contrasting class of faces also clarifies why the indefinite subject is meaningful here.

Tusqā is passive: attention falls on the dreadful experience of being made to drink, not on the identity of the giver. The compact succession of clauses builds one continuous depiction of distress.