6
Suras and narratives 7 / 8
The name that becomes a sentence
Hypothesis examined: the Qur'an would sometimes take up a person's name and turn it into the sentence that strikes him, and this device would be a reading rule.
The case that gave rise to the hypothesis is striking. Sura 111 opens with « تَبَّتْ يَدَآ أَبِى لَهَبٍۢ », "Perish the hands of the Father of the Flame", and announces two verses later: « سَيَصْلَىٰ نَارًۭا ذَاتَ لَهَبٍۢ », "He will burn in a fire of flame". The word لَهَب moves from nickname to penalty.
But this device was found nowhere else in the corpus. An observation that holds for a single sura is a reading of that sura, not a rule guiding the reading of others.