Synthesis: Sūrat Sabaʾ 1–9

Triangulated from five present sources: Ṭabarsī, Majmaʿ al-Bayān [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]; al-Qummī [qummi]; al-Ṭūsī, al-Tibyān [tusi_al_tibyan]; al-Baḥrānī, al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]; al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan]. All five speak to this passage; none is silent.

What the passage says. The sūra opens by deeding all praise to God, owner of the heavens and earth in this world and the Hereafter, al-Ḥakīm al-Khabīr (v.1), whose knowledge encompasses all that enters and leaves the earth and descends from and ascends to the sky, al-Raḥīm al-Ghafūr (v.2). The deniers reject the Hour; the Prophet is made to swear it will come — by ʿālim al-ghayb from whom no mithqāl dharra escapes, all of it in a kitāb mubīn (v.3) — so that believers are rewarded (v.4) and those who strove against the signs muʿājizīn meet a painful rijz (v.5). The learned recognize the revelation as truth (v.6); the deniers mock bodily resurrection after being muzziqtum (v.7), charging forgery or jinna (v.8); and they are warned to look at the encompassing sky and earth that could swallow or crush them — a sign for every ʿabd munīb (v.9).

How the present sources read it. On v.1, Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and al-Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] supply parallel classical apparatus, opening with the qirāʾāt: the dispute over ʿālim / ʿallām al-ghayb (Ḥamza and al-Kisāʾī reading the intensive ʿallām) and over rijzin alīmun/in. Both gloss the Hereafter's praise as undiminished even though it is not an abode of taklīf, citing the Paradise-dwellers' al-ḥamdu li-llāhi lladhī hadānā and ṣaddaqanā waʿdah, and both record the divergence over whether the damned praise God for His justice while the saved praise His grace. On the contested yaʿzub, both lexicalize the root ʿ-z-b as "to go far" and note the two imperfect vowellings (yaʿzubu/yaʿzibu) — a reading I web-confirmed and which the EC independently traces to ʿuzub, "going far from the family to seek pasture." Ṭabarsī adds a naẓm note: the mention of God's knowledge after the deniers' words shows that, were there no second abode to requite good and evil, creation would breach wisdom — the very argument al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] erects as the passage's backbone, grounding the Resurrection on two pillars: the universality of God's ownership (v.1) and the completeness of His knowledge "upon which no ʿuzūb befalls" (v.2), making vv.1–2 a tamhīd for vv.3–4.

On muʿājizīn (v.5) the sources cluster: Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī all report the gloss-set "those seeking to incapacitate / racing ahead (sābiqīn, after Abū ʿUbayda) / holding back (muthabbiṭīn, after al-Zajjāj)," and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī frames it as istiʿāra bi-l-kināya — the signs imagined as a track the deniers race to outstrip God. On rijz, al-Ṭūsī gives the fullest lexical range (al-rijs/filth, evil punishment, and al-rujz = idol, as in wa-l-rujza fa-hjur), while the EC's camel-gait etymology (the unsteady short-stepped gait of a sick camel) aligns with the lexical record I checked.

The sharpest divergence is over ūtū l-ʿilm (v.6). Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī report three plain-sense candidates — the Companions (Qatāda), the believing People of the Book (al-Ḍaḥḥāk), and (preferred, for its generality) everyone given knowledge of the religion — and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī reads it simply as "the knowers of God and His signs." Against this, al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] carry the Shīʿī taʾwīl, both transmitting from ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm that "those given knowledge" is Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī, who attested the truth of what was revealed. The EC notably harmonizes: it keeps the general sense but cites "the commentary of ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm" rendering the verse as ʿAlī, calling it "the complete and perfect expansion" of the verse. For v.3 al-Qummī and al-Burhān both attach the tradition (isnād: ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm › his father › Ibn Abī ʿUmayr › Hishām › al-Ṣādiq) that "the first thing God created was the Pen," which He commanded to write all that would be until the Day of Resurrection — read as-attributed as a gloss on the kitāb mubīn. al-Burhān's unit runs past the passage into David (vv.10–11), adding the Tuesday-iron traditions, the "360 coats of mail" narration, and al-Riḍā's correction of zarrād (armourer) to sarrād (mail-linker) to match the Qurʾanic sard — a recognized Kāfī riwāya I verified.

On vv.7–9 the sources converge on bodily resurrection: al-Ṭūsī and Ṭabarsī develop the intricate iʿrāb of idhā muzziqtum (al-Zajjāj vs. Abū ʿAlī on its governor) and al-Rummānī's defense of the cut interrogative hamza in afterā, while al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī reads v.9's "before and behind them" as the inescapable encompassment of a sky and earth wholly subject to God's command.

Sources present: tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, qummi, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, tabatabai_al_mizan; silent: none.