Synthesis: Sūrat al-Hijr 61–79

Triangulated from Ṭabarsī's Majmaʿ al-Bayān [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], al-Qummī [qummi], al-Ṭūsī's al-Tibyān [tusi_al_tibyan], al-Baḥrānī's al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan], and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī's al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan].

Human-review flags: al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] is flagged needs_human_review: its sole unit is coarse (covers vv.49–84) and I condensed a long continuous commentary down to the portion bearing on 61–79, marking elisions with "…". No content was added, but a reviewer should confirm the condensation faithfully tracks the original.

What the passage says. The angel-messengers reach Lot; he does not recognize them and is unsettled (62). They announce they have brought "that about which they doubted" — the long-warned punishment — and affirm their truthfulness (63–64). Lot is told to lead his family out in the night's last watch, follow at their rear, let none look back, and proceed as commanded (65); the decree is that his people's "root" will be severed by dawn (66). The townsfolk arrive "rejoicing" with vile intent; Lot pleads guest-honour and God-fearing (67–69); they retort that he was forbidden to shelter anyone (70); he offers "my daughters" (71). An oath "by your life" frames their drunken bewilderment (72); the Cry seizes them at sunrise, the town is overturned and rained with sijjīl-stones (73–74). Signs remain "for the discerning" on "an abiding road" (75–77). The Companions of al-Aykah were likewise wrongdoers, avenged, both [sites] "on a clear highway" (78–79).

How the present sources read it. On Lot's non-recognition (62), Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] and al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] agree the angels came as beautiful beardless youths, which distressed Lot given his people's vice; Ṭabarsī adds a second reading ("identify yourselves that my heart be at ease"). On 65–66 the lexical-grammatical core is shared: al-isrāʾ = night-travel (Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī both cite the Imruʾ al-Qays verse saraytu bihim…), bi-qiṭʿ = the night's remnant, "follow at their rear" = guard against stragglers, dābir = root/posterity, muṣbiḥīn = a circumstantial qualifier. Ṭabarsī alone names the destination as al-Shām (al-Suddī). al-Qummī [qummi] gives only a terse gloss of 66. al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] uniquely highlights the sūra's taqdīm wa-taʾkhīr — the city-episode (67–71) is narratively deferred so that the drunkenness of 72 abuts the Cry of 73, intensifying the horror.

The oath of v.72 divides the sources sharply but instructively. Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], al-Qummī [qummi], Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] (via Ibn ʿAbbās) and al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] all read "By your life" as an oath by the Prophet Muḥammad's life — al-Qummī calling it "a merit of the Messenger over the [other] prophets," and al-Mīzān explicitly rejecting the alternative (that the angels swore by Lot's life) as unsupported by context. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī preserve the rich iʿrāb dispute (al-Zajjāj, al-Mubarrad, Abū ʿUbayda, al-Khalīl, al-Akhfash) over the elided predicate of la-ʿamruka. On "my daughters" (71), Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī jointly transmit two readings — Lot's literal daughters (Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḥasan, Qatāda) versus the community's women — and the fiqh note that believer-unbeliever marriage was then lawful, later abrogated (al-Ḥasan, al-Jubbāʾī).

Verses 75–76 are the passage's theological centre of gravity. The plain exegesis (Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān) glosses al-mutawassimūn as the discerning/physiognomists who read enduring "signs," anchored in the Prophetic ḥadīth "Beware the discernment of the believer, for he sees by the light of God" (web-confirmed; in Ṭabarsī, al-Burhān, al-Mīzān). But al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] devotes twenty-two narrations to the Imāmī reading: "We are the mutawassimūn, and the way abides in us" — the Imams discern believer from unbeliever by a mark "between the eyes." al-Qummī [qummi] and the closing report in al-Burhān add "the way is the path to Paradise." Tellingly, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] cites these same traditions yet cautions they do not mean the verse was revealed exclusively about the Imams — a deliberate restraint against over-reading.

The Companions of al-Aykah (78–79). Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan], al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] identify them as Shuʿayb's people (the ghayḍa-dwellers). Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī (after Qatāda) preserve the two-nations schema: Madyan destroyed by the Cry, al-Aykah by the burning Canopy (al-ẓulla) — corroborated by the Ibn ʿUmar ḥadīth al-Mīzān cites. On the dual "both…on a clear highway," Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī give two readings: a travelled road between the holy city and Syria (Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid, al-Ḥasan), or the Preserved Tablet (al-Jubbāʾī, cf. Yā Sīn 36:12); al-Mīzān favours the geographic sense.

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