"Surrender" — "I have surrendered"
أَسْلِمْ قَالَ أَسْلَمْتُ
aslim qāla aslamtu — "Surrender," he said, "I have surrendered"
In (2:131) the single root س ل م appears twice in one verse as a command and its immediate fulfilment: the Lord's imperative "Surrender" is answered in the same breath by the perfect "I have surrendered to the Lord of the worlds."
The verse (2:131) stages a two-part exchange built on one verb root. The first word, أَسْلِمْ, is a second-person masculine singular imperative of form IV from the root س ل م, addressed by "his Lord" to him. The second, أَسْلَمْتُ, is a first-person singular perfect of the same form IV, spoken by the one addressed. The grammar itself carries the mirror: the imperative looks forward to an act not yet done, and the perfect looks back on an act already done, so that the reply converts the command into a completed fact within the same verse. The exchange passes between two parties — the Lord who commands and the one he addresses, who answers — and the answering clause adds a complement the command does not contain: لِرَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ, "to the Lord of the worlds." The reply thus does not merely echo the imperative; it specifies the one to whom the surrender is directed, naming the addressee of the surrender as "the Lord of the worlds." The verse frames the whole exchange with إِذْ قَالَ لَهُۥ رَبُّهُۥ, "When his Lord said to him," so both utterances are reported speech within a single narrative frame. The structure is a command-and-completion pair: one root, two speakers, two verb forms whose difference in mood and tense marks the movement from demand to done.
Where it occurs
- 2:131 The Lord's imperative أَسْلِمْ "Surrender" is answered by the same root in the perfect أَسْلَمْتُ "I have surrendered," completing the exchange within the verse.
All Qur'anic expressions