Mutual remembrance: remember Me, I will remember you
فَٱذْكُرُونِىٓ أَذْكُرْكُمْ
fa-dhkurūnī adhkur-kum — So remember Me; I will remember you
A single verse uses the verb dhakara twice, once as a command addressed to people and once as a first-person verb from God, so that the same action is mirrored between the two parties.
In (2:152) the root dh-k-r appears twice within one clause pair. The first occurrence is an imperative plural, fa-dhkurūnī, 'remember Me', directed from God to the hearers. The second, adhkur-kum, 'I will remember you', is a first-person verb whose subject is the speaker and whose object is the same audience. The two verbs share one root, and the objects are exchanged: the 'Me' of the first verb becomes the speaker of the second, and the 'you' addressed in the first becomes the object remembered in the second. The verse thus constructs remembrance as an action that passes both ways between the parties rather than flowing in one direction only. The prefixed fa- on the imperative links this clause to what precedes it in the verse's context, while the second verb stands as the answering first-person clause. The pairing is reinforced by the parallel structure of the rest of the verse: 'show gratitude to Me' is set against 'do not be ungrateful toward Me', a positive command matched by a negative prohibition, just as the two remembrance verbs are matched to each other. The mirror form makes the relationship reciprocal in the verse's own wording: the audience's act of remembering is answered by the same act returned to them.
Where it occurs
- 2:152 The verse commands the audience to remember God and answers with God's statement that He will remember them, using the same verb root for both parties within one verse.
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