فَصَلِّ لِرَبِّكَ وَانْحَرْ
The verse begins with a particle of consequence. In Arabic the fāʾ makes the sentence before it the cause of what comes after. That is: since We have given, therefore give the return.
This small particle builds the logic of the sūra. Worship, by the arrangement of the verse, is not a discharge of debt but a response. The bestowal comes first, then the service. Had the order been reversed — "pray so that we may give" — the sūra would be saying something else entirely.
Root: ص-ل-و. A detailed analysis of the word was made in the section on al-Fātiḥa; here let us look only at its place in the context.
The imperative is singular and its addressee is the Prophet. But that the commands to worship the Qurʾān directs to the Prophet include the community as well has been generally accepted in the exegetical tradition.
The most heavily laden qualification in the sūra is here. The command does not end with "pray"; a qualification of direction is added: li-Rabbika.
The lām at the head conveys purpose and belonging in Arabic (lām al-taʿlīl / lām al-ikhtiṣāṣ): "for…, as belonging to…". What it adds to the sentence is the determination of to whom the act is done.
To understand why this qualification is necessary, one has to recall a world in which it is absent. In the environment into which al-Kawthar came down there was prayer and there was sacrifice. The Meccan idolaters worshipped beside the Kaʿba; the Qurʾān records it thus: "Their prayer at the House was nothing but whistling and clapping" (al-Anfāl 8/35). They slaughtered too — but beside the standing stones (nuṣub), and with the name of one other than God pronounced. The Qurʾān records this plainly as well: "…what has been slaughtered in the name of other than God, and what has been slaughtered on the standing stones…" (al-Māʾida 5/3); "Do not eat of that over which the name of God has not been pronounced" (al-Anʿām 6/121).
There was thus no absence of worship, but a confusion of direction. Li-Rabbika corrects not the act but the address of the act. The one who says "we have given" in the sūra's first verse and the one for whom "do it" is said in the second are the same subject.
Tafsīr of the Qurʾān by the Qurʾān. This qualification is expressed in its most gathered form here: "Say: My prayer, my sacrifice (nusukī), my living and my dying are for God, the Lord of all beings" (al-Anʿām 6/162). This verse is the expanded form of al-Kawthar 2: the same two acts — prayer and sacrifice — are bound to God by the same lām, and then the scope opens out to the whole of life.
In what sense the sacrifice "reaches" God is made clear in another verse: "Neither their flesh nor their blood reaches God; but the godfearing from you reaches Him" (al-Ḥajj 22/37). This verse takes sacrifice out of being a rite of feeding or appeasement. In the conception of the jāhiliyya the sacrifice was a share offered to the god; the Qurʾān rejects this logic — nothing of what is slaughtered goes to God; what goes is the intention.
Root: ن-ح-ر. One needs to know the concrete sense of the word, because the English rendering "sacrifice" covers over the word's particular content.
The word naḥr denotes in origin the place where the neck joins the chest, the hollow of the throat. In the human body that hollow between the collarbones is the naḥr. From here the word also takes the sense "chest, the upper part of the chest".
As a verb, نَحَرَ means to slaughter an animal by piercing it at exactly that point — the hollow of the throat. And in Arabic this is a form of slaughter proper to the camel.
| نحر (naḥr) | ذبح (dhabḥ) | |
|---|---|---|
| Which animal | The camel | Cattle, sheep, goats |
| Point of the cut | Base of the neck / the hollow above the chest | The throat, under the jaw |
| Position of the animal | Standing, one foreleg bound | Laid on its side |
This distinction is confirmed by the Qurʾān's own language. Speaking of the sacrificial camels, Sūrat al-Ḥajj says "pronounce the name of God over them as they stand in rows" (al-Ḥajj 22/36) — the word ṣawāff describes standing upright, in a line. This description is not used for an animal laid down.
The word also has derivatives such as تناحر (to fly at one another's throats, to contend fiercely); manḥar is the place where sacrifice is performed.
Why naḥr and not dhabḥ? Two grounds are mentioned. The first: the camel was the most valuable property in that society. Giving the command to sacrifice in terms of the costliest thing expresses that the return too should match the greatness of what was given — abundance was given, so let the return be from the most valuable. The second: the verse-ending. The word wa'nḥar makes all three verses of the sūra end in the sound rāʾ: al-kawthar / wa'nḥar / al-abtar.
| Explanation | Ground | Prevalence |
|---|---|---|
| Sacrifice | The word's primary and common sense in the language; agreement with al-Anʿām 6/162 and al-Ḥajj 22/36-37 | The overwhelming majority of the exegetes |
| Fold your hands on your chest (naḥr) in prayer | The word's sense of "chest"; explanations ascribed to certain Companions | A minority view |
| Raise your hands to the level of the chest at the opening takbīr | The same wing of meaning | A minority view |
| Turn your chest fully towards the qibla in prayer | The same wing of meaning | Rare |
What the minority views have in common is that they take the word's sense of "chest" as their basis. These are not impossible in point of language; but the verb in the verse comes in the imperative and unqualified, carrying no restriction such as "in prayer". This is why the majority prefer the sense of sacrifice. There is also debate over the soundness of the reports that ascribe these views to Companions; I refrain from giving names here.
Prayer first, sacrifice after. This order is built the same way in one other place in the Qurʾān: in al-Anʿām 6/162 as well, ṣalātī (my prayer) comes first and nusukī (my sacrifice) after.
The sense of the order is this: prayer is worship performed with the body, sacrifice worship performed with property. The one sets forth the person himself, the other what he possesses. Together the two complete the two wings of service. The Qurʾān sets this pair side by side in other contexts too (the pair prayer–alms is the most widespread form of it).
And there is this as well: the distribution of the meat of the sacrifice takes the act of worship out of being individual and makes it social. Prayer goes upward; the meat of the sacrifice spreads sideways. The two faults of the type criticised in the preceding sūra (al-Māʿūn) — prayer for show, and withholding the smallest help — are met exactly by these two commands.