أَلَآ إِنَّهُمْ يَثْنُونَ صُدُورَهُمْ لِيَسْتَخْفُوا۟ مِنْهُ أَلَا حِينَ يَسْتَغْشُونَ ثِيَابَهُمْ يَعْلَمُ مَا يُسِرُّونَ وَمَا يُعْلِنُونَ إِنَّهُۥ عَلِيمٌۢ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ
alā innahum yathnūna ṣudūrahum li-yastakhfū minh, alā ḥīna yastaghshūna thiyābahum yaʿlamu mā yusirrūna wa mā yuʿlinūn, innahū ʿalīmun bi-dhāti'l-ṣudūr
"Take note: they bend their breasts to hide from Him. Take note: even when they wrap themselves in their garments, He knows what they keep secret and what they make public. He is indeed the Knower of the inmost of the breasts."
This verse is the most concrete depiction of the effort to hide in the Qurʾān. Two bodily movements are named, and both are acts of covering.
The root ث-ن-ي: to fold a thing, to bend it, to double it over. The root has occurred in several places across this series (al-Ḥajj, al-Zumar, Sabaʾ, al-Qalam); the pattern here needs separate attention.
| Derivative | Meaning | The shared idea |
|---|---|---|
| ثَنَى | He folded, he bent | To close a thing over onto itself |
| اِثْنَان | Two | A thing becoming double when folded |
| مَثْنَى | Two by two | The same root |
| ثِنْتَان | Two (feminine) | The same root |
| اِسْتَثْنَى | He made an exception | To set a thing apart and fold it away |
| ثَنِيَّة | A mountain pass; a front tooth | The point of the fold |
And mathānī (an attribute of the Qurʾān; it occurs at al-Zumar 39/23 in the construction kitāban mutashābihan mathāniya) is from this root as well — repeated, folded.
The use of the word here is concrete: to bend the breast. That is, to lean forward, to draw the shoulders in, to make oneself small.
| Explanation | What it describes |
|---|---|
| 1 | Bodily concealment — the person bends, turns his back, tries not to be seen |
| 2 | Hiding what is inside — "the bending of the breast" as a figure for the folding away and hiding of a thought |
| 3 | Turning away — another way of describing the turning of the back |
All three are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. But what the three have in common must be recorded: every one of them is the verb to hide.
As an occasion of revelation, reports are transmitted to the effect that a man bent over, or covered his head, as he passed by the Prophet. I do not give these as an established event; the verse itself speaks not of one person but of a group (innahum).
This expression was treated at Nūḥ 71/7 in exactly the same pattern, and I rely on that treatment. In summary, the entries there were these:
Root غ-ش-ي. The concrete sense of the root is to cover the top of a thing, to wrap it, to come over it and enfold it; ghishāwa is the veil over the eye (al-Baqara 2/7). The verb here is Form X: istaghshā. This form reports "to seek" or "to do for oneself". So yastaghshūna thiyābahum does not mean "their garments cover them"; it means "they make their garments a covering for themselves". ثياب, root ث-و-ب: to return. Thawb (garment), thawāb (recompense), mathāba (the place returned to) are all from this root.
And this verse (Hūd 11/5) was already cited in Nūḥ, where this entry was made: "The Qurʾān records this movement not as an oddity peculiar to Noah's people but as a recurring human behaviour."
What belongs here is the three differences between the two verses, and all three can be read from the text:
| Nūḥ 71/7 | Hūd 11/5 | |
|---|---|---|
| The tense of the verb | wa'staghshaw — perfect, done and over | yastaghshūna — imperfect, ongoing |
| Who is speaking | Noah, complaining to his Lord | God, informing the one addressed |
| The movement beside it | Stopping the ears with the fingers — not to hear | Bending the breast — not to be seen |
Noah's people were trying to block the sound coming from the messenger. Both movements were directed at the ear (the finger, then the cloth).
In Hūd 11/5 what is being blocked is being seen. And the one they hide from is not the messenger — the sentence says li-yastakhfū minhu; the exegetes differ over the referent of the pronoun:
| Reading | Whom they hide from | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | From God | The continuation of the verse: yaʿlamu mā yusirrūna wa mā yuʿlinūn — the answer is given by God's knowing |
| 2 | From the Prophet | In the verses just before it is the messenger who speaks; and the reports transmitted as the occasion of revelation point this way |
| 3 | From the Qurʾān | So as not to hear it, not to meet it |
All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. But the answer the verse gives supports the first reading: the sentence meets the hiding with a piece of knowledge — "even when they wrap themselves in their garments, He knows."
| Occurrence | What it reports |
|---|---|
| The first alā | The fact — they are hiding |
| The second alā | The answer — they cannot hide |
The verse, that is, uses the particle of attention twice, and by doing so separates the claim from its answer. This is a feature of the word order that can be verified from the text.
And the placement of the adverb of time is worth recording: ḥīna yastaghshūna thiyābahum — "when they wrap themselves in their garments".
I record this as an observation about the word order: the verse does not say "He knows in every state"; it picks the moment at which the hiding is at its most intense and says that they are known there. The place where the covering is thickest is made the example.
The construction occurs in many places in the Qurʾān and has been treated across this series (Fāṭir, al-Zumar, al-Shūrā, al-Taghābun, al-Mulk 67/13). I do not repeat it here.
What belongs here is a link: the verse opens with the word ṣadr (breast) and closes with the word ṣudūr (breasts).
| The beginning of the verse | The end of the verse |
|---|---|
| yathnūna ṣudūrahum — they bend their breasts | ʿalīmun bi-dhāti'l-ṣudūr — the Knower of the inmost of the breasts |
The same word, at the two ends. The human being bends his breast; God knows what is inside the breast. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.
And the sūra will return to this word once more: in the twelfth verse it will be said of the Prophet wa ḍāʾiqun bihī ṣadruk — "your breast is straitened by it".
| Verse | Who | What happens to the breast |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | The one addressed | yathnūna — it is bent, in order to hide |
| 12 | The messenger | ḍāʾiq — it is straitened, from carrying |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the nearness of the two verses: on the first page of the sūra both sides are named by their breasts; one is hiding, the other is carrying.
The movement the verse describes is given not as a matter of belief but as body language — bending, covering oneself, trying not to be seen. And what these movements have in common is that they show the one addressed is not self-sufficient: a person is aware of what he avoids; the avoidance is the proof of the awareness.