ٱلَّذِى يُوَسْوِسُ فِى صُدُورِ ٱلنَّاسِ
This verse adds no new evil; it defines the one before it. Alladhī ("who") is a relative pronoun and qualifies the noun that precedes it.
In the sūra the side with whom refuge is taken is set out in three verses, and the side from which refuge is taken in three verses as well (4, 5, 6). The structure is symmetrical: three verses of presentation, three verses of description.
The Qurʾān uses the word "heart" in hundreds of places. Here it does not use it. This choice calls for attention.
The word ṣadr. Root ص-د-ر: to come out from a place, to return, to come forward. Ṣadara — he came out, he returned. In the Qurʾān: "That day people will come forth in scattered groups" (al-Zilzāl 99/6). From the same root come maṣdar (source, place of issue), ṣudūr (issuings) and ṣadr — breast, the front side, the head of a thing. The head place of an assembly is called ṣadr al-majlis; the word carries the sense of "front, first, head".
"It is not the eyes that go blind; it is the hearts in the breasts that go blind." (al-Ḥajj 22/46)
"al-qulūbu'llatī fi'ṣ-ṣudūr" — the hearts that are inside the breasts. In the Qurʾān's own language, then, the ṣadr is what holds the heart within it. The heart is what is inside; the ṣadr is the space that surrounds it.
The reading that follows from this is: the whispering enters the breast; whether it reaches the heart is a separate matter. The ṣadr is the outer courtyard — the entrance. The heart is the inner room — the place of decision, of faith, of intention.
The verse, that is, describes how far the whispering comes: as far as the courtyard. Whether it goes inside is another thing.
- The Qurʾān speaks of a seal being set on the heart, of the heart falling sick, of the heart being darkened — the heart is where a person's real condition is located.
- The breast, on the other hand, is spoken of in the Qurʾān as a place that widens and narrows: "Whomever God wishes to guide, He opens his breast to Islam" (al-Anʿām 6/125); "Did We not open up and expand your breast?" (al-Inshirāḥ 94/1); "We certainly know that your breast is straitened by what they say" (al-Ḥijr 15/97). The ṣadr, that is, is a volume; a place into which and out of which things pass, which widens and narrows.
I know that this distinction is treated in the classical commentaries; but I do not ascribe the frame above, in exactly this form, to any one exegete — I present it as a reading resting on al-Ḥajj 22/46.
Its moral consequence is important. If the whispering stays in the breast, you are not responsible for everything that comes into your mind. A thought's appearing in your mind and your adopting it are not the same thing. This distinction is one of those that most relieve people who have a religious scrupulousness, and it has often been voiced in the tradition as well.
The breast has a bodily side too. Fear, distress, palpitation, shortness of breath — these are felt in the body, in the chest. This is why the Qurʾān uses the expression "the breast being straitened". The ṣadr, then, is both where thought passes and where feeling is felt. The whispering is described not as an abstract event of the mind but as a state that has a counterpart in the person's body.
The verse does not say "the breasts of the unbelievers" or "the breasts of the heedless". The breasts of people. The whispering, that is, comes to everyone. To have faith does not mean not to be addressed by the whispering.
This is one of the most relieving sentences of the sūra and at the same time one of those that must be taken most seriously. Relieving, because the coming of the whispering is not a sign of a defect. Serious, because no one is exempt.
And this too is worth noting: the one taking refuge is singular (aʿūdhu — I take refuge), the field of the threat is plural (ṣudūri'n-nās — the breasts of the people). The danger is shared, the taking of refuge is personal. No one can take refuge on another's behalf.