قُل لِّعِبَادِىَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ يُقِيمُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَيُنفِقُوا۟ مِمَّا رَزَقْنَٰهُمْ سِرًّا وَعَلَانِيَةً مِّن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِىَ يَوْمٌ لَّا بَيْعٌ فِيهِ وَلَا خِلَٰلٌ
Qul li-ʿibādiya'lladhīna āmanū yuqīmu'ṣ-ṣalāta wa yunfiqū mimmā razaqnāhum sirran wa ʿalāniyatan min qabli an yaʾtiya yawmun lā bayʿun fīhi wa lā khilāl
"Say to My servants who believe: let them hold the prayer upright and spend, secretly and openly, of what We have provided them — before there comes a day in which there is neither trading nor friendship."
The construction of the sentence is striking in Arabic. The command is not given to the servants directly; the Prophet is told "say", and then the verbs come in the jussive: yuqīmū, yunfiqū.
| # | Explanation | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The verbs are the answer to an implied command: "say, so that they may hold it upright" | A condition-and-answer structure |
| 2 | The verbs are the third-person form of the imperative: "let them hold it upright" | The dropping of the lām al-amr |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the conjunction is wa: the verse does not hold giving in secret to be superior to giving openly; it commands both. Had a preference been set up between the two, the conjunction would have been aw (or).
The same matter was treated at al-Baqara 2/271 (in tubdu'ṣ-ṣadaqāti fa-niʿimmā hiya wa in tukhfūhā… fa-huwa khayrun lakum). I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it.
- بَيْع — root ب-ي-ع: trading, the mutual changing of hands. That is, a relationship that runs by exchange.
- خِلَال — root خ-ل-ل: an interval, the space between two things. Khalīl — a friend; the lexicographers explain the word as "one whose love has seeped into the person" (takhallala — it entered into the gaps). That is, a relationship that runs by regard.
That the two are negated together is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: there are two ways of obtaining a thing in this world — by paying or through someone one knows. The verse closes both. The sentence conveys not a lack but a completeness.
And the word khalīl connects with the subject of the next block: Abraham, from whom the sūra takes its name, is called khalīlu'llāh in the Qurʾān (al-Nisāʾ 4/125 — this sūra has not yet been treated in the series; I mention it only for the verbal link). I draw no connection between the negation of the word here and the coming of Abraham's prayer five verses later; I only record the word's place in the sūra.