مَن كَفَرَ بِٱللَّهِ مِنۢ بَعْدِ إِيمَٰنِهِۦٓ إِلَّا مَنْ أُكْرِهَ وَقَلْبُهُۥ مُطْمَئِنٌّۢ بِٱلْإِيمَٰنِ وَلَٰكِن مَّن شَرَحَ بِٱلْكُفْرِ صَدْرًا فَعَلَيْهِمْ غَضَبٌ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
Man kafara bi'llāhi min baʿdi īmānihī illā man ukriha wa qalbuhū muṭmaʾinnun bi'l-īmāni wa lākin man sharaḥa bi'l-kufri ṣadran fa-ʿalayhim ghaḍabun mina'llāhi wa lahum ʿadhābun ʿaẓīm
"Whoever denies God after having believed — except one who is compelled while his heart is at rest in faith — and whoever opens his breast to denial: upon them is anger from God, and for them there is a great punishment."
In treating this verse a limit must be set at the outset, per the method (Method): no legal ruling is issued here. In the classical sources this verse has been counted one of the chief grounds of the law of ikrāh (compulsion), and a broad juristic literature has formed around it. This commentary does not enter that literature.
What is treated is what the verse does in its wording. And in point of word order the most striking thing in the verse is where the exception is placed.
| Order | Part | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man kafara bi'llāhi min baʿdi īmānihī | The condition — the case a ruling is to be laid upon |
| 2 | Illā man ukriha wa qalbuhū muṭmaʾinnun bi'l-īmān | THE EXCEPTION |
| 3 | Wa lākin man sharaḥa bi'l-kufri ṣadrā | The one the ruling truly falls on |
| 4 | Fa-ʿalayhim ghaḍabun mina'llāh… | The apodosis |
The sentence does not say "upon those who do such and such is anger; except those who are compelled". It says: "whoever denies — except one who is compelled — and whoever opens his breast…"
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that order: the exception comes in before the sentence of judgement is complete. The dispensation, that is, is given not as a consequence of the ruling but within the ruling's own definition. Before saying whom the anger is directed at, the verse says whom it is not directed at.
| Qualification | Expression | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ukriha — he was compelled | Outside — a passive verb; the compeller is not named |
| 2 | Qalbuhū muṭmaʾinnun bi'l-īmān | Inside — the state of the heart |
That the verb is passive must be recorded: ukriha. The one who compels is not named. And this is a pattern recorded at many places in this commentary — at Fāṭir, 35/8, for zuyyina, and at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin), 40/37, for the same verb.
كَرِهَ / أُكْرِهَ — root ك-ر-ه: to dislike, not to want. In Form IV (akraha): to make someone do what he does not want. At the centre of the root, then, lies the idea of being outside one's own wanting.
The root ط-م-ن was treated at al-Baqara, 2/260, and I rely on that treatment. What was recorded there:
"لِّيَطْمَئِنَّ قَلْبِى — root ط-م-ن: to grow calm, to settle, to come to rest in its place. The lexicographers record the picture of 'a thing settling into a hollow and being held fast'." "Faith and iṭmiʾnān are not the same thing. The one is acceptance, the other a settling within."
It must be recorded: the verse does not say "if his heart believes". It says qalbuhū muṭmaʾinnun bi'l-īmān.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the distinction drawn in al-Baqara: what is laid down as the condition of the dispensation is not the presence of faith but faith's having settled into place. That is: the presence of something within which the words spoken outside cannot shift.
And the picture in the root gives this openly: iṭmiʾnān is a thing's settling into a hollow. To move it, it has to be lifted out. A pressure coming from outside does not shift what has settled.
| Place | Whose iṭmiʾnān | Its work |
|---|---|---|
| al-Baqara 2/260 | Abraham's — li-yaṭmaʾinna qalbī | Asked for — a request to be made firm by seeing |
| al-Naḥl 16/106 | The compelled man's — qalbuhū muṭmaʾinnun | Found present — the condition of the dispensation |
The same root: in the one a request, in the other a state. This is an overlap verifiable across the sūras.
شَرَحَ — root ش-ر-ح: to open, to split open and widen. Sharḥ — to open out a text; inshirāḥ — the widening of the breast. The root was treated in detail in al-Inshirāḥ, by way of that sūra's name; I do not repeat it here.
| The one compelled | The one who opens his breast | |
|---|---|---|
| The heart | Muṭmaʾinn — settled, fixed | Sharaḥa ṣadrā — opened, widened |
| The direction | Resistance from inside outwards | Acceptance from inside outwards |
| The will | Ukriha — passive, outside his will | Sharaḥa — active, his own act |
All three lines can be verified from the text, and the wording shows it: the verb of the first state is passive, that of the second active.
I record this as my own reading, its ground being the voices of the verbs: in dividing the two cases the verse looks at who did it. The measure is not the word spoken — it is where the word came from.
In the classical sources it is transmitted that this verse was revealed concerning a man who was tortured in the Meccan period, and an account is given.
This commentary attaches no personal name to that report, because I have no verified chain of transmission. The account itself is present in the sources; to whom it belongs, and its details, are another matter.
And I record this: whether the account of the occasion is known or not, the wording of the verse says the same thing. The scope of the exception is fixed not by the details of an event but by two words: ukriha and muṭmaʾinn.