al-Naḥl 16:112-113

Wa ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan qaryatan kānat āminatan muṭmaʾinnatan yaʾtīhā rizquhā raghadan min kulli makānin fa-kafarat bi-anʿumi'llāhi fa-adhāqaha'llāhu libāsa'l-jūʿi wa'l-khawfi bimā kānū yaṣnaʿūn · Wa laqad jāʾahum rasūlun minhum fa-kadhdhabūhu fa-akhadhahumu'l-ʿadhābu wa hum ẓālimūn

"God has coined the likeness of a town: it was safe and at ease, its provision coming to it in plenty from every side. Then it was ungrateful for God's favours, and God made it taste the garment of hunger and fear for what they had wrought. · A messenger from among themselves had come to them, and they cried him a liar; so the punishment seized them while they were doing wrong."

Both attributes were treated in this commentary, in two separate places. I rely on those treatments:

At al-Qaṣaṣ, 28/57 (a-wa-lam numakkin lahum ḥaraman āminan yujbā ilayhi thamarātu kulli shayʾ) and at al-ʿAnkabūt, 29/67 (a-wa-lam yaraw annā jaʿalnā ḥaraman āminan wa yutakhaṭṭafu'l-nāsu min ḥawlihim) the same fact was treated and the two verses compared:

And what was recorded in the al-Qaṣaṣ section can be carried over here: the objection was framed not upon belief but upon anxiety about safety, and the answer was given on the same plane — who built the place where you are already safe?

al-Naḥl takes a step further, and I record this as my own reading, my ground being the tense of the verb: al-Qaṣaṣ and al-ʿAnkabūt name the safety as a state still holding. al-Naḥl says kānat — a perfect. The third verse thus shows that the condition the first two describe can be lost.

And the verse gives it as a likeness — the town is not named. This must be recorded: the sentence begins with ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan. What is told is set down not as a particular event of history but as an example. And the exegetes differ over which town it is; no name is given in this commentary.

مُّطْمَئِنَّة — and the root ط-م-ن occurs for the second time in the sūra. In the hundred and sixth verse it was qalbuhū muṭmaʾinnun bi'l-īmān.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and I give this as my own reading: the same word, once inside and once outside. The iṭmiʾnān within does not shift even under pressure; the iṭmiʾnān without is lost in the midst of ease. Six verses stand between the two.

I treat this comparison in detail, because its construction is layered twice over.

The sentence is this: fa-adhāqaha'llāhu libāsa'l-jūʿi wa'l-khawf — "God made it taste the garment of hunger and fear."

There is a mismatch between the two verb-object relations, and it is deliberate:

Four elements, four different domains. And the lexicographers call constructions of this kind istiʿāra (borrowing).

Now I open the construction of the comparison step by step, and I give it as my own reading, my ground being this mismatch of the words:

One — hunger and fear are normally things felt. They happen inside; no one else sees them.

Two — the verse makes them something worn. Libās — a garment. And a garment has two properties: it wraps the body, and it is seen from outside.

Three — the wrapping property: a garment is not on one part of the body but on all of it. Hunger and fear thus cease to be a condition of a person and become something that covers him entirely.

Four — the property of visibility: a garment is what a person shows to the outside. Two states that would be expected to stay within thus become the person's appearance. The identity of the town is now its hunger and its fear.

Five — and the verb turns this round once more: adhāqa — "made taste". The thing worn is tasted. It does not merely wrap from outside; it enters within as well.

The comparison as a whole gives this picture: hunger and fear are first a condition within (the stomach and the mind), then a dress without (libās), then a taste within again (adhāqa). The words draw a circle.

And this reading is an observation that can be drawn from the text; the mismatch of the sensory domains of the words is an observable fact.

And the other occurrences of the root ل-ب-س in the sūra must be recorded:

This is a weave verifiable within the sūra. And I record this as my own reading: the sūra enumerated clothing twice as a favour (14, 81). In the hundred and twelfth verse the same domain becomes the name of the loss of favour. An item from the list of the enumeration is turned over and made the name of the punishment.

It must be recorded: the word is not niʿmat but anʿum.

The lexicographers count anʿum as a plural of niʿma, and some explain the difference between it and the plural niʿam by the distinction between the plural of paucity and the plural of multitude. I transmit this distinction as a tendency the lexicographers record; I do not impose a preference.

And what matters is this: throughout the sūra niʿma was used in the singular (18, 53, 71, 72, 83) and occurred as niʿmatahū in the eighty-first verse. In the hundred and twelfth the plural comes for the first and only time.

I give this as an observation, and it is a countable fact: in naming favour as a single whole the sūra never uses a plural. It uses the plural only of favours that are denied, and only in one place.

The root ص-ن-ع: to do a thing with skill, in an ordered way. Ṣunʿ — a piece of craftsmanship; ṣināʿa — a craft. The root occurred at Fāṭir, 35/8 (inna'llāha ʿalīmun bimā yaṣnaʿūn); I rely on that treatment.

And the choice of the word is worth recording: the verse does not say bimā kānū yaʿmalūn (what they did). It says yaṣnaʿūn — what they made with skill, by repetition.

I give this as an observation about the language: the word names ingratitude not as a stumble but as a habit, a craft.