وَيَجْعَلُونَ لِلَّهِ ٱلْبَنَٰتِ سُبْحَٰنَهُۥ وَلَهُم مَّا يَشْتَهُونَ · وَإِذَا بُشِّرَ أَحَدُهُم بِٱلْأُنثَىٰ ظَلَّ وَجْهُهُۥ مُسْوَدًّا وَهُوَ كَظِيمٌ · يَتَوَٰرَىٰ مِنَ ٱلْقَوْمِ مِن سُوٓءِ مَا بُشِّرَ بِهِۦٓ أَيُمْسِكُهُۥ عَلَىٰ هُونٍ أَمْ يَدُسُّهُۥ فِى ٱلتُّرَابِ أَلَا سَآءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ
Wa yajʿalūna li'llāhi'l-banāti subḥānahū wa lahum mā yashtahūn · Wa idhā bushshira aḥaduhum bi'l-unthā ẓalla wajhuhū muswaddan wa huwa kaẓīm · Yatawārā mina'l-qawmi min sūʾi mā bushshira bih, a-yumsikuhū ʿalā hūnin am yadussuhū fi'l-turāb, alā sāʾa mā yaḥkumūn
"They assign daughters to God — glory be to Him — and to themselves what they crave. · When one of them is given news of a girl, his face turns black and he is choked with rage. · He hides himself from the people because of the evil of the news given him: is he to keep her in humiliation, or bury her in the dust? Beware — evil is the judgement they make!"
A note required by the method (Method), to be entered at the outset
In treating these three verses one thing must be kept clear from the start, and the same note was entered at al-Zukhruf, 43/17-18:
The verse lays down no ruling about women. The verse reports the stance of a society towards a female child, and shows the contradiction inside that stance.
| Half | Expression | To whom |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wa yajʿalūna li'llāhi'l-banāt | To God — daughters |
| 2 | Wa lahum mā yashtahūn | To themselves — what they crave |
The verb in the second half must be recorded: yashtahūn — root ش-ه-و: appetite, desire, the craving of the self.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this verb: in the second half the verse does not say "sons". It says "what they crave". The measure is thus named not as a fact but as an appetite. With this word the sentence says that the preference rests not on a judgement but on a craving.
And subḥānahū comes in between — between the two halves. I give this as an observation about the word order: the sentence of tanzīh is placed immediately after the ascription, before the comparison is made. The sentence thus rejects one half before it sets the two halves side by side.
This scene occurs in three places in the Qurʾān, and all three were treated in this commentary. The comparison was already made at al-Takwīr, 81/8-9 (mawʾūda), and at al-Zukhruf, 43/17 (bimā ḍaraba li'l-raḥmāni mathalā). I rely on those treatments and complete the table from here, from the place where the wording is plainest:
| al-Naḥl 16/57-59 | al-Takwīr 81/8-9 | al-Zukhruf 43/17 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The centre of the scene | The father — his reaction and his hesitation | The child — the weight laid upon her | The father — his contradiction |
| The key word | يَدُسُّ (yadussu) — to bury in secret | مَوْءُودَة (mawʾūda) — one upon whom a weight was laid | bimā ḍaraba … mathalā — the thing he ascribes |
| The picture in the root | To push a thing secretly inside another | A weight coming down upon one | (not a root but a construction) |
| Form | A verb — the father the agent | A passive participle — the name of the victim | A relative clause — the ascription |
| The word "girl" | Bi'l-unthā — said outright | Mawʾūda — feminine, but "girl" is not said | Not said at all |
| The work of the verse | Diagnosis — the motive is named | Reckoning — the question is put to the victim | The showing of a contradiction |
| The closing | Alā sāʾa mā yaḥkumūn | Bi-ayyi dhanbin qutilat | A-fa-man yunashshaʾu fi'l-ḥilya… |
The three verses take hold of the same fact from three different sides, and this table is the completed form of what was drawn up in al-Takwīr and al-Zukhruf.
And I record this as my own reading, its ground being the fifth line: the one place where the word is said outright is al-Naḥl. al-Takwīr names the victim but does not say "girl"; al-Zukhruf does not say it at all, and leaves the reader alone with his own ascription. al-Naḥl builds the scene in full plainness, using the word itself. Read together, the three verses show the same event told from three distances: from closest up (al-Naḥl), from the victim's place (al-Takwīr), and from inside the mind (al-Zukhruf).
The root was analysed in detail at al-Shams, 91/10, and this verse was named there. I rely on that treatment and take over its notes:
"The concrete sense of the root: to push a thing secretly inside another, to hide it, to bury it." "دَسِيسَة (dasīsa) — a hidden trap, a stratagem. In Turkish the borrowed word is still in everyday use." "The verb دَسَّ, in the Qurʾān's own usage, means to put a living being under the earth."
And in the al-Shams section this connection was recorded: the root occurs in only two places in the Qurʾān — here and at al-Shams 91/10 (wa qad khāba man dassāhā). The verb used of the man who buries his own soul is thus the very verb of this verse.
| Option | Verb | Root | What |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A-yumsikuhū ʿalā hūn | م-س-ك | To keep — but with the qualification hūn |
| 2 | Am yadussuhū fi'l-turāb | د-س-س | To push it secretly into the dust |
هُون — root ه-و-ن: lightness, worthlessness, humiliation. Hawn — ease; hūn / hawān — humiliation. The same root opens in two opposite directions, and the lexicographers record it: a thing's being light is either ease or worthlessness.
And the side of the two options that must be recorded is this: the verse offers no good option. The first is "to keep" — but ʿalā hūn, in humiliation. Both of the ways offered are evil, and the verse closes on both with a sentence of judgement: alā sāʾa mā yaḥkumūn.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the qualification ʿalā hūn: what the verse condemns is not the act of burying alone. How the keeping is done is condemned as well. The diagnosis therefore begins before the killing — in the counting of a child as a burden and a shame.
This sentence occurred word for word at al-Zukhruf, 43/17, and was treated there in detail. I rely on that treatment and summarise its notes:
"ظَلَّ is a defective verb: to be in a state through the day, to remain in that state. The sentence therefore does not say 'his face turned black'; it says 'his face remained blackened'. It conveys duration." "مُسْوَدًّا — root س-و-د, an active participle of Form IX. In Arabic Form IX (ifʿilāl) is used almost only for colours and defects, and the form conveys a colour's settling upon a person." "كَظِيم — root ك-ظ-م. Kaẓama'l-qirba — he filled a waterskin and tied its mouth. Kaẓīm is on the faʿīl pattern and denotes one who ties his own mouth shut; makẓūm (al-Qalam 68/48) denotes one stopped up from outside."
One — the difference between bi'l-unthā and bimā ḍaraba. In al-Zukhruf the word did not occur at all; here it does. In the al-Zukhruf section it was recorded: "The word — 'girl' — does not occur in the sentence. In its place the man's own ascription is used as a definition." al-Naḥl does not do this.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: al-Zukhruf hides the word in order to show the contradiction. al-Naḥl says the word in order to tell what happened. The work of the two verses differs, and so does their wording.
Two — the tension produced by the verb bushshira. It was recorded in al-Zukhruf: bushshira is the verb for announcing good news; the reaction that follows is the reaction to bad news. In naming the event, then, the verse declares its side: what has happened is glad tidings.
And al-Naḥl does this once more, with the same root and more sharply: min sūʾi mā bushshira bih — "because of the evil of what he was given glad tidings of".
This construction must be recorded, and it was named in al-Zukhruf as well: sūʾ (evil) and bushshira (he was given glad tidings) stand side by side within a single expression. The two words give each other the lie.
I give this as my own reading; its ground is that juxtaposition: the evil lies not in the event but in the appraisal. The verse goes on calling the thing "glad tidings" and does not ascribe the evil to it — sūʾi mā bushshira bih, "the evil of what he was given glad tidings of", is the evil as it stands in the man's own eyes. The sentence transmits an appraisal; it does not lay down a ruling.
The root: to hide oneself, to take cover behind something. Warāʾ — what is behind; tawārā — he drew back, he hid himself.
And the object of the verb must be recorded: mina'l-qawm — "from the people". The party he hides from is his own community.
I give this as an observation, and it agrees with the historical frame recorded in al-Takwīr: it was recorded there that this practice was not widespread, but known and capable of being condoned. The wording of the verse supports this: had the practice been counted ordinary by the society, there would have been no need to hide. The man hides from a shame — and the verse says what the shame is: that a girl has been given to him.
The historical frame of this subject was given in detail in al-Takwīr: the two distinct motives the Qurʾān names (shame and the fear of poverty), the need to avoid both exaggerations about how widespread the practice was, and the fact that it was not the characteristic of one people. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it here.
Only this need be added here: these three verses of al-Naḥl are the plainest textual source for the "shame" motive within that frame. al-Isrāʾ 17/31 and al-Anʿām 6/151 say "your children" and do not specify sex; this verse, by saying bi'l-unthā, names a distinct fact.
And this must be recorded: what was done in the fifty-seventh verse was also a judgement — assigning daughters to God and to themselves what they crave. What is done in the fifty-ninth is also a judgement — whether to keep or to bury.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the verb itself: the verse names in a single word what it has been describing for three verses: the giving of judgement. And the judgement given is wrong in two places at once — both in what is ascribed above and in what is decided at home. The same measure is at work in two different places.