al-Naḥl 16:76 commentary

16/76

وَضَرَبَ ٱللَّهُ مَثَلًا رَّجُلَيْنِ أَحَدُهُمَآ أَبْكَمُ لَا يَقْدِرُ عَلَىٰ شَىْءٍ وَهُوَ كَلٌّ عَلَىٰ مَوْلَىٰهُ أَيْنَمَا يُوَجِّههُّ لَا يَأْتِ بِخَيْرٍ هَلْ يَسْتَوِى هُوَ وَمَن يَأْمُرُ بِٱلْعَدْلِ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ صِرَٰطٍ مُّسْتَقِيمٍ

Wa ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan rajulayni aḥaduhumā abkamu lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾin wa huwa kallun ʿalā mawlāhu, aynamā yuwajjihhu lā yaʾti bi-khayr, hal yastawī huwa wa man yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadli wa huwa ʿalā ṣirāṭin mustaqīm

"God has coined another likeness: two men. One of them is mute and has power over nothing; he is a burden to his master, and wherever he is sent he brings back nothing good. Is he equal to one who enjoins justice and is himself upon a straight path?"

The relation between the two parables

In two verses the sūra gives two parables, and both open with the same verb: ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan.

And at al-Zumar, 39/29, there was a paired parable too — two slaves. The three must be compared:

	al-Zumar 39/29	al-Naḥl 16/75	al-Naḥl 16/76
The two sides	Rajulan fīhi shurakāʾu mutafākisūn / wa rajulan salaman li-rajul	ʿAbdan mamlūkā / man razaqnāh	Abkam / man yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadl
The axis of distinction	How many owners — many / one	Power of disposal — absent / present	Speech and use — absent / present
The shared question	Hal yastawiyāni mathalā	Hal yastawūn	Hal yastawī
What it tells	The practical consequence of associating partners — confusion of direction	The use made of what is given	What is given turning towards another
Whom it looks at	The servant — whose condition is the better	The servant	The servant and those around him

What was recorded in the al-Zumar section was this, and I take it as ground here: "The verse does not argue the theoretical falsity of plurality — it shows its practical consequence. A man with more than one owner cannot know whose measure to act by." The matter is thus taken out of a dispute about belief and made a question of direction.

al-Naḥl's two parables use the same method but arrive somewhere else. I record this as my own reading, and my ground is the axis of distinction in the three parables:

In al-Zumar the measure is whom you belong to. In al-Naḥl the measure is what you are able to do.

And al-Naḥl's two parables complete each other:

	The first parable (75)	The second parable (76)
The condition of the deficient side	Lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾ — no power	Lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾ — the same expression
The defect added	(none)	*Abkam* — mute; *kallun ʿalā mawlāh* — a burden
The act of the other side	Yunfiqu — he spends	Yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadl — he enjoins justice
The attribute of the other side	Rizqan ḥasanā — what has been given him	ʿAlā ṣirāṭin mustaqīm — the road he stands on

The shared expression must be recorded: lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾ occurs in both parables. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

And the difference is this: in the first parable the other side gives (property), in the second he speaks (justice). In two verses the sūra thus enumerates two kinds of benefit — the material and the spoken.

And the closing of the second parable prepares the ninetieth verse: wa man yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadl. The ninetieth will open with the same word: inna'llāha yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadli wa'l-iḥsān. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and it will be treated at that verse.

أَبْكَم — root: ب-ك-م

The sense of the root: dumbness; and there is a distinction the lexicographers record.

Word	Root	The difference
أَخْرَس (akhras)	خ-ر-س	Mute from birth — the organ of speech is wanting
أَبْكَم (abkam)	ب-ك-م	The lexicographers mostly use it of one who cannot speak, or does not know how to speak; some say "both mute and without understanding"

I transmit this distinction as a tendency the lexicographers record, not as a settled ruling.

كَلّ — root ك-ل-ل: to grow weary, to grow blunt; and weight, a burden. Kalīl — blunt (of a knife), weary (of an eye). Here the word means "one who is a burden to another".

And the clause aynamā yuwajjihhu lā yaʾti bi-khayr must be recorded: tawjīh — to direct, to send somewhere. The verse says that the man can be directed, but that the directing yields no result.

A note required by the method (Method)

This parable lays down no ruling about a disabled person. This must be written openly.

The evidence within the text is this: the parable compares its two sides by two attributes — on the one side lā yaqdiru ʿalā shayʾ and lā yaʾti bi-khayr, on the other yaʾmuru bi'l-ʿadl. And the subject of the comparison is fixed by the context coming from the preceding verse: the condition of the things that are served (73: mā lā yamliku lahum rizqan … wa lā yastaṭīʿūn).

The object of the parable, then, is not a group of human beings but the position described in the seventy-third verse. And the same care was kept at al-Zukhruf, 43/18: there too it was recorded that a sentence built upon an attribute is not a ruling about those who bear that attribute. The same line is kept here.