al-Isrāʾ 17:4-8 — Two corruptions and two responses

Wa qaḍaynā ilā banī Isrāʾīla fi'l-kitābi la-tufsidunna fi'l-arḍi marratayni wa la-taʿlunna ʿuluwwan kabīrā · Fa-idhā jāʾa waʿdu ūlāhumā baʿathnā ʿalaykum ʿibādan lanā ulī baʾsin shadīdin fa-jāsū khilāla'l-diyāri wa kāna waʿdan mafʿūlā · Thumma radadnā lakumu'l-karrata ʿalayhim wa amdadnākum bi-amwālin wa banīna wa jaʿalnākum akthara nafīrā · In aḥsantum aḥsantum li-anfusikum wa in asaʾtum fa-lahā … ʿAsā rabbukum an yarḥamakum wa in ʿudtum ʿudnā wa jaʿalnā jahannama li'l-kāfirīna ḥaṣīrā

"We made this known to the Children of Israel in the Book: 'You will work corruption on the earth twice over, and you will rise up with great arrogance.' When the time of the first of the two came, We sent against you servants of Ours of great might; they went searching right in among the houses. This was a promise carried out. Then We gave you the turn back against them; We reinforced you with wealth and sons and made you the more numerous host. If you do good, you do good for yourselves; if you do evil, that too is your own… It may be that your Lord will have mercy on you; but if you return, We return. And We have made Hell an enclosure for those who deny."

These five verses are among the places in this commentary that must be handled with the greatest care, and three things must be recorded at the outset:

First: these verses do not issue a blanket ruling about a people. The record entered in al-Baqara at the head of the section on the Children of Israel holds here exactly, and I rely on it: there it was recorded that "the most widespread misreading" of such sections "is to suppose them to be about somebody else", the Qurʾān's own record was recalled ("They are not all alike" — Āl ʿImrān 3/113), and it was said that "attributes are being enumerated, not an identity". In these verses too the ruling is tied to an act, not to a name.

Second: the verse's own grammar already enters this record — it will be shown separately below. The seventh verse is a conditional sentence, and both arms of the condition are open.

Third: in this commentary these verses are not linked to any current political question. The rule of Method that "no side is taken in current politics" is applied here to the letter. What the verse recounts is two periods made known in the Book; who filled these two periods, when, and by what events, has been disputed in the classical commentaries, and there is no agreement on it.

The classical commentaries differ over which historical events these two periods correspond to, and I do not impose a preference:

Several of these explanations are transmitted together in the sources, and the reports that give names do not agree with one another. In this commentary no historical agent is named, because the verse names none — it says only ʿibādan lanā ulī baʾsin shadīd ("servants of Ours of great might").

And this refusal to name is worth recording. I give this as my own reading: the verse names the party that is sent as Our servants too. The victorious party is thus not praised for its victory; it is named as the manner in which a thing came to pass.

The root: to cut a matter through and finish it, to complete a decree. The way the word is construed here draws the lexicographers' attention: qaḍaynā ilā — normally the verb qaḍā comes with bi- or takes a direct object. Its coming with ilā is explained by the lexicographers as carrying the sense "we made known, we conveyed".

This distinction matters for the meaning and must be recorded: the sentence is read not as "We decreed that they should work corruption" but as "We made this known to them in the Book". The difference between the two readings is the difference between compelling and informing.

And the same root will occur at the head of a list of commands in the twenty-third verse (wa qaḍā rabbuka). It is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

The root ج-و-س: to move about a place searching it, ransacking it. The lexicographers explain the root as "to go back and forth in order to search".

خِلَٰل — the spaces between, the gaps in between. Hence "they went in among the houses and moved through them."

I record this as an observation: the verse gives no description of a battle. The verb chosen states that what was entered was a house, and that the entering was done by searching. What is recounted therefore takes place not at a front line but inside the home.

"If you do good, you do good for yourselves; if you do evil, that too is your own."

This sentence is one of those that carry the whole sūra, and its word order deserves close examination.

First: both arms are in the conditional form — in aḥsantum / in asaʾtum. A conditional sentence ties the ruling to actual occurrence. That is, the ruling looks not at who the one addressed is but at what he does.

Second: the requital of both arms returns to themselves. Li-anfusikum — "for yourselves"; fa-lahā — "that too is to it (to the self)".

Third, and the point the lexicographers dwell on most: the second arm says لَهَا (lahā — "for it"), not ʿalayhā ("against it"). The expected usage would have been ʿalayhā.

The lexicographers explain this in several ways, and I transmit them:

I transmit the disagreement; I do not impose a preference. But all three explanations come to a single common result, and that result can be verified from the text: the requital of an act returns to the one who does it.

And this sentence does exactly the same work as the fifteenth verse of the sūra: mani'htadā fa-innamā yahtadī li-nafsih. Two verses, one addressed to a people and one to all human beings, state the same principle.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the structural identity of the two verses: eight verses later the sūra applies to everyone the rule it stated for one people. The second block is thus not a section of special rulings — it is the section in which a general rule is exemplified.

"It may be that your Lord will have mercy on you; but if you return, We return."

The close of the block is left open-ended, and this must be recorded.

عَسَىٰ — in Arabic a verb conveying hope and expectation. It conveys no certainty. The sentence thus sets down mercy not as a promise but as an open possibility.

وَإِنْ عُدتُّمْ عُدْنَا — "if you return, We return."

The construction of the sentence is worth recording, and this is an observation about the structure: the same verb (ʿāda — to return) is used on both sides. The condition and its answer are two inflections of one word.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the repetition of the verb: the sentence stands like a threat, but its structure is the structure of a rule. The door is left open in both directions: return is possible, and so is its requital. And that it opens with ʿasā shows that the order is mercy first.

The block opens with the name of a people and closes with a conditional sentence. This is a structure that can be verified from the text: what is named is a name; what is judged is an act.