2/105 — "They do not wish"
"Neither those of the People of the Book who cover over the truth nor the mushrikūn wish that any good should be sent down to you from your Lord. But God singles out for His mercy whom He wills. God is the possessor of great bounty."
Root: و-د-د. This root was treated in detail in the discussion of al-Mumtaḥina; the summary of the finding there is this: the root carries both to love and to wish, to desire, and the two are inseparable — a person loves what he wants and wants what he loves.
The word's function here is striking for that reason. The verse does not say "they hinder" or "they refuse"; it says "they do not wish". What is described, that is, is not an act but an inward inclination.
And the object of the inclination is specially chosen too: what is refused is not a ruling or a person but "that any good should be sent down to you from your Lord". The matter, then, is not even the content of what comes; it is that it has come to someone else.
This is the description of what will be named a few verses later: حَسَد — at verse 109 it will be said "out of the envy within them". Here the feeling is described; there it will be named.
مِنْ أَهْلِ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ وَلَا ٱلْمُشْرِكِينَ — those of the People of the Book who cover over the truth, and the mushrikūn.
Up to this point the sūra had always handled these two groups separately: the mushrikūn in the first twenty verses, the People of the Book from the fortieth verse on. Here for the first time they become the subject of the same predicate.
What joins them is not a belief but an attitude: not wishing for the good that comes. Two groups whose beliefs are diametrically opposed come into line at this point.
And the clause in the verse's language is preserved: "those of the People of the Book who cover over the truth" — not the whole of the People of the Book. The scrupulousness of distinction seen in verses 99-100 of the sūra continues here; indeed at Āl ʿImrān 3/113 it will separately be recorded that there are those within the same community who stand apart.
The root خ-ص-ص: to set something apart and give it to one alone, to single out. Its opposite is ʿāmm (general). Khuṣūṣī, ikhtiṣāṣ, khāṣṣ are from the same root.
The structure of the answer is worth recording. The objection took the form "why was it given to him?"; the answer does not say "because he deserved it", it says "it is He who singles out". The debate, that is, is turned not to the quality of the recipient but to the authority of the giver.
This is a redirection seen elsewhere in the sūra too. At verse 124 the leadership Abraham (Ibrāhīm) asks for on behalf of his offspring will be answered with "My covenant does not reach the wrongdoers": there too the debate was carried from descent to the measure. Here it is carried to the point of ownership.
And a qualification is needed: the expression "whom He wills", read in the sense of arbitrariness, would contradict the Qurʾān's own language — for the same text describes again and again where mercy is directed ("My mercy encompasses all things; I shall write it for those who guard themselves…", al-Aʿrāf 7/156). The expression states not that the choice is without ground but that it is made without rendering account to anyone. I record this distinction as my own reading.
ذُو ٱلْفَضْلِ ٱلْعَظِيمِ — faḍl: what is added on top of what is deserved. The word will occur at verse 237 as well: "do not forget the faḍl between you" — there it was used of the field beyond the share the law assigns. The same word is set down here as the name of the thing objected to: what is envied is not a right but a bounty.