al-Ḥajj 22:78

Wa jāhidū fi'llāhi ḥaqqa jihādih · Huwa'jtabākum wa mā jaʿala ʿalaykum fi'd-dīni min ḥaraj · Millata abīkum Ibrāhīm · Huwa sammākumu'l-muslimīna min qablu wa fī hādhā li-yakūna'r-rasūlu shahīdan ʿalaykum wa takūnū shuhadāʾa ʿala'n-nās · Fa-aqīmu'ṣ-ṣalāta wa ātu'z-zakāta wa'ʿtaṣimū bi'llāh · Huwa mawlākum · Fa-niʿma'l-mawlā wa niʿma'n-naṣīr

"Strive for God as striving for Him is due. He has chosen you and has laid upon you no narrowness in the religion. The way of your father Abraham… He named you Muslims before, and in this too, so that the messenger might be a witness over you and you might be witnesses over the people. So keep up the prayer, pay the alms, and hold fast to God. He is your protector: how excellent a protector, how excellent a helper!"

The root ج-ه-د was treated at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/6 and 29/69: to expend strength, to go to the end of one's capacity. Jahd — strength, capacity. And it was treated at al-Furqān 25/52 (wa jāhidhum bihi jihādan kabīrā); there it was recorded that the referent of the pronoun is the Qurʾān and that the text is presented as the instrument of the striving. I do not repeat it here; I rely on that treatment.

Setting the four occurrences side by side shows how the root is used:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of particles in the four verses: each verse fixes another side of the root — its owner, its return, its instrument, its measure. al-Ḥajj's is the measure: ḥaqqa jihādih — "as is due to it".

حَقَّ جِهَادِهِ — the construct is the same as a pattern that occurred earlier in the sūra: at 22/74, ḥaqqa qadrih.

I record this as an observation about word order: the same pattern twice, four verses apart. In the one a failure is reported, in the other a command is given.

ٱجْتَبَىٰكُمْ — root ج-ب-ي: to gather, to bring together (jibāya — the collecting of taxes). In Form VIII, ijtibāʾ: to choose out and gather, to set apart for oneself.

And the verb does the same work as yaṣṭafī (He chooses) in the seventy-fifth verse. Two verbs in two consecutive verses: one for the messengers, the other for those addressed.

This sentence is one of the most often cited in the sūra.

The root ح-ر-ج was treated in detail at al-Fatḥ 48/17, and what was recorded there was this:

The concrete sense of the root: narrowness, constriction. The concrete usage the lexicographers record is livelier still: حَرَجَة — a thicket so dense with trees pressed together that it cannot be passed through. There is thus an image of impassability in the root.

I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it. In the al-Fatḥ section this verse (al-Ḥajj 22/78) was already cited as an example.

The word order of the sentence must be recorded: min ḥaraj — the min is redundant (added for emphasis).

I record this as a grammatical observation: in Arabic a min placed before an indefinite noun in a negative sentence makes the negation comprehensive. That is, not "He has not laid a narrowness" but "He has laid no narrowness at all".

And the sentence should be linked to the note on ease at al-Baqara 2/185. What was recorded there was this:

"God desires ease for you, He does not desire hardship for you." … The requirement itself is built upon ease. … One concerns the structure of life, the other the design of the ruling.

The two verses must be set side by side:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of scope in the two verses: the note in al-Baqara was set inside a particular ruling (the fast) and was read there as "the design of the ruling". The note in al-Ḥajj widens the scope by saying fi'd-dīn.

And the choice of the word ḥaraj makes the note concrete: al-Baqara said ʿusr (hardship) — a word of quantity. al-Ḥajj says ḥaraj (narrowness) — a word of space. As recorded in the al-Fatḥ section: there is an image of impassability in the root.

The two verses, then, say the same thing on two separate axes: one the weight of the load, the other the width of the space to move in.

And that this note comes immediately after the command ḥaqqa jihādih is worth recording as my own reading: the verse first commands that the striving be given its due, and then reports that no narrowness has been laid down. The two sentences bound one another: the utmost effort is asked, but there is no constriction in what is required.

The root م-ل-ل: one of the senses the lexicographers give is to have written down, to dictate (imlāʾ is reckoned to the same root). Milla means "the way followed, the religion held to".

The lexicographers record a difference of usage between milla and dīn: milla is generally used with reference to a prophet (millatu Ibrāhīm), while dīn is used with reference to the servant or to God. I transmit this distinction as it is transmitted.

أَبِيكُمْ — "your father". The use of the word here is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: the link is established through lineage, but it is not lineage that is meant. The verse passes immediately to a naming — and the name is not a name of descent but a name of attribute: al-muslimīn.

And this agrees with the line treated at al-Baqara 2/130-132: there aslim — aslamtu occurred as a verb, and it was recorded thus: "Islām occurs here not as the name of a religion but as a verb." I rely on that treatment.

There are two notes of time in the sentence: min qablu (before) and fī hādhā (in this).

The lexicographers differ over the referent of the second:

I do not impose a preference.

And what min qablu points to has been debated as well: to the earlier books, or to Abraham's prayer. Both explanations are transmitted in the sources. No preference is adopted in this commentary.

What is certain is whose act it is: huwa sammākum — the subject is God.

I record this as an observation about word order: the community does not give itself the name. And the name is not a name of lineage or of geography; it is a name of attribute derived from a verb.

ٱلْمُسْلِمِين — root س-ل-م: to be sound, to be without flaw, to be in well-being. The root was treated at al-Baqara 2/130-132. I do not repeat it here. The summary recorded there: Islām is submission, but the submission here is not a defeat — it is becoming whole and sound.

Two witnessings, two degrees:

I record this as an observation about word order: the sentence builds a chain. And the last link of the chain is al-nās — the word the sūra addressed four times.

The structure of the sūra closes here, and I give this as my own reading, its ground being the distribution of the addresses:

The sūra opened with yā ayyuha'n-nās — the addressee: all people. In the seventy-seventh verse the address narrowed — yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū. And the seventy-eighth verse binds the narrowed party back to the wide set: wa takūnū shuhadāʾa ʿala'n-nās.

The sūra, that is, separates a group out of the crowd it addresses and sets that group back before the same crowd — this time not as the addressee but as a witness.

The two commands are the same as the first two items of the list in the forty-first verse.

I record this as an observation about word order: in the forty-first verse these two verbs described what would be done if means were given. In the seventy-eighth they are commanded without the condition of means. The difference between the two is the removal of the condition.

The root ع-ص-م: to hold on, to cling fast; to protect. ʿIṣma — being kept safe; iʿtiṣām — to be kept safe by holding on to something.

The concrete picture the lexicographers record: a drowning man's clinging to something.

And the pattern of the verb must be recorded: Form VIII, that is ittikhādh — a work a man does for himself. The holding on is the act of the one who holds.

The sūra closes with the word used in the thirteenth verse.

This is a link that can be verified from the text, and it binds the two ends of the sūra. The same word (mawlā), with two opposite rulings: one for what is called upon besides God, the other for God.

And the second word too comes from within the sūra: naṣīr. The root ن-ص-ر occurred many times in the sūra: 15 (lan yanṣurahu'llāh), 39 (ʿalā naṣrihim la-qadīr), 40 (wa la-yanṣuranna'llāhu man yanṣuruh), 60 (la-yanṣurannahu'llāh), 71 (wa mā li'ẓ-ẓālimīna min naṣīr).

I record this as an observation about word order: the root is one of the densest in the sūra, and it opened in the fifteenth verse as a doubt — "one who supposes God will not help him". The seventy-eighth verse ends with the word that closes that doubt: niʿma'n-naṣīr.