al-Ḥajj 22:8-10

Wa mina'n-nāsi man yujādilu fi'llāhi bi-ghayri ʿilmin wa lā hudan wa lā kitābin munīr · Thāniya ʿiṭfihi li-yuḍilla ʿan sabīli'llāh · Lahu fi'd-dunyā khizyun wa nudhīquhu yawma'l-qiyāmati ʿadhāba'l-ḥarīq · Dhālika bimā qaddamat yadāka wa anna'llāha laysa bi-ẓallāmin li'l-ʿabīd

"And among the people is one who disputes about God without any knowledge, without any guide, without any illuminating book; turning his side away, in order to lead men astray from the way of God. For him there is disgrace in this world; and on the Day of Resurrection We shall make him taste the punishment of burning. 'This is for what your hands sent ahead; and God is never one to wrong His servants.'"

In the third verse there was a single negation: bi-ghayri ʿilm. Here it becomes three.

The three close off every source of knowledge, and I record this as an observation about word order: a man takes a view either by his own investigation, or from a teacher, or from a text. The verse eliminates all three, one by one. One thing remains, and it comes in the very next word: a posture.

This is the most concrete description of the body in the sūra.

The root ث-ن-ي: to bend, to fold, to double over. Ithnayn (two), tathniya (the dual), istithnāʾ (to set a thing apart by bending it) are of the same root.

عِطْف — root ع-ط-ف: to lean, to bend, to incline to one side. ʿIṭf is a man's flank, his side, the line of shoulder and neck. ʿAṭfa — a bend in a road. From the same root comes ʿāṭifa (tenderness — a leaning towards someone).

The construct is, exactly: "one who bends his side". That is, to turn the body aside while speaking, to swing the shoulder round, to take up the posture of a man who will not listen.

Two explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries:

Both describe the same movement of the body; one looks to the cause, the other to the effect. I do not impose a preference.

And where the construct stands in the verse is worth recording: it comes immediately after the three sources of knowledge are refused. A posture is put in the place of a ground.

A description of the body of the same kind was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/51: naʾā bi-jānibih — "he removed his side". The same region (the side, the flank), the same movement. I rely on that treatment. The difference is this: in Fuṣṣilat the movement was made when a favour was given; here it is made during a dispute.

There is a movement of word order in the tenth verse, and it must be recorded: the ninth verse spoke in the third person (lahu, nudhīquhu). The tenth verse shifts abruptly to the second person: bimā qaddamat yadāka — "your hands".

This is the usage called iltifāt (a shift in the direction of address) in Arabic.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the change of pronoun: throughout the account the man was described from a distance; at the moment of the verdict, he is faced directly. A general portrait turns into a single addressee.

ظَلَّام is an intensive form: "one who wrongs greatly".

The lexicographers dwell on the pattern, and two explanations are transmitted:

I transmit both; I do not impose a preference. The same construct also occurred at Fuṣṣilat 41/46 (wa mā rabbuka bi-ẓallāmin li'l-ʿabīd).