al-Nūr 24:22

Wa lā yaʾtali ulu'l-faḍli minkum wa'l-saʿati an yuʾtū uli'l-qurbā wa'l-masākīna wa'l-muhājirīna fī sabīli'llāh, wa'l-yaʿfū wa'l-yaṣfaḥū, a lā tuḥibbūna an yaghfira'llāhu lakum, wa'llāhu ghafūrun raḥīm

"And let not those of you who have bounty and means swear not to give to their kinsfolk, to the needy, and to those who emigrate in the way of God; let them pardon and let them overlook. Do you not wish that God should forgive you? God is forgiving, merciful."

The verse's place in the sūra is as important as the verse itself.

The verses from eleven to twenty-one took up a slander, described those who brought it in the heaviest terms, announced a penalty and built a procedure. And the twenty-second verse comes directly after that section and says go on giving.

The one addressed by the verse is the party harmed by the slander. This is understood from the subject of the sentence: ulu'l-faḍli minkum wa'l-saʿa — "those of you who have bounty and means". That is, the giving party, the one who has the means in hand.

And this arrangement is one of the most unlooked-for moves in the sūra:

The text, that is, sets two rulings one after the other: the act is grave, and let the one harmed by the act pardon.

The logic of this is given in the verse's last sentence: a lā tuḥibbūna an yaghfira'llāhu lakum — "do you not wish that God should forgive you?"

This is the most disputed word in the verse in point of language, and the root's two distinct senses lead to two distinct readings.

Root: أ-ل-و. And the two clusters of sense the lexicographers record are these:

And the verb yaʾtali in the verse (Form VIII) is understood in two ways, according to which of the two senses it carries:

This disagreement is recorded openly in the classical commentaries and both readings are transmitted. I impose no preference, and neither is binding.

Moreover it is transmitted in the sources that the word is read in a different form as well — in Form V (yataʾalla), again with the sense of swearing. Since I cannot state with certainty which reader read which, I write no names.

What the two readings have in common may be recorded: both forbid the cutting off of giving. Where they part is over whether the cutting off is done by an oath or in silence.

And an observation: the first reading gives the cutting off a form. An oath is an attempt to make a decision irreversible. The first reading, that is, describes the tendency of a grievance to make itself permanent.

I record this as my own reading.

A note on the root: the derivative آلَاء (ālāʾ — favours), formed of the same letters, was treated at al-Najm, 53/55, and in the al-Raḥmān section. The lexicographers are not agreed as to whether these derivatives come from a single root; I draw no connection from it here.

The verse names its addressee with two attributes, and both are worth noting:

فَضْل — root ف-ض-ل: to increase, to be over and above; and superiority. The concrete sense of the word is "the part left over"; English covers the two ends of this root with two unconnected words — surplus and excellence.

سَعَة — root و-س-ع: breadth. Wāsiʿ — wide; saʿa — breadth of means, material ease.

The two words return again a few verses later in the sūra:

And this distribution says something, which I record as my own reading: the same word is used in one verse of what God gives to His servant, and in the next of a servant's giving to a servant. The faḍlu'llāhi ʿalaykum of the twenty-first verse and the ulu'l-faḍli minkum of the twenty-second stand back to back.

This transition in the arrangement builds in advance the logic of the verse's last sentence: you resist over giving what you were given; and you go on expecting to receive.

The verse uses two distinct verbs of pardon, and the difference between them is recorded by the classical lexicographers.

عَفَا — root ع-ف-و. The root was analysed in al-Mujādala and at al-Shūrā, 42/40; I rely on those treatments. The note there: the concrete sense of the root is to wipe out, to erase the trace — as the wind erases footprints on sand. And its difference from ghufrān: what is covered is still there but not seen; what is erased is no longer there.

صَفَحَ — root ص-ف-ح. The root was analysed at al-Zukhruf, 43/5 and 43/89; I rely on those treatments. The note there: the concrete sense of the root is the name of a surface — ṣafḥa: the side of a thing, its flat face.

And the concrete senses of the two words describe two distinct acts:

The classical lexicographers count ṣafḥ as going further than ʿafw, and the ground stands in the picture of the root: to pardon is to drop a claim; ṣafḥ is, after that, not to turn one's face away, to bring the relation back to what it was.

I transmit this distinction as an explanation the lexicographers record; I do not claim that it is an absolute rule.

And that the verse asks for both verbs together is worth noting. A man may drop a claim of his and still turn his face from the person. The verse asks for both at once.

And one further detail in the arrangement: the command to pardon comes after the command to go on giving. The order, that is, is this:

What belongs to the deed first, what belongs to the heart after. The verse asks first that the hand should not stop.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the commands. And I add this: had the order been reversed — first pardon, then go on giving — pardon would have been the condition of the act of giving. In this order, giving is placed before pardon.

This is the strongest sentence in the verse, and it is framed as a question.

And the verb draws attention: tuḥibbūn — "do you not wish?". The same verb occurred three verses earlier (19) in a context of censure: yuḥibbūna an tashīʿa'l-fāḥisha — "they love that it spread".

The same verb, three verses apart, with two opposite objects. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text, and I record it as an observation about the word order.

And the logic the question builds rests not upon reciprocity but upon consistency.

The verse does not say "pardon so that you may be pardoned"; it sets up no exchange. It says: you wish to be forgiven. Then you know what forgiving is.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the mood of the sentence: not a conditional but a question.

One. A grievance making itself permanent.

The verb in the verse's first reading — to swear — describes a behaviour: the turning of a grievance into a decision.

And the logic of this can be understood. A grievance grows less of itself with time. A decision does not. An oath is a grievance's attempt to protect itself against time.

The verse stands against this, and it does something striking: it does not find the grievance unjust. The verses from eleven to twenty-one condemned in the heaviest terms the act that caused the grievance. The verse asks that a just grievance should not turn into a severance.

Two. On what plane the pardon is asked for.

The verse does not lift the penalty. The sanction of the fourth verse stands where it is; the ruling that will come in the twenty-third stands where it is. What is lifted is the requital that lies in a man's own hand.

This distinction matters: pardon does not take the place of justice. It stands beside justice, in a place of its own.

Three. And a note: this verse is not an instrument of pressure.

To use the verse in order to tell another man "you must pardon" is to change the verse's addressee. The verse's address is directed at the one who is to pardon — not at the one who expects something from him.

And this agrees with the sūra's general measure: as was recorded in al-Ḥujurāt, the text is an instrument of diagnosis, and the diagnosis is applied first to oneself.