Āl ʿImrān 3:159

Fa-bimā raḥmatin mina'llāhi linta lahum, wa law kunta faẓẓan ghalīẓa'l-qalbi la'nfaḍḍū min ḥawlik, fa'fu ʿanhum wa'staghfir lahum wa shāwirhum fi'l-amr, fa-idhā ʿazamta fa-tawakkal ʿala'llāh, inna'llāha yuḥibbu'l-mutawakkilīn

"By a mercy from God you were gentle with them. Had you been harsh and hard of heart, they would have scattered from around you. So pardon them, ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the affair. And when you have decided, rely on God; God loves those who rely on Him."

This verse will be treated in detail. The reason is this: immediately after an account of a defeat and a disobedience, it is a verse that tells the one it addresses to pardon, to ask forgiveness and to consult. And it is the only place where the command to consult occurs.

And the lexicographers differ over the mā in the opening, and the disagreement is not to be concealed:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

And a fact of word order must be recorded: the sentence ties the gentleness first to its cause. Fa-bimā raḥmatin mina'llāh — the cause stands at the head of the sentence; linta lahum comes after. That is, the source is stated before the quality itself is named.

The root ل-ي-ن: softness. Layyin — soft. And the lexicographers tie the concrete sense of the root to the sense of touch: not hard, soft to the hand.

And the two words must be taken separately, because they do not say the same thing.

فَظّ — root ف-ظ-ظ. The lexicographers explain the word as coarse, harsh, rebuffing, and for the concrete sense of the root they transmit a striking usage: faẓẓ — the water in a camel's rumen. The water a traveller left without water drinks after slaughtering the camel — foul to the mouth, repellent. From this an idea of repulsion has remained in the word.

I transmit this in the form the lexicographers give it; I make no firm claim about the derivation.

And the field of faẓẓ must be recorded: speech and conduct — that is, what shows outwardly.

غَلِيظ — root غ-ل-ظ: thick, coarse, heavy. Ghilẓa — thickness. The root was treated at 4/21 in al-Nisāʾ (mīthāqan ghalīẓā), at 48/29 in al-Fatḥ (fa'staghlaẓa), in Hūd and in al-Aḥzāb. I rely on those treatments.

And here the word comes in a construct: ghalīẓa'l-qalb — "thick of heart". That is, its field is within.

I put the two words in a table:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the fields of the two words: the sentence counts two separate failings — the visible side of one, the invisible side of the other. And it negates both at once. That is, gentleness is neither only in manner nor only within.

The root ف-ض-ض. The root was analysed in detail at 62/11 in al-Jumuʿa. I rely on that treatment and take the description given there:

Its concrete sense: to break a thing and scatter its pieces, to part what is joined, to open what is sealed. Faḍḍa'l-khātama — he broke the seal. In Form VII (infaḍḍa) it becomes reflexive: to scatter of oneself, to fall apart.

And what belongs here is this: the picture of the root is a breaking — the falling apart of what was joined.

And the form of the verb must be recorded: infaḍḍū — Form VII, reflexive. That is, no one scatters them; they scatter of themselves.

I record this as an observation about the word: the verse tells the consequence of harshness not as a driving off or a sending away but as a scattering of itself. And this lies along the same line as the command wa lā tafarraqū at verse 103 — there scattering was forbidden; here what leads to scattering is named.

And I record the link between 62/11 in al-Jumuʿa and this verse, and it is verifiable from the text:

The same root, two different causes: one pulls from outside, the other pushes from within.

And after the conditional sentence three commands come, and their order must be recorded:

And the order sets up a sequence of time: past, intercession, future.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the three commands: the third command is the heaviest. For the first two close what has happened; the third gives the same people a say once again.

And its context must not be forgotten: at verse 152 it was said tanāzaʿtum fi'l-amr — "you quarrelled over the affair". And now at verse 159 it says shāwirhum fi'l-amr — the same construction.

This is a fact verifiable within the sūra and worth recording: the affair that was quarrelled over and the affair about which consultation is commanded are named with the same word.

I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the consequence of a quarrel is given not as the removal of consultation on the matter quarrelled over but as the commanding of consultation. That is, the text does not draw from a consultation that turned out badly the conclusion that consultation should be abolished.

The root ش-و-ر was analysed in detail at 42/38 in al-Shūrā. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it; I summarise:

The concrete sense of the root: shāra'l-ʿasal — he took the honey out of the hive. The honey is inside the hive; it is unseen, closed in, and getting it out takes labour. And all the branches of the root carry the same core — ashāra (to point), shawār (goods put on display): to bring a thing out of where it is and set it in the open. And this was recorded there: "Within a community there is opinion, but until it is brought out it does not exist."

And now I compare the two verses. This is a datum verifiable within the series:

I draw three observations from the table, and all three can be verified from the two texts.

One. One is an attribute, the other a command — and this is said by two different forms of the word. In al-Shūrā a noun (shūrā), in Āl ʿImrān a verb (shāwir). That is, the same root conveys in one place the state of a community and in the other a duty given to one person.

Two. In al-Shūrā a nominal sentence is used, and it was recorded in al-Shūrā that this conveys continuance. Here, on the other hand, the imperative is used, and the command comes after an event. The two moods do two different pieces of work: one conveys a lasting quality, the other a thing to be done in a particular situation.

Three. And the two verses together give a whole. The verse in al-Shūrā says that consultation is the quality of a community; the verse in Āl ʿImrān shows that it is not abandoned even at the hardest moment.

I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: whether a quality is really a quality becomes clear at the moment when things go badly. And Āl ʿImrān chooses exactly that moment.

Per the method (Method) I record this: no form of government and no political model is drawn from this verse. The same note was entered at 42/38 in al-Shūrā and is kept here. The verse commands consultation; it says nothing about the institutional form of consultation.

The root ع-ز-م: to resolve firmly upon a matter, to be determined. And the subject of the verb is singular: ʿazamta — "when you have decided".

And this gives rise to a fact of word order that must be recorded:

I record this as an observation about the word order: the consultation is plural, the decision singular. And in binding the two together the verse uses the particle fa — that is, the decision comes after the consultation.

And the command to rely must be recorded: reliance is set not in place of consultation but after it. The two are in the same sentence and neither cancels the other.

And this finding was already recorded at 42/36 in al-Shūrā — there a conclusion was drawn from reliance and consultation standing in the same list. I rely on that treatment.

What the verse says to the present lies in two places, and both come out of the wording.

One. The verse sets manner down as a matter of consequence. La'nfaḍḍū min ḥawlik — the consequence of harshness is scattering. And this is not a moral counsel but a note about how things work: people leave the place from which they are pushed.

Two. The verse does not draw from a participation that turned out badly the conclusion that participation should be removed. A quarrel occurred (152), and afterwards consultation was commanded (159). This is a link set up in two verses with the same word (al-amr) and verifiable from the text.