وَلَا يَحْسَبَنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوٓا۟ أَنَّمَا نُمْلِى لَهُمْ خَيْرٌ لِّأَنفُسِهِمْ
Wa lā yaḥzunka'lladhīna yusāriʿūna fi'l-kufr, innahum lan yaḍurru'llāha shayʾā… · Inna'lladhīna'shtarawu'l-kufra bi'l-īmāni lan yaḍurru'llāha shayʾan wa lahum ʿadhābun alīm · Wa lā yaḥsabanna'lladhīna kafarū annamā numlī lahum khayrun li-anfusihim, innamā numlī lahum li-yazdādū ithmā, wa lahum ʿadhābun muhīn · Mā kāna'llāhu li-yadhara'l-muʾminīna ʿalā mā antum ʿalayhi ḥattā yamīza'l-khabītha mina'ṭ-ṭayyib…
"Let those who race into denial not grieve you; they do God no harm at all… · Those who have bought denial at the price of faith do God no harm at all… · Let those who deny not suppose that Our giving them time is good for them. We give them time only that they may increase in sin… · God will not leave the believers in the state you are in — until He separates the foul from the good."
The root م-ل-و: a long span of time; and to grant a respite. Malā — a long time. Imlāʾ — the giving of a term, the granting of respite.
And what belongs here is this, and it is an observation about the word order: the verse uses the same verb twice and puts an innamā between them.
| Sentence | Wording | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| What is supposed | Annamā numlī lahum khayrun li-anfusihim | The supposition that the respite is in their favour |
| What is so | Innamā numlī lahum li-yazdādū ithmā | The function of the respite |
The same verb, two different readings. And the difference is not in the verb but in the sense loaded onto it.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the verb the two sentences share: the verse does not dispute the fact itself — the respite has really been given. What it disputes is how that fact is to be read. And this is the reason the sūra uses the root ح-س-ب six times: what is corrected throughout the sūra is not facts but the conclusions drawn from facts.
And this verb is the answer to the difficulty at verse 142. There it said wa lammā yaʿlami'llāhu and the disagreement over the sense of the verb "to know" was recorded. Here the sūra supplies its own word: yamīza — to separate.
I record this as a datum of the text: two verses tell the same matter with two different verbs, and the second explains the first. This is a link verifiable within the sūra.
خَبِيث / طَيِّب — خ-ب-ث: bad, foul, useless. ط-ي-ب: pleasant, clean, good. And the same pair had occurred at 2/267 in al-Baqara on the subject of spending. Two occurrences, in two different fields.