Āl ʿImrān 3:7

Huwa'lladhī anzala ʿalayka'l-kitāba minhu āyātun muḥkamātun hunna ummu'l-kitābi wa ukharu mutashābihāt; fa-ammā'lladhīna fī qulūbihim zayghun fa-yattabiʿūna mā tashābaha minhu'btighāʾa'l-fitnati wa'btighāʾa taʾwīlih; wa mā yaʿlamu taʾwīlahu illa'llāh; wa'r-rāsikhūna fi'l-ʿilmi yaqūlūna āmannā bihī kullun min ʿindi rabbinā; wa mā yadhdhakkaru illā ūlu'l-albāb

"He it is who sent down the Book to you. Part of it is muḥkam verses — they are the mother of the Book; the others are mutashābih. Those in whose hearts is a crookedness pursue what is mutashābih in it, seeking discord and seeking its interpretation. No one but God knows its interpretation. Those firmly rooted in knowledge say: 'We believe in it; all of it is from our Lord.' And none but those who possess the kernel takes heed."

This verse is one of the most important verses of this commentary in point of method. For here the text speaks about how it is itself to be read. And what it says is not a method but a diagnosis: the same text does two different pieces of work in two different hearts.

I shall analyse the verse under six headings: muḥkam, mutashābih, ummu'l-kitāb, zaygh, taʾwīl, and last the question of the pause — that is, where the sentence stops.

The concrete sense of the root has been recorded many times in the series (al-Dukhān, al-Dhāriyāt, al-Ḥajj, al-Baqara 2/269): ح-ك-م — to prevent, to rein in, to hold in place. And the picture of the root is a tool: حَكَمَة (ḥakama) — the bit put in a horse's mouth. What keeps the animal from swerving.

Hence muḥkam: what has no slack, what cannot be moved, what cannot be slid about.

At 47/20 in Muḥammad the same word was treated as the attribute of a sūra (sūratun muḥkamatun), and this was recorded there:

"An ambiguous word allows everyone to interpret it as he pleases; a muḥkam word does not."

I rely on that treatment.

And at 11/1 in Hūd the same root occurred as a verb: kitābun uḥkimat āyātuhū thumma fuṣṣilat — "a Book whose verses have been made firm, then set out in detail." What was recorded there can be carried over here: iḥkām is the attribute of the Book as a whole; tafṣīl is its being reachable.

And this at once raises a question: if Hūd 11/1 says uḥkimat of the whole Book, why does Āl ʿImrān 3/7 divide the Book in two? I shall take this question up shortly in a table — because the same question arises for mutashābih as well, and there it is sharper.

The root ش-ب-ه: to resemble. Shibh — a likeness. Form VI (tafāʿul): tashābaha — to resemble one another, to resemble so closely as to be confused.

The idea at the centre of the root is not "obscurity" but indistinguishability. Two things resemble each other so closely that which is which cannot be picked out.

And this can be verified from another use of the word in the Qurʾān: at al-Baqara 2/70, in the account of the cow, inna'l-baqara tashābaha ʿalaynā — "the cattle seem alike to us", that is, we cannot tell them apart.

Now the real matter. Mutashābih is used in the Qurʾān of the whole of the Book as well, and this was treated in this commentary.

At 39/23 in al-Zumar this was recorded:

"مُتَشَابِه — root ش-ب-ه: to resemble. Its use here differs from the distinction muḥkam / mutashābih: there the verses whose meaning is closed were meant; here the whole of the Book is named with this adjective. The lexicographers give the sense here as 'its parts holding together, consistent in style and in content'."

I rely on that treatment and separate the two uses in a table. This table is the most important table of this section:

And the conclusion that follows from the table must be recorded, because it heads off a frequent error: it cannot be said that "the Qurʾān speaks inconsistently about itself" merely because the same word occurs in two places. The sense of the root is the same in both — resemblance. What changes is what resembles what: in al-Zumar the parts resemble one another (harmony); in Āl ʿImrān the senses resemble one another (indistinguishability).

I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the same root describes in one place the inner consistency of the text and in the other the reader's inability to decide. And the two do not conflict, because the two look at two different faces of the text — one at the text itself, the other at the distance between the text and the reader.

In the classical commentaries the criterion of this distinction is disputed. I tabulate the principal explanations and impose no preference.

All these explanations are transmitted in the classical sources. Some of them do not exclude one another; there are also those who say that more than one criterion operates at once.

And it must be recorded with which criterion this distinction has been worked in the series — this is a statement of method: in this commentary the term mutashābih has been used consistently in the fourth sense (statements ascribing human acts to God) and in the fifth sense (the disconnected letters). Examples: al-Fajr 89/22 (wa jāʾa rabbuka), al-Ḥadīd 57/29 (bi-yadi'llāh), al-Ḥāqqa 69/17 (the bearing of the throne), Yāsīn (aydīnā), Qāf and al-Baqara (the disconnected letters). And in all those places the same stance was kept: the two attitudes (tafwīḍ and taʾwīl) were tabulated and no preference was imposed.

That is, this verse names a piece of work the series has already been doing.

The root أ-م-م: origin, source, that to which one returns. Umm — mother; imām — the one in front; umma — those gathered around one origin.

The root was treated at 2/78 in al-Baqara and at 42/7 in al-Shūrā (umm al-qurā). I do not repeat it here.

And a point of word order must be recorded, and the classical commentaries have dwelt on it: the subject is plural (hunna — "they"), the predicate is singular (umm — "mother"). It does not say "they are the mothers" (ummahātu'l-kitāb).

The classical explanation is this, and I transmit it: umm is used here as a generic term — the plurality goes back to a single origin. That is, the muḥkam verses do not form separate origins but a single origin.

I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the singular predicate implies that the muḥkam verses are a single body that does not contradict itself. And the root sense of the word umm completes this: the place to which one returns. That is, what is mutashābih is read by being returned to what is muḥkam — not the reverse.

This is the only note of method the verse gives, and it comes out of the verse's own wording.

And now the diagnostic part of the verse.

The root was analysed in detail at 53/17 in al-Najm (mā zāgha'l-baṣar) and at 61/5 in al-Ṣaff. I take the description given there:

"Its sense: to deviate from a straight line, to incline, to bend. Zāghati'l-shams — the sun declined from its zenith. At the centre of the root stands this: a departure from a line, a difference of angle. And this is the most important feature of the word: zaygh is not a sudden break but an inclination. The sun does not drop from its zenith all at once; it parts from it by a small angle, and that angle grows with time."

I rely on that treatment and add here what belongs to Āl ʿImrān alone.

At al-Najm 53/17 the zaygh is in the eye; here it is in the heart.

Three occurrences, one root, three separate positions. This is a fact verifiable from the text.

And the word order must be recorded: fī qulūbihim zayghun — "in their hearts is a crookedness". The sentence is a nominal sentence, and zaygh comes indefinite. That is, the verse does not say "their hearts are crooked"; it says "in their hearts is a crookedness". The difference is not small: the first defines the person, the second records a condition.

I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the indefinite form: the verse is not describing a group, it is describing a state. And that state will be the subject of the believers' prayer in the eighth verse — that is, the verse says indirectly that the state is closed to no one.

The root ب-غ-ي: to want, to seek; and to exceed the limit. The verbal noun of Form VIII, ibtighāʾ — to seek out, to go after. The root was treated at 2/213 in al-Baqara, at 42/14 in al-Shūrā and at 45/17 in al-Jāthiya (baghyan baynahum).

The root ف-ت-ن: to put gold into the fire and refine it. The root was treated at 29/2-3 in al-ʿAnkabūt and at 8/25 in al-Anfāl. Its sense here is given in two ways in the classical commentaries:

Both are transmitted; they do not exclude one another.

And what must be recorded is the verbal noun itself: ibtighāʾ — seeking. The verse is not describing a coming upon the mutashābih but a going after it. The verb is yattabiʿūna — "they follow, they go after."

I record this as my own reading: what the verse condemns is not the reading of what is mutashābih; it is leaving the muḥkam aside and choosing the mutashābih alone. For ittibāʿ is a verb of turning towards — a person chooses what he will turn to. And the reason for the choice is written plainly in the verse: the crookedness in the heart. The order is therefore this: first the inclination, then the choice, then the text.

This coincides with a measure this commentary has recorded again and again: at 2/213 in al-Baqara, at 42/14 in al-Shūrā and at 45/17 in al-Jāthiya it was recorded that division arises not out of ignorance but after knowledge. Here the same thing is said at the level of reading a text: the problem is not the closedness of the text but the inclination that turns to what is closed.

The root was analysed in Yūsuf as the key construct of that sūra (taʾwīlu'l-aḥādīth) and at 18/78-82 in al-Kahf (dhālika taʾwīlu mā lam tasṭiʿ ʿalayhi ṣabrā). I take the description given there:

"The root أ-و-ل: to arrive at the origin of a thing, at the place it returns to. Āla ilayhi — it returned to it, it arrived at it. Awwal — the first point, the one returned to. From this comes taʾwīl: to carry a thing to where it arrives, to show its end."

And the use in al-Kahf gives the full picture of the word: three events had occurred there — the holing of the boat, the killing of the boy, the setting straight of the wall — and Moses (Mūsā) had objected to all three. The taʾwīl spoken of in the eighty-second verse was not the meaning of the events but where they arrived. That is, taʾwīl is the outcome of what is seen; not an interpretation drawn from it.

This is decisive for the verse before us, and it can be given in a table:

And from here we come to the most disputed place in the verse. For if taʾwīl is understood as "interpretation" the sentence says one thing, and if it is understood as "the state arrived at" it says another.

This is one of the oldest and best-known questions of the pause (waqf) in Qurʾānic exegesis. Where the sentence stops changes directly what the verse says.

There are two readings, and both are transmitted in the classical sources with strong defenders. I give them in a table and I IMPOSE NO PREFERENCE.

And the last two rows of the table explain why the disagreement has lasted so long — I record this as my own reading: the two readings in fact give the word taʾwīl two different senses. On reading A taʾwīl is "the state to be arrived at", and knowing that really is not in human hands. On reading B taʾwīl is "the resolution of the meaning", and that is something reachable by work. That is, before the disagreement is about where the sentence stops, it is about which sense the word is taken in.

I give this as an observation; I prefer neither of the two readings and impose neither on the reader.

And one further caveat must be entered, because the disagreement is often pulled to one side:

Both readings can be drawn from the text, and both have been defended in the classical tradition. To make weapons of them against each other comes close to the very thing the verse condemns — ibtighāʾa'l-fitna. I write this as a note of method.

And this too is a verifiable fact: neither of the two readings forbids the reading of the mutashābih verses. The verse lays down no ban on reading; it makes a distinction of intention: between the one who approaches with ibtighāʾa'l-fitna and the one who says āmannā bih.

The root ر-س-خ: to strike root deep, to be fixed fast. The lexicographers record that the word is used of a mountain settling on the ground and of a tree striking root.

The picture of the root is worth recording: rusūkh conveys not height but depth. That is, the verse speaks not of those who have risen in knowledge but of those who have struck root in it.

And the preposition must be recorded: rāsikhūna fi'l-ʿilm — "inside knowledge". Not ʿalā (on top of it) but fī (inside it).

I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the word pictures knowledge not as a height but as a ground. And the function of a ground is not to topple when it is shaken. The verse shows this at once: the one with a crookedness in his heart, meeting a closed verse, is thrown; the one who has struck root, meeting the same verse, stands and says "all of it is from our Lord".

The sentence spoken is worth recording, because it does not resolve the mutashābih.

Kullun min ʿindi rabbinā — "all of it is from our Lord." That is, the sentence does not pass off what it has not understood as understood; it records that what it has not understood comes from the same source.

I record this as an observation: the verse puts into the mouth of the one firmly rooted in knowledge not an explanation but a placing. And the word kull covers the muḥkam as well as the mutashābih — that is, the verse that divides the Book in two does not divide acceptance in two.

The root ل-ب-ب. It was treated at 39/18 in al-Zumar, and I take the description given there:

"albāb is the plural of lubb: the kernel of a thing, its inside; the edible part of a fruit, the part separated from its husk. That is, the intellect is named as the capacity to throw away the husk and take the kernel."

And at 13/19-24 in al-Raʿd the bearers of this attribute were tabulated in a list (keeping the covenant, joining what should be joined, patience, spending in secret and in the open, repelling evil with good). I rely on that treatment.

Here I add what belongs to Āl ʿImrān alone, and it is a fact verifiable within the sūra: the construct ūlu'l-albāb occurs twice in the sūra — at 7 and at 190. And the two occurrences stand at the two ends of the sūra.

Two fields: the written text and the visible order. The same attribute. I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the sūra works the same capacity on two different objects of reading and names both of them "throwing away the husk and taking the kernel".

What this verse says to the present goes beyond the bounds of a religious text, and I give this as an observation:

When any text is read — a law, a contract, a scientific paper, a news report — there always stand before the reader two kinds of statement: those that bear one sense and those open to more than one. And the easiest way to misuse a text is always the same: to leave aside what is plain and to push forward what is not.

The verse describes this operation and catches it at two separate points:

And the fourth row is a discipline of reading all by itself. The most closed sentence of a text is read in the light of that text's most open sentences. If the reverse is done — if what is open is bent to fit what is closed — the text is no longer speaking; the reader is.

The verse's choosing the word zaygh is exactly right for this reason: an inclination is not a break. No one turns a text upside down all at once. It begins with a small angle.