وَلَوْ دُخِلَتْ عَلَيْهِم مِّنْ أَقْطَارِهَا ثُمَّ سُئِلُوا۟ ٱلْفِتْنَةَ لَءَاتَوْهَا وَمَا تَلَبَّثُوا۟ بِهَآ إِلَّا يَسِيرًا · وَلَقَدْ كَانُوا۟ عَٰهَدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ مِن قَبْلُ لَا يُوَلُّونَ ٱلْأَدْبَٰرَ وَكَانَ عَهْدُ ٱللَّهِ مَسْـُٔولًا
Wa law dukhilat ʿalayhim min aqṭārihā thumma suʾilu'l-fitnata la-ātawhā wa mā talabbathū bihā illā yasīrā · Wa laqad kānū ʿāhadu'llāha min qablu lā yuwallūna'l-adbār, wa kāna ʿahdu'llāhi masʾūlā
"If the city had been entered upon them from all its sides and they had then been asked for fitna, they would surely have done it, and would have delayed over it but little. · Yet they had earlier given God their pledge: that they would not turn their backs. And the pledge given to God is asked about."
The verse sets up a hypothetical condition: law — the particle of a condition that did not come about. This particle was treated at al-Ḥujurāt 49/5: law generally conveys a condition that has not come about.
And the function of the condition is worth recording: by supposing something that did not happen, the verse measures what a group was ready for. This is not an accusation; it is a test of durability.
أَقْطَار — singular قُطْر. Root: ق-ط-ر. The edge, the side, the region of a thing. Quṭr — a diameter, the line between two opposite points of a circle; and one side of a place. "If you can pass beyond the aqṭār of the heavens and the earth, then pass" (al-Raḥmān 55/33) — there too the same word means "the sides, the limits", and it was treated at al-Raḥmān.
دُخِلَتْ — passive. "Had been entered". The agent is not named; the verse does not make it its subject who would enter.
ٱلْفِتْنَة — root ف-ت-ن. The concrete sense of the root is to melt metal in fire and separate out what is pure: fatana'l-dhahab — he put the gold into the fire. From this come both the sense "a trial" and the sense "turmoil, sedition".
| Explanation | What is meant |
|---|---|
| Turning back from religion | If they had been asked to give up faith |
| Civil war / fighting against the community | If they had been asked to change sides against their own community |
| General sedition | If they had been asked to take part in any work of disorder |
I do not impose a preference. The wording of the verse gives the word with the definite article (al-fitna), that is, it points to something the addressee knows; but it does not open up its content.
وَمَا تَلَبَّثُوا۟ بِهَآ إِلَّا يَسِيرًا — تَلَبَّثَ, root ل-ب-ث: to stay in a place, to linger, to wait. Yasīr — little, easy.
The sentence says: they would not have delayed. That is, the matter is not one of putting up a resistance and giving way in the end; it is the absence of any resistance at all.
And this completes the diagnosis of the thirteenth verse: there the intention behind the excuse was determined (to flee); here the depth of that intention is measured.
عَهْد — root ع-ه-د. To turn back to a thing again and again, to watch over it, not to neglect it. Taʿāhada — he inspected a thing regularly. The concrete sense of the root is a continuity, and from this comes the sense "covenant, agreement": a pledge is not something said once and left, but something continually watched over.
And this joins with the note at the end of the verse: wa kāna ʿahdu'llāhi masʾūlā — "the pledge given to God is asked about." The root itself was already saying that it would be asked about: an ʿahd is a thing watched over.
The link with the seventh verse: at the head of the sūra a mīthāqan ghalīẓā had been taken from the prophets, and its ground was "so that the truthful may be asked about their truthfulness". In the fifteenth verse the same structure is repeated for ordinary people: a pledge has been given and will be asked about.
That is, the sūra begins the idea of a covenant with the prophets and brings it down to the community. I record this as my own reading; its ground is that the two verses set up the same frame (pledge + being asked).
يُوَلُّونَ — root و-ل-ي. It meets us for the third time in this sūra (mawālī in verse 5, awlā in verse 6, yuwallūn here).
And the "turning towards" sense of the root works here in reverse: wallā, in Form II, means to turn one's back, to turn away. That the root goes in two directions — both approaching and departing — is seen in three separate words in this sūra.
| Verse | Word | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | mawālīkum | Nearness — a bond |
| 6 | awlā | Nearness — precedence |
| 15 | yuwallūna'l-adbār | Departure — turning the back |
ٱلْأَدْبَٰر — singular دُبُر. Root: د-ب-ر. The back, the end of a thing. Tadbīr is from the same root: to think of the back (the outcome) of a matter. This root was treated at Muḥammad.
The construction is a recurring pattern in the Qurʾān in the context of war: "Whoever turns his back that day…" (al-Anfāl 8/16).
مَسْـُٔول — root س-أ-ل. That which is asked about. And that the word comes in the passive participle is worth noting: what will be asked about is the pledge. Not the person.
This is a point of word order and it carries meaning: in Arabic it could equally have been said "they will be asked about it". Instead the verse makes the pledge the subject. The pledge becomes an object called to account.
This pattern is used elsewhere in the Qurʾān too: "And fulfil the covenant; the covenant will be asked about" (al-Isrāʾ 17/34 — inna'l-ʿahda kāna masʾūlā). The same structure, the same word.
The measure of the fourteenth verse is uncomfortable and true: a person's durability is measured not by the size of the pressure he has met, but by looking one step beyond it.
The verse supposes a situation that did not come about and says what would have happened under that supposition. That is, the measure lies not in what was lived through but in what could be lived through.
This is something a person cannot know about himself, and the verse gives it not as a warning but as a record. No one knows what he will do under the next pressure; the only thing known is what pledge was given.
And the measure of the fifteenth verse comes out of this: durability cannot be measured, but the pledge is on record. And that is what will be asked about.