al-Aḥzāb 33:21

Laqad kāna lakum fī rasūli'llāhi uswatun ḥasanatun li-man kāna yarju'llāha wa'l-yawma'l-ākhira wa dhakara'llāha kathīrā

"There is indeed for you in the Messenger of God a good example — for whoever hopes for God and the Last Day and remembers God much."

This verse stands in the middle of the siege section, and its place is no accident.

The twentieth verse had drawn a picture of insufficiency: coming little, fighting little, asking for news from afar. The twenty-first verse sets a measure in the very middle of that picture.

And the verse is not a command but a statement. It does not say "take him as an example"; it says "there is an example". The verb is kāna — the perfect, stating a settled condition.

This difference of word order must be recorded: an imperative sets up a demand, a declarative states a fact. The verse sets the exemplarity down not as a demand but as something that stands there. Whether it is used or not is left to the second half of the sentence.

This root was treated in detail at al-Mumtaḥana (60/4 and 60/6). I rely on that treatment and bring what was recorded there over to here, because it is needed for the understanding of this verse.

What was recorded there:

• The concrete sense of the root is unexpected: to heal a wound, to treat it.
• أَسَا الجُرْحَ — he treated the wound, he bound it up.
• الآسِي — a physician, one who binds wounds.
• الأُسْوَة / الإِسْوَة — that by looking at which consolation is found, whose state one aspires to.
• المُوَاسَاة (muwāsāt) — to share someone's trouble, to give him a portion of what one has. From the same root.
• The bond between the two branches of the root: in Arabic, the way to console someone is to show him another like himself. To say "you are not alone" is what binds the wound.

And now let us look at this root in the context of this verse.

The verse comes in the middle of a siege. Those addressed have been afraid, have been shaken, and some of them have wanted to flee. And precisely at that point a word whose root is "to bind a wound" is used.

This changes the emotional weight of the verse, and it is worth recording: the verse is not merely offering a model of behaviour. It is showing someone standing in the same place. The person inside the siege is looking at someone who stands inside the siege.

And the finding recorded at al-Mumtaḥana is completed here: there Abraham and those with him were set forth as an example, and there too something hard was being asked of those addressed (to put a distance between themselves and their own kin). In both places the word stands beside something hard.

The construct uswa ḥasana occurs in three places in the Qurʾān: this verse, and al-Mumtaḥina 60/4 and 60/6. All three are in a context of hardship.

حَسَنَة — root ح-س-ن. As was recorded at al-Mumtaḥana: the adjective is added because uswa is in itself neutral; the Qurʾān could have used the word uswa for a bad example too.

The preposition fī — "in". The verse does not say "the Messenger of God is an example to you"; it says "in the Messenger of God there is an example".

This is a distinction at the level of word order and it carries meaning: the example is not identical with the person; it is something found in the person. That is, what is to be looked at is not the whole of the person but that thing in him.

I give this note with caution: the particle fī is used in Arabic in functions other than the adverbial, and I draw no forced conclusion from this. What I record is the picture the wording gives.

This is the most often skipped and the most important place in the verse.

The first half of the sentence made a statement: there is an example. The second half makes the working of that exemplarity conditional.

The particle لِ here conveys restriction: "for…". The example stands there for everyone, but its working depends on a condition.

And the condition consists of three elements:

رَجَا — root ر-ج-و. To hope, to expect. And the root has an interesting side: arjā from the same root means "to postpone"; rajā also means "the edge, the brink of a thing" (arjāʾihā — the edges of the sky, at al-Ḥāqqa 69/17). In the root of the word, hope is to stand at an edge — on the border of a place not yet reached.

It is worth pausing on why this condition is set.

An example is an example only for someone who looks in the same direction as it. To look at a person's conduct and draw a measure from it requires sharing why that conduct was performed. If it is not shared, the conduct is unintelligible and cannot be repeated.

In the siege context of the verse this condition is particularly meaningful: the people in the thirteenth and nineteenth verses were in the same scene. They too saw the same example. But it did not work — because the condition was absent.

That is, the verse explains why an exemplarity works in some and not in others. The example is not deficient; a condition is deficient in the eye that looks.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the conditional structure of the verse and the fact that this verse comes immediately after the verses describing those who saw the example and did not do the same.

And the third condition is on a different level from the first two. The first two are an orientation (hoping), the third a practice (remembering).

The tense of the verb changes too: yarjū (imperfect, continuity) → dhakara (perfect). The lexicographers record this shift; the perfect here conveys a state that has come about and settled.

كَثِيرًا — "much". The measure is quantitative. And this will link directly with the forty-first verse of the sūra: "O you who believe! Remember God much" — ٱذْكُرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ ذِكْرًا كَثِيرًا (33/41).

That is, what the sūra sets down as a condition in the twenty-first verse it repeats as a command in the forty-first. There are twenty verses between the two, and the sūra's heaviest regulations lie in between.

I record this link as my own reading; its ground is the pairing of dhikr + kathīr in the two verses.

A note is needed, because this verse has been much debated.

The verse does not state the extent of the exemplarity. Which behaviours are exemplary and which are particular to a situation is not in the wording of this verse.

This question has been debated at length in the history of Islamic thought — the bindingness of the Sunna, its extent, its kinds, the distinction between what is religious and what is human. This commentary does not enter that debate and issues no ruling.

What emerges from the wording of the verse is this: there is an example, it is good, and its working depends on a condition of orientation. Its detail is not here.

One. Being an example is different from giving a rule.

A rule says what is to be done. An example shows how someone did it. And the difference between the two is this: a rule must foresee situations; an example gives a direction even in situations that were not foreseen.

That the verse comes in the middle of a siege supports this: a siege is a situation that was not foreseen, and a list of rules does not suffice there.

Two. The measure of the root: being an example is a form of consolation.

In the root of the word uswa there is the binding of a wound. This is an unexpected answer to the question of what exemplarity is for: an example says, besides "do it this way", also "this is a thing that can be done".

If something hard is being asked, the greatest obstacle is most often that the thing looks impossible. An example removes the claim of impossibility.

Three. The present-day face of the condition.

The verse says that the example will not work in everyone. And this shows the limit of exemplarity: showing a person's conduct produces no change if there is no orientation in the person opposite.

Its practical counterpart is plain: you cannot change anyone merely by showing an example. An example guides the person who is already looking in a direction; in the person who is not looking it produces no effect. The verse records this not as a fault but as a way things work.