قُلْ مَا سَأَلْتُكُم مِّنْ أَجْرٍ فَهُوَ لَكُمْ إِنْ أَجْرِىَ إِلَّا عَلَى ٱللَّهِ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ شَهِيدٌ
Qul mā saʾaltukum min ajrin fa-huwa lakum, in ajriya illā ʿala'llāh, wa huwa ʿalā kulli shayʾin shahīd
"Say: 'Whatever fee I have asked of you, let it be yours. My fee rests with God alone. He is witness over everything.'"
Sentences stating that the prophets ask no fee are common in the Qurʾān, and they are generally on this pattern: mā asʾalukum ʿalayhi min ajr — "I ask you no fee for this."
The sentence here is different, and the difference must be recorded: the verb is in the perfect (saʾaltukum — I asked) and a gift follows it: fa-huwa lakum — "let it be yours."
| Reading | Sense |
|---|---|
| 1 | A conditional sense: "if I have asked anything, let it be yours" — that is, I never asked |
| 2 | A hypothetical gift: "even if there is something I asked for, I have made it over to you" |
But something can be said about the form of the sentence, and I record this as my own reading; its support is that the verb is in the perfect: the sentence does not reject the charge — it removes the subject of the charge. To say "I did not ask" opens a dispute (you did / I did not). To say "if I asked, let it be yours" closes the dispute, because it leaves the other side nothing to defend.
And this continues the attitude of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses of the sūra: there too the verdict was suspended and the language of accusation abandoned. In the forty-seventh verse the same attitude takes a third form: giving up a claim.
إِنْ أَجْرِىَ إِلَّا عَلَى ٱللَّهِ — and the fee is not denied; its address is changed. The same pattern was treated at Fāṭir 35/10 (man kāna yurīdu'l-ʿizzata fa-lillāhi'l-ʿizzatu jamīʿā) and at al-Zumar 39/44 (lillāhi'sh-shafāʿatu jamīʿā): the desire is not rejected, its owner is named. I rely on those treatments.
شَهِيد — root ش-ه-د: to be present, to see, to bear witness. And that it is placed at the end of the sentence is worth recording: the question of a fee is a matter of account between two parties; the sentence closes by naming a third party — the one who sees.