Ṣād 38:21-22

Wa hal atāka nabaʾu'l-khaṣmi idh tasawwaru'l-miḥrāb · Idh dakhalū ʿalā Dāwūda fa-faziʿa minhum, qālū lā takhaf, khaṣmāni baghā baʿḍunā ʿalā baʿḍ, fa'ḥkum baynanā bi'l-ḥaqqi wa lā tushṭiṭ, wa'hdinā ilā sawāʾi'ṣ-ṣirāṭ

"Has the report of the litigants reached you? When they climbed the wall into the miḥrāb. When they came in upon David he started back from them. They said: 'Do not fear. We are two litigants; one of us has wronged the other. Judge between us with the truth, do not deal unjustly, and guide us to the middle of the way.'"

By the rule of Method, which is binding in this commentary, moral imputations drawn from reports of Israelite provenance are not entered into in the accounts of the prophets.

These verses are one of the places around which the largest body of reports has gathered in the classical literature of exegesis. Some of those reports ascribe to David acts unbefitting a prophet and read this account as the punishment for those acts.

My note is this, and it is plain:

1. The source of those reports is not the Qurʾān. There is not a single word in the wording of the verses that speaks of such an event. 2. A considerable body of the classical exegetes rejected these reports, giving as their ground the impeccability (ʿiṣma) of the prophets and the fact that the wording of the verse does not admit of that narrative. I record this in the language of "it is transmitted". 3. Those narratives will not be entered into in this commentary, and their details will not be given. To be silent where the text is silent is the attitude applied in al-Baqara at 2/35-36 to the species of the forbidden tree as well: "Where the text is silent, one must be silent."

What follows is limited to what the wording of the verses says, and no more.

It opens with the form of a question: hal atāka — "has it reached you?"

This pattern was treated in al-Ghāshiya, and Ṣād 38/21 was named there as one of its instances. I rely on that. The function of the pattern is not to ask for information; it is to gather attention and to announce in advance the weight of what is to be told.

And the object: nabaʾu'l-khaṣm — "the report of the litigants".

نَبَأ — root ن-ب-أ. It was treated in detail in al-Nabaʾ: not an ordinary piece of news but a great and weighty report that has consequences. The lexicographers define nabaʾ as "a report whose benefit is great and by which knowledge or a preponderant supposition is produced".

And this word will occur twice more in the sūra: 67 (huwa nabaʾun ʿaẓīm) and 88 (wa la-taʿlamunna nabaʾahū). All three occurrences turn on the hearing of something.

Root خ-ص-م: to contend, to go to law. The word is used for both singular and plural — which is why the verse's saying al-khaṣm (a singular form) and then tasawwarū (a plural verb) is not a mismatch. The lexicographers record this plainly: because khaṣm comes from the origin of a verbal noun, it does not change for number.

And in the twenty-second verse the dual comes: khaṣmāni — two litigants.

The root is among the sūra's weaving words; it was tabulated above (21, 22, 64, 69).

تَسَوَّرَ — root س-و-ر. And here the concrete sense of the word builds the whole scene.

سُور (sūr) — the wall that encircles a city or a building. The word was treated in al-Ḥadīd at 57/13 (fa-ḍuriba baynahum bi-sūrin lahū bāb — a wall with a gate in it is set between them).

تَسَوَّرَ — Form V: to get up onto the wall, to enter by going over the wall.

The verse, that is, describes a manner of entry, and the manner is out of the ordinary:

مِحْرَاب — root ح-ر-ب. And the root of the word is surprising: حَرْب — war. The lexicographers dwell on the link of miḥrāb with this root and several explanations are transmitted: the place where a person makes war on Satan or on his own soul; or the most protected, hardest-to-enter part of a building.

The word's use in the Qurʾān indicates a private chamber set apart for worship and retreat (Āl ʿImrān 3/37, 39; Maryam 19/11). The miḥrāb of the mosques of today is a later settled use of the word; it is not the sense in the verse.

What is to be recorded is this: the miḥrāb is the innermost, most protected place in a building. And the two litigants entered it not by the door but over the wall.

فَزِعَ — root ف-ز-ع. And the word differs from khawf (fear); the lexicographers record the difference:

Fazaʿ is not a stretch of time but an instant. It is the jolt a sound or a sight that comes without warning gives a person.

And the verse gives this with two words together: fa-faziʿa (he started back) and then the litigants' saying lā takhaf (do not fear). Two separate roots: the one tells what happened, the other the words that were spoken.

I record this as my own reading: the verse does not record David's reaction as a fault. That a man should start back when his miḥrāb is entered over the wall is the natural reaction being described. There is not one word in the verse that censures this reaction.

بَغَىٰ — root ب-غ-ي. The root was treated in al-Jāthiya and al-Ḥujurāt. Its concrete sense: to seek a thing, to want it; and from there: to want beyond one's bounds, to lay a hand on another's right.

The lexicographers record another branch of the root as well: baghā'l-jarḥ — the wound festered, it swelled. There is a picture of overflowing, of swelling in the root, that is: something that spills past its limit.

And the subject of the verb must be recorded: baghā baʿḍunā ʿalā baʿḍ — "one of us against the other".

Who it is, is not stated. In laying out the matter the litigants do not set themselves apart as parties: they say "one" and "the other". This is an impartial manner of presentation.

And the same verb will come back in the twenty-fourth verse — this time in David's mouth and as a general verdict: wa inna kathīran mina'l-khulaṭāʾi la-yabghī baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ. The same root, the same pattern (baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ), three verses later.

And now the litigants' request comes; it is made up of three parts, and all three must be recorded:

حَكَمَ — root ح-ك-م. Its concrete sense was treated in al-Baqara and Muḥammad: the root's original picture is the bit put into an animal's mouth (ḥakama) — the thing that keeps it from moving without order. A ruling, that is, is to hold a thing in its place, to draw its limit. Ḥikma is from the same root: to put a thing where it belongs.

And what was given to David in the twentieth verse was al-ḥikma. What is asked for in the twenty-second verse is fa'ḥkum — from the same root. This is a link between two verses that can be verified.

لَا تُشْطِطْ — root ش-ط-ط. It was treated in al-Jinn at 72/4, and this verse was explicitly named there. The note there: "Its concrete sense: to go far off, to go to excess, to spill past a limit. The most concrete residue of the root is geographical: شَطّ (shaṭṭ) — the bank of a river, its edge… The picture of the root, that is, is an edge: the place where a thing ends."

I rely on that.

What is to be added here is this: the two requests complete one another.

I record this as my own reading: the litigants ask two things of a judge — a centre (ḥaqq) and a limit (that he not commit shaṭaṭ). And these two will also be the two parts of the measure of judgment given to David in the twenty-sixth verse: bi'l-ḥaqq (the centre) and lā tattabiʿi'l-hawā (the direction not to be swerved into).

سَوَآءِ ٱلصِّرَٰطِ — root س-و-ي: to be even, to be level. Sawāʾ — the middle of a thing, the point where the two sides are equal.

And ṣirāṭ — root ص-ر-ط: a wide, open road. It was treated in al-Fātiḥa.

The construct: "the middle of the way". Not its edge, that is, but its middle. And this is the other face of the same picture as the request lā tushṭiṭ: the one says do not go to the edge, the other says bring us to the middle.