al-Nisāʾ 4:10

Inna'lladhīna yaʾkulūna amwāla'l-yatāmā ẓulman innamā yaʾkulūna fī buṭūnihim nārā, wa sayaṣlawna saʿīrā

"Those who consume the property of orphans wrongfully consume nothing but fire into their bellies; and they will enter a blazing fire."

The orphan block (2-10) closes here, and the closing is the harshest sentence in the block.

The course of the block is worth recording:

The block, that is, begins with regulation, continues with reasoning and ends with sanction. This is a countable sequence.

The verse does not say "those who consume the orphan's property"; it says "those who consume it wrongfully".

This qualification is necessary, because the sixth verse permitted the poor guardian to consume bi'l-maʿrūf. The word ẓulman keeps the two verses apart.

The concrete sense of the root ظ-ل-م: to put a thing somewhere other than its place. The root was treated in al-Baqara and at Luqmān 31/13; I rely on those treatments.

And this sense of the root matches the subject of the verse exactly: the orphan's property is put somewhere other than where it belongs.

There are three elements in the sentence, and the three work together:

What the sentence does is to recount a future punishment in the present tense. The verb is imperfect (yaʾkulūn) — it is happening now. The punishment is stated separately and in the future: wa sayaṣlawna saʿīrā.

Two separate things, then, are being said: one that is happening now (what is eaten is fire), the other that will happen later (they will enter the fire).

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the moods of the two verbs.

The same picture was set up at al-Baqara 2/174: "Inna'lladhīna yaktumūna mā anzala'llāhu mina'l-kitābi… ulāʾika mā yaʾkulūna fī buṭūnihim illa'l-nār" — there the heading of the section was "Those who fill their bellies with fire". I rely on that treatment.

Comparing the two verses is worth recording:

In both, the same verb (yaʾkulūna fī buṭūnihim), the same object (nār). This is a shared expression between two sūras that can be verified.

And the point in common is this, which I record as my own reading: in both verses a benefit is obtained in exchange for something that ought to have been protected. The Qurʾān names these two acts with the same sentence.

Root س-ع-ر: the kindling and flaring up of a fire. Saʿara'l-nār — he kindled the fire; mustaʿir — set ablaze. The root was treated in al-Mulk and al-Qamar.

And the verb sayaṣlawna — root ص-ل-ي: to enter the fire, to burn in the fire. The word occurred in al-Ḥāqqa, al-Muddaththir and al-Inshiqāq.

The bearing of this block (2-10) on the present can be written without accusing anyone; what is treated is the structure the block establishes.

One. The most fragile form of a trust. From beginning to end the block regulates one situation: that property is in someone else's hands while its owner cannot defend it. This situation is not peculiar to the orphan's property — agency, guardianship, holding an office, using an institution's funds all have the same structure. The measures the block lays down (not mixing, testing, handing over, calling witnesses) fit that whole structure.

Two. The measure of changing places. The mirror set up by the ninth verse is still one of the most workable instruments of moral reasoning today: if your own child were in the same position. The verse puts this not as a feeling but as a method of reckoning.

Three. And a limit. It does not follow from this block that everyone who holds property in his hands is under suspicion. The sixth verse lays down two separate rulings according to the guardian's circumstances and opens a way for the one who is poor. The block does not do away with trust; it asks that trust be open to examination.