al-Nisāʾ 4:36

Wa'ʿbudu'llāha wa lā tushrikū bihī shayʾā, wa bi'l-wālidayni iḥsānan wa bi-dhi'l-qurbā wa'l-yatāmā wa'l-masākīni wa'l-jāri dhi'l-qurbā wa'l-jāri'l-junubi wa'l-ṣāḥibi bi'l-janbi wa'bni'l-sabīli wa mā malakat aymānukum, inna'llāha lā yuḥibbu man kāna mukhtālan fakhūrā

"Serve God and associate nothing with Him. And to parents show kindness, and to near kin, to orphans, to the poor, to the neighbour who is kin, to the neighbour who is a stranger, to the companion at your side, to the traveller, and to those your right hands possess. God does not love the one who is self-admiring and boastful."

The verse opens with a command and then counts nine addresses. With the command that makes ten items, and the table shows this.

And the direction of the ordering is a countable fact: the list moves from the nearest to the furthest. It begins with the parents, continues with the tie of blood, and then the kind of tie changes — place, then merely companionship on the road, then the traveller.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the list: the verse does not define the person who has a right by belonging. The two neighbours in the sixth and seventh places show this plainly: one is the neighbour who is a relative, the other the neighbour who is not — and both are in the same list, under the same command.

A single word in the accusative governs the whole list: iḥsānan.

The root ح-س-ن: to be beautiful, to be good. Iḥsān (Form IV) — to do well; and the second sense the lexicographers record: to do a thing completely, giving it its due.

And the word order here must be recorded: the verse does not say wa ātū (give) or anfiqū (spend). The command is not a command about property but a command about conduct. The nine addresses in the list are counted not as people to whom money is to be given but as people towards whom one is to behave well.

This distinction makes the following comparison necessary.

The Qurʾān sets out the same circle in two other places as well, and when the three lists are set side by side the differences become visible. The table compares the wording of the three verses.

Two things follow from the table, and both are data of the text:

One. The common core is five items: near kin, orphans, the poor, the traveller, and (in two places) parents. All three verses are built around the same core.

Two. The four items al-Nisāʾ adds are of a different kind from the common core: two neighbours, the companion on the road, and those under one's hand. None of these is defined by blood or by need; all of them are defined by nearness — a nearness of place, of a passing moment, or of structure.

And this coincides with the line recorded in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/177. What was written there was this:

"That is, the list widens from the near to the far and spills outside belonging… the measure does not change according to who the person before you is."

Al-Nisāʾ's list goes four steps further in the same direction. I record this as my own reading; its ground is the table above.

The root ج-و-ر: to be side by side, to be a neighbour; and from there jiwār — protection, taking under one's shelter. The second sense the word carries is worth recording: in Arabic to be someone's jār also means to give him security.

ٱلْجَنْب — root ج-ن-ب: the side, the flank. And this root occurred in the thirty-first verse as ijtanibū (avoid); here the same root returns in the direction of nearness.

The same root, five verses apart, in two opposite directions. This is a fact that can be verified within the sūra.

وَٱلصَّاحِبِ بِٱلْجَنۢبِ — there is disagreement over whom it means:

All three readings are transmitted; I impose no preference.

What can be said from the text is this: the word ties the bond neither to duration nor to descent but to being side by side. This is the weakest tie in the list, and it has been taken into the list.

The list ends with the section of society seen as lowest.

And this happens for the second time in the sūra. In the twenty-fifth verse, while a ruling was being given about the same group, baʿḍukum min baʿḍ ("you are, one of you, from another") was set into the middle of the sentence, and it was treated there. I rely on that treatment.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the shared subject of the two verses: the sūra names this group twice, and on both occasions names it by taking it into a list.

Having counted nine addresses, the verse closes with two attributes, and the choice of the verse-ending must be recorded.

Mukhtāl — root خ-ي-ل: to suppose a thing, to imagine it; and from there, to suppose oneself something. From the same root comes khayl (horse), and the lexicographers make the link through the swagger in a horse's gait.

Fakhūr — root ف-خ-ر: to boast. Fakhr — boasting.

And the distinction between the two attributes is worth recording:

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the place of the verse-ending: a list of nine items closes with the rejection of seeing oneself as above others. What is needed for the list to work is stated in the verse-ending.

One. The two items about the neighbour say that a right arises from unchosen ties as well. A neighbour is not chosen; and the verse nonetheless sets him immediately after near kin.

Two. That the command is iḥsān shows that the list is not a list for charity. What is to be given to most of the nine addresses counted is not money.