ولا تؤتوا السفهاء أموالكم التي جعل الله لكم قياما وارزقوهم فيها واكسوهم وقولوا لهم قولا معروفا
Wa lā tuʾtu'l-sufahāʾa amwālakumu'llatī jaʿala'llāhu lakum qiyāman wa'rzuqūhum fīhā wa'ksūhum wa qūlū lahum qawlan maʿrūfā
"Do not give over to those who lack judgement the property that God has made a means of standing upright for you. Feed them from it, clothe them, and speak to them a kindly word."
The second verse: wa ātu'l-yatāmā. The fourth verse: wa ātu'l-nisāʾa. The fifth verse: wa lā tuʾtu'l-sufahāʾa.
The same verb a third time; but this time in the negative. This is a weave of word order that can be verified, and it shows this: the sūra uses the same verb when it says "give" and when it says "do not give". The measure is not whose the property is; it is who is able to hold it.
The concrete sense of the root: lightness, having no weight. Safihati'l-rīḥ — the wind tossed the air about; thawbun safīh — cloth of loose, light weave.
So safah is not the absence of intellect but the lightness of its weight. The opposite of the word is ḥilm — gravity, being weighty.
The root was treated at al-Jinn 72/4 (wa annahū kāna yaqūlu safīhunā ʿala'llāhi shaṭaṭā); I rely on that treatment.
| View | Who they are |
|---|---|
| 1 | Orphans not in a position to protect their property — the context supports this |
| 2 | Anyone who squanders property — no condition of age |
| 3 | Not a definite group; an attribute is being described: whoever cannot hold property in his hands |
I do not impose a preference. The third reading is in keeping with the method's measure that "what the verse describes is an attribute"; but I give this as a record, not as a preference.
This is a point that has been dwelt upon, and several explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries:
| Explanation | Its ground |
|---|---|
| A. Having it in hand | The property is in fact in your hands; the address is made to the one who holds the disposal of it |
| B. The common wealth of the society | Property is the means by which the community, not single individuals, stands upright; hence it is named with a plural pronoun of ownership |
| C. A generic pronoun | The genus "property" is meant; it states no particular ownership |
But the connection of reading B with the continuation of the verse must be recorded: the sentence goes on allatī jaʿala'llāhu lakum qiyāman — "which God has made a means of standing upright for you". The property, that is, is named by its function and not by its owner.
قِيَٰم — root ق-و-م: to stand upright, to be set up. Qiyām — the post on which a thing stands, a support. The root was treated in many places in this commentary (al-Baqara, al-Aḥzāb, al-Ḥujurāt).
And this root occurs in three critical places in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. This is a countable datum of the text:
| Verse | Word | What is held upright |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | qiyāmā | Property — the means by which the community stands |
| 34 | qawwāmūn | Responsibility within the family — together with the verse's own stated ground |
| 135 | qawwāmīna bi'l-qisṭ | Justice — even against oneself |
Read together, the three verses show the function of the root in the sūra: "to hold upright". This table will be returned to in the treatment of the thirty-fourth verse.
In the classical commentaries the following sense is drawn from this preposition, and I relate it as it is transmitted: provide for them not by diminishing the property but by working it — that is, not from the capital but from the income that arises within it. The property itself stays; the maintenance comes out of what it yields.
This explanation is not a strict grammatical necessity; it has also been said that the preposition fī stands here for min. I do not impose a preference. But it can be recorded that the explanation is in keeping with the whole of the verse: the sixth verse will command that the property be preserved and handed over.
The verse commands three things, and the third is worth recording: feed them, clothe them, and speak a kindly word.
Beside the decision not to hand over property, that is, is set how the tongue is to be used. A qualification is entered upon the party that holds the authority, concerning the sentence he frames while exercising it.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the commands: immediately after commanding the restriction, the verse commands how one is to speak with the person restricted.
And the same expression will come once more in the eighth verse: wa qūlū lahum qawlan maʿrūfā. Two verses apart, the same sentence for two different groups. In both, the party addressed is the one left empty-handed.
The same field was treated at al-Baqara 2/83 (wa qūlū li'l-nāsi ḥusnā) and at 2/263 (qawlun maʿrūfun wa maghfiratun khayrun min ṣadaqatin yatbaʿuhā adhā); I rely on those treatments.