أَمْ يَقُولُونَ ٱفْتَرَىٰ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ كَذِبًا ۖ فَإِن يَشَإِ ٱللَّهُ يَخْتِمْ عَلَىٰ قَلْبِكَ ۗ وَيَمْحُ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْبَٰطِلَ وَيُحِقُّ ٱلْحَقَّ بِكَلِمَٰتِهِۦٓ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ عَلِيمٌۢ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ
Am yaqūlūna'ftarā ʿala'llāhi kadhibā; fa-in yashaʾi'llāhu yakhtim ʿalā qalbik; wa yamḥu'llāhu'l-bāṭila wa yuḥiqqu'l-ḥaqqa bi-kalimātih; innahu ʿalīmun bi-dhāti'ṣ-ṣudūr
"Or do they say, 'He has forged a lie against God'? Had God willed, He would have sealed your heart. God erases falsehood and establishes the truth by His words. He knows what is in the breasts."
After the ninth and twenty-first verses, this is the third am question. And the subject changes: taking a protector (9), laying down a religion (21), forging a word (24).
افْتَرَىٰ — root ف-ر-ي: to cut and shape something, to slit a hide. The verb farā means "he slit the hide, he cut it"; and from it the sense to forge is derived. The transition the lexicographers record is this: to forge is to cut and shape speech into something that never was.
From the same root fariyyā (Maryam 19/27) — "an unheard-of thing, a thing cut and shaped".
What this sentence says must be dwelt on, because translated directly it seems to say something unexpected.
| Reading | How it is understood |
|---|---|
| 1 | A hypothetical condition — "If you really had forged it, God, if He willed, would seal your heart and cut off the revelation." That is, the impossibility of the charge of forgery is shown: were it a forgery, its source would be cut off |
| 2 | The context of patience — "If God wills, He seals your heart", that is, He binds it to patience, makes it able to bear hardship. Khatm here means "making firm" |
| 3 | A general statement of power — what is at issue is not a threat but the expression of the limitlessness of power |
Khatm — root خ-ت-م: to seal, to close the mouth of a thing and set a seal on it. It was treated in al-Muṭaffifīn in connection with raḥīqin makhtūm. Two things are in the root: closing and marking.
This is a known feature of the rasm of the muṣḥaf and has parallels in the Qurʾān (such as sanadʿu — al-ʿAlaq 96/18). I record it; I draw from it no meaning and no calculation. It is a fact belonging to the tradition of writing.
مَحْو — root م-ح-و: to erase, to obliterate without leaving a trace. And the distinction recorded in al-Mujādala is at work here: ghufrān covers, maḥw erases. Falsehood is not covered; it is erased.
And the instrument is the same: bi-kalimātihi — "by His words". Both acts, that is, are done at the level of speech. This is connected with the charge at the head of the verse: the charge was about a word (did he forge it?); and the answer too is given by way of a word.
ʿAlīmun bi-dhāti'ṣ-ṣudūr — "knowing what is in the breasts". The construction was treated in al-Ḥadīd at 57/6. Dhāt here means "what is possessed, what is within"; dhātu'ṣ-ṣudūr — the contents of the breasts.
And its placement is meaningful: the charge is a charge about intention ("he forged it"). The answer closes with who it is that knows intention.