al-Shūrā 42:45

Wa tarāhum yuʿraḍūna ʿalayhā khāshiʿīna mina'dh-dhulli yanẓurūna min ṭarfin khafiyy; wa qāla'lladhīna āmanū inna'l-khāsirīna'lladhīna khasirū anfusahum wa ahlīhim yawma'l-qiyāma; alā inna'ẓ-ẓālimīna fī ʿadhābin muqīm

"You will see them brought before it, shrunken with humiliation, looking with a furtive glance. And those who believed will say: the losers are those who have lost themselves and their families on the day of resurrection. Know well that the wrongdoers are in a lasting punishment."

This expression is one of the most careful sentences of observation in the Qurʾān and must be dwelt on.

Ṭarf — root ط-ر-ف. It was treated in al-Raḥmān. The concrete sense of the root: the tip or edge of a thing. Ṭarf is specifically the edge of the eyelid, and from there the eye, the glance.

Khafiyy — root خ-ف-ي: hidden, concealed, faint.

The construction, then: "they look from a hidden, narrowed corner of the eye."

And what the description conveys must be recorded: a person looks this way at something he does not want to look at but cannot help looking at — not directly, but from the corner of the eye, stealing a glance.

This is the description of a state in which fear and curiosity are present at once. And it accords with the measure recorded in al-Takwīr: in describing a state the Qurʾān most often gives its counterpart in the body.

A point of arrangement: three states come one upon another in the sentence — khāshiʿīna (shrunken), mina'dh-dhulli (with humiliation), yanẓurūna min ṭarfin khafiyy (looking from the corner of the eye). All three are things visible from outside. The inner state is not described at all.

خُشُوع — root خ-ش-ع: in the lexicographers' description, the lowering of the voice and the shrinking of the body. The word is used both of the voice and of the body.

Dhull — root ذ-ل-ل: treated in al-Mulk and al-Baqara: a thing's state of being submissive, made tractable. And the root has a positive branch as well (dhalūl — a docile, serviceable animal). The use here is the negative branch: humiliation.

خُسْر — root خ-س-ر: treated in al-ʿAṣr. The concrete sense of the root is commercial: the diminishing of capital, loss.

And the construction of the sentence carries a restriction (ḥaṣr): inna'l-khāsirīna alladhīna khasirū — "the losers are these". Other losses, that is, are not counted losses.

And what is lost is two things: anfusahum wa ahlīhim — themselves and their families.

The choice of this pair is worth recording, and I give it as my own reading: a commercial root is used, but what is lost is not property. What is counted as capital is the person himself and those close to him.

The word ahl in Arabic means "family" and "those who belong to a place". Two readings are transmitted: (a) their families in this world, (b) the kin who would have been given them had they been in the Garden. I do not impose a preference.

Muqīm — root ق-و-م, an active participle of Form IV: standing, settled, continuous.

And the root occurs for the third time in the sūra:

The same root, in three different works. This is a fact that can be verified from the text; I make no claim of a deliberate choice.