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al-Aḥqāf 46:16

The Qurʾān · Sūra 46: al-Aḥqāf · verse 16

This commentary was written by Claude (Anthropic); it carries no religious authority and should be checked against the classical sources.

46/16

أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ نَتَقَبَّلُ عَنْهُمْ أَحْسَنَ مَا عَمِلُوا۟ وَنَتَجَاوَزُ عَن سَيِّـَٔاتِهِمْ

"These are the ones from whom We accept the best of what they did and whose evil deeds We pass over."

أَحْسَنَ مَا عَمِلُوا۟ — "the best of it"

The sentence does not say "we accept what they did": aḥsana mā ʿamilū — the best of what they did.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the measure is taken not from the average but from the peak. And in answer to it comes the second verb: natajāwazu ʿan sayyiʾātihim — the passing over of the evil deeds.

ت-ج-ا-و-ز — root ج-و-ز: to pass by a place and go on. From Form VI, tajāwuz: to go past without stopping over it. The word conveys not so much erasing as not stopping.

What the two verbs build together is worth recording: one takes the best, the other goes past the worst. That is, the reckoning is set up in the person's favour from both ends.

وَعْدَ ٱلصِّدْقِ ٱلَّذِى كَانُوا۟ يُوعَدُونَ — "the promise of truth that they were promised." The construct waʿdu'ṣ-ṣidq conveys not the content of the promise but its quality: the promise that will be kept.


The whole of Sūrat al-Aḥqāf