طَاعَةٌ وَقَوْلٌ مَّعْرُوفٌ فَإِذَا عَزَمَ ٱلْأَمْرُ فَلَوْ صَدَقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَّهُمْ
"[What falls to them is] obedience and a fitting word. And when the matter has been settled, had they been true to God it would have been better for them."
The two words are in the nominative and there is no verb in the clause. The grammarians supply several implied forms:
| # | Implied form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The predicate of an elided subject: amrunā ṭāʿatun | "Our matter/our command is obedience and a fitting word" |
| 2 | Subject with an elided predicate: ṭāʿatun… awlā lahum | "Obedience and a fitting word would be better for them" (the second reading of the pause above) |
| 3 | Counted as the object of an elided verb | "Obey and speak a fitting word" |
The primary sense the lexicographers record: to do a thing willingly, easily, without being forced. Its opposite is كُرْه (by force, unwillingly) — and these two words are set explicitly against one another in the Qurʾān: "Come willingly or unwillingly" — طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا (Fuṣṣilat 41/11, al-Tawba 9/53).
From the same root: تَطَوُّع (taṭawwuʿ) — a work done voluntarily and over and above; مُطَاوَعَة; إِسْتَطَاعَة (istiṭāʿa) — to be able, to have the power.
That is, ṭāʿa carries in its root the idea of doing willingly more than that of obeying a command. What is done by force is not called ṭāʿa in Arabic.
This takes on a sharp meaning in the context of the verse: the verse proposes "obedience" to people who look like one in a swoon at death. And the word proposed is the word that includes doing willingly.
مَعْرُوف — root ع-ر-ف: to be known, to be recognised. And مَعْرُوف is the passive participle: "known, recognised" — and from there: what is accepted as good by common usage, what is reasonable.
In the root of the word there is an idea of commonality: maʿrūf is what everyone knows and recognises. Its opposite is مُنكَر (munkar) — "unrecognised, found strange"; built on the same logic.
And this root occurred in the fifth verse as well: عَرَّفَهَا لَهُمْ. The second occurrence within the sūra.
قَوْلٌ مَّعْرُوفٌ — "a known/reasonable word". That is, a word without exaggeration, apt, one the other side too will recognise.
And this connects with the central matter of the section al-Ṣaff. That sūra treated from beginning to end the distance between what is said and what is done:
"Why do you say what you do not do?" (al-Ṣaff 61/2)
The same distance is at issue here — but from the other side: the verse proposes not the speaking of a great word but the speaking of a reasonable one.
عَزَمَ — root ع-ز-م: to make a firm decision about a matter, to resolve. From the same root عَزِيمَة (ʿazīma) and أُو۟لُوا۟ ٱلْعَزْمِ (the prophets of firm resolve, al-Aḥqāf 46/35).
That is, the sentence does not say "when people decide on the matter"; it says "when the matter has been settled". What resolves is not the person but the matter.
This is a majāz ʿaqlī — of the same kind as akhrajatka (the town drove you out) in verse 13. The verb is attributed not to its real agent but to the thing in which the act took place.
And this has an effect — it is my own reading: when it is said "when the matter has been settled", the settling appears as something in no one's hands. The moment of decision has come; there is no one who postpones it or brings it on. The sentence places the inevitability of that moment into the language.
لَوْ — again the counterfactual: a condition that did not come about. "Had they been true… it would have been — but they were not."
صَدَقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ — root ص-د-ق: to be true. And the verb is used directly transitive: ṣadaqu'llāha — "had they dealt truly with God".
And this usage connects with the concept of ṣidq treated in al-Ṣaff and al-Baqara. The last clause of al-Baqara 2/177 was treated there: ulāʾika'lladhīna ṣadaqū — "those are the ones who are true".
What the root carries is wider than truthfulness in speech: ṣidq is a thing's matching its own claim. Of a sword one says sayfun ṣādiqun — a sword that is said to cut and really does cut.
And this clause of the verse answers directly the scene of verse 20. There was a wish there (law lā nuzzilat sūra) and when the wish was granted there was a collapse. What is said here is this: doing what a wish requires is different from making the wish.
I rest this reading on the frame set up in the section al-Ṣaff; the matter treated there works in exactly the same way in this verse.
And note: for whom? Lahum — for them. That is, the benefit of truthfulness is entered not to the account of the one towards whom it is shown but to that of the one who shows it.
This is a logic that will be repeated in the last verse of the sūra: wa man yabkhal fa-innamā yabkhalu ʿan nafsih (38) — "whoever is miserly is miserly only towards himself."
Two verses point in the same direction for two different acts: both what is done and what is not done come back first upon the doer himself.