Muḥammad 47:28

Dhālika bi-annahumu'ttabaʿū mā askhaṭa'llāha wa karihū riḍwānahu fa-aḥbaṭa aʿmālahum

"That is because they followed what angers God and disliked His good pleasure; so He voided their deeds."

The fifth and last occurrence of the sūra's dhālika bi-anna pattern.

And this is the densest use of the pattern: in a single sentence there are two grounds (they followed + they disliked) and one result (aḥbaṭa).

The fifth and last occurrence of the root ت-ب-ع in the sūra (twice in 3, then 14, 16, 28).

And the finding I recorded at verse 14 is completed here: the sūra describes the human being as a creature that sets off after something. In all five occurrences the same form (Form VIII), and each time a different object:

Five objects, one verb. This is the sūra's description of the human being.

Root: س-خ-ط. Its meaning: to be angry, to be displeased. And the lexicographers describe it in opposition to رِضَا (riḍā).

أَسْخَطَ — Form IV: to make angry.

And the word is in the same semantic field as ghaḍab (غضب), but the lexicographers record a distinction: sakhaṭ is the opposite of good pleasure and its aspect of displeasure weighs more heavily; ghaḍab is anger itself.

I transmit this distinction as the lexicographers record it; I do not draw firm boundaries.

And the word order of the verse bears this out: in the second half of the sentence its exact opposite comes — رِضْوَٰنَهُۥ.

This expression is strange on a first reading and deserves to be dwelt on.

رِضْوَان — root ر-ض-و/ر-ض-ي: to be well pleased, to be content. رِضْوَان, on the fiʿlān pattern: a great and complete good pleasure.

The word is used in the Qurʾān for God's good pleasure and occurred at 57/20 in al-Ḥadīd (wa maghfiratun mina'llāhi wa riḍwān).

How, then, does a person "dislike" God's good pleasure?

In the classical commentaries the explanation is given thus: what is meant is not disliking good pleasure itself but disliking what leads to it. The governed term has been elided: karihū mā yūjibu riḍwānahu — "they disliked what would earn His good pleasure".

I transmit this explanation and find it reasonable.

But the wording of the verse has chosen to avoid this ellipsis and this has an effect — it is my own reading:

The sentence looks not at the result of the choice but at its destination. What a person dislikes may be a command, an obligation or a hardship; but the place that thing goes to is good pleasure. The verse names the act of disliking by the place it arrives at.

I do not present this as a binding exegesis.

And the setting of sakhaṭ and riḍwān against one another in the same sentence is the most striking feature of the word order:

Both verbs announce a turning, and the two objects are each other's opposite. That is, the sentence encloses the choice from both directions at once: they went to one, they fled from the other.

The second occurrence of the root ح-ب-ط in the sūra (9, 28, and sa-yuḥbiṭu in 32).

In the ninth verse this clause was letter for letter the same: فَأَحْبَطَ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ.

And when the grounds of the two verses are compared a progression appears:

In the ninth verse there was one verb; in the twenty-eighth there are two. And the result is the same.

I record this as an observation about word order.