Muḥammad 47:3

Dhālika bi-anna'lladhīna kafaru'ttabaʿu'l-bāṭila wa anna'lladhīna āmanu'ttabaʿu'l-ḥaqqa min rabbihim; kadhālika yaḍribu'llāhu li'n-nāsi amthālahum

"That is because those who deny followed falsehood, and those who believe followed the truth from their Lord. Thus does God set forth for people their likenesses."

This pattern is one of the most remarkable of the Qurʾān's manners of speech, and this sūra uses it like a spine.

ذَٰلِكَ — a demonstrative: "this, this here". What does it point to? The two rulings given in the two preceding verses: the making lost of the deeds of the one, the covering over of the evil deeds of the other.

بِأَنَّ — the particle bāʾ here is causal (sababiyya): "because of its being…". And anna turns the clause that follows into a verbal noun.

The skeleton of the sentence, then: "That [ruling] is because of this."

And one has to see what this does.

When a ruling is issued, two things can be done: the ruling can be issued and left, or the ground of the ruling can be stated. The second does not mean that the one who issues the ruling owes something to the one addressed; but it does mean that he aims at the addressee's understanding.

Here the Qurʾān does the second. Two verses issued a ruling, the third wrote out the ground. And the ground was not left as something to be guessed; it was put at the head of the sentence.

This pattern occurs five times in this sūra, and its distribution shows an order:

Five grounds, all five in the same pattern. And note: all five come immediately after the ruling. That is, wherever the sūra issues a heavy ruling, it writes the ground in the next verse.

This determines how the sūra is to be read. This sūra carries hard sentences; but not one of its hard sentences has been left without a ground. To take a ruling out of its context is to take it away from its ground as well — and the ground is what determines to whom the ruling applies.

In terms of the method (Method), this yields a direct consequence: the verses issue their ruling not upon a group but upon the attributes counted in the ground. The ground of the third verse is not "those who deny"; it is "their having followed falsehood". If the attribute changes the ruling changes too — and indeed the sūra will make this an explicit condition at 47/34: "then they died as deniers".

Root: ت-ب-ع. To go after, to follow. And the form here is ٱتَّبَعَ — Form VIII (iftiʿāl).

Among the senses Form VIII announces is taking on the result of an act (muṭāwaʿa), and another is effort and intent: doing the act willingly and with labour spent.

That is, ittabaʿa does not mean "he was dragged along behind"; it means "he set off after it, he attached himself to it". The verb includes choice.

And this carries the whole weight of the verse: both groups do the same act. Both have set off after something. The difference lies not in the act but in the object.

بَاطِل — root ب-ط-ل. The primary sense the lexicographers record: a thing's coming to nothing, being void, being unable to stand. Baṭala'sh-shayʾ — that thing became invalid, it fell.

At the centre of the word lie hollowness and inability to hold. Bāṭil is not merely what is false; it is what cannot bear weight. Step on it and it caves in.

And a note on the language: the lexicographers record from the same root the word بَطَل (baṭal) as well — hero, champion. At first glance this is odd. One of the explanations given is this: he is called baṭal because he renders void those who come against him, brings their work to nothing. Another explanation has to do with the blood shed beside him going unrequited.

I transmit these derivational explanations as the lexicographers record them; I make no preference among them. It should also be recorded that the word lives on in Turkish as batal and iptal.

And this detail matters: this root will occur twice in the sūra — here as ٱلْبَٰطِل (3), and in the thirty-third verse as لَا تُبْطِلُوا۟. That is, at the beginning of the sūra there are "those who follow falsehood"; towards its end the believers are told "do not annul (ibṭāl) your own deeds".

The same root names first what others follow, then what the believers can do to themselves. I shall take up this link separately at verse 33.

حَقّ — root ح-ق-ق. Its primary sense: to be fixed, to stand in place, to come about, to be one's due. Ḥaqqa'l-amr — the matter came about, became fixed.

That is, at the centre of the root lies thubūt (standing in place) — and this is the exact opposite of bāṭil. Bāṭil falls, ḥaqq stands.

The opposition of the two words is a physical opposition before it is a moral one: one stays standing, the other does not. The Qurʾān draws this picture explicitly at al-Raʿd 13/17: the torrent comes, the foam rises to the top and goes; what is of use to people stays where it is — "thus does God set forth truth and falsehood in a likeness."

In the third verse مِن رَّبِّهِمْ is again added behind the word ḥaqq — just as it was in the second verse.

And there is no such attribution for falsehood. The sentence says "they followed falsehood" and stops; it does not say where falsehood comes from.

This asymmetry is worth noting. A source is shown for the truth; none is shown for falsehood. As a reading I record this — it is my own inference: if the sense of "hollowness" in the root of bāṭil is kept in mind, the absence of a source becomes meaningful; for bāṭil is not something that comes from somewhere but the emptiness left where the truth is not.

I do not present this as a binding exegesis. The fact standing in the text is this: ḥaqq occurs with an attribution, bāṭil without one.

ضَرَبَ مَثَلًا — "to strike a likeness". The verb Arabic uses for giving an example is ضرب, and this sounds odd in English. The lexicographers explain: the verb ḍarb also carries the sense of "to set something firmly in a place, to drive in a stake" (ḍaraba'l-khayma — he pitched the tent). A likeness is "struck" because it is driven into the mind.

And in this sūra the root ض-ر-ب will occur three times, in three different senses:

Three occurrences, the same root, three different works. I record this as a textual observation; I do not claim that the sūra has set it up deliberately.

أَمْثَٰلَهُمْ — "their likenesses". Whom the pronoun refers to has been disputed: to people (that is, "He sets forth for people their own condition in a likeness"), or to the two groups ("He gives the likeness of these two groups")? Both readings are found in the classical commentaries; I make no preference.

This much is clear: the verse characterises the two verses before it as a likeness. That is, verses 1-2 are not merely a ruling about two groups; they are set down as an example.

And the root م-ث-ل will occur three times in the sūra: here (3), at 47/10 (wa li'l-kāfirīna amthāluhā), and in the last word of the sūra (47/38: thumma lā yakūnū amthālakum). The sūra is framed by a word for "likeness".