وَمِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا نَصَٰرَىٰٓ أَخَذْنَا مِيثَٰقَهُمْ فَنَسُوا۟ حَظًّا مِّمَّا ذُكِّرُوا۟ بِهِۦ فَأَغْرَيْنَا بَيْنَهُمُ ٱلْعَدَاوَةَ وَٱلْبَغْضَآءَ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ ۚ وَسَوْفَ يُنَبِّئُهُمُ ٱللَّهُ بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَصْنَعُونَ
Wa mina'lladhīna qālū innā naṣārā akhadhnā mīthāqahum fa-nasū ḥaẓẓan mimmā dhukkirū bih · Fa-aghraynā baynahumu'l-ʿadāwata wa'l-baghḍāʾa ilā yawmi'l-qiyāma · Wa sawfa yunabbiʾuhumu'llāhu bimā kānū yaṣnaʿūn
"And from those who said 'we are naṣārā' We took their covenant; and they too forgot a portion of what they were reminded of. So We set enmity and hatred among them until the Day of Resurrection. God will inform them of what they used to do."
The verse begins with wa mina'lladhīna qālū. The min here is partitive (conveying a part of something), and it is so recorded in the classical commentaries.
That is, the sentence is built not as "We took the covenant of those who are naṣārā" but as "We took the covenant of some of those who said 'we are naṣārā'". The division is in the first letter of the sentence.
This is the sibling of the qualification illā qalīlan minhum in the preceding verse. Both verses limit their own ruling from within.
The verse does not say "from the naṣārā"; it says from those who said "we are naṣārā". That is, the naming is transmitted not as a name the verse lays down but as the group's own declaration.
نَصَارَىٰ — root ن-ص-ر: to help. The root was treated in al-Fatḥ, al-Ṣaff and al-Ḥajj. I rely on that treatment.
The lexicographers do not agree on the origin of the word, and I transmit the disagreement as it stands:
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| First | The word is from the root ن-ص-ر: "the helpers". Later in the sūra this link is made by the text itself — man anṣārī ila'llāh … naḥnu anṣāru'llāh (al-Ṣaff 61/14) |
| Second | The word comes from a place name (Nazareth); it entered Arabic as a relative adjective |
| Third | The two explanations can be combined; the resemblance in sound made it easy for the place name to be associated with this root in Arabic |
أَغْرَيْنَا — root غ-ر-و/غ-ر-ي: to glue. Ghirāʾ — glue, gum. Ighrāʾ (Form IV) — to stick one thing to another; and from there to incite, to set at odds.
The concrete sense of the word gives the image very sharply: enmity is glued between them. It becomes a thing hard to pry loose.
And the construction is striking: baynahum — "among them". The enmity is set not outwards but within their own ranks.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the preposition itself: the verse pictures the consequence of forgetting the undertaking not as an external punishment but as an internal division. When a shared bond slackens, internal strife fills the gap that opens.
The difference between عَدَاوَة and بَغْضَآء: ʿadāwa (ع-د-و) — crossing a limit, hostile behaviour; baghḍāʾ (ب-غ-ض) — rancour, inward hatred. The one comes out, the other stays within. The root ب-غ-ض was treated at al-Mumtaḥana 60/4.
No lasting, blanket verdict about a community can be drawn from this verse — I write this plainly, because the verse does not lend itself to such a reading:
- The sentence begins with a partitive particle (min).
- The cause is tied not to identity but to an act (fa-nasū).
- And forty-eight verses later the sūra will speak of those who stand nearest from within that same group (5/82-85), and there too the ground will be tied to an attribute.
وَسَوْفَ يُنَبِّئُهُمُ ٱللَّهُ — and the final announcement is left to the future. The root ن-ب-أ: important, useful news. That the verb comes in Form II (yunabbiʾu) conveys that the news will be given in detail. That is, the verdict will be issued not here but there; the verse says so itself.