يَٰٓأَهْلَ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ قَدْ جَآءَكُمْ رَسُولُنَا يُبَيِّنُ لَكُمْ كَثِيرًا مِّمَّا كُنتُمْ تُخْفُونَ مِنَ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ وَيَعْفُوا۟ عَن كَثِيرٍ ۚ قَدْ جَآءَكُم مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ نُورٌ وَكِتَٰبٌ مُّبِينٌ · يَهْدِى بِهِ ٱللَّهُ مَنِ ٱتَّبَعَ رِضْوَٰنَهُۥ سُبُلَ ٱلسَّلَٰمِ
Yā ahla'l-kitābi qad jāʾakum rasūlunā yubayyinu lakum kathīran mimmā kuntum tukhfūna mina'l-kitābi wa yaʿfū ʿan kathīr · Qad jāʾakum mina'llāhi nūrun wa kitābun mubīn · Yahdī bihi'llāhu mani'ttabaʿa riḍwānahū subula's-salāmi wa yukhrijuhum mina'ẓ-ẓulumāti ila'n-nūri bi-idhnihī wa yahdīhim ilā ṣirāṭin mustaqīm
"O People of the Book! Our messenger has come to you; he makes plain to you much of what you used to hide of the Book, and he passes over much. A light and a clear Book have come to you from God. By it God guides those who follow after His good pleasure to the ways of peace; He brings them out of the darknesses into the light by His leave, and guides them to a straight path."
The most striking place in the verse is the use of two opposite verbs about the same object, and in both the same word appears: kathīran / kathīr (much of it).
The root ع-ف-و occurred two verses earlier (5/13) in the sense of pardoning; here it comes in the sense of "not dwelling on, not opening up". The primary sense of the root — to wipe out a trace — explains both uses.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the placing of the two verbs side by side: the work of making plain must choose. To pour out everything that has been hidden is the work of a settling of accounts, not of a delivery of a message. In recounting what the messenger does, the verse also recounts what he does not do.
And this is the applied form of the command fa'fu ʿanhum wa'ṣfaḥ in verse 13 of the sūra. Four verses stand between them, and the second repeats the first.
Two words are set side by side: nūr and kitāb. What each of them is, is debated in the classical commentaries:
| View | What nūr is |
|---|---|
| First | The Qurʾān itself; the two words say the same thing (an explanatory apposition) |
| Second | The messenger himself is the nūr, what he brought is the kitāb |
| Third | Nūr is guidance in general, kitāb the concrete text |
I do not impose a preference. The root ن-و-ر was treated in detail at al-Nūr 24/35; I rely on that treatment.
This distinction is consistent in the Qurʾān and has been recorded before in this collection. The observation recorded at al-Baqara 2/257 was this: the darknesses are plural, the light is singular. The same structure works here for the ways.
And the difference between the two words is given by the lexicographers as follows: sabīl is any road one travels; ṣirāṭ is the broad main road that runs straight. The word ṣirāṭ was treated in al-Fātiḥa; I rely on that treatment.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the presence of both words in the same verse: the ways that lead to peace are many, the direction travelled is one. The multiplicity is in the method, the singleness in the direction.
And the verb of guidance occurs twice in the same verse (yahdī bihi'llāh … wa yahdīhim). The object of the first is ways, the object of the second a direction. The verb is the same, the place arrived at different.
بِإِذْنِهِ — and the verb of bringing out comes with a qualification: by leave. The word was treated in al-Fatḥ and at Ibrāhīm 14/1 (li-tukhrija'n-nāsa mina'ẓ-ẓulumāti ila'n-nūri bi-idhni rabbihim); the same construction stands there as well. I rely on that treatment.