وَأَنَّهُۥ هُوَ أَغْنَىٰ وَأَقْنَىٰ
The pattern of the forty-third and forty-fourth verses comes a third time: wa annahu هُوَ … + two Form IV verbs.
| Verse | Pair |
|---|---|
| 43 | aḍḥaka / abkā — made to laugh / made to weep |
| 44 | amāta / aḥyā — caused to die / gave life |
| 48 | aghnā / aqnā — enriched / gave possession |
The first two pairs are opposites; the third is not. This is a difference of word order and worth recording: laughing and weeping are opposites, death and life are opposites, but aghnā and aqnā are not opposites — they are two near verbs.
And at the centre of the root lies not "wealth" but "not being in need". Ghaniyy — one who is not in need. This is one of the names of God, and there too its sense is this: the one who needs no one.
And the sūra had used this verb negatively at verse 26: lā tughnī shafāʿatuhum shayʾā — "their intercession avails nothing." The same root, the same sūra, in two opposed positions. It was recorded above.
قِنْيَة (qinya) — the sense the lexicographers give: property a person acquires for himself and keeps in hand. Acquired not for trade but for use and keeping. Qanā'l-māla — he acquired the property and held it.
| View | What aqnā means | Its ground | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| He gave lasting property | He gave property to be held, a continuing possession | The sense of the word qinya: property acquired and kept | The strongest. It rests directly on the lexical sense of the root |
| He gave contentment, He satisfied | He enriched and made him content with what was given | A link is made with the word qanāʿa (contentment) | There is a difference of root: qanāʿa is from the root ق-ن-ع, while qinya is from ق-ن-و. The letters differ |
| He made poor | Read as the opposite of aghnā | By analogy with the other pairs (43, 44) being opposites | This sense is not in the root; it rests on analogy |
I state a preference and it is not binding: the first view is the strongest, because it rests directly on the lexical sense of the root.
A warning must be entered against the second view, and it is of the same kind as the kawwara / kura warning in the section al-Takwīr: the word قَنَاعَة (contentment) is from the root ق-ن-ع; قِنْيَة, on the other hand, from ق-ن-و. Their last letters differ, and in Arabic this difference determines the root. No meaning is to be drawn from the resemblance of their Turkish pronunciations.
The third view rests on the assumption that the pairs must be opposites — and that assumption is not grounded in the text. Indeed, as recorded above, that the third pair is not opposed is a datum; to force it into opposition is to add something to the text.
If the first view is accepted, this distinction comes out between the two verbs, and I record it as my own reading:
| Verb | What it gives |
|---|---|
| أَغْنَىٰ | It meets the need — the immediate, the day's sufficiency |
| أَقْنَىٰ | It gives what remains in hand — continuance, accumulation |
These are two different things. A person's daily need being met and his having an accumulation are not the same. The first secures staying alive, the second a sense of safety.
And in that society the distinction was very concrete: a traveller is given provisions (a need is met), but a family is given a camel (an accumulation is given). The first runs out, the second breeds.