al-Mujādala 58:8

A-lam tara ila'lladhīna nuhū ʿani'n-najwā thumma yaʿūdūna limā nuhū ʿanhu wa yatanājawna bi'l-ithmi wa'l-ʿudwāni wa maʿṣiyati'r-rasūl, wa idhā jāʾūka ḥayyawka bimā lam yuḥayyika bihi'llāh, wa yaqūlūna fī anfusihim lawlā yuʿadhdhibuna'llāhu bimā naqūl, ḥasbuhum jahannamu yaṣlawnahā fa-biʾsa'l-maṣīr

"Have you not seen those who were forbidden secret talk and then return to what they were forbidden, and whisper together about sin, enmity and disobedience to the Messenger? When they come to you, they greet you with a word with which God has not greeted you, and they say within themselves: 'Why does God not punish us for what we say?' Hell is enough for them; they will enter it. What an evil destination!"

بِٱلْإِثْمِ وَٱلْعُدْوَٰنِ وَمَعْصِيَتِ ٱلرَّسُولِ — three words are listed, and the three point in different directions.

إِثْم (ithm) — Root: أ-ث-م. The original sense given by the lexicographers: to make heavy, to delay, to hold back. Nāqa athūm: a slow-walking she-camel. On this account ithm is what holds a person back from good, what makes his advance heavy.

That the word comes from this root defines sin not as a "breach of a rule" but as a burden. Sin is a weight that slows the person down.

As to its field: ithm concerns in the first place the person himself. Of wine and gambling the Qurʾān says "in both of them there is great ithm" (al-Baqara 2/219); there too the harm is in the first place to the person himself.

عُدْوَان (ʿudwān) — Root: ع-د-و. The original sense of the root is to pass, to cross over, to go beyond. ʿAdā: he ran, he passed. ʿAduww (enemy): the one who crosses the boundary and comes upon you. Iʿtidāʾ: the overstepping of a limit.

As to its field: ʿudwān concerns another person. If a boundary is being crossed, the boundary crossed is someone else's.

مَعْصِيَت (maʿṣiya) — Root: ع-ص-ي. From the same root comes عَصَا (ʿaṣā) — the staff. The lexicographers set up the relation thus: the ʿaṣā is what is held in the hand, what one leans on; ʿiṣyān is a separating from the community and from obedience — as in the expression "to separate one's staff from the congregation".

As to its field: maʿṣiya concerns the order. Not the person's relation with himself or with another, but the breakdown of his relation with the structure he belongs to.

The order of the three:

The order widens from the inward outwards. And this triad will be repeated in the ninth verse in exactly the same wording — this time as a prohibition.

In the seventh verse najwā was in the form of a noun. Here it is a verb, and in Form VI (tafāʿul): yatanājawn. A reciprocal and continuing whispering. The pattern shows that the thing is not a one-off, that it is a continuous conversation circulating among them.

One of the finest observations of the sūra is here.

تَحِيَّة — Root: ح-ي-ي. Life. Taḥiyya is originally "to wish life": ḥayyāka'llāh — "may God give you life". In Arabic, to greet is to wish the other person long life.

This origin explains what a greeting is. A greeting is not a formula of politeness; it is to want the other person to go on existing. When two people meet, the first thing done is to confirm one another's existence.

And exactly for this reason, the twisting of it becomes so heavy a thing.

What the reports say. According to what is transmitted, some people, when they came to the Prophet, said "al-sāmu ʿalayka" instead of "al-salāmu ʿalayka", bending the sound slightly. السَّام (sām) in Arabic means death.

The difference between the two words is a single letter: the lām. Said quickly, it is hard to make out. For the one who says it, an insult; for the one who hears it, an ordinary greeting.

This report has a wide place in the ḥadīth corpus, and it is transmitted that ʿĀʾisha noticed it and gave a sharp answer, that the Prophet counselled her to gentleness, and that he himself answered with "and upon you". There are variations in the details of the report; its main core recurs in the sources.

The subtlety in the verse's manner of expression. The verse does not say "they insulted you". It says: "they greeted you with a word with which God has not greeted you."

This is an unusual manner of expression. What is set as the measure is God's greeting. In the Qurʾān there are greetings directed to the prophets ("Peace be upon Noah", al-Ṣāffāt 37/79; "Peace be upon Abraham", 37/109). The verse recalls this measure: what the right greeting is, is known, and this lies outside it.

Moreover, the expression does not name the insult directly. The word spoken is not taken into the text. This can be read as a choice of decorum: the text records the ugly word without repeating it.

This verse must be read together with the 104th verse of Sūrat al-Baqara, because the two take the same linguistic mechanism as their subject.

In al-Baqara 2/104 the situation was this: the Companions were saying "rāʿinā" (attend to us) to the Prophet — an innocent expression in Arabic. But the same sequence of sounds, with a slight bending, or in another language, could carry a demeaning sense. The Qurʾān's solution: abandon the word, say "unẓurnā" instead.

The situation here is the other face of the same mechanism: a word is used in such a way as to bear two senses; the speaker intends one sense, the hearer understands the other.

But the solution of the two verses differs, and the difference is instructive:

In al-Baqara the believers change their own word — that is, the responsibility is loaded onto the speaker: how a word may be understood is also the speaker's field.

In al-Mujādala, on the other hand, it is the other side that does the bending, and no command about behaviour is given to the believers. What is given is a piece of information: this is being done, it is known, it has a counterpart.

These two together establish a measure: you are responsible for your own word; not for what someone else does with your word. Al-Baqara says the first, al-Mujādala the second.

There is a third link as well: in al-Baqara 2/58-59 the changing in bad faith of a word that had been given was recounted. The three verses together give three states of the same matter: the changing of the word in good faith (2/104), its changing in bad faith (2/59), and its bending in bad faith (58/8).

فِىٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ — "within themselves". That is, this sentence is not spoken, it is thought. And the verse records that too. The principle of the seventh verse, "He is the fourth of them", is applied here: not even a whisper, but a thought with no sound at all.

لَوْلَا — here a particle conveying incitement/urging: "if only it were so", "why is it not happening". That is, the sentence carries this logic: "If what we are saying were really something bad, something would have befallen us. Nothing does. So there is nothing to it."

This is one of the most widespread inferences in human history, and as logic it carries a weakness: taking the delay of a consequence for the absence of the consequence.

The Qurʾān records this objection in many places:

• "They ask you to hasten the evil before the good" (al-Raʿd 13/6).
• "O God, if this is the truth from You, then rain down stones upon us from the sky" (al-Anfāl 8/32) — here the same logic is even plainer: the punishment's not coming is counted as the refutation of the claim.

And the answer comes in an interesting form: حَسْبُهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ.

حَسْب — Root: ح-س-ب. To count, to reckon. Ḥasbuhum: "it is enough for them". The word carries the idea of "the amount that will close the account".

That is, what is asked for is not answered, but neither is the request rejected. The man says "let Him punish us then"; the verse says "there is a punishment, and enough of it". What is in dispute is not the existence of the punishment but its timing. The verse does not dispute the timing; it only says that the amount is sufficient.

This is the Qurʾān's general attitude on the question of a deferred penalty: that a respite has been given does not mean the ruling has been lifted.

يَصْلَوْنَهَا — Root: ص-ل-ي. To enter the fire, to be roasted in the fire. The concrete sense of the root is holding meat to the fire and cooking it (shiwāʾ, maṣliyy). The word is a verb of contact: not beside the fire but inside it.

ٱلْمَصِير — Root: ص-ي-ر. Ṣāra: he became, he was transformed, he came into a state. Maṣīr: the place arrived at, the state turned into.

The choice of the word is meaningful: not "the place one goes to" (makān) but "the thing one becomes". The root conveys transformation more than place. That is, arrival is as much a coming into a state as a reaching of a place.