أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ نَافَقُوا۟ يَقُولُونَ لِإِخْوَٰنِهِمُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ مِنْ أَهْلِ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ لَئِنْ أُخْرِجْتُمْ لَنَخْرُجَنَّ مَعَكُمْ وَلَا نُطِيعُ فِيكُمْ أَحَدًا أَبَدًا وَإِن قُوتِلْتُمْ لَنَنصُرَنَّكُمْ وَٱللَّهُ يَشْهَدُ إِنَّهُمْ لَكَٰذِبُونَ • لَئِنْ أُخْرِجُوا۟ لَا يَخْرُجُونَ مَعَهُمْ وَلَئِن قُوتِلُوا۟ لَا يَنصُرُونَهُمْ وَلَئِن نَّصَرُوهُمْ لَيُوَلُّنَّ ٱلْأَدْبَٰرَ ثُمَّ لَا يُنصَرُونَ
A-lam tara ila'lladhīna nāfaqū yaqūlūna li-ikhwānihimu'lladhīna kafarū min ahli'l-kitābi la-in ukhrijtum la-nakhrujanna maʿakum wa lā nuṭīʿu fīkum aḥadan abadā, wa in qūtiltum la-nanṣurannakum, wallāhu yashhadu innahum la-kādhibūn • La-in ukhrijū lā yakhrujūna maʿahum, wa la-in qūtilū lā yanṣurūnahum, wa la-in naṣarūhum la-yuwallunna'l-adbāra thumma lā yunṣarūn
"Have you not seen those who play the hypocrite? They say to their brothers among the People of the Book who disbelieved: 'By God, if you are driven out we shall certainly go out with you; concerning you we shall never obey anyone. And if you are fought, we shall certainly help you.' God bears witness that they are indeed liars. • By God, if those are driven out, these will not go out with them; if they are fought, they will not help them; and even if they do help them, they will turn their backs and flee, and then they too will not be helped."
The word given in the eleventh verse is built with the heaviest instruments of emphasis in Arabic. Let us take them apart one by one:
- لَ (the first) — the lām al-muwaṭṭiʾa: it reports that the conditional clause that follows is the answer to an oath. That is, there is an oath unspoken in the sentence, and this lām points to it.
- إِنْ — the particle of condition.
- لَ (the second) — the lām of emphasis that enters the answer to the oath.
- نَّ — the nūn al-thaqīla: the strongest verbal emphasis in Arabic.
That is, in a single sentence four separate instruments of emphasis have been laid one on top of another. It cannot be rendered fully in English; the nearest is a piling up such as "by God, we shall most certainly, absolutely go out".
وَلَا نُطِيعُ فِيكُمْ أَحَدًا أَبَدًا — "concerning you we shall never obey anyone". Here too there are two marks of absoluteness: aḥadan (anyone at all) and abadan (never, at no time).
How strongly the word is built is exactly what the verse means to show. And this is a pattern familiar in everyday life: how heavily a promise is reinforced is most of the time in inverse proportion to how far it will be kept. A promise that is going to be kept does not need this much swearing.
| Promise (11) | Refusal (12) |
|---|---|
| "If you are driven out we shall go out" | "If they are driven out they will not go out" |
| "We shall never obey anyone against you" | — |
| "If you are fought we shall help" | "If they are fought they will not help" |
| — | "Even if they help, they will turn their backs" |
| — | "And then they too will not be helped" |
The third item closes off an assumption as well: suppose they did help — then too they will flee. That is, even the most optimistic possibility brings no result.
The fourth item was not in the promise at all, and it changes the subject: "and then they too will not be helped." The subject of the sentence has changed. The topic is no longer whether they will keep the word they gave; it is what will happen to themselves.
This is a fine leap. The man who does not keep his word will not win even if he does keep it; and in the end he too will be left without help. In three steps the verse passes from the promise to the agent's own end.
دُبُر — Root: د-ب-ر. The back, the end of a thing. From the same root tadbīr (to think out the end of a matter), mudbir (the one who turns his back), idbār.
And there is something odd here: in the sentence the lām and the nūn al-thaqīla are used again — that is, the same instruments of emphasis as in the hypocrites' promise.
This can be read as a technique of mockery: the grammar of the other side's word is imitated and emptied out. They said "we shall certainly go out"; the verse says "they will certainly flee". With the same pattern.
This sentence is repeated almost word for word at al-Munāfiqūn 63/1: "God bears witness that the hypocrites are indeed liars."
شَهِدَ — Root: ش-ه-د. To be present, to be a witness. At al-Mujādala 58/6 the name Shahīd was treated: the witness is the one who does not forget, because he was there.
Witness to what? Note: to something that has not yet happened. Words were given; they have not yet been kept, or it is not yet clear that they have not been kept. But the witness is borne already.
That is, the witness is borne not to the event but to the intention. To what was inside at the moment the word was spoken. This is the continuation of the logic in the first verse of Sūrat al-Mujādala: as much as the word spoken, what is inside while it is spoken goes on the record.