al-Ḥashr 59:5

Mā qaṭaʿtum min līnatin aw taraktumūhā qāʾimatan ʿalā uṣūlihā fa-bi-idhnillāhi wa li-yukhziya'l-fāsiqīn

"Whatever date palms you cut down or left standing upon their roots — it was all by God's leave; and in order to disgrace those who transgress."

What the word is is disputed:

I adopt no definite preference. That the word occurs in the Qurʾān only here removes any possibility of comparison. The point in common is this: a date palm is being spoken of.

The place of the date palm in that society. The date palm was the foundation of the economy of Medina, and it was a means of investment: after a sapling is planted it takes years to bear, but after that it yields for decades. A date grove is an accumulation lasting generations.

For this reason, to cut down a date palm is to destroy not one year's crop but the accumulation of decades. The weight of the matter comes from here.

It is transmitted in the reports that some of the trees were cut down during the siege and that this gave rise to a dispute: some thought it a work of corruption, some held it necessary in order to break the enemy's will. It is also transmitted that the other side made this cutting a matter of accusation.

The verse closes this dispute. And the way it closes it is striking:

The verse does not say "cutting is right". Nor does it say "cutting is wrong". It binds both acts to the same ruling: the one who cut and the one who left did it by God's leave.

فَبِإِذْنِ ٱللَّهِ — "by God's leave".

إِذْن — Root: أ-ذ-ن. And the root itself is interesting: udhun means ear. Idhn is originally "making heard, making known" — what is permitted is what has been announced.

That is, "by God's leave" comes close to saying "God made this heard, made it known, it lies within His domain". Outside arbitrariness, inside a known frame.

Here one has to be careful, because this verse can be forced in both directions.

The verse does not give a general permission. It binds both acts to leave — that is, both rest upon an authorisation, and neither is left free. It does not say "do whatever you like"; it says "in this particular situation, both of the things done were within the authorisation".

And it gives a ground: وَلِيُخْزِىَ ٱلْفَٰسِقِينَ — a purpose clause. That is, the cutting is not an arbitrary destruction; it is an action bound to a particular result.

The root خ-ز-ي: to be disgraced, to be humiliated; and shame. Khizy: ignominy.

The root ف-س-ق: the concrete sense of this root is worth dwelling on. Fasaqati'l-ruṭabatu ʿan qishrihā: the date came out of its skin. That is, fisq is originally a thing's coming out of its protective skin.

The image of the word is this: a fruit is protected inside its skin; when it comes out of the skin it is both left unprotected and spoiled. The fāsiq is the one who has gone outside the boundary that protects him.

And there is an interesting intersection: while this verse speaks of date palms, a word derived from the date is used within the same verse. I record this not as a claim but as a point where the concrete origin of the word intersects with the context.

The word will occur once more in the sūra: at 59/19, of those who forget God. That is, the sūra gives the same attribute to two different groups — the one to those standing in the opposing rank, the other to the believers being warned. The attribute is bound not to an identity but to a state.

To draw from this verse a principle of the law of war is a task requiring care. Several things need to be kept apart.

One. There is disagreement in fiqh. The jurists differ over the cutting of trees, the burning of crops and the killing of animals in war. Some hold it permissible in case of military necessity, some count it reprehensible, some bind it to particular conditions. This is the subject of fiqh; I issue no ruling here and do not detail the views of the schools.

Two. There are transmitted reports about the practice of the early period. It is transmitted that the instructions given to the armies in the time of the first caliphs contained provisions such as not cutting trees, not burning crops, not touching children, women and the aged, and leaving undisturbed those who had withdrawn into seclusion for worship. The wording of these instructions is transmitted in different forms in the sources; here I give their content with the caveat "so it is transmitted".

Three — and the point that really matters: the existence of the verse says something in itself.

Consider this: the cutting of trees in a war is treated as a matter important enough to require a separate verse. That is, not everything done in war is automatically counted legitimate. A question was asked and an answer was given; that the question was asked means that the question was a legitimate one.

This is the core of the idea of the law of war: even in a state of conflict, certain acts require a separate justification. The alternative thought — "we are at war, everything is free" — is exactly what this verse cuts off.

And note: the verse binds the ground to a military aim (to disgrace those who transgress), not to an anger or to a desire to destroy. That is, the legitimacy of the cutting has been bound to its result.

This verse stands at the end of the first section and performs a function: it takes as its subject an action performed on the side of the believers.

The first four verses recounted the other side. The fifth verse brings up the winning side's own behaviour and binds that too to a ruling. This is the continuation of the call fa'tabirū in the second verse: the text does not leave the winning side outside the questioning.