وَإِن فَاتَكُمْ شَىْءٌ مِّنْ أَزْوَٰجِكُمْ إِلَى ٱلْكُفَّارِ فَعَاقَبْتُمْ فَـَٔاتُوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ ذَهَبَتْ أَزْوَٰجُهُم مِّثْلَ مَآ أَنفَقُوا۟ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَنتُم بِهِۦ مُؤْمِنُونَ
Wa in fātakum shayʾun min azwājikum ila'l-kuffāri fa-ʿāqabtum fa-ātu'lladhīna dhahabat azwājuhum mithla mā anfaqū, wa'ttaqullāha'lladhī antum bihi muʾminūn
"If any of your wives escapes to the unbelievers and you then obtain (a return), give to those whose wives are gone the like of what they have spent. Act responsibly towards God, in whom you believe."
The tenth verse had set up a reciprocal settlement. This verse regulates the case in which that settlement does not work: what happens if the other side does not make the payment?
The answer is striking: the community makes it good from within itself. That is, an individual loss is socialised. What the verse establishes is, in today's language, a kind of risk-sharing: a right that cannot be collected from outside is met from inside.
The idea behind this is important. The person has suffered a loss because he belongs to the community — his wife has gone over to the other side's order. The verse does not leave that loss on the person's back.
The root ع-ق-ب: heel. From here all the derivatives arise: ʿāqiba (outcome — the heel of a matter), taʿqīb (to follow on someone's heels), ʿuqūba (punishment — what comes after the deed), ʿaqīb (the one who comes after), muʿāqaba (to be in turn — when one goes, the other comes).
| Reading | Meaning | How the sentence runs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Your turn has come", taking turns — this time someone has come to you from the other side | If there is a flow both ways, a settlement is made |
| 2 | "You obtained a return, some spoils" | Out of what is obtained, the right of the one who suffered loss is paid |
| 3 | "You punished them, you retaliated" | Making good out of what is obtained by retaliation |
Variant readings are also transmitted concerning the pattern of the verb (readings in the three-letter form, the doubled form and the ifʿāl pattern). Because I am not sure to which imām each reading is ascribed, I give no names. I can say that the differences bring the meaning largely to the same place, and change only in whose favour and by what route the act comes about.
The substance of the ruling is the same on all the readings: the community into whose hand something comes pays the right of the one who has suffered loss.
Instead of saying "one of your wives" the verse uses the word شَىْءٌ ("a thing"). This is a pattern of indefiniteness in Arabic and means "any one, some part"; it does not mean that the word here turns a human being into an object. The Qurʾān uses the word shayʾ extremely widely.
Even so, the choice of the word may carry a function: the sentence is describing a legal situation and setting up a general pattern — "if a loss of this kind is suffered". Indeed the ruling itself is framed not for a single event but for a situation that can recur.
The close of the verse is a reminder of taqwā following a financial ruling — and the adjectival clause is striking: "God, in whom you are believing".
Why this caveat? Because the subject of the verse is money, and money is the area in which rulings are most easily bent. In a reckoning of settlement, who is to receive how much and who paid what is the most disputable of subjects. This is why the verse ties the ruling to faith itself: the working of this order is left not to a mechanism of supervision but to the taqwā of the parties.
And the link within the sūra: in the first verse a person carried the community's information outside in order to protect his family. Here the community meets from within the loss of one who has lost his family. The sūra gives a structural answer to the source of the weakness in the first verse: so that a person should not be forced to seek a remedy on his own, the community sets up an order of making good.
I present this link as a reading; the text does not establish it explicitly. But that two verses should stand in the same sūra at the two ends of the same problem is worth noting.