al-Ṭalāq 65:7

Li-yunfiq dhū saʿatin min saʿatih, wa man qudira ʿalayhi rizquhu fa'l-yunfiq mimmā ātāhu'llāh, lā yukallifu'llāhu nafsan illā mā ātāhā, sa-yajʿalu'llāhu baʿda ʿusrin yusrā

"Let him who has ample means spend out of his ampleness. And let him whose provision has been straitened for him spend out of what God has given him. God does not burden any soul with more than He has given it. God will bring ease after hardship."

One of the densest verses of the sūra. A rule of maintenance, a general principle and a promise — the three one after another.

The verse names wealth and poverty with two words, and both are words of place.

سَعَة — root و س ع (w-s-ʿ): to be wide, to take up room, to have room for. From the same root wāsiʿ (wide), tawassuʿ (widening), wusʿ (capacity, the field of what one can manage), ittisāʿ.

The concrete sense of the root is width — the room a space can hold. Dhū saʿa, "possessor of width": literally, the man with room around him.

قُدِرَ — root ق د ر (q-d-r). The third branch of meaning of the root, as recorded in al-Qadr: narrowness, constriction. Qadara ʿalayhi — He straitened it for him, He restricted it.

And there it was already this verse that was shown as the proof of that branch. I treated the relation between the root's two occurrences in this sūra at 65/3; here I only recall the result: what is narrow is a measure too.

That the verb is passive is also important: qudira — "was straitened". Who straitened it is not said; but the continuation of the verse (mimmā ātāhu'llāh) shows the agent.

This changes the man's position. Poverty is named not as the man's failure but as the measure given to him. The practical consequence of this is: the man who is to give little is not in a position that ought to make him ashamed. And a man who is not ashamed gives what he can give; an ashamed man runs away.

The two words together set up the sūra's language about money: wealth is not a quantity but a SPACE. One man stands in a wide space, another's space has been narrowed. And the spending is done out of that space.

This picture also joins with the expression li-tuḍayyiqū (in order to straiten) one verse earlier — there too straitening was something the man could do to the woman. Not the same root (ض ي ق and ق د ر), but the same picture: narrowing. The thing the man is forbidden to do to the woman (to straiten) occurs one verse later as a thing God may do to the man. I record this as an observation; the roots of the two words are different and I claim no relation of root from it.

And here a finding established earlier in this body of work falls exactly into place.

In al-Baqara at 2/3, in treating wa mimmā razaqnāhum yunfiqūn, this was recorded — I do not repeat it, I recall it: "The verse does not say 'they spend what We have given them', it says 'out of what We have given them'. In Arabic min here conveys partitivity: a portion of it. That is, they are not being asked to give away everything they have."

In al-Ṭalāq 65/7 the same particle occurs twice:

• مِّن سَعَتِهِۦ — "out of his ampleness"
• مِمَّآ ءَاتَىٰهُ ٱللَّهُ — "out of what God has given him"

Both are min, both partitive.

And its function in this context is slightly different from that in al-Baqara, and more concrete. There the matter was the measure of spending. Here the matter is the payability of the maintenance:

Had the verse said "let him spend his ampleness", the ruling would have been inapplicable — no one can give his whole substance in maintenance. The particle of partitivity makes the ruling capable of being carried out.

And just as this makes payment possible, it also makes evasion impossible. The defence "I have nothing" is invalid so long as he has something in hand: the particle min commands that a portion of whatever is in his hand be given. Zero is in no case an answer.

The verse passes from the rule of maintenance to a general principle. And this principle occurs in another place in the Qurʾān in almost the same wording — but a single word of it is different, and the difference is not trivial.

al-Ṭalāq 65/7: لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا مَآ ءَاتَىٰهَا "God does not burden any soul with more than what He has given it."

al-Baqara 2/286: لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا "God does not burden any soul with more than its capacity."

The construction is identical: the same verb (yukallifu), the same negation, the same object (nafsan), the same particle of exception (illā). The only thing that changes is the content of the exception.

The difference is real and must be handled carefully.

Wusʿ is a word of capacity: a person's power to bear. The measure is the person's endurance.

Mā ātāhā is a word of inventory: what has actually been given to the person. The measure is what the person has in hand.

And the two are not the same thing. A person can bear more than what he has in hand — by borrowing, by cutting into his own share, by going hungry. That is, the measure of wusʿ is wider than the measure of mā ātā.

That Sūrat al-Ṭalāq has chosen the narrower measure agrees with its context. The subject is money, and money is measured not by endurance but by quantity. A man cannot, by being told "you are able", be loaded with a payment that is not in his hand.

I record this difference as an observation. The wording of the two verses is different, and this is the text's datum. But I do not draw from it the conclusion that the two principles conflict or that one restricts the other — these are two measures set in different contexts, and I have no certain knowledge of how this difference has been handled in the classical sources. What I record is the existence of the difference of wording, and that each wording suits its own context.

كَلَّفَ — root ك ل ف (k-l-f). And the concrete sense of this root explains the weight of the term: to take on a task with difficulty, with hardship. Kulfa is trouble; takalluf is forcing oneself; mukallaf is a person upon whom a troublesome task has been laid.

That is, the word taklīf carries within itself an acknowledgement of difficulty. A command is not an easy thing; it is a load. And the verse draws the boundary of that load.

This belongs to the same family as the structure at 73/20 in al-Muzzammil. The finding recorded there was: "the act is preserved, the measure is made elastic." Here it is the same: the command of maintenance is not removed; its amount is adjusted to the person.

And another expression of the same principle is in the neighbouring sūra: فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ مَا ٱسْتَطَعْتُمْ — "So guard yourselves against God as far as you are able" (al-Taghābun 64/16). Three texts — al-Baqara, al-Ṭalāq, al-Taghābun — say the same thing with three different words: obligation is bound to capacity.

And now we come to the most important place in this section.

In al-Inshirāḥ, in treating al-Inshirāḥ 94/5-6 — fa-inna maʿa'l-ʿusri yusrā / inna maʿa'l-ʿusri yusrā, "with hardship there is together an ease" — the most debated question of that sūra was the particle maʿa: why not "after" but "together with"?

And there a piece of evidence was given showing that the choice was deliberate. What was presented as the strongest of the arguments was this:

"And there is a decisive piece of evidence that this is a choice: the Qurʾān says 'baʿda' in another place. … The same two words (ʿusr and yusr), with a different particle. That is, the Qurʾān knows how to say 'after' and says it when it is called for. In al-Inshirāḥ it does not. This is the soundest datum showing that the choice of particle is deliberate — because the comparison is made from within the Qurʾān itself, and not by an assumption from outside."

That "other place" is here.

Now we can complete the connection from the other end. The two sentences side by side:

al-Inshirāḥ 94/5-6: فَإِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا · إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا al-Ṭalāq 65/7: سَيَجْعَلُ ٱللَّهُ بَعْدَ عُسْرٍ يُسْرًا

The same two words, two different particles. And the difference of particle is not the only difference — there are three further differences, and all three point in the same direction.

In al-Inshirāḥ the sentence is a nominal sentence. Inna maʿa'l-ʿusri yusrā — there is no verb. In Arabic a nominal sentence conveys fixity (constancy, permanence); it is not tied to time. That is, the sentence is a statement of a state: with hardship there is ease. This was so yesterday, it is so today, it will be so tomorrow.

In al-Ṭalāq the sentence is a verbal sentence and the verb is in the future: sa-yajʿalu — "He will make, He will bring about".

The سَ (sīn) at the head is in Arabic the particle of tanfīs, and it carries an imperfect verb into the future. It is said to convey a nearer future than sawfa, but its real function is to remove indeterminacy: the act will certainly happen.

That is:

And the difference comes out from here. Al-Inshirāḥ announces a fact; al-Ṭalāq gives a word. The first says "it is so", the second says "I shall do it".

The subject's being written out explicitly is meaningful as well: sa-yajʿalu'llāh — "God will bring it about". In al-Inshirāḥ there was no subject, because what was being stated was a state. Here the name of one who promises appears, because a promise has no existence without an owner.

In al-Inshirāḥ: al-ʿusr (definite) — yusran (indefinite). In al-Ṭalāq: ʿusrin (indefinite) — yusran (indefinite).

This difference touches the very centre of a debate taken up in al-Inshirāḥ. As recorded there, there is an argument much repeated in the tradition: in Arabic, when a definite noun is repeated the two are the same thing, and when an indefinite noun is repeated the two are separate things. On this rule the two occurrences of al-ʿusr in al-Inshirāḥ are the same hardship, and the two occurrences of yusran are two distinct eases — and from this the conclusion is drawn that "one hardship cannot prevail over two eases".

Al-Ṭalāq 65/7 is a place where this argument does not operate, and the reason is simple: there is no repetition here. The sentence is said once and both words are indefinite.

What is the function of the indefiniteness here? Two readings are possible:

Both are defensible; I adopt no preference. But this must be recorded: the indefiniteness takes the sentence out of being proper to this man and this hardship of his. The verse does not say "after this straitness of yours". The rule covers this man too, but it is not restricted to him.

And the third difference is the most concrete distinction between the two.

The context of al-Inshirāḥ is a consolation. The sūra counts up that the breast of the one addressed has been opened, that his load has been taken down, that his name has been raised; then it sets the rule. That is, the sentence comes after favours that have been given.

The context of al-Ṭalāq is a debt. What stands immediately before the sentence, in order:

1. Let him who has ample means give out of his ampleness. 2. Let him whose provision has been straitened give out of what God has given him. 3. No one is liable for more than what he has been given. 4. God will bring ease after hardship.

That is, the one addressed by the sentence is a man with too little money to pay. He is obliged to pay maintenance to the woman he has divorced; perhaps a wage for suckling too. He does not have enough in hand. The verse first lightens his load (give out of what you have, more is not asked), then gives him this word.

And the sentence has a second addressee, most of the time unseen: the woman who is to live on that money. Her maintenance is tied to the means of a man who cannot pay. Her straitness comes from the man's straitness.

That is, the promise is said to both parties at once: to the one who pays and to the one who waits for payment.

I record this as a finding: one of the best-known sentences of consolation in the Qurʾān has been attached to the back of a bill. This does not lessen the weight of the sentence — it increases it. Because the consolation is given not where consolation is easiest, but at the moment when a person is thinking about the money that will go out of his hand.

To gather up:

Al-Inshirāḥ says that there is something inside the hardship. Timeless, without a subject, a statement of a state. What falls to the person is to look. Al-Ṭalāq says that there will be something after the hardship. In the future tense, with a subject, a promise. What falls to the person is to wait — but not to wait idly: the period of waiting is the period in which the maintenance is paid.

The two sentences do not conflict. They do two different jobs and are said to two different situations. And as was recorded in al-Inshirāḥ, the difference between them is practical: "The one who waits stops; the one who knows it is alongside looks."

And here we can make an addition from that section towards this side. In al-Inshirāḥ "looking" was asked; in al-Ṭalāq waiting is asked — but while waiting something is done. The man does not sit while he waits for the ease; he pays out of what he has. That is, the baʿda of al-Ṭalāq is not an empty interval: the inside of the interval has been filled with a ruling.

I record this as my own reading.

And finally, a note about method. This comparison between two verses is one of the soundest cross-findings in this body of work, and the reason for its soundness is this: the comparison is made not by an assumption from outside but from within the text itself. To claim that the choice of a particle is deliberate is normally an unprovable claim — to say "it could have been said otherwise" is not enough. Here, however, the text has itself said the "otherwise". The two verses are each other's control group.

One. The man who cannot pay and the man who does not pay.

The most practical distinction of the verse is here. Qudira ʿalayhi rizquh — the man whose provision has been straitened is not outside the rule; the rule binds him by his own measure.

This distinction stands in the same place today. A person who cannot meet an obligation and a person who does not meet it are not the same thing; and an order that does not distinguish the two punishes the first and leaves the second free to hide behind the first.

The verse's solution closes both: because the measure is tied to what has been given, much is asked of one to whom much has been given; little is asked of one to whom little has been given; and there is no case in which nothing at all is asked.

Two. The placing of a promise after a task.

Where the sentence sa-yajʿalu'llāhu baʿda ʿusrin yusrā has been placed matters as much as the sentence itself.

The promise comes not after a description of the hardship but after the thing asked of one while in the hardship. That is, the order is: fulfil your obligation — then the promise.

This says something about how consolation works. To tell a person "it will pass" makes him do nothing. What the verse does is different: it first says what can be done (give out of what you have), then adds the promise. The promise does not stand in the place of the action; it rides on top of the action.

Three. The distinction between "what is given" and "what can be borne".

The difference of wording between al-Baqara 2/286 and al-Ṭalāq 65/7 carries a real counterpart in a matter to do with money.

When "what he is able for" is asked of a person, the limit is indeterminate — because a person can nearly always be pushed a little further. When "what has been given to him" is asked of a person, the limit becomes measurable.

And a measurable limit protects both debtor and creditor: the debtor cannot be pushed until he is exhausted, and the creditor cannot be put off with the defence "I am not able".