عُذْرًا أَوْ نُذْرًا
The continuation of the fifth verse and the last link of the oath. The dhikr is delivered — for what? Two grounds are given.
Both words are in the accusative and are objects of purpose: they convey a reason. "They deliver the reminder for this: either for ʿudhr or for nudhr."
A second view takes them as substitutes for dhikr: what the delivered reminder is is being explained — that reminder is a ʿudhr or a nudhr. It makes no great difference to the sense.
A variant reading. There is a difference of reading in the vowelling of the middle letter of the two words (sukūn / ḍamma): ʿudhran/ʿudhuran, nudhran/nudhuran. This does not change the meaning of the word; they are two pronunciations of the verbal-noun pattern. I give no imām's name.
A small particle, but one that has been dwelt on. In Arabic aw conveys division (taqsīm) or diversification (tanwīʿ).
| Reading | What it says |
|---|---|
| Division | The reminder is of two kinds: part of it is ʿudhr, part nudhr. The two are separate things |
| Diversification / conjunction | The same reminder does two works at once: it both leaves no excuse and warns. Here aw works like "and" |
The second reading is the more widespread and is also logically consistent: because the warning is given, no excuse remains. The two are two faces of one act.
Root: ع-ذ-ر. The idea beneath the root: to remove a fault, to present a ground that lifts responsibility.
- عُذْر — an excuse, an apology.
- مَعْذِرَة — the stating of an excuse. "As an excuse before your Lord" (al-Aʿrāf 7/164).
- إِعْذَار — leaving the other party no excuse; making the warning so plain that "I did not know" can no longer be said.
- ٱعْتِذَار — to apologise, to offer an excuse. This word will come back in verse 36 of this sūra.
Which sense in the verse? There is a nicety to be attended to. ʿUdhran here does not mean "so that they may offer an excuse" — it means "so that no excuse may remain to the other party". That is, the word conveys not the offering of an excuse but the removal of its possibility.
"Messengers bearing good news and warning, so that after the messengers people would have no argument (ḥujja) against God." (al-Nisāʾ 4/165)
The logic of the verse is exactly this: the notification is for the removal of the ground of excuse. One cannot be held responsible for something not made known; once it has been made known, the excuse "I did not know" falls away.
So ʿudhr here is a word that works not in the addressee's favour but against him. The notification is a favour, but it is also the moment at which responsibility begins.
Root: ن-ذ-ر. This root was treated in this commentary at al-Baqara 2/6, and what was recorded there was:
To warn, but specifically to give advance notice of a bad outcome. This is why the Qurʾān uses two words as a pair for the prophet: bashīr (bringer of good news) and nadhīr (warner). From the same root comes nadhr — a vow. What the two have in common is making binding, here and now, something that has not yet come to pass.
That last sentence sits exactly right here. The next verse of the sūra ("what you are promised will surely come to pass") declares binding something that has not yet come to pass. The word nudhr is already the name of that act.
One reading is this, and I record it as my own reading: the order runs not from the outcome of the act to its cause but from the goal to the means. The real aim is to remove the ground of excuse (ʿudhr); the way to that is warning (nudhr). The goal is said first, the means second.
A second reading is also possible: ʿudhr looks to God's side (no excuse has been left by Him), nudhr to the human side (a warning has reached the human being). Two aspects of the same event.
The same root, at the two ends of the sūra, on two different sides. At the start the possibility of an excuse is removed; at the end permission to offer an excuse is not given. The first is in this world and is a notification; the second is in the hereafter and is a consequence.
I shall treat this link in detail at verse 36. Here I only leave a marker: the sūra closes the door of excuse as early as its sixth verse and, thirty verses later, shows that the door is closed.