ٱلَّذِينَ إِذَا ٱكْتَالُوا۟ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ يَسْتَوْفُونَ
Alladhīna idha'ktālū ʿala'n-nāsi yastawfūn "Those who, when they take by measure from people, take in full."
The first verse gave the verdict; the second verse begins the description. Alladhīna is a relative pronoun and qualifies muṭaffifīn.
As was recorded in the section on al-Humaza, this structure gives not an identity but a description: not "such-and-such people" but "those who do this".
Root: ك-ي-ل. Kayl — a measure of volume; to measure with a vessel. Mikyāl — the measure, the measuring vessel. Kayla — a vesselful.
This form is doing a key piece of work here. One of the functions of the iftiʿāl form is appropriation: to do the act for one's own benefit, to one's own account.
- kāla — he measured (out to someone, gave to the other party).
- iktāla — he measured for himself, he took by measure.
So the same root acquires two opposite directions in two different forms: the giver and the taker. And the sūra uses these two forms side by side within two verses:
The whole argument of the sūra lies between these two words. The same person, the same instrument, the same root — two different behaviours.
The expected particle would have been مِن: iktālū mina'n-nās — "they took by measure from people". The verb "to take" is used with this particle.
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| عَلَى here stands in place of مِن | The use of particles in place of one another (tanāwub al-ḥurūf) is a recognised subject in Arabic. The sense: "when they take from people" |
| عَلَى is in its own sense: against | The act of taking works to the harm of the other party. The particle states not the direction of the transaction but against whom it goes |
| عَلَى conveys "taking a position above" | The taking party is positioned above while taking; in a position to use the measure to his own advantage |
| The verb has taken the particle of istīfāʾ, whose sense it carries | Istawfā ʿalayhi — he took his due from someone in full. The next word (yastawfūn) will have drawn its particle forward |
The second and third views appear more consonant with the text, since the sūra is already relating a one-sidedness. The particle plants that one-sidedness in the grammar of the sentence: they take not from people but over people.
This is a preference, and it is not binding. The first view is defended in the sources too and is possible in point of language.
There are four verses between the two, and the same word occurs twice. In the first, people are in the passive position — it is taken over them. In the second, they stand up.
I record this link as my own reading: the repetition of the word is a datum of the text; the contrast drawn out of it is an interpretation. But the structure of the sūra supports it: verse 6 is the one sentence that reverses the picture of verse 2.
Root: و-ف-ي. This root was taken up at al-Baqara 2/40, and what was recorded there is the key here: the sense of the root is "to complete, to pay out without shortfall"; the Turkish vefâ — fidelity, keeping faith — comes from here; and as was stated there, "partial fulfilment does not count as fulfilment."
At al-Baqara 2/40 the verb was in the imperative: أَوْفُوا۟ — "fulfil your covenant in full." Here it is in the istifʿāl form: istawfā.
The function of the istifʿāl form is to convey a demand: istaghfara (he asked forgiveness), istaʾdhana (he asked permission), istahdā (he asked for guidance).
So yastawfūn is not "they take in full" but, more exactly: "they demand that it be full, they insist that it be without shortfall."
This is the finest point the word carries. The verse is not saying that they "take too much" — they do not take extra. They take exactly what is theirs. And that, on its own, is no fault; indeed to take one's due in full is legitimate.
The fault emerges in the comparison. The next verse will say that the same person does not behave this way when giving.
So in the second verse the sūra is not yet relating a crime. It is only recording a behaviour. The crime is born with the third verse.
This is the most elegant move of the sūra: in the first verse it gave the verdict, in the second it described a behaviour that looks innocent, and it kept the crime back for the third. Reading the second verse, the reader does not yet see a problem.
Sūrat al-Humaza was describing one person and used the singular; at the end it moved into the plural. This sūra is plural from the start.
The reason for the difference may be this: taṭfīf is not the work of a single person but a market behaviour. If everyone in a bazaar is doing it, no one can give it up — whoever gives it up loses. This takes the behaviour out of being an individual choice and makes it a norm.
I offer this as my own reading; it is not the only explanation for the plural, and using the plural in stating a general ruling is in any case ordinary in Arabic.