al-Tawba 9:17-18

Mā kāna li'l-mushrikīna an yaʿmurū masājida'llāhi shāhidīna ʿalā anfusihim bi'l-kufr; ulāʾika ḥabiṭat aʿmāluhum wa fi'l-nāri hum khālidūn · Innamā yaʿmuru masājida'llāhi man āmana bi'llāhi wa'l-yawmi'l-ākhiri wa aqāma'l-ṣalāta wa āta'l-zakāta wa lam yakhsha illa'llāh; fa-ʿasā ulāʾika an yakūnū mina'l-muhtadīn

"It is not for the mushrikūn to tend the mosques of God while they bear witness against themselves to unbelief. Their works have come to nothing, and in the fire they abide. · Only he tends the mosques of God who believes in God and the last day, keeps up the prayer, gives the alms, and fears none but God. It may be hoped of such that they will be among those who are guided."

The concrete sense of the root: to stay long in a place, to keep it alive and inhabited. From the same root:

The root was treated in al-Rūm at 30/9 (wa ʿamarūhā akthara mimmā ʿamarūhā) and in al-Ṭūr at 52/4 (al-bayti'l-maʿmūr).

At the centre of the word there is a single idea, and it is decisive for understanding the verse: ʿimāra is not the erecting of a building but the keeping alive of a place. That it shares a root with the word for lifespan shows this: a place becomes maʿmūr by the time spent within it.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the semantic field of the root: the verse speaks not of construction but of the life of the place. And the eighteenth verse enumerates in four verbs what that life is — faith, prayer, alms, and fearing God alone. The list of "tending", that is, contains no stone and no mortar.

The qualification the verse lays down must be recorded, and it is important for the method.

The verse ties the obstacle not to an identity but to a declaration: shāhidīna ʿalā anfusihim bi'l-kufr — "while bearing witness against themselves to unbelief."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the presence of the circumstantial clause: the sentence does not say "the mushrikūn cannot tend them"; it says "it is not for them to tend them while they themselves bear witness to their own unbelief". The qualification is their own admission.

The fourth condition of the eighteenth verse must be recorded.

The root خ-ش-ي: a fear felt before something great — the lexicographers distinguish it from khawf: khashya is a reverent fear resting on knowledge.

I record this as an observation: three of the conditions are positive verbs (faith, prayer, alms); the fourth is framed negatively — "not to fear another." The last item on the list of tending, that is, is not the doing of something but the giving up of something.

The close of the verse is striking and must be recorded: ʿasā — "it may be hoped that."

Even for those who fulfil the four conditions the sentence is not framed as a certainty.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the particle ʿasā: the text declares no certain outcome even for someone on its own side. This will reach a much plainer form in verse 106 of the sūra (murjawna li-amri'llāh) and will be treated in detail there.