إِنَّمَا ٱلنَّسِىٓءُ زِيَادَةٌ فِى ٱلْكُفْرِ
Innama'l-nasīʾu ziyādatun fi'l-kufri yuḍallu bihi'lladhīna kafarū yuḥillūnahū ʿāman wa yuḥarrimūnahū ʿāman li-yuwāṭiʾū ʿiddata mā ḥarrama'llāhu fa-yuḥillū mā ḥarrama'llāh; zuyyina lahum sūʾu aʿmālihim; wa'llāhu lā yahdi'l-qawma'l-kāfirīn
"Nasīʾ is an increase in unbelief; by it those who reject are led astray. They make it lawful one year and forbidden another — so as to match the number of what God has made forbidden, and thus make lawful what God has forbidden. Their evil deeds have been made to seem fair to them. God does not guide a rejecting people."
The concrete sense of the root: to put a thing off, to leave it to later, to extend its term. From the same root:
| Derivative | Meaning |
|---|---|
| نَسَأَ (nasaʾa) | He postponed, he delayed |
| نَسِيئَة (nasīʾa) | A sale on credit — one whose price is left to later |
| نَسِىٓء (nasīʾ) | Postponement; the thing postponed |
| مُنْسَأَة (minsaʾa) | A support, a staff — it occurred in Sabaʾ at 34/14 |
The root was treated in Sabaʾ; I rely on that treatment.
The pattern of the word must be dwelt on: the faʿīl pattern can carry both the sense of an active participle (one who postpones) and of a passive participle (one that is postponed). The lexicographers record both readings here.
The Qurʾān does not relate in detail what this practice was. What can be read directly from the verse is this:
- They were counting something lawful one year and forbidden another (yuḥillūnahū ʿāman wa yuḥarrimūnahū ʿāman).
- The aim was to match the number (li-yuwāṭiʾū ʿiddata mā ḥarrama'llāh) — that is, the number four was preserved.
- The result was the making lawful of what had been made forbidden.
The following is reported in the classical sources about the historical background of this practice — I convey it without assertion and present none of it as certain knowledge:
It is reported that in the pre-Islamic period, because the sacred months prevented fighting, one month was put in the place of another sacred month; that this was done by delaying a month one year and putting it back the next; and that in this way the number of the sacred months was preserved while their places were shifted. It has also been said that the practice was an intercalation intended to correct the drift between the lunar calendar and the seasons. The sources differ from one another in the details, and in this commentary no detail has been made a condition of the meaning of the verse.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the expression li-yuwāṭiʾū ʿiddata: the verse says itself that the number was preserved. What is criticised, that is, is not the corruption of the number — but the emptying out of the content while the number is kept.
The form stands in place and does no work. And this joins a line treated in this series: in al-Anfāl, when mukāʾ wa taṣdiya was treated at 8/35, this was recorded: "the verse uses the word ṣalāt and empties out its content — that is, the form is there, and nothing answers to it." And in al-Baqara at 2/42 (dressing falsehood in the clothing of truth) the same working was present. I rely on that treatment.
And the expression ziyādatun fi'l-kufr must be recorded: the word is not "unbelief" but "an increase in unbelief". The verse, that is, names the practice not as a new category but as a layer added on top of what was already there.
The verb comes in the passive: zuyyina. This difference was recorded in al-Anfāl at 8/48: the same verb comes in one place in the active with its agent named (zayyana lahumu'l-shayṭān), and in another in the passive. In Fāṭir at 35/8 and Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/37 it was passive too. I rely on that treatment; here too it is passive.