كَيْفَ وَإِن يَظْهَرُوا۟ عَلَيْكُمْ لَا يَرْقُبُوا۟ فِيكُمْ إِلًّا وَلَا ذِمَّةً
Kayfa wa in yaẓharū ʿalaykum lā yarqubū fīkum illan wa lā dhimma; yurḍūnakum bi-afwāhihim wa taʾbā qulūbuhum wa aktharuhum fāsiqūn
"How can it be: if they get the upper hand over you, they observe towards you neither ill nor dhimma. They please you with their mouths, while their hearts refuse; and most of them are transgressors."
This word occurs in the Qurʾān only in this sūra (verses 8 and 10), and in this series it is analysed here for the first time.
On the concrete sense of the root the lexicographers record more than one thing, and all of them come out at the same place:
| Sense recorded | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Sharpness, pointedness | All — the head of a spear; alla — to sharpen |
| To raise a loud voice | Alīl — moaning, crying out |
| The bond of kinship, relatedness | The sense most of the lexicographers give for this verse |
| Oath, covenant | The sense some lexicographers give |
| A word given in God's name | The sense some exegetes give |
| View | What ill is here |
|---|---|
| 1 | The bond of kinship — blood tie, relatedness |
| 2 | Oath, covenant — a word given |
| 3 | Reverence towards God — the word being taken as bearing on the divine name |
I record this as an observation about the language: I cannot establish with certainty the link between the root's senses of "sharpness" and "moaning" and its sense of "kinship", and I do not try to establish it. The note entered in al-Qāriʿa holds here too: meaning is not derived from a shared sound.
The concrete sense of the root: to blame, to censure, to find fault. Dhamm — the opposite of praise (madḥ). The root was treated in al-Qalam (madhmūm — blamed).
ذِمَّة — the sense the lexicographers give: the bond a person is obliged to keep, and for neglecting which he will be blamed. Dhimma, that is, is "a responsibility whose neglect will be a cause of blame". From the same root ذِمِّىّ (dhimmī) — one under protection.
I record this as an observation about the language, resting on the derivation the lexicographers give: the word names the responsibility by the shame of abandoning it. The name of the bond, that is, comes from the consequence of trampling on the bond.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the semantic field of the two words: ill (on the first reading above) is the bond that comes by birth — kinship; dhimma is the bond that is established afterwards — a word given. The two together cover the two kinds of bond that bind a person: the one that comes by blood and the one that is built by a word.
And what the verse says is that neither bond is observed. The measure is tied not to identity but to the refusal to recognise a bond.
The distance between the mouth and the heart. This structure was treated in detail in al-Fatḥ at 48/11 (yaqūlūna bi-alsinatihim mā laysa fī qulūbihim), and it was the backbone of al-Munāfiqūn. I do not repeat it here.
The difference here must be recorded: in al-Fatḥ and al-Munāfiqūn the structure was built with the tongue (lisān); here it is built with the mouth (fam/afwāh). And the word afwāh will occur three times in the sūra: 8, 30, 32. In all three what is related is that the word spoken has nothing behind it to answer to it.
| Verse | Expression | What is being said |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Yurḍūnakum bi-afwāhihim | A pleasing word |
| 30 | Dhālika qawluhum bi-afwāhihim | A claim |
| 32 | Yurīdūna an yuṭfiʾū nūra'llāhi bi-afwāhihim | An attempt to put out |
This set of three is verifiable from the text and must be recorded. I give it as my own reading: the sūra uses the word mouth each time in order to show the gap between word and reality. In the thirty-second verse this reaches its plainest form: light is not put out with a mouth.