وَجَآءَ ٱلْمُعَذِّرُونَ مِنَ ٱلْأَعْرَابِ لِيُؤْذَنَ لَهُمْ
Wa jāʾa'l-muʿadhdhirūna mina'l-aʿrābi li-yuʾdhana lahum wa qaʿada'lladhīna kadhabu'llāha wa rasūlah; sa-yuṣību'lladhīna kafarū minhum ʿadhābun alīm
"Those of the bedouin who put forward excuses came so that leave might be given them; while those who lied to God and His Messenger sat still. A painful punishment will befall those of them who rejected."
There is disagreement over the reading and the meaning of the word, and I record it because it changes the sense:
| Reading | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ٱلْمُعَذِّرُون (al-muʿadhdhirūn) | Active participle of Form II | Those who fabricate excuses — who put forward a pretext that does not hold |
| ٱلْمُعْذِرُون (al-muʿdhirūn) | From Form IV | Those who have a genuine excuse |
And I record this as my own reading: the continuation of the verse names a second group — wa qaʿada'lladhīna kadhabu'llāha wa rasūlah — that is, those who did not come and sat still. The sentence separates two behaviours: those who came and stated an excuse, and those who did not come at all. This distinction itself shows that, whichever reading is taken, the word carries a gradation.
The word was treated in al-Fatḥ and al-Ḥujurāt, and it was recorded there: aʿrāb does not mean "the Arabs" but the bedouin* — communities not settled, living in the desert. I rely on that treatment.
And the particle min here too states a partitive: mina'l-aʿrāb — "of the bedouin." And indeed verse 99 of the sūra will name a section from within that same community separately.
Per the method (Method): no wholesale ruling about any ethnic or social group is drawn from this word.