Hūd 11:15-16

man kāna yurīdu'l-ḥayāta'l-dunyā wa zīnatahā nuwaffi ilayhim aʿmālahum fīhā wa hum fīhā lā yubkhasūn · ulāʾika'lladhīna laysa lahum fi'l-ākhirati illā'l-nār, wa ḥabiṭa mā ṣanaʿū fīhā wa bāṭilun mā kānū yaʿmalūn

"Whoever desires the life of this world and its ornament, We pay them in full there for their deeds, and there they are not given short measure. · Those are the ones who have nothing in the hereafter but the Fire. What they made there has come to nothing, and what they used to do is void."

Two roots come side by side in the verse, and both belong to the field of measure — the words of the Shuʿayb section later in the sūra.

The root و-ف-ي: to be complete, to give without shortfall. The root has been treated in many places across this series (al-Isrāʾ 17/34-35, al-Muṭaffifīn, al-Najm). Nuwaffi — We pay in full.

The root ب-خ-س: to take a thing by lowering its value, to give less than its due. The root was worked out in al-Muṭaffifīn and treated again at al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/183. I rely on that treatment.

And what must be recorded is this: these two roots will come back together, ninety-five verses later, in Shuʿayb's mouth.

The same two roots, in the same order, in two distinct fields. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the verbal overlap between the two verses: the sūra tells of the return in this world in the language of measure — God gives no one short measure. And what Shuʿayb tells his people is that a human being should imitate that measure. This is an explanation, not a ruling.

The concrete sense of the root is recorded by the lexicographers and is striking: ḥabiṭati'l-ibil — the camel eats a harmful plant, its belly swells and it dies. Ḥabṭ, that is, is a ruin that looks from outside like fullness.

I ascribe this to the lexicographers; the word's use in the Qurʾān is the invalidation of a deed.

وَبَٰطِلٌ مَّا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ — root ب-ط-ل: to come to nothing, to be void.

The difference between the two words is worth recording: ḥabiṭa is a verb (it happened), bāṭil is a noun (it is so). A deed first came to nothing, and then it is said that it was void all along. This is an observation about the word order.