Ibrāhīm 14:28-29

Alam tara ila'lladhīna baddalū niʿmata'llāhi kufran wa aḥallū qawmahum dāra'l-bawār · Jahannama yaṣlawnahā wa biʾsa'l-qarār

"Have you not seen those who exchanged God's favour for denial and brought their people down into the abode of ruin? · Hell; they enter it. What an evil place to stand!"

The root ب-د-ل: to put something else in a thing's place, to exchange. Badal — what takes the place of another; tabdīl — to change a thing's place.

The construction of the verb must be recorded: baddala A for B — in Arabic what comes first is what is given up, what comes second is what is taken. That is, the favour is what was given up, denial what was taken.

And this sentence is the enactment of the seventh verse:

I record this as an observation about the word order: what the sūra set down as a possibility in the seventh verse it shows as having come about in the twenty-eighth. And in between stands the parable of the two trees — that is, a criterion has been placed between the condition and its fulfilment.

The root ح-ل-ل: to come down somewhere and encamp (in nomadic life, to set down the load and pitch the tent). Ḥalla — he encamped; aḥalla — he made to encamp, he brought down. From the same root come ḥulūl (entering into a place) and maḥalla (a place of encampment).

That the verb comes in a transitive form must be recorded: aḥallū qawmahum — "they brought their people down."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the object of the verb: the verse is not speaking of their own end alone. What is said is that they took a people somewhere. That is, responsibility is mentioned not as a personal choice but as a decision that carries others with it.

The root ب-و-ر: to become useless, to find no market, to fall into ruin. Bāra'l-matāʿ — the goods went unsold and were left on his hands. Bawār — destruction, coming to nothing.

And the word had occurred in a positive context at Fāṭir 35/29: yarjūna tijāratan lan tabūr — "they hope for a commerce that will not go unsold."

The same root, once negated and once as a noun. This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.

Different views are transmitted in the classical sources as to whom this verse was revealed about — certain leading men of Mecca, or Quraysh in general. I give no name, because I do not write an attribution I am not sure of.

And the language of the verse gives no name in any case: alladhīna baddalū — a description by way of an attribute. Per the method (Method) I record it: the ruling is attached not to a community but to a behaviour.