al-Naḥl 16:7

Wa taḥmilu athqālakum ilā baladin lam takūnū bālighīhi illā bi-shiqqi'l-anfus, inna rabbakum la-raʾūfun raḥīm

"And they carry your loads to a land you could not reach save by straining your very selves. Your Lord is truly most kind, most merciful."

The root was treated in full in al-Inshiqāq, and a summary was given at al-Qamar, 54/1. I rely on that treatment. What is needed here from those notes is this:

The concrete sense of the root is to split, to cleave in two. مَشَقَّة (mashaqqa) is hardship — on the lexicographers' explanation, that which splits a man.

The construction here must be recorded: bi-shiqqi'l-anfus — "with the splitting of the selves".

The verse does not say "with difficulty". Nor does it use the word mashaqqa. It chooses the most concrete form of the root, and it names the object too: anfus — the selves, their own persons.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the concreteness of the word: the cost of the journey is pictured not as time or money spent but as a piece torn from the person himself.

And the equation the verse sets up is worth recording:

The favour is thus described not as "a thing given" but as a cost lifted.

I give this as an observation, and it matters for the sūra's logic of enumeration: some of the items on the list are things given (milk, fruit, shade), and some are costs not paid. The second kind is the harder to notice — for a hardship that is absent is invisible.

The verse closes with two names, and the lexicographers record the difference between them:

The lexicographers record that raʾfa is sharper and narrower than raḥma; while raḥma can reach the good and the wicked alike. I transmit this distinction as a relation the lexicographers set up, not as a settled ruling.

And that these two names are invoked here is worth recording: the subject of the sentence is a pack animal. The names come after something as everyday as that.