al-Naḥl 16:91-92

Wa awfū bi-ʿahdi'llāhi idhā ʿāhadtum wa lā tanquḍu'l-aymāna baʿda tawkīdihā wa qad jaʿaltumu'llāha ʿalaykum kafīlā, inna'llāha yaʿlamu mā tafʿalūn · Wa lā takūnū ka'llatī naqaḍat ghazlahā min baʿdi quwwatin ankāthā, tattakhidhūna aymānakum dakhalan baynakum an takūna ummatun hiya arbā min umma

"Fulfil God's covenant when you have made a covenant, and do not break your oaths after they have been made fast — you have made God a surety over you. God knows what you do. · And do not be like the woman who unravelled her yarn into loose shreds after it had been spun strong: you make your oaths a means of deceit among yourselves, because one community is more numerous than another."

The concrete sense of the root: to undo something plaited, twisted, made firm. Naqaḍa'l-ḥabl — he untwisted the rope; naqīḍ — undone. The lexicographers record a sense of sound in the root as well: naqīḍ, the cracking of the joints — that is, the sound of a bond giving way.

And that the word is used together with ʿahd shows that the language carries within it an image of weaving. The same image is present in the root ن-ك-ث and was treated at al-Fatḥ, 48/10. I rely on that treatment and take its note over here:

"The concrete sense of the root: to open up again, to unravel a thread that has been spun and twisted. In the dictionaries nikth is used of wool or hair that has been unravelled: spun, then picked apart." "'Breaking a covenant', then, carries within the language an image of weaving. To give one's word is to spin a thread; to break one's word is to unpick the thread that was spun." "And this image is worth recording: an unpicked thread does not return to what it was before. The crimp stays, the strength goes. A broken undertaking is different from an undertaking never given — it leaves something behind."

In the al-Fatḥ section the image was recorded as an inference. In al-Naḥl the same image is built openly by the verse itself.

I treat this parable in detail, because it is one of the most concrete comparisons in the Qurʾān and its whole weight is gathered into three words.

The sentence is this: ka'llatī naqaḍat ghazlahā min baʿdi quwwatin ankāthā.

The scene these four words build is this, and it must be read step by step:

One — the work has been done. The wool has been spun, made into yarn. The word ghazl names it: the product of the spinning.

Two — the work has been made firm. Min baʿdi quwwatin — "after it was strengthened". The yarn was not merely spun; it was tightened, made durable. And this note coincides with the word in the preceding verse: baʿda tawkīdihā (after they had been made fast). The two verses build the same structure: a thing is made firm, then broken.

Three — the work has been taken back. Naqaḍat — she unravelled it.

Four — and what is taken back does not return to its first condition. Ankāthā — unpicked shreds of fibre. The wool is no longer the wool it was before the spinning; nor is it yarn. A third thing has come to be in between: waste.

I record this as my own reading, and my ground is that the word ankāthā is plural: the verse does not say "she unravelled it" and stop. It says besides what the unravelled thing became — and what it says is that there is no way back.

And the inference recorded in al-Fatḥ is here borne out by the text's own word: "an unpicked thread does not return to what it was before." al-Naḥl says it with the word ankāth.

The work the parable chooses is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading:

Spinning is work whose results accumulate slowly. It is not finished in a day; it advances little by little, thread by thread. And the force of the parable comes from the destruction being done by the same hand: the one who unravels the yarn is the one who spun it.

The verse, then, does not tell of a harm coming from outside. It tells of a hand turning back upon its own labour.

And the bearing of this on the spoken word is drawn directly: an oath too rests upon a trust built up over time. What is lost when it is broken is not that one oath — it is the whole accumulation behind it. And ankāth is indeed not a single thread but pieces.

I do not rest this reading on a transmitted report; my ground is the work the parable chooses and the plural of the word ankāth.

A woman is named in the parable, and in the classical sources it is transmitted that this comparison points to a particular woman who lived in Mecca. This commentary attaches no personal name to that report, because I have no verified source for it. And, more important: what the verse builds is not the description of a person but the description of a work.

The wording of the sentence shows it: ka'llatī — not "like that woman" but "like the one who does this work". The definite relative pronoun points not to the person but to the act. And the line kept at al-Zukhruf, 43/18, is kept here too: the verse speaks not about a sex but about a behaviour.

دَخَل — root د-خ-ل: to enter. The lexicographers describe the word thus: a corrupting element pushed inside a thing and not belonging to it; hidden corruption, deceit. Dakhal is used also of a person who joins a community afterwards and spoils it.

And the picture in the word works together with the parable: the yarn looks sound from outside, but within it there is a faulty fibre. An oath too looks sound from outside, but a dakhal has been mixed into it.

I record this as an observation about the language, and I rest it on the presence of the two words (ghazl and dakhal) in the same verse.

أَرْبَىٰ — root ر-ب-و: to increase, to swell, to grow more. The root was treated in detail at al-Rūm, 30/39, and at al-Baqara, 2/275-276 (ribā); I rely on those treatments.

And the usage here is worth recording: an takūna ummatun hiya arbā min umma — one community's being more numerous, stronger than another. The reason given for breaking one's word, then, is superiority in numbers.

I give this as an observation: the verse names the breaking of a covenant not as a debate about principle but as a calculation of power. The reason for changing sides is which side is the more numerous.

إِنَّمَا يَبْلُوكُمُ ٱللَّهُ بِهِۦ وَلَيُبَيِّنَنَّ لَكُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ مَا كُنتُمْ فِيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ — and the rest of the verse says two things: that this is a trial, and that the disagreement will be made clear on the Day of Resurrection.

The second clause must be recorded: wa la-yubayyinanna lakum yawma'l-qiyāmati mā kuntum fīhi takhtalifūn. This is a link in the sūra's ب-ي-ن series, and it is almost identical with the sentence in the thirty-ninth verse (li-yubayyina lahumu'lladhī yakhtalifūna fīh). The difference between them is the addressee: there the third person, here the second. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.