وَقَضَىٰ رَبُّكَ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُوٓا۟ إِلَّآ إِيَّاهُ وَبِٱلْوَٰلِدَيْنِ إِحْسَٰنًا
Wa qaḍā rabbuka allā taʿbudū illā iyyāhu wa bi'l-wālidayni iḥsānā, immā yablughanna ʿindaka'l-kibara aḥaduhumā aw kilāhumā fa-lā taqul lahumā uffin wa lā tanharhumā wa qul lahumā qawlan karīmā · Wa'khfiḍ lahumā janāḥa'l-dhulli mina'l-raḥmati wa qul rabbi'rḥamhumā kamā rabbayānī ṣaghīrā
"Your Lord has decreed that you serve none but Him, and that you show kindness to parents. If one of them, or both, reaches old age with you, do not say to them so much as 'ugh', do not rebuke them, and speak to them a gracious word. And lower to them the wing of humility out of mercy, and say: 'My Lord! Have mercy on them, as they nurtured me when I was small.'"
| Verse | Expression | Construction | Sense |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Qaḍaynā ilā | With the particle ilā | We made known |
| 23 | Qaḍā rabbuka allā | With an and the verbal noun | He decreed, He settled it finally |
The difference of particle between the two occurrences separates the senses. I record this as an observation about the structure.
This sequence was treated at 2/83 in al-Baqara, and the order of the seven-item covenant was drawn out there: service → parents → kin → the orphan → the poor → a good word to people → prayer and alms. It was also recorded there: "al-Isrāʾ 17/23 and what follows is the closest thing to it", and "the first concrete counterpart of service is not a ritual but the treatment of the one nearest to you." I rely on that treatment and close the circle here.
| No. | al-Baqara 2/83 | al-Isrāʾ 17/23-26 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Service to God alone | Allā taʿbudū illā iyyāh |
| 2 | Parents | Wa bi'l-wālidayni iḥsānā |
| 3 | Kin | Wa āti dha'l-qurbā ḥaqqah |
| 4-5 | The orphan, the poor | Wa'l-miskīna wa'bna'l-sabīl |
| 6 | A good word to people | Fa-qul lahum qawlan maysūrā (28) |
The word is not a noun but a noun standing in for a verb (ism fiʿl): a sound conveying discomfort, weariness, annoyance. The lexicographers also explain the word by concrete equivalents such as "the dirt under a fingernail" or "dust blown off with a puff"; the common point is what is very small and of no account.
The word was treated at 46/17 in al-Aḥqāf, and this very verse was pointed to there: wa'lladhī qāla li-wālidayhi uffin lakumā — there it was spoken out of a person's own mouth. And it was recorded there: "the smallest utterance forbidden there comes here as the first sentence of a portrait."
| Place | Who says it | The function of the word |
|---|---|---|
| al-Aḥqāf 46/17 | A person — to his parents | The first sentence of the portrait — the beginning of the bad example |
| al-Isrāʾ 17/23 | The text — as a prohibition | The lowest threshold of the limit |
The same word: in one place it is committed, in the other forbidden. And that the two sūras do this in a way that completes each other is an overlap that can be verified from the text.
And the threshold of the prohibition is worth recording. I give this as my own reading, and its support is the smallness of the word: the verse does not begin with "do not shout" or "do not insult". It begins with the smallest sound of annoyance. Then comes lā tanharhumā (do not rebuke), and then the positive command: qul lahumā qawlan karīmā.
There are thus three steps: forbidding even the sound → forbidding the behaviour → saying what is to be put in its place.
نَهَرَ — root ن-ه-ر: to drive off with a harsh shout, to rebuke. (The same root is connected with nahr — a river; the shared picture is flowing away with force.) The root was treated at 93/10 in al-Ḍuḥā (wa ammā'l-sāʾila fa-lā tanhar).
And the two verses can be set side by side: in al-Ḍuḥā it was the one who asks who was not to be rebuked; in al-Isrāʾ it is the parents. The same verb, for two different protected parties.
The idiom of janāḥ (wing) was treated at 28/32 in al-Qaṣaṣ, and it was recorded there: when the word is used of a human being it means "arm, side"; the lexicographers explain the idiom as a person's gathering himself, coming out of a shudder of fear, and rest it on the picture of a bird spreading its wings when startled and folding them when calm. I rely on that treatment.
The difference here must be recorded, and it is a difference of construction: in al-Qaṣaṣ the command was wa'ḍmum ilayka janāḥak ("draw your wing in to yourself") — inward. Here the command is wa'khfiḍ lahumā janāḥak ("lower your wing to them") — outward and downward.
| Place | Command | Direction | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| al-Qaṣaṣ 28/32 | Wa'ḍmum ilayka janāḥak | Inward — to gather | That fear may pass |
| al-Isrāʾ 17/24 | Wa'khfiḍ lahumā janāḥ | Downward — to lower | Mercy |
And a counterpart of the same idiom is found in al-Shuʿarāʾ (wa'khfiḍ janāḥaka li-mani'ttabaʿaka mina'l-muʾminīn — 26/215); but since al-Shuʿarāʾ at present covers the range 26/1-82 in the index, that verse has not yet been analysed. The difference between the usage in al-Shuʿarāʾ and the one in al-Isrāʾ will be taken up when its turn comes: there those addressed are the believers, here the parents.
ٱلذُّلّ — root ذ-ل-ل: to bow the neck, to grow soft. The lexicographers separate two branches of the root, and this distinction is indispensable here:
| Branch | Sense | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Dhill / dhilla | Being humiliated — coming from outside | Negative |
| Dhull | Docility, softness — coming from oneself | Positive (dhalūl of a riding animal) |
In the verse dhull occurs inside a construct (the dispute over reading it with kasra rather than ḍamma is also transmitted), and immediately after, its source is named: mina'l-raḥma — "out of mercy".
This addition is worth recording, and I give it as my own reading: the verse specifies the source of the lowering. What is asked for is not a bending that comes of fear or of necessity, but a bending that comes of mercy. Had the qualification not been entered, the idiom could have been read otherwise.
The root ر-ب-و / ر-ب-ب: to raise, to nurture, to increase. The name Rabb is connected with this root as well — and this link was treated in al-Fātiḥa.
I record this as an observation about the language, and its support is the word itself: in the prayer, while the Lord is being addressed, a verb from the same root is used for what the parents did: rabbayānī. Within one sentence, that is, Rabb and rabbayā stand side by side.
And the structure of the prayer is worth recording: the child asks not for his own mercy but for God's mercy. The verse thus implicitly grants that the debt cannot be paid, and refers the request upward. I give this as my own reading; its support is the one to whom the prayer is addressed.
And the word ṣaghīrā (when I was small) sets up an opposition with al-kibar (old age) in the twenty-third verse:
Two verses mark the two ends of the same relationship with two words. This is a symmetry that can be verified within the sūra.