al-Isrāʾ 17:28-30

Wa immā tuʿriḍanna ʿanhumu'btighāʾa raḥmatin min rabbika tarjūhā fa-qul lahum qawlan maysūrā · Wa lā tajʿal yadaka maghlūlatan ilā ʿunuqika wa lā tabsuṭhā kulla'l-basṭi fa-taqʿuda malūman maḥsūrā · Inna rabbaka yabsuṭu'l-rizqa li-man yashāʾu wa yaqdir, innahū kāna bi-ʿibādihi khabīran baṣīrā

"If you must turn away from them while awaiting a mercy from your Lord that you hope for, then at the least speak to them a gentle word. Do not make your hand chained to your neck, nor open it altogether — or you will be left sitting, blamed and stripped bare. Your Lord spreads provision wide for whom He will, and measures it out. He is aware of His servants, and He sees them."

That the verse exists at all is worth recording.

I give this as my own reading, and its support is where the verse stands: the twenty-sixth verse commanded giving. The twenty-eighth verse regulates the case in which there is nothing to give.

The list, that is, does not issue the command and pass on — it also regulates the state in which the command cannot be carried out. And even in that state an obligation is left: qawlan maysūrā.

مَّيْسُورًا — root ي-س-ر: ease. Maysūr — made easy, gentle.

And the two commands about speech can be compared:

The two adjectives differ, and the difference comes from the kind of relationship. I record this as an observation.

The verse gives the two extremes of conduct in two images, and both images are of the hand:

The root غ-ل-ل: a ring or a chain put round the neck or the wrist. Ghull — a yoke. The root was named at 69/30-32 in al-Ḥāqqa (thumma fī silsilatin) and in al-Insān.

And the word ʿunuq (neck) occurs for the second time in the sūra:

The same organ, once a carrier and once an obstruction. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

مَحْسُورًا — root ح-س-ر: to be laid open, to be stripped bare; and to be worn out until strength is gone. The lexicographers explain the word by "a mount broken down from travelling the road".

The root was treated with the sense of ḥasra (regret) at 39/56 in al-Zumar and at 35/8 in Fāṭir; it occurred as yawmu'l-ḥasra at 19/39 in Maryam. The branch here is a different one: weariness and depletion.

I record this as an observation about the language: both extremes arrive at the same result — fa-taqʿuda (you will be left sitting). And this verb is the very one used for setting up another god in the twenty-second verse. The sūra ends three separate faults with the same verb.

The thirtieth verse gives the two extremes of the twenty-ninth a ground: yabsuṭu'l-rizqa li-man yashāʾu wa yaqdir.

And the choice of verb must be recorded: yabsuṭu — the same root (ب-س-ط) as tabsuṭhā in the twenty-ninth verse.

The same verb, once a prohibition and once a statement. I record this as my own reading, and its support is the repetition of the verb: the "opening without limit" forbidden to man is named in the continuation of the verse as God's own act, and even there a qualification is entered — wa yaqdir (He measures it out). Opening without limit, that is, is nowhere without measure.

And the root ق-د-ر (measure) recorded at 25/2 in al-Furqān does the same work here.