وَلَا تَقْتُلُوٓا۟ أَوْلَٰدَكُمْ خَشْيَةَ إِمْلَٰقٍ
Wa lā taqtulū awlādakum khashyata imlāq, naḥnu narzuquhum wa iyyākum, inna qatlahum kāna khiṭʾan kabīrā
"Do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Killing them is truly a great offence."
The verse comes immediately after the verses on squandering and miserliness — that is, inside the discussion of money.
I record this as my own reading, and its support is the sequence: the verse places the killing of a child not as an item of morals but as the outcome of a calculation about money. The ground is already inside the verse: khashyata imlāq — the fear of poverty.
The verse thus does not speak of someone who has fallen into poverty; it speaks of someone who fears the possibility of falling into poverty.
إِمْلَٰق — root م-ل-ق: to be left with nothing in hand, to be used up entirely. The lexicographers also connect the root with "growing soft and melting away".
Relying on the discussion of the mawʾūda in al-Takwīr
This subject was treated at 81/8-9 in al-Takwīr (wa idha'l-mawʾūdatu suʾilat · bi-ayyi dhanbin qutilat), and this verse was already pointed to there. The record entered there holds exactly, and I rely on it:
al-Isrāʾ 17/31 and al-Anʿām 6/151 say "your children" — they specify no sex. The Qurʾān appears to be distinguishing two separate phenomena: the killing of a child on account of poverty, and the killing of a girl on account of shame. The mawʾūda in al-Takwīr is feminine, and names the second.
| Place | Word | Sex | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| al-Takwīr 81/8 | Al-mawʾūda | Feminine — a girl | Shame |
| al-Isrāʾ 17/31 | Awlādakum | Unspecified — children | Fear of poverty |
And something else recorded there in al-Takwīr works here too: in al-Takwīr the question was put to the one killed (bi-ayyi dhanbin qutilat — "for what offence were you killed?"). Here the address is directly to the one who kills. The same phenomenon, addressed to two different parties in two sūras.
The word order of the sentence is striking, and the lexicographers dwell on it: first them, then you.
And the same ruling is ordered the other way round at al-Anʿām 6/151: naḥnu narzuqukum wa iyyāhum — "you, and them too".
| Place | Order | Context |
|---|---|---|
| al-Anʿām 6/151 | You → them | Min imlāqin — actual poverty |
| al-Isrāʾ 17/31 | Them → you | Khashyata imlāq — the fear of poverty |
It is transmitted that in the classical commentaries this difference is tied to the difference between the two situations: the person actually in poverty thinks first of his own livelihood, while the person who is afraid thinks of a burden that does not yet exist. I transmit this explanation as a transmitted account; but that the order of the two verses differs is a datum that can be verified from the text.
خِطْـًٔا — root خ-ط-أ: to miss the target, to err; and to commit an offence deliberately. The lexicographers record the difference between khiṭʾ and khaṭaʾ: the first involves intent, the second the absence of it.
That the pattern khiṭʾ is the one chosen in the verse is worth recording: the word takes the act out of the class of "erring" and names it an offence committed knowingly.