al-Baqara 2:277 — The one positive verse in the middle of the ribā section

"Those who believe and do righteous deeds, who keep up the prayer and give the alms — their reward is with their Lord. No fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve."

The most striking side of this verse is where it is placed.

Immediately before the sūra's harshest financial threat, that is, a verse of good news has been placed. In the middle of the ribā section, this is the one sentence that departs entirely from the section's tone.

I record this as my own reading, and there are instances of it in the sūra:

• 2/186 — right in the middle of the rulings on fasting, the verse of the answer without an intermediary.
• 2/238-239 — right in the middle of the rulings on divorce, the prayer verses.
• 2/277 — right in the middle of the rulings on ribā, this verse.

In all three the same working is present: in the middle of the regulation the language of ruling is left for a moment and the ground on which the regulation rests is recalled. The sūra does this not by chance but as a method.

And its function here is particularly clear. At verse 279 it will be said "know that you are at war" — the heaviest expression used in the Qurʾān for a financial transaction. Immediately before that sentence a verse is placed showing that the door is still open. The threat does not leave one without a way out.

The first two are the pair the Qurʾān uses most often: faith and righteous deed. The next two are two specific practices.

And that the last of them is named here has a direct bearing on the context: the alms.

Ribā and zakāt are the movement of property in two opposite directions:

What is set against the transaction forbidden throughout the section is not merely "keeping clear of what is forbidden"; it is an institution working in the opposite direction.

And there is something worth recording in the roots of the two words. I give it as my own reading:

• رِبَا — root ر-ب-و: to increase, to swell. (Treated at verse 275.)
• زَكَاة — root ز-ك-و: to be purified and to grow. (Treated in the discussion of al-Jumuʿa 62/2; beneath the root there are two senses at once.)

Both words, that is, state increase. The difference lies in how the increase happens: one by taking from another, the other by giving to another. And verse 276 had already said this with the words themselves — yurbi'ṣ-ṣadaqāt, "He makes the alms grow", with a verb from the same root as ribā.

The sūra divides one and the same notion — increase — between two words and sets the two against one another.

This closing is repeated several times in the sūra, word for word or nearly so:

The distribution of the repetition is worth recording: three of the five occurrences are in the context of spending. The sūra repeats the same promise most often to the person who gives away property.

وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ — two negations looking to two different times:

• خَوْف (fear) — about what has not yet come
• حُزْن (grief) — about what has happened and is over

Together the two close off both sources of a person's unease: what will happen ahead and what has been left behind.

And this has a direct bearing on the subject of the ribā section. I record this as my own reading: this is exactly the psychological ground on which interest rests — fear about the future and anxiety over what has left one's hand. The wish to guarantee the increase of one's property is the financial form of insecurity. In the middle of the section the verse names precisely these two feelings and gives what answers them.

And the next verse will continue from the same place: "You who believe! Guard yourselves against God and give up what remains of ribā — if you are believers" (2/278). The link between the two verses is plain: the ground of the command to give up is the security put in the place of what is given up.