فَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَا كُفْرَانَ لِسَعْيِهِۦ وَإِنَّا لَهُۥ كَٰتِبُونَ · وَحَرَٰمٌ عَلَىٰ قَرْيَةٍ أَهْلَكْنَٰهَآ أَنَّهُمْ لَا يَرْجِعُونَ
Fa-man yaʿmal mina'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti wa huwa muʾminun fa-lā kufrāna li-saʿyih, wa innā lahu kātibūn · Wa ḥarāmun ʿalā qaryatin ahlaknāhā annahum lā yarjiʿūn
"Whoever does anything of righteous works as a believer, his striving will not be denied; and We are writing it down for him. · And it is forbidden to a town We have destroyed that they should not return."
Kufrān — root ك-ف-ر, on the fuʿlān pattern. And the core sense of the root is to cover: kāfir is used even of the farmer who covers the seed. The pattern turns the root's core sense into a process: kufrān — to cover a thing over, to treat it as nothing.
And the object of the verse must be recorded: what is refused to be covered over is not faith but saʿy — striving.
I record this as my own reading, its ground being the choice of the word: the verse does not say "his deed will not go for nothing". It says his striving will not be covered over. That is, the recompense is tied not to the outcome but to the effort spent.
وَإِنَّا لَهُۥ كَٰتِبُونَ — and there is a fine point in the preposition lahu: "we are writers for him." Not ʿalayhi but lahu. That is, the record is kept not against the person but in his favour.
And this verse is one of the sentences most dwelt on in the classical commentaries. The difficulty lies in the standing together of the word ḥarām and the negation lā.
| View | What lā is | The sense of the sentence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lā is redundant (it does not affect the sense) | "It is impossible for a town We have destroyed to return" — they cannot come back to this world |
| 2 | Lā is original, and ḥarām here conveys impossibility (imtināʿ) | "It is impossible that they should not return" — that is, they will certainly return (for the reckoning) |
| 3 | Lā is original, and the return is a return to repentance or belief | "It is settled that they will not turn back (from unbelief)" |
A variant reading is transmitted as well: wa ḥarāmun and wa ḥirmun. Both readings carry the sense "forbidden, barred"; I name no reciter.
And I enter a note about the context, and it is not a preference: the next verse begins with ḥattā idhā… — that is, the ninety-fifth verse is syntactically bound to the ninety-sixth. Ḥattā conveys the final limit of a process. The completion of the sentence is in the next verse, and this affords some support to the second reading. It is not eliminative.