وَمِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ مَن يُجَٰدِلُ فِى ٱللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ وَيَتَّبِعُ كُلَّ شَيْطَٰنٍ مَّرِيدٍ · كُتِبَ عَلَيْهِ أَنَّهُۥ مَن تَوَلَّاهُ فَأَنَّهُۥ يُضِلُّهُۥ وَيَهْدِيهِ إِلَىٰ عَذَابِ ٱلسَّعِيرِ
Wa mina'n-nāsi man yujādilu fi'llāhi bi-ghayri ʿilmin wa yattabiʿu kulla shayṭānin marīd · Kutiba ʿalayhi annahu man tawallāhu fa-annahu yuḍilluhu wa yahdīhi ilā ʿadhābi's-saʿīr
"Among the people is one who disputes about God without knowledge and follows every rebellious satan. Of him it is written: whoever takes him as a friend, he leads him astray and guides him to the punishment of the blaze."
This pattern occurs three times in the sūra: 3, 8, 11. Each of the three opens a portrait of a man, and the three are different.
| Verse | The portrait | The distinguishing trait |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | The disputer | Bi-ghayri ʿilm — without knowledge; he follows another |
| 8 | The disputer | Bi-ghayri ʿilmin wa lā hudan wa lā kitābin munīr — groundless three times over; he leads himself |
| 11 | The one who serves at the edge | ʿAlā ḥarf — he has taken no side |
The sequence itself carries information, and I record it as an observation about word order: the man in the third verse is a follower (yattabiʿu), the man in the eighth is one who leads astray (li-yuḍilla), and the man in the eleventh is one who calculates his own account. The same pattern, three separate positions.
The root ج-د-ل was analysed at al-Baqara 2/197: to twist a rope tight; jadīl — a firmly plaited rope; in wrestling, to throw one's opponent to the ground. I do not repeat it here. In al-Baqara this word stood among the things forbidden during the ḥajj (wa lā jidāla fi'l-ḥajj) — and this sūra is the sūra of the ḥajj. That the word is placed here is worth recording.
مَّرِيد — root م-ر-د: the core sense the lexicographers give is bareness, having nothing left upon one. Amrad — a youth whose beard has not come; shajaratun mardāʾ — a leafless tree. From this comes the sense of being stripped of every good. Mārid and marīd are of the same root; so is mutamarrid (obstinate).
The picture in the word must be recorded: rebelliousness is described here not as an excess but as a stripping — having no covering left to hold on to.
The most striking place in the fourth verse is the juxtaposition of two verbs: yuḍilluhu (he leads him astray) and yahdīhi (he guides him).
I give this as my own reading, and its ground is the opposition of the verbs: the verb hidāya is used here not for something positive but for conducting to punishment. The root does not by itself mean "to bring to what is right"; it means to direct somewhere. The direction is learned from the end of the sentence: ilā ʿadhābi's-saʿīr.
The sense of "directing" in the same root was recorded in al-Fatḥ when the word hady (the sacrificial animal — the one sent to its place) was treated. I rely on that treatment. And the word hady will occur in this sūra too (it will be taken up in the section 22/33-37) — the same root, in two separate places in the same sūra.