لِّكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ جَعَلْنَا مَنسَكًا هُمْ نَاسِكُوهُ فَلَا يُنَٰزِعُنَّكَ فِى ٱلْأَمْرِ وَٱدْعُ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ إِنَّكَ لَعَلَىٰ هُدًى مُّسْتَقِيمٍ · وَإِن جَٰدَلُوكَ فَقُلِ ٱللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ · ٱللَّهُ يَحْكُمُ بَيْنَكُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ فِيمَا كُنتُمْ فِيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ
Li-kulli ummatin jaʿalnā mansakan hum nāsikūh · Fa-lā yunāziʿunnaka fi'l-amr · Wa'dʿu ilā rabbik · Innaka la-ʿalā hudan mustaqīm · Wa in jādalūka fa-quli'llāhu aʿlamu bimā taʿmalūn · Allāhu yaḥkumu baynakum yawma'l-qiyāmati fīmā kuntum fīhi takhtalifūn
"For every community We appointed a mansak; they perform it. So let them not contend with you in this matter. Call to your Lord; you are on a straight guidance. And if they dispute with you, say: 'God knows best what you are doing.' God will judge between you on the Day of Resurrection concerning that in which you differed."
The sentence occurred at 22/34. The differences must be recorded:
| 22/34 | 22/67 | |
|---|---|---|
| The sentence | Wa li-kulli ummatin jaʿalnā mansakan | Li-kulli ummatin jaʿalnā mansakan |
| The addition | Li-yadhkuru'sma'llāhi… — a ground | Hum nāsikūh — its performers |
| The continuation | Fa-ilāhukum ilāhun wāḥidun fa-lahu aslimū | Fa-lā yunāziʿunnaka fi'l-amr |
هُمْ نَاسِكُوهُ — "they are its performers". A nominal sentence and the pattern of the active participle: it conveys continuity.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference between the two verses: the thirty-fourth verse bound the mansak to submission; the sixty-seventh binds it to the cutting off of dispute. The same fact is used for two separate conclusions.
The root ن-ز-ع: to pull out, to tear away. Nazʿ — to wrench a thing from its place; the sūra name al-Nāziʿāt is from this root. In Form III (munāzaʿa) there is reciprocity: to pull against one another, to contend.
The picture in the word is worth recording: contention is described as two parties each pulling a thing towards itself — like pulling at the two ends of a rope.
And the verb is in the prohibitive, but its addressee is in the third person: fa-lā yunāziʿunnaka. That is, "let them not contend with you". The apparent addressee of the command is they, but what is in practice being said is said to the Prophet.
The lexicographers explain this pattern as "a command in the form of a prohibition": to all appearances a prohibition upon the other party, in reality a "do not enter into contention" addressed to the one spoken to. I transmit this explanation as it is transmitted.
And this can be read together with the measure treated at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/46: wa lā tujādilū ahla'l-kitābi illā bi'llatī hiya aḥsan. I rely on that treatment. The two verses face the same way: the dispute itself is not the goal.
The answer given to the dispute is not a counter-argument. Allāhu aʿlamu bimā taʿmalūn — "God knows best what you are doing."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the content of the answer: the answer does not enter into the subject of the dispute. It refers the matter to an authority — and that authority does not judge in this world: the sixty-ninth verse gives its time: yawma'l-qiyāma.
And the choice of verb is meaningful: bimā taʿmalūn — "what you do". Not what you believe, but what you do.
This links with the seventeenth verse of the sūra: there too six groups were enumerated and the judgement was left to the Resurrection — inna'llāha yafṣilu baynahum yawma'l-qiyāma. The same structure, twice, fifty verses apart.