أَيَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّمَا نُمِدُّهُم بِهِۦ مِن مَّالٍ وَبَنِينَ · نُسَارِعُ لَهُمْ فِى ٱلْخَيْرَٰتِ بَل لَّا يَشْعُرُونَ
a-yaḥsabūna annamā numidduhum bihī min mālin wa banīn · nusāriʿu lahum fi'l-khayrāt, bal lā yashʿurūn
"Do they suppose that, in the wealth and sons with which We supply them, We are hurrying good things to them? No — they do not perceive."
The concrete sense of the root: to extend, to draw out, to feed continuously. Madd — extending; midād — ink (what flows steadily to the pen); imdād — supplying without interruption.
The pattern is Form IV, and the lexicographers record a distinction between madda and amadda: amadda is used mostly for good and support, madda for extending a term and granting respite. I pass the explanation on as it is transmitted; there are exceptions to this distinction in the Qurʾān as well.
The two words occur together regularly in the Qurʾān: al-Kahf 18/46 (al-mālu wa'l-banūna zīnatu'l-ḥayāti'l-dunyā), Sabaʾ 34/35 (naḥnu aktharu amwālan wa awlādan; treated in Sabaʾ), Nūḥ 71/12 (treated in Nūḥ), al-Qalam 68/14 (treated in al-Qalam).
And the whole of this question was treated at Sabaʾ 34/35-37: the answer given to counting wealth and children a measure of nearness. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it here.
The word order must be recorded, and this is the most striking place in the two verses: the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth verses are a single sentence; the verse boundary does not divide the sentence.
The skeleton of the sentence is this: a-yaḥsabūna anna… nusāriʿu lahum fi'l-khayrāt. The question, that is, is not about "We are giving wealth"; it is about the assumption that "to give wealth is to hurry good things to them".
I give this as an observation about the word order, its ground being that the predicate of anna is in the second verse. And the lexicographers differ over the parsing: whether annamā is joined (kāffa) or separate (anna + relative mā); both parsings are transmitted. In either case the ruling of the sentence comes out at the same place.
The root س-ر-ع: to be swift. The pattern is Form III (sāraʿa): to hurry, to hasten as though racing.
| Verse | Sentence | Agent | What |
|---|---|---|---|
| 56 | nusāriʿu lahum fi'l-khayrāt | We (supposedly) | Good things are hurried to them — what they suppose |
| 61 | ulāʾika yusāriʿūna fi'l-khayrāt | They — those described at 57-60 | They themselves hurry to good things — what is |
The same verb, with the same construction (fi'l-khayrāt), twice, five verses apart. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra and is read from the wording of the text.
I record this as my own reading, its ground being this word-for-word repetition: in the fifty-sixth verse the one hurrying to the good things is the giver, and the place hurried to is in front of them; in the sixty-first the ones hurrying to the good things are the servants. Five verses after describing a delusion, that is, the sūra shows the right subject of the same expression.
And the difference is precisely a difference of subject: one supposes that something is being hurried to him, the other is himself hurrying.
The particle bal was treated at al-Furqān 25/11: it drops what has just been said and brings the real cause. I rely on that treatment.
The root ش-ع-ر: to notice something fine, to sense it. Shaʿr — hair (from its fineness); shāʿir — the one who notices what is fine; mashʿar — a place marked and known; shuʿūr — perception.
And the choice of verb must be recorded: the verse does not say lā yaʿlamūn (they do not know) — lā yashʿurūn (they do not perceive). The picture in the root is the noticing of something fine.
I give this as my own reading, its ground being this sense of the root: what is lacking is not knowledge but noticing. They see that wealth and children are being given; they do not perceive what the giving means.
The section from the fifty-first verse to the fifty-sixth is a whole, and its order is worth recording:
| Verse | What |
|---|---|
| 51 | A command shared by the messengers — eat and do righteous deeds |
| 52 | The oneness of the community |
| 53 | The breaking apart, and the contentment of the groups |
| 54 | Being left — until a time |
| 55-56 | The misreading of prosperity |
I give this as my own reading: the block descends from unity to breaking apart, from breaking apart to contentment, from contentment to delusion. And at every step the other side holds a good opinion: rejoicing in what it has (53), counting prosperity a favour (55-56). What the block describes, that is, is not a punishment but a misreading.