al-Nūr 24:20 commentary

24/20

وَلَوْلَا فَضْلُ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَتُهُۥ وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ رَءُوفٌ رَّحِيمٌ

Wa law lā faḍlu'llāhi ʿalaykum wa raḥmatuhū wa anna'llāha raʾūfun raḥīm

"And were it not for God's bounty towards you and His mercy, and that God is most kind, most merciful…"

A third time, a condition without an answer

The pattern of the tenth verse is repeated here, and again its answer is not spoken.

But there is a difference, and it is worth noting: in the tenth verse the close was tawwābun ḥakīm; here it is raʾūfun raḥīm.

Verse	The close	Its kind
10	tawwābun ḥakīm	Repentance + ruling
20	raʾūfun raḥīm	Kindness + mercy

In the second verse raʾfa had been forbidden — on the condition that it should not stop the ruling. And now the same root returns as a name of God: raʾūf.

This is one of the finest rings in the sūra's arrangement, and I record it as my own reading:

Verse	Word	Whose	What
2	raʾfatun	Man's	The feeling asked not to stop the ruling
20	raʾūfun	God's	The name invoked after the ruling

The sūra thus separates this: a man's raʾfa cannot alter a measure that has been set; but the raʾfa of the one who sets the measure stands behind the measure itself.

The definition recorded at al-Ḥashr, 59/10, shows its use here: raʾfa contains the refusal to give pain at all, the refusal to hurt. And this is exactly the work done between the eleventh and the twentieth verses — a community has made a heavy mistake, and in correcting it the text has entered a note of bounty and mercy four times in ten verses.

I record this as an observation of count: 10, 14, 20, 21.