al-Nūr 24:30

Qul li'l-muʾminīna yaghuḍḍū min abṣārihim wa yaḥfaẓū furūjahum, dhālika azkā lahum, inna'llāha khabīrun bimā yaṣnaʿūn

"Say to the believing men that they lower part of their glances and guard their chastity. That is more purifying for them. God is aware of what they do."

This verse and the one that follows are among the places in this commentary that must be written with the greatest care. I therefore write at the outset what is not done:

• No legal ruling is issued. The rulings drawn from these two verses diverge among the schools and within each school. The disagreements are transmitted, none is preferred, and none is binding.
• No current controversy and no politics is entered. How these verses are applied today, who does what, and the public arguments around it are not the subject of this text.
• The reader is not scolded. These verses are among the places that have produced the most scolding in the language of preaching. This section does not do that.

What will be treated: the roots of the words, their forms, the particles, and the word order.

The thirtieth verse addresses men, the thirty-first women. And that is the order.

This is a fact that can be verified from the text and needs recording. In the tradition of commentary and of preaching the subject has been taken up mainly by way of the thirty-first verse. But the text's own order is this: the command is given to the men first.

And the first clauses of the two verses are word for word the same:

The first two commands, in both verses, are the same verb, the same form, the same particle. The only difference is the gender of the pronoun.

And the thirty-first verse continues from there; the thirtieth does not. This difference will be taken up at the thirty-first verse.

I offer no interpretation of the order itself; this is the text's order, and I content myself with recording it. As an observation about the word order this may be said: the pair of verses does not frame the regulating of the glance as a one-sided obligation.

Root: غ-ض-ض. This root was analysed at Luqmān, 31/19, and at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/3; I rely on those treatments.

The note in Luqmān: "The root غ-ض-ض: to lessen, to reduce, to lower."

The note in al-Ḥujurāt (49/3 — yaghuḍḍūna aṣwātahum): there the word was used of the voice.

The concrete sense of the root: to lessen the amount, the force or the loudness of a thing. In Arabic the word is used both of the voice and of the glance. And ghaḍīḍ — fresh, tender (not yet fully opened).

And the verse's choice of word is worth recording:

In Arabic there are verbs for "to shut the eye" (ghamaḍa), for "not to look" (lā yanẓur), for "to turn one's face away" (aʿraḍa). The verse uses none of them.

The verb it uses is a verb of lessening.

This is the most important point in the verse in point of language, and exactly the same structure was treated in Luqmān.

The note at Luqmān 31/19 was this:

And the particle is worth recording: ighḍuḍ min ṣawtik — "lower part of your voice". Here min conveys the partitive (a part of it). The verse, that is, asks not for silence but for the lowering of part of the voice.

And at al-Nūr 24/30 the same verb comes with the same particle and in the same structure: yaghuḍḍū min abṣārihim.

A comparison of the two verses:

That the two verses use the same pattern is a fact that can be verified from the text. And the conclusion that follows from it is this:

The Qurʾān uses the root غ-ض-ض twice, for two different senses, with the same particle. And in both places what it commands is not a cutting off but a measure.

I record this as my own reading; the structure and the particle of the two verses are the wording of the text and can be compared.

And about the function of the particle min there is more than one explanation in the classical sources, and it needs transmitting:

In most of the classical commentaries the first explanation is preferred, and the ground given is this: the scope of the ruling is limited; not every glance but a particular kind of glance is meant. I transmit this explanation as a view that is widely transmitted. I impose no preference, and it is not binding.

But the comparison with Luqmān 31/19 provides a ground: there the same particle was used with the same verb, and there it is plain that "cutting off the voice altogether" is not meant — for that verse is regulating the manners of speech. That the two structures are the same suggests the same function.

I record this as an observation of comparison; not as a ruling.

Root: ب-ص-ر. Its concrete sense is to see; and to see in such a way as to grasp a thing. Baṣīra is from the same root. Baṣar — the sense of sight, and the glance.

That the word comes in the plural is worth noting: abṣār. The verse speaks, that is, not of a single glance but of the whole of one's glances.

And the word's distribution through the sūra builds a weave:

The word occurs six times in the sūra, and four of them after the thirty-fifth verse.

This distribution says something, which I record as my own reading: the sūra first narrows the glance (30-31), then shows what is to be looked at (35), then tells of the limits of the eye (40, 43), and at the end names those who can see (44).

The sūra, that is, has a weave built upon the eye. And this is one of the sides that explain why the sūra's name is nūr.

In the second command there is no min. And this is the most striking difference in the arrangement.

This difference has been dwelt on in the classical commentaries, and the explanation transmitted is this: the first command is partial because looking is a necessary part of life; the second is absolute because there is no such necessity there.

I transmit this explanation as a view that is transmitted. The one certain thing is that the particle is present in the one and absent in the other, and this is the wording of the text.

حَفِظَ — root ح-ف-ظ: to guard, to preserve, to watch over. Ḥāfiẓ — one who guards. Ḥifẓ — guarding; and memorising (the keeping and preserving of a text).

فُرُوج — root ف-ر-ج: its concrete sense is a gap, an opening, the space between two things. Furja — a rift, a space. The word is used in the Qurʾān of rifts in the sky as well: mā lahā min furūj (Qāf 50/6) — "it has no rifts at all".

The use of the word in this context is a figure of indirect speech, and the primary sense of the root is "a gap". The verse does not use the name of an organ directly.

I record this as an observation about the style: all the words the sūra uses in this discussion are indirect — furūj (a gap), zīna (adornment), ʿawrāt (the places left open). The text does not use the words of the domain it regulates.

The same word occurred two verses earlier (28). The root ز-ك-و: to increase, and to be cleansed.

And the placing of the word here shows how the command is positioned.

The verse ends the command not as a prohibition but as a benefit. The one addressed is named not as the party that suffers a loss but as the party that gains: azkā lahum — "more purifying for them".

And it may be recalled that the command ighḍuḍ min ṣawtik at Luqmān, 31/19, also came within a list of counsels, in the setting of a father's advice. In both verses the command is grounded not on the threat of a penalty but on the man's own good.

I record this as an observation about the style.

One word in the verse-ending draws attention: yaṣnaʿūn — "what they do".

صَنَعَ — root ص-ن-ع: its concrete sense is to do a thing with skill, by arranging it. Ṣanʿa, ṣunʿ, maṣnaʿ (a factory) are from the same root. The word conveys not a random act but a work that has been contrived.

And the Qurʾān uses yaṣnaʿūn here instead of taʿmalūn (you do). This difference is worth recording.

And, as was recorded in al-Ḥujurāt, the choice of verb in a sūra's verse-endings agrees with its subject. The verb chosen here implies that a glance is not a random movement: a glance is most often a contrived movement — where, when, how much.

I record this as my own reading; the sense of "skill" in the root of the word stands in the dictionary.