al-Nūr 24:5

Illa'lladhīna tābū min baʿdi dhālika wa aṣlaḥū fa-inna'llāha ghafūrun raḥīm

"Except those who repent after that and set things right. God is truly forgiving, merciful."

This short verse is the most cited example of a debate that has a name of its own in the Islamic tradition of legal theory: when an exception follows several clauses, does it apply to all of them or only to the last?

In the fourth verse there were three rulings:

1. Eighty strokes 2. That testimony is never to be accepted 3. The name fāsiq

And the fifth verse begins with illā. The question is: which of these does the exception apply to?

The first view is grounded on the rule that in Arabic an exception following clauses that come one after another applies to the nearest of them. The second is grounded on the rule that the exception applies to all the clauses, and appeal is also made to the general ruling on repentance.

This division is a question of legal theory over which the schools differ, and it is debated in the classical works of jurisprudence by way of this verse. In this section no preference is made, no legal ruling is issued, and none of these is binding.

But what the two views have in common may be recorded: both agree that the penalty itself (the eighty strokes) falls outside the scope of the exception. Repentance, that is, does not retroactively lift a sanction that has been laid down. Where they part is over whether the lasting part of the sanction is lifted.

The condition of the verse is not one verb but two, and both are worth noting.

تَابَ — root ت-و-ب. Its concrete sense is to turn, to turn back. The word was taken up in al-Taḥrīm and at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/12. Tawba is to turn from one direction and pass into another; it is the name not of a feeling but of a movement.

أَصْلَحَ — root ص-ل-ح. The root was analysed at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/9-10; I rely on that treatment. The note there: iṣlāḥ is to repair what has been spoiled, to make it workable again. The word conveys not an intention but a work.

The coming of the two verbs together fixes the content of the condition:

And without the second verb the first is not counted sufficient. This is the most concrete note in the verse's arrangement: slander has left a damage outside, and turning alone does not remove that damage.

In the classical works of jurisprudence it has been debated what this second verb means — whether it is retracting his word, or setting his own condition right, or remaining upon the straight road for a long time. I content myself with transmitting this disagreement; I make no preference.

The same pair occurred in al-Ḥujurāt too, in the discussion of repentance for backbiting, and a similar division was recorded there as well: in repenting for the violation of another's right, what is to become of the party violated.

The demonstrative is worth noting: dhālika — "that". What it points to is not said openly: the slander, the penalty, or both at once?

In the classical commentaries all three possibilities are mentioned. The leaving of the reference indefinite leaves indefinite — that is, wide — the stage at which the door of repentance stands open.

I record this as an observation about the word order.

The sūra's first verse-ending comes here, and it is a verse-ending of forgiveness.

The sūra had opened with two heavy penal rulings. The first pair of divine names comes after those rulings, and inside a note about repentance.

غَفُور — root غ-ف-ر: to cover. Mighfar is from the same root: what covers the head and protects it. The root's sense of "covering" was recorded in Muḥammad, where it was compared in a table with the other roots of covering.

And the word's place here is worth noting: immediately after penalising a man's laying bare another's fault, the sūra closes with the name of God that covers.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is that the root of the word ghafūr is "to cover" and that the subject of the verse is "laying bare". The two words stand face to face in the same pair of verses.

One. A door set beside a permanent sanction.

The fourth verse said abadā — "never". The fifth says illā — "except". One verse later, a sanction without term is bound to a condition.

This has a general logic, and it may be recorded thus: the permanent identification of a man with a single fault is not absolute even within the order the text itself establishes. There is a sanction, it is heavy, and it has a door.

Two. And the condition of the door: not remorse alone, but repair.

The verse asks for two verbs. In today's terms this corresponds to something like this: to retract a claim is not the same thing as never to have put it about. The word has gone into circulation. The verse's second verb (aṣlaḥū) means the work to be done where the word left off.

Three. A limit: this verse is not an instrument for settling accounts.

To use the verse in order to measure whether another man's repentance is valid runs against the whole logic of the sūra. The verse binds the condition of the one who repents to God: fa-inna'llāha ghafūrun raḥīm.