Āl ʿImrān 3:75-76

Wa min ahli'l-kitābi man in taʾmanhu bi-qinṭārin yuʾaddihī ilayk, wa minhum man in taʾmanhu bi-dīnārin lā yuʾaddihī ilayka illā mā dumta ʿalayhi qāʾimā, dhālika bi-annahum qālū laysa ʿalaynā fi'l-ummiyyīna sabīl, wa yaqūlūna ʿala'llāhi'l-kadhiba wa hum yaʿlamūn · Balā man awfā bi-ʿahdihī wa'ttaqā fa-inna'llāha yuḥibbu'l-muttaqīn

"Among the People of the Book there is one who, if you entrust him with a qinṭār, will give it back to you; and among them there is one who, if you entrust him with a single dinar, will not give it back to you unless you stand over him. That is because they say, 'We have no obligation regarding the ummiyyūn'; and they speak a lie against God knowingly. · No indeed! Whoever fulfils his covenant and guards himself — God loves those who guard themselves."

This verse will be treated in detail in this commentary, because its division settles how the sūra's discussion of the People of the Book is to be read.

The backbone of the verse is two particles, and both are min:

And this is the most important fact of the verse and must certainly be brought forward: the sentence is a division, not a ruling.

The verse does not say "the People of the Book betray a trust." Neither does it say "the People of the Book are faithful to a trust." It counts the two groups in the same sentence, in the same pattern, with the same particle. And it counts the favourable one first.

I record this as an observation about the word order, and its ground is the sequence: the sentence begins with the trustworthy one. That is, the text's own order blocks the building of a blanket unfavourable ruling at the very first word.

And per the method (Method) I write plainly: no blanket ruling about any religious community can be built on this verse — because the verse itself does not build one. The verse describes two kinds of conduct and assigns a part to each. Whoever does that conduct, the verse speaks of him.

The same division was treated in two separate places in the series, and I rely on them:

Three sūras, three separate subjects, the same structure. This is a weave verifiable within the series, and I rely on al-ʿAnkabūt 29/47 and al-Raʿd 13/36.

I add the following as my own reading, and it is not binding: when the Qurʾān speaks of the People of the Book it does not build a single sentence of ruling; it builds divided sentences. And the axis of the division is each time a conduct or an attitude, and never a name.

At the fourteenth verse al-qanāṭīru'l-muqanṭara was treated, and it was recorded there that qinṭār is a large amount and that the lexicographers do not agree on any definite figure. I rely on that treatment.

And the word order here must be recorded, and it is very fine:

The opposition shows the conduct of the two sides at their furthest points: one gives back the largest, the other does not give back the smallest. And the two extremes prove that the distinction has nothing to do with the amount. What is being measured is not the size of the property but the attitude of the person.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of the two amounts: had the verse given the same amount to both, the difference would have been a difference of degree. By choosing the two extremes it turns the difference into a difference of kind.

"Unless you stand over him." And this note describes the second attitude exactly: the return is the result not of an obligation but of supervision.

قَآئِمًا — root ق-و-م: to stand. And the same word will come in a wholly different place in the sūra, at verse 113: ummatun qāʾima — "a community that stands upright". The same word in two different senses: one conveys the one who stands watch, the other the one who stands upright. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and the root picture of the word (to stand) is at work in both.

And the verse gives the pretext of the second attitude as well. And this is the real subject of the verse.

Laysa ʿalaynā fi'l-ummiyyīna sabīl — "there is no way (no obligation) upon us regarding the ummiyyūn."

That is, the obligation has been lifted according to who the other party is. The moral rule has been narrowed according to the one addressed.

And the answer the verse gives to this sentence must be recorded, and it has two steps:

One. Wa yaqūlūna ʿala'llāhi'l-kadhiba wa hum yaʿlamūn — the ascribing of this narrowing to God is named separately. That is, what is criticised is not only the conduct; it is the attributing of the conduct to religion.

Two. Balā man awfā bi-ʿahdihī wa'ttaqā (76) — and the counter-sentence comes.

The particle بَلَىٰ in Arabic sets up an affirmative by rejecting a negative sentence. Laysa ʿalaynā… sabīl had been said; balā refutes it directly: "no, it is not so."

And the word order of the sentence put in its place must be recorded: man awfā bi-ʿahdihī wa'ttaqā — a conditional sentence, and its subject is man: "whoever." No group name at all.

I record this as an observation about the word order, and it is the sūra's method: a party had narrowed an obligation according to group membership. The answer is given in a sentence that ties the obligation to no group at all. The measure is man — whoever it may be.

The operation the verse describes is a recognisable operation today too, and it has a name: the narrowing of a moral rule according to the one it is applied to.

A rule is set up "for everyone"; but in practice a circle is drawn, and those outside the circle are taken out of the rule's reach. And this narrowing is generally done with a pretext — because the narrowing itself cannot be defended, but its pretext can.

The verse's answer lies in two places, and both are in the text: the ascribing of the pretext to religion is counted as a separate offence (wa yaqūlūna ʿala'llāhi'l-kadhib), and the counter-measure is set up with a man that recognises no circle (76).

Per the method (Method) I record this: no conclusion about any religious or ethnic group is drawn from this section. What is described is an attitude, and the verse itself, in its first word (wa min), blocked the assigning of that attitude to the whole of a group.