لِّيَجْزِىَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ بِصِدْقِهِمْ وَيُعَذِّبَ ٱلْمُنَٰفِقِينَ إِن شَآءَ أَوْ يَتُوبَ عَلَيْهِمْ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا
Li-yajziya'llāhu'l-ṣādiqīna bi-ṣidqihim wa yuʿadhdhiba'l-munāfiqīna in shāʾa aw yatūba ʿalayhim, inna'llāha kāna ghafūran raḥīmā
"So that God may reward the truthful for their truthfulness, and punish the hypocrites if He wills, or turn to them in forgiveness. God is Forgiving, Merciful."
The verse is the sentence that gives the ground of the siege section: it begins with li- (the lām of causation), that is, "so that…".
| Side | Outcome | The note |
|---|---|---|
| The truthful | yajziya… bi-ṣidqihim | A single option; tied to a cause |
| The hypocrites | yuʿadhdhiba or yatūba ʿalayhim | Two options; with the note in shāʾa |
On one side one road, on the other side two. And the side with two roads is the side that has been censured.
This is a fact of word order that must be recorded. For twenty verses the sūra criticised a group in detail. And in closing the section it leaves that group a door.
The same structure was recorded at al-Fatḥ: "What is at issue is not a door closed but a participation deferred." In al-Aḥzāb the door is opened wider still, because the possibility of tawba is written explicitly.
And, per the method (Method), this must be stressed: the sūra frames no permanent ruling about a group. In the nineteenth verse it was said lam yuʾminū; in the twenty-fourth a door of repentance is opened to the same group. What is understood when the two verses are read together is this: the ruling concerns the state at that moment; it is not a file closed on a person.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is that the two verses concern the same group and that the second opens a door.
| Verse | Word | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | al-ṣādiqīna ʿan ṣidqihim | The prophets (to be asked) |
| 22 | ṣadaqa'llāhu wa rasūluh | God and His Messenger |
| 23 | ṣadaqū mā ʿāhadu'llāha ʿalayh | The men who kept their word |
| 24 | al-ṣādiqīna bi-ṣidqihim | The same men (the recompense) |
The root forms a spine in this section of the sūra, and the question of the eighth verse finds its answer here: the truthful were to be asked about their truthfulness (8); the truthful will be recompensed for their truthfulness (24).
And the verbal resemblance between the two verses is almost exact: al-ṣādiqīna ʿan ṣidqihim / al-ṣādiqīna bi-ṣidqihim. The only thing that changes is the preposition: one indicates the subject of the question, the other the cause of the recompense.
I record this link as my own reading; its ground is the repetition of the two constructions with a single letter's difference.
To which part of the sentence does the note in shāʾa (if He wills) attach? In classical exegesis there are two readings:
| Reading | What it says |
|---|---|
| Attached to the punishment alone | "If He wills He punishes, or He turns to them in forgiveness" — the note of willing stands before the punishment |
| Attached to both verbs | Both the punishment and the acceptance of repentance depend on the willing |
I do not impose a preference. But the word order, in that the note comes immediately after the verb yuʿadhdhiba, seems to support the first reading a little more. This is an observation, not a ruling.
The siege section closes with two names of mercy. For nineteen verses fear, betrayal, excuses and sharp tongues have been described; and the section ends with forgiveness.
This is a repetition of a pattern recorded at al-Fatḥ: the Qurʾān often closes its hard sections with a statement of forgiveness. Sūrat al-Fatḥ ended both its verse 14 and its verse 29 with forgiveness.