Ṣād 38:23-24

Inna hādhā akhī lahū tisʿun wa tisʿūna naʿjatan wa liya naʿjatun wāḥidatun fa-qāla akfilnīhā wa ʿazzanī fi'l-khiṭāb · Qāla laqad ẓalamaka bi-suʾāli naʿjatika ilā niʿājih, wa inna kathīran mina'l-khulaṭāʾi la-yabghī baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ, illa'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti wa qalīlun mā hum, wa ẓanna Dāwūdu annamā fatannāhu fa'staghfara rabbahū wa kharra rākiʿan wa anāb

"'This is my brother; he has ninety-nine ewes and I have one single ewe. He said, "Make her over to me," and he overbore me in speech.' David said: 'He has surely wronged you in asking for your ewe to add to his own ewes. Indeed most partners wrong one another, save those who believe and do righteous deeds — and how few they are.' And David understood that We were testing him; he asked forgiveness of his Lord, fell down bowing, and turned back."

The litigant lays out the matter, and the telling is short and concrete. It has three elements:

نَعْجَة — a ewe. Its plural is niʿāj. The word occurs four times in the scene (naʿjatan, naʿjatun, naʿjatika, niʿājihī) — that is, the same word four times in so short an account.

تِسْعٌ وَتِسْعُونَ — ninety-nine. And the choice of number is worth recording: not a round number, but one short of a hundred.

I record this as my own reading: the figure makes the logic of the demand visible. That a man who has ninety-nine should ask for the one cannot be explained by need. Had the number been a hundred, the idea of need would never have arisen; by choosing ninety-nine, it is intimated that the demand springs from the wish to complete. This is an interpretation; the verse does not state the motive.

أَكْفِلْنِيهَا — root ك-ف-ل. Its concrete sense: to take a thing upon oneself, to assume responsibility for it; to take someone under one's protection. Kafīl — one who takes on another's burden. Kifl — a portion, a share.

The verb is in Form IV and means "make her over to me, put her in my charge". The demand, that is, is not framed in the plain language of seizure; it is spoken in the language of protection and transfer.

This is worth recording: akfilnīhā is a courteous word. But the litigant at once adds a second thing.

عَزَّنِى — root ع-ز-ز. It was treated at the second verse as ʿizza: hardness, impenetrability.

When the verb is used transitively its sense is: he got the better of me, he beat me, he overbore me.

And the adverbial phrase: fi'l-khiṭāb — "in speech", "in the talking".

The second part of the complaint, that is, is not the demand itself but the way the demand was pressed:

And now the link with the twentieth verse is complete. It was tabulated above:

This is a shared wording that can be verified, and I rest my own reading on it: the suit is opened in exactly the field of the capacity given to David. A man overborne in speech comes to a man given the capacity to part speech. The matter told begins as a matter of a ewe, but the second half of the complaint is a matter of speech.

And now we come to the place in the verse that must be read with the greatest care.

David gives judgment. And the wording of the judgment is decisive: laqad ẓalamak — "he has surely wronged you." Reinforced twice, with lām + qad.

Now I set out what can be verified from the text:

The second line is the core of this account, and it rests entirely on the wording: there is not a single word in the verse about the second litigant's speaking.

And the form of David's sentence shows this further: the judgment contains no condition. It does not say "if it is as you have told it"; it says outright laqad ẓalamak.

The classical commentaries dwell on this point, and two attitudes are transmitted:

I convey both views and do not impose a preference. But this must be recorded: both views agree that the test has to do with the procedure of judgment. There is no wording in the verse that ties the test to any other subject.

And this principle of judicial procedure is among the settled maxims of the literature of Islamic law: a judge does not give judgment without hearing both sides. That this principle has been connected with this verse is transmitted in the classical sources. I do not enter into the legal detail.

خُلَطَاء — its singular khalīṭ. Root خ-ل-ط: to mix. Khalīṭ — one whose property has been mixed with another's, a partner. The lexicographers record that the word is used in particular of those whose flocks are mixed with another's.

The choice of word suits the scene: the suit is a suit about sheep, and khulaṭāʾ are precisely those who pasture their flocks together.

And David's sentence passes from a single event to a general verdict:

I record this as my own reading: the judgment is given in one sentence and generalised in three. And the fourth sentence (wa qalīlun mā hum — "and how few they are") is a sentence of regret.

And the particle mā here is of the same kind as the jundun mā of the eleventh verse — a particle conveying emphasis and feeling. There, belittlement; here, the stress on fewness.

And the expression la-yabghī baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ is the exact repetition of the wording the litigants used in the twenty-second verse (baghā baʿḍunā ʿalā baʿḍ). The same pattern, two verses apart: the one a complaint, the other a general verdict.

ظَنَّ — root ظ-ن-ن. The word works in two directions in Arabic: a weak supposition (ẓann) and a conviction close to certainty. The Qurʾān uses both. The context here requires the second — the verbs that follow (asking forgiveness, falling into prostration) are the outcome of a conviction, not of a hesitation.

This is why rendering the word as "understood" rather than "supposed" is the choice of the majority of the exegetes. The contrary view is transmitted as well; I do not impose a preference.

فَتَنَّٰهُ — root ف-ت-ن. And the concrete sense of the root was treated in al-Burūj and al-Dhāriyāt: to put gold into the fire and separate the pure from the dross. Fitna — that fire, that assay.

The picture of the root falls exactly into place here, and I record it as my own reading: fitna is not a punishment but an act of separation — the fire does not destroy the gold, it shows what is in it.

And there is a link of words here: in the twentieth verse David had been given faṣla'l-khiṭāb (the capacity to separate). In the twenty-fourth verse David himself is tried with a fitna — that is, with an act of separating. The two words come from different roots (ف-ص-ل and ف-ت-ن) but both do the work of separating. I give this as an observation; it is a link of sense, not of wording.

أَنَّمَا — "only", "nothing but". What he understands, that is, is this: what is happening is nothing but a test. The litigants, the suit, the ewe — all are part of a test.

Three verbs come in succession, and their order must be recorded:

خَرَّ — root خ-ر-ر: to fall from a height, to come down as if collapsing. This is in the sound of the word as well: harīr — the sound water makes as it runs. The verb tells not of a controlled bending but of a fall.

رَاكِعًا — root ر-ك-ع: to bend, to bow the back. This root was treated in al-Mursalāt at 77/48 and this verse was named there ("And he fell down bowing" — Ṣād 38/24). I rely on that.

And the coming of the two words together is dwelt on: kharra (to fall down) generally comes with sājidan (prostrating); here it comes with rākiʿan. The exegetes explain this by the wide sense of the word rukūʿ (submission) — as was recorded in the discussion of al-Mursalāt, the root is used for "submission in general" as well.

أَنَابَ — root ن-و-ب. It was treated in Qāf: "ināba is to return again and again to a place; nawba (a turn, work done by turns) is from the same root. In the root there is not a single act of returning but a regular coming back." I rely on that.

And in the seventeenth verse David had already been named awwāb. Here the verb of the same attribute comes: anāb. The attribute, that is, is announced first, and then shown at work.

In al-ʿAlaq at 96/19, when the prostrations of recitation were treated, this verse was named, and what was recorded there was this: "The disagreement is chiefly over two places: whether the prostration at Ṣād 38/24 is a prostration of recitation or a prostration of thanksgiving…"

I rely on that and do not enter into the legal detail. What is to be recorded is that there is a difference of view among the schools about the nature of the prostration in this verse.