al-Nisāʾ 4:105-113

Innā anzalnā ilayka'l-kitāba bi'l-ḥaqqi li-taḥkuma bayna'l-nāsi bimā arāka'llāh, wa lā takun li'l-khāʾinīna khaṣīmā … · Yastakhfūna mina'l-nāsi wa lā yastakhfūna mina'llāhi wa huwa maʿahum … · Wa man yaksib khaṭīʾatan aw ithman thumma yarmi bihī barīʾan fa-qadi'ḥtamala buhtānan wa ithman mubīnā

"We have sent down the Book to you with the truth, that you may judge between people by what God has shown you. Do not be an advocate for the treacherous… They hide themselves from people but do not hide themselves from God, and He is with them… Whoever commits a fault or a sin and then casts it upon an innocent person has taken upon himself a slander and a manifest sin."

It is transmitted in the sources that this block points to a judicial episode. In this commentary the details of that report are not related and no name of a person is given.

The reason has two layers:

One. The verses themselves give no name at all. Al-khāʾinīn (the treacherous), alladhīna yakhtānūna anfusahum (those who betray themselves), ṭāʾifatun minhum (a group of them), barīʾan (an innocent person) — the text is nameless from beginning to end.

Two. The general stance of this commentary. The same record was entered in the discussion of al-Nūr 24/11-20, and the ground was written there thus:

"This very sūra takes as its subject what it is to talk about named persons. For a section to be written by doing the very thing the verse it treats forbids would be an inconsistency."

The same ground holds here: the block takes as its subject the casting of an offence upon an innocent person.

Khaṣīm — root خ-ص-م: to contend with the other party in a suit. Khaṣm — a party to a case; khuṣūma — contention. And khaṣīm is on the intensive pattern: one who takes up a case and pleads it.

And the place where the sentence stands must be recorded: immediately after the command to judge.

Three clauses in a single block, and two of them in the same direction.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the fifty-eighth verse: there it said idhā ḥakamtum bayna'l-nāsi an taḥkumū bi'l-ʿadl. The hundred and fifth verse repeats the same command and sets beside it the concrete place where justice breaks down: taking a side.

And the same field was treated at al-Māʾida 5/8 (wa lā yajrimannakum shanaʾānu qawmin ʿalā allā taʿdilū) and it was recorded there: hatred pushes a person either to do too much or to do too little. I rely on that treatment.

The two verses take as their subject the breaking of justice from two different directions. I record this as my own reading; its ground is the wording of the two verses.

The root خ-ف-ي: to hide, to conceal. Form X (istakhfā) — to try to hide oneself.

And the sentence is built twice, with a single difference:

And the qualification at the end of the sentence breaks the symmetry: wa huwa maʿahum — "and He is with them".

I record this as an observation about word order: the sentence says not that hiding is impossible but that the one hidden from is already beside them. What is removed is not the act but the distance.

In the hundred and eighth verse the verb yubayyitūn occurs, and the verb is used for the second time in the sūra.

The same verb twice, twenty-seven verses apart. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra. The picture in the word — contriving by night — is the same in both places.

This verse is the heaviest sentence in the block and must be treated in detail.

First the order of the verbs must be recorded, because the verse describes a process:

And it must be compared with the verse before it. The hundred and eleventh verse runs thus:

Wa man yaksib ithman fa-innamā yaksibuhū ʿalā nafsih — "Whoever earns a sin earns it only against himself." (4/111)

Two verses one after the other, and the second adds one further item on top of the first. This is a countable fact.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: when a sin stays upon oneself it is a single item; when it is cast upon another it becomes two items — the sin cast and the slander itself.

The root ب-ه-ت: to astound, to shake to the point of stupefaction. Buhita — he was struck dumb. So buhtān is the slander that freezes the one it is aimed at: what is said is so far off that no answer can be made.

The word was given within a table in the discussion of al-Nūr 24/11-20, and I carry it over here:

I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it.

And at al-Nūr 24/16 the same word occurs with an adjective: hādhā buhtānun ʿaẓīm. Two sūras use the same word on the same subject.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the two verses: al-Nisāʾ says what happens to the doer of the slander; al-Nūr says what the one who hears it ought to say. The two verses stand on two different sides of the same phenomenon.

And now comes a datum of the text that can be verified: this two-word construction occurs for the second time in the sūra.

The same three words in both verses, in the same order. This is a countable fact.

In the twentieth verse this construction was treated under the heading "the form of the question". I rely on that.

And I record this as my own reading: the sūra uses the same heavy description in two separate places — one concerns taking something unjustly from property, the other from a person's good name. Both acts are the taking of something from someone who cannot defend it.

The root ح-م-ل: to shoulder, to carry. Form VIII (iḥtamala) — to take upon oneself.

And its link with the use at al-Aḥzāb 33/72 must be recorded: there wa ḥamalaha'l-insān (the human being took it up) occurred, and that verse was about the trust.

The same root, once for a trust and once for a slander. I record this as an observation about word order; I set up no link of ruling between the two verses, I merely record the two uses of the root.

One. In giving judgement, the block sets down taking a side not as an error but as something that nullifies the judgement itself: the sentence wa lā takun li'l-khāʾinīna khaṣīmā stands right beside the command to judge.

Two. The hundred and twelfth verse counts the shifting of an offence onto someone else as two separate burdens. And the measure is not whether what is cast is true, but that the person it is cast upon is barīʾ.

Three. The sentence yastakhfūna mina'l-nās takes as its subject the party from whom one hides. By making one ask from whom the hiding is done, the verse makes the act itself visible.