al-Nisāʾ 4:128-130

Wa ini'mraʾatun khāfat min baʿlihā nushūzan aw iʿrāḍan fa-lā junāḥa ʿalayhimā an yuṣliḥā baynahumā ṣulḥā, wa'l-ṣulḥu khayr, wa uḥḍirati'l-anfusu'l-shuḥḥ … · Wa lan tastaṭīʿū an taʿdilū bayna'l-nisāʾi wa law ḥaraṣtum, fa-lā tamīlū kulla'l-mayli fa-tadharūhā ka'l-muʿallaqa, wa in tuṣliḥū wa tattaqū fa-inna'llāha kāna Ghafūran Raḥīmā · Wa in yatafarraqā yughni'llāhu kullan min saʿatih

"If a woman fears nushūz or turning away from her husband, there is no fault upon the two of them in setting things right between themselves by a settlement. And settlement is better. Souls are prone to grasping… You will never be able to deal equitably among women, however much you desire it. So do not incline wholly to one side and leave the other as though suspended. If you set things right and are mindful, God is forgiving, merciful. And if they part, God will enrich each of them out of His abundance."

This verse uses the same root as the thirty-fourth, and the symmetry was set out in a table in the discussion of the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth verses. I rely on that and do not repeat the table.

What belongs here are two things not found in the thirty-fourth verse:

Iʿrāḍ — root ع-ر-ض: to turn aside, to turn one's face away. The root was treated at al-Aḥzāb 33/72, and it was recorded there: "Iʿrāḍ — turning away (turning aside)." I rely on that treatment.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the wording of the verse: the hundred and twenty-eighth verse adds a second word to the word in the thirty-fourth and describes the situation in two items.

The root ص-ل-ح occurs four times in this sūra as a remedy, and the table was given in the discussion of the hundred and fourteenth verse. I rely on that.

What belongs here is the form of the sentence: wa'l-ṣulḥu khayr — three words, a nominal sentence.

In Arabic a nominal sentence states continuance and fixity; a verbal sentence states a coming-to-be. That the sentence is built as a nominal sentence shows that it states not an observation about a situation but a principle.

And the sentence's place in the sūra must be recorded: it is the second row of the trio set out in a table in the discussion of the twenty-fifth verse (wa an taṣbirū khayrun lakum — wa'l-ṣulḥu khayr — in tubdū khayran aw tukhfūhu aw taʿfū ʿan sūʾin). I rely on that.

The root ش-ح-ح: miserliness; and the distinction the lexicographers record is this — bukhl is not giving what one has, while shuḥḥ is that with greed added to it.

And the pattern of the verb must be recorded: uḥḍirat — passive, Form IV. The sentence, that is, does not say "souls are miserly"; it says "grasping has been brought close to souls".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the passive pattern of the verb: the sentence sets up not an accusation but an observation — and the observation stands immediately after the call to settlement.

What the verse does, that is, is this: it proposes agreement, then names by its name the thing that makes agreement hard.

This comparison was set out in a table in the discussion of the third verse, under the heading "Seven: 4/3 together with 4/129". I rely on that and do not repeat the table here.

Two things belong here.

One. What the table looks like seen from this side — I keep it short and rest only on the wording:

In the discussion of the third verse three tendencies (a, b, c) on how the two verses are to be reconciled were given in a table, and none of them was preferred. That record holds here too.

Two. The hundred and twenty-ninth verse's own measure must be recorded separately.

Having stated the impossibility, the verse gives a command: fa-lā tamīlū kulla'l-mayl.

And the word order must be recorded: what is forbidden is not inclining but inclining wholly. Kulla'l-mayl — an absolute object; "the whole of the inclining".

I record this as an observation about word order: the verse does not ask of a person what he cannot do; it sets a limit he can keep.

And the root م-ي-ل occurs for the second time in the sūra. In the twenty-seventh verse there was maylan ʿaẓīmā, and it was tabled there (27 and 129). I rely on that.

The root ع-ل-ق: to hang on to something, to cling. ʿAlaq — what hangs, what clings; taʿlīq — to hang up.

Al-muʿallaqa — passive participle: hung up, left suspended.

And the picture in the word must be recorded: neither come down to the ground nor up above; caught in between.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pattern of the word: the verse names the state of being neither married nor separated with a single word. And it says that this is a harm by making the word the ground of a prohibition.

The verse does not close off the possibility of separation either, and it enters a record.

And the root و-س-ع occurs for the third time in the sūra:

The same root in three verses, and in all three a possibility of a way out. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the table above: the sūra shows the person hemmed in a wideness, in three separate contexts and with the same word — a homeland, a road, and a livelihood.

One. The hundred and twenty-eighth verse begins the dispute with the woman's own fear: imraʾatun khāfat. And it ties the remedy not to a sanction but to an agreement between the two parties.

Two. The sentence uḥḍirati'l-anfusu'l-shuḥḥ does not lay the obstacle to agreement upon one of the parties; it uses the plural: al-anfus.

Three. The word ka'l-muʿallaqa counts the leaving of a relationship undecided plainly as a harm. The verse names a state that chooses neither to continue nor to end as a matter in its own right.