ألم تر إلى الذين يزعمون أنهم آمنوا بما أنزل إليك وما أنزل من قبلك يريدون أن يتحاكموا إلى الطاغوت وقد أمروا أن يكفروا به … فأعرض عنهم وعظهم وقل لهم في أنفسهم قولا بليغا
A-lam tara ila'lladhīna yazʿumūna annahum āmanū bimā unzila ilayka wa mā unzila min qablika yurīdūna an yataḥākamū ila'l-ṭāghūti wa qad umirū an yakfurū bih … Fa-aʿriḍ ʿanhum wa ʿiẓhum wa qul lahum fī anfusihim qawlan balīghā
"Have you not seen those who claim they believe in what was sent down to you and in what was sent down before you? They want to take their disputes to ṭāghūt, though they were commanded to reject it… Turn away from them, admonish them, and speak to them, about themselves, a word that reaches home."
The position of the block must be recorded: the fifty-ninth verse said where a dispute is to be taken; the sixtieth takes as its subject its being taken somewhere else.
Yataḥākamū — the root ح-ك-م, Form VI: for two parties to resort to someone's judgement. The word is from the same root as ḥakamtum in the fifty-ninth verse and ḥakam in the thirty-fifth.
| Verse | Word | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 35 | Ḥakaman … wa ḥakaman | Two arbitrators from within the family |
| 58 | Ḥakamtum … taḥkumū | Those who judge |
| 59 | Fa-ruddūhu | The authority for a dispute |
| 60 | Yataḥākamū ila'l-ṭāghūt | Another authority |
The same root in four verses, in four different positions. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.
The root ز-ع-م: to assert something without certain knowledge. The lexicographers record that the word is mostly used for "a claim without foundation".
And the choice of the verb produces a record: the verse does not say "they did not believe", it says "they claim that they believe". What is at issue, that is, is the distance between the claim and the conduct.
This is the same field treated at al-Munāfiqūn 63/1, and I rely on that treatment: there too the matter was framed not as the truth of the statement but as the speaker's relation to what he says.
Balīgh — "a word that arrives". The verse, that is, qualifies the word not by its beauty but by where it arrives.
And the place of the qualification must be recorded: wa qul lahum fī anfusihim — "about themselves". The word is spoken not in public but to the person himself.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two qualifications: the verse asks both that the word reach the one addressed and that it be said to him himself.