وإذا جاءهم أمر من الأمن أو الخوف أذاعوا به ولو ردوه إلى الرسول وإلى أولي الأمر منهم لعلمه الذين يستنبطونه منهم
Wa idhā jāʾahum amrun mina'l-amni awi'l-khawfi adhāʿū bih, wa law raddūhu ila'l-rasūli wa ilā uli'l-amri minhum la-ʿalimahu'lladhīna yastanbiṭūnahū minhum
"When news of security or of fear comes to them, they spread it about. Had they referred it to the Messenger and to those among them who hold command (ulu'l-amr), those among them who can draw out its inner sense would have known it."
And the object of the verb must be recorded: amrun mina'l-amni awi'l-khawf — "news of security or of fear". The verse counts both directions: what is spread may be not only bad news but good news too.
I record this as an observation about word order: what is forbidden is not the content of the news but its being spread without verification.
The root ن-ب-ط. And its concrete sense is the most striking side of this verse: nabṭ — the first water that comes up when a well is dug.
Istinbāṭ (Form X) — to bring that water out; and from there, to draw a hidden sense out of an utterance.
The picture in the word must be recorded: knowledge is drawn not as something lying on the surface but as something brought up by digging.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the concrete sense of the root: the verse names the understanding of the inner side of a report as work that requires labour. And this is in the same direction as tadabbur one verse earlier: both verbs state a going beneath the surface.
| Verse | Verb | The picture in the root |
|---|---|---|
| 82 | Tadabbur | To get behind a thing |
| 83 | Istinbāṭ | To bring a thing up from the depth |
Two verses one after the other, and two verbs in the same direction. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.
And the eighty-third verse qualifies the ulu'l-amr with an attribute: alladhīna yastanbiṭūnahū minhum — "those among them who can draw out its inner sense".
This was named in the table of disagreement at the fifty-ninth verse as one of the grounds of reading A. I rely on that, and here too I impose no preference.
But it must be recorded as a datum of the text: in the second occurrence a description of a task is set beside the word.