ذَٰلِكَ ٱلَّذِى يُبَشِّرُ ٱللَّهُ عِبَادَهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ ۗ قُل لَّآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا إِلَّا ٱلْمَوَدَّةَ فِى ٱلْقُرْبَىٰ ۗ وَمَن يَقْتَرِفْ حَسَنَةً نَّزِدْ لَهُۥ فِيهَا حُسْنًا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَفُورٌ شَكُورٌ
Dhālika'lladhī yubashshiru'llāhu ʿibādahu'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāt; qul lā asʾalukum ʿalayhi ajran illa'l-mawaddata fi'l-qurbā; wa man yaqtarif ḥasanatan nazid lahu fīhā ḥusnā; inna'llāha ghafūrun shakūr
"That is the good news God gives to His servants who believe and do good works. Say: I ask you no wage for it — save affection in kinship. Whoever earns a good deed, We add to it a further good for him. God is forgiving, and gives abundant return."
This verse carries one of the most debated expressions in the Qurʾān. The disagreement is large, and it will be given without concealment and without partisanship.
And first I enter a note of method, because the subject requires it: three readings will be set out in a table below. In this commentary none of them is preferred, no superiority is attributed to any of them, and no insinuation about any group is framed. Throughout history this verse has been the subject of different readings by different circles; per the method (Method), no inter-school polemic is entered into. What is done here is an inventory of the readings transmitted in the classical exegetical sources and of their grounds.
The root was treated in al-Burūj in connection with the name al-Wadūd. The note there was this:
"The sense of the root: to love. But in Arabic there is a difference the lexicographers record between ḥubb (love) and wudd: wudd is love in its outwardly expressed, behaviour-become state. Not an inclination felt only within; a nearness that reaches the other party."
This distinction is at work here and must be recorded: what is asked for is not a feeling but a feeling turned into conduct. The pattern mawadda too (a maṣdar mīmī) gives not the act itself but the name of the act.
The root's other derivatives: wudd (love), wadūd (one who loves much / who is much loved), Wadd (the name of an idol known before Islam — in al-Burūj it was recorded that no ruling is issued about this relation), tawaddud (to show affection).
The root was treated in Qāf, al-Wāqiʿa and al-Balad: nearness; nearness of distance and nearness of kinship.
| Sense | Example of its use in the Qurʾān |
|---|---|
| Kinship | Dhi'l-qurbā — "the possessor of nearness", that is, a relative (al-Baqara 2/83, 2/177; al-Nisāʾ 4/36 and elsewhere) |
| Drawing near / a state of nearness | Qurbatan ʿinda'llāh (al-Tawba 9/99) — a means of nearness with God |
And the particle fī in the verse is decisive as well: al-mawaddata fi'l-qurbā. This particle can be understood in three ways:
- Locative: "within the kinship" — the field in which the affection is to be found.
- Causal: "because of the kinship" — the ground of the affection.
- Directional: "towards nearness" — the aim of the affection.
How the sentence is to be understood depends largely on how these two indeterminacies (the sense of the word and the work of the particle) are resolved.
There is a third indeterminacy, and it is at the centre of the dispute: what kind of exception is illā here?
| Kind | What it means | The sense of the sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Connected exception (muttaṣil) | What is excepted is of the same kind as what it is excepted from | "I ask no wage — except this wage" |
| Disconnected exception (munqaṭiʿ) | What is excepted is not of the preceding kind | "I ask no wage — but I do ask this" (which is not a wage) |
This distinction is critical, because in other places the Qurʾān repeats in absolute terms that the prophets asked for no wage:
"Say: whatever wage I have asked of you, let it be yours; my reward is with God alone." (Sabaʾ 34/47) "Say: I ask you no wage for it — except that whoever wishes may take a way to his Lord." (al-Furqān 25/57)
Al-Furqān 25/57 is particularly striking, because there too the same structure is present: a refusal of wage plus an exception with illā — and what is excepted is something that is to the other party's own benefit.
This is an internal textual indication supporting the disconnected reading, and I record it. But it does not settle the verse by itself, because whose benefit al-mawadda fi'l-qurbā is remains disputed.
The chief readings transmitted for this expression in the classical exegetical sources are these. The table is not a list of preferences but an inventory.
| Reading | How it is understood | Its grounds | The objection raised against it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (a) | Affection on account of the tie of kinship / not doing harm | Qurbā = "the kinship between us". The sentence: "I ask no wage; at the very least, on account of the kinship between us, do not show me enmity, show affection" | 1. The sūra is Meccan and those addressed are Quraysh. 2. Fī is read as causal. 3. That there were ties of kinship with the branches of Quraysh is historically known. 4. Illā is counted disconnected: what is asked is not a wage but the removal of an obstacle | The words "between us" are not in the wording; they must be supplied |
| (b) | Affection for the Prophet's kin | Qurbā = "my kin". The sentence: "I ask no wage; except that you love my kin" | 1. The word al-qurbā is widely used in the Qurʾān in the sense of relatives (dhi'l-qurbā). 2. Fī is read as locative: the field in which the affection is to lie. 3. There are reports transmitted in this direction | It is said that a difficulty is seen in the sūra's being Meccan and those addressed being the mushrikūn; some for that reason transmit that the verse is Medinan |
| (c) | Deeds that bring one near to God | Qurbā = "nearness, drawing near". The sentence: "I ask no wage; except that you have affection for what brings one near to God" — that is, something that is to the other party's own benefit | 1. The word qurbā/qurba is used in the Qurʾān in the sense of "nearness with God". 2. The continuation of the verse appears to support this: wa man yaqtarif ḥasanatan nazid lahu fīhā ḥusnā — immediately afterwards earning a good deed is spoken of. 3. It sits on the same line as Sabaʾ 34/47 and al-Furqān 25/57: what is asked is to the other party's benefit | The use of al-qurbā with the definite article in the sense of "nearness to God" has fewer parallels than the word's common usage |
All three of these readings occur in the classical exegetical sources. I do not impose a preference.
I record an observation, and this is not a verdict but a finding about the structure of the disagreement:
| Indeterminacy | How many possibilities |
|---|---|
| The sense of the word qurbā | At least two (kinship / nearness) |
| The work of the particle fī | At least three (locative / causal / directional) |
| The kind of illā | Two (connected / disconnected) |
The combination of three indeterminacies allows, at the level of language, more than one consistent reading. And this explains why the disagreement has not been settled: none of the parties breaks a rule of the language.
This accords with the method recorded in al-Baqara: where a text allows more than one reading, to declare one of the readings "the right one" is to do more than the text itself does.
And this needs recording, because it is overshadowed by the dispute: all three of the three readings accept the first half of the same sentence.
This sentence comes again and again in the Qurʾān from the mouths of prophets — the same pattern is used in the stories of Noah, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Lot (Lūṭ) and Shuʿayb (one after another in Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ). Being unpaid, that is, is one of the defining attributes of prophethood in the Qurʾān.
I record this as my own reading: the disagreement is about the exception in the sentence; not about its principal ruling. And the principal ruling covers a wider field than the part disputed: the call has no price.
Iqtirāf — root ق-ر-ف, Form VIII. The concrete sense of the root: to peel or scrape the bark off a thing (qirf — the bark of a tree). From this the sense to earn, to acquire is derived.
And one feature of the word must be recorded: in Arabic iqtirāf is most often used for the acquiring of bad things — iqtarafa dhanban (he committed a sin). Indeed in other places in the Qurʾān it occurs in that direction (al-Anʿām 6/113, 6/120).
I record this as an observation about the word. And the concrete sense of the word says one further thing: to obtain by peeling off the bark is to obtain by effort. A good deed, that is, is named here not as something that happens by chance but as something earned.
Nazid lahu fīhā ḥusnā — the nazid of the twentieth verse returns here. And the arrangement is the same: nazid lahu fī ḥarthih (20) / nazid lahu fīhā ḥusnā (23). The same verb, the same particle, the same structure — three verses apart.
غَفُور — root غ-ف-ر: to cover. It was treated in al-Mujādala in comparison with al-ʿAfuww: ghufrān covers, ʿafw erases.
The concrete sense of the root shukr is attached by the lexicographers to two things: shakara'd-dābba — the animal grew fat on little fodder; and shakarati'sh-shāt — the ewe's milk increased. The shared picture: giving much in return for little.
And this picture explains the name's use of God: Shakūr is the one who gives a great return for a servant's small work. The word conveys not feeling need and giving thanks, but giving back more than in full.
And the name's place in the verse must be recorded: immediately before it, nazid lahu fīhā ḥusnā was said — "We increase". The name Shakūr is the name of that increase.
The same pattern (faʿūl), two parties. This is a fact that can be verified from the text and was recorded in the section on the structure of the sūra. When it is a human being's attribute it means not "one who gives much for little" but "one who returns what is given"; the pattern is the same, the direction reversed.