al-Shūrā 42:49-50

Li'llāhi mulku's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ; yakhluqu mā yashāʾ; yahabu li-man yashāʾu ināthan wa yahabu li-man yashāʾu'dh-dhukūr · Aw yuzawwijuhum dhukrānan wa ināthā; wa yajʿalu man yashāʾu ʿaqīmā; innahu ʿalīmun qadīr

"To God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. He creates what He wills. He bestows daughters on whom He wills, and He bestows sons on whom He wills. Or He gives them in pairs, both male and female. And He makes whom He wills childless. He is knowing, powerful."

The root is analysed here for the first time in the corpus.

Wahaba — to give without return, to bestow. Hiba — what is given without price. And this is the root's distinguishing side: a hiba is a giving that has no return.

For comparison:

And the verb is repeated twice in the verse: yahabu… wa yahabu. The same verb, that is, is used for both sides.

I record this as an observation about the arrangement: a child is named in the verse neither a right, nor a result, nor an achievement. It is named a gift. And the same word is used for both sexes.

And this is the most striking side of the verse.

The order in the sentence is this: first ināthan (daughters), then al-dhukūr (sons).

This is the reverse of the addressed society's ordering. And what that ordering was is recorded in the Qurʾān's own data.

In al-Takwīr at 81/8-9 (al-mawʾūda) this subject was treated in detail, and what was tabulated there was this:

| Verse | What it says | The motive | |---|---|---| | al-Naḥl 16/58-59 | The face of the father who receives news of a daughter turns black, he hides, he thinks of burying her | Shame, disgrace | | al-Isrāʾ 17/31 | "Do not kill your children out of fear of poverty" | Fear of poverty |

And the distinction recorded there was important: al-Isrāʾ 17/31 and al-Anʿām 6/151 say "your children" and specify no sex; the killing of daughters out of shame is a separate fact, and the word mawʾūda is feminine and names it.

It was also recorded in al-Takwīr that both exaggerations about how widespread it was are to be avoided — both "everyone was doing it" and "it never happened" were rejected. I do not repeat that note; I rely on it.

Now the wording of al-Naḥl 16/58 must be noticed:

"When one of them is given good news of a daughter, his face turns black and he is filled with rage."

The matter, that is, is before killing a question of ordering: news of a daughter is counted bad news.

And al-Shūrā 42/49 turns exactly that ordering around.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the comparison of the two texts: the verse does not defend the daughter, does not praise her, does not advance a thesis. It merely puts her first in the order. And it does this without opening an argument and without giving a reason.

There is one further detail of arrangement, and it must be recorded too:

The exegetes have dwelt on this difference and several explanations are transmitted:

There is no certain knowledge and I impose no preference. What is to be recorded is that the difference exists.

Read together, the two verses enumerate every possible case. This is a fact that can be verified from the text:

Four cases, the whole of a totality. There is no other possibility.

And all four are within the same sentence; all four are attached to the same verb (yashāʾ); all four stand under the sentence li'llāhi mulku's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ.

Yuzawwijuhum — root ز-و-ج, Form II: to make into pairs, to pair. The root occurred in the eleventh verse as azwāj. There are two readings of its sense here:

I do not impose a preference; the first reading is the more widespread.

ʿAqīm — root ع-ق-م. The root was treated in al-Dhāriyāt at 51/29 (ʿajūzun ʿaqīm). The note there: at the centre of the root are dryness, unfruitfulness, a thing's being cut off.

And here one must proceed carefully, because the word names a human condition.

Let us look at what the verse does — and this is read directly from the text:

First: the fourth case is named in the same sentence as the other three. It is not put in a separate sentence, a separate verse or a separate context. Having no child, that is, is counted not as a fault outside the order but as a state within the order.

Second: the verb is the same kind. In the other three yahabu and yuzawwiju; here yajʿalu — "He makes". All four are attached to the same subject.

Third: the verse states no ground, no cause and no defect. Man yashāʾ — "whom He wills". The same expression is present in the other three.

Fourth: the verse closes with two names — ʿalīmun qadīr. And the name ʿalīm (knowing) stands in a place worth recording: after the enumeration of the four cases it is said "He is knowing".

I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: the name ʿalīm set at the end of the four cases says that the distribution is not ignorant or random. And this is said, for one who is in the fourth case, in the same sentence as for those in the other three.

A note of limit — and I write it plainly: the verse issues no ruling about a person who has no child, shows no cause, ascribes no deficiency. To draw such a conclusion from the verse runs against the verse's having listed the four cases in the same sentence and in the same structure.

Two separate aspects can be recorded, and both follow from the wording of the verse.

First: the ordering. The verse names the daughter first, and does so not as a thesis but as an order. As recorded in al-Takwīr, the motive the verse describes — the counting of a daughter as a burden and a disgrace — has not been buried in history. Sex-selective practices have produced measurable population imbalances in some countries and have become the subject of legal regulation. This is written not as a note of "scientific miracle" but as a record that the attitude the verse opposes persists.

Second: the manner in which childlessness is named. In a community, people who have no children are most often put either where they are not spoken of or where they are pitied. The verse does neither: it neither keeps silent nor sets them apart. It enumerates the four cases in one breath.