Muḥammad 47:29

Am ḥasiba'lladhīna fī qulūbihim maraḍun an lan yukhrija'llāhu aḍghānahum

"Or did those in whose hearts is a disease suppose that God would never bring out their rancours?"

As in verse 24, here too the am is munqaṭiʿa: "no; or did they suppose…?"

And this is the second use of am in the sūra. Both open a new subject with a question.

Root: ح-س-ب. Its primary sense is to count, to reckon. From the same root ḥisāb, muḥāsaba, ḥasīb.

And the verb in its bare form means "to suppose, to think" — and the lexicographers explain the connection thus: to "reckon" a thing is to arrive at a conclusion with the data in one's hand; and if the conclusion arrived at is not certain, it is a supposition.

That is, ḥasiba is not a random fancy; it is a supposition resting on a reckoning.

And this increases the hardness of the verse — I record it as an observation: the people in question have made a calculation. They have calculated that it would stay hidden. The verse says the calculation is wrong.

This expression occurred in verse 20 and is repeated here letter for letter.

The two occurrences frame this section of the sūra (20-31): the matter of the diseased hearts opens at 20 and returns at 29.

And now we come to one of the most distinctive words of the sūra.

Root: ض-غ-ن. ضِغْن (ḍighn) — its plural أَضْغَان (aḍghān).

The sense the lexicographers record: rancour and enmity hidden and kept within. It is counted synonymous with ḥiqd (حقد).

And a sense of bending / crookedness is also recorded in the root: ḍaghina'd-dābba — the animal turned restive, would not go, bent its neck aside. From here: ḍighn is the heart's leaning to one side.

I transmit this second explanation as a view the lexicographers record; I do not present it as a settled relation of derivation. The word's sense of "hidden rancour" is beyond dispute.

And the most striking property of the word is this: in the Qurʾān it occurs only in this sūra. Twice.

And this is one of the most remarkable movements in the sūra.

The same word, with the same verb (yukhrij — to bring out), is used twice. In the first the pronoun is third person: "their". In the second, second person: "your".

That is, what the sūra diagnosed as "the hidden rancours in diseased hearts" it says eight verses later directly to the one it addresses.

This is the clearest example of the sūra's general method — and it is another appearance of the structure I recorded at the beginning of this commentary in the section "What is the sūra doing?":

Three words, three times the same movement: what is said about someone else is turned back upon the one addressed.

I record this table as textual data (the places of the words and pronouns are fixed); the claim that this is a deliberate method, however, is my reading.

أَخْرَجَ — root خ-ر-ج, Form IV: to bring out.

And the choice of the verb is worth noting. The verse does not say "will know" or "will make manifest"; it says "will bring out".

That is, rancour is something that is inside, and it will be brought out. The verb announces a change of place.

And it has a link with the other occurrences of the root in the sūra:

Four occurrences. And a weave appears — it is my own reading: in verse 16 the people go out themselves (from the gathering); in 29 and 37 what is inside them is brought out. The act of going out is attributed first to the person and then to what is inside the person.

I present this as a reading.