Muḥammad 47:5-6

Sa-yahdīhim wa yuṣliḥu bālahum · Wa yudkhiluhumu'l-jannata ʿarrafahā lahum

"He will guide them and set right their bāl · And He will bring them into the garden He has made known to them."

The sentence that began at the end of the fourth verse continues here. The same subject (concealed, God), the same object (those killed in the path of God), and four verbs:

The order needs to be examined. The expected order is this: the one who dies receives his reward. But the verse puts guidance first.

Guiding is something done for a person who is walking. Here, though, the one addressed is a person who has been killed. In the classical commentaries this is explained as "his being guided on his way in the hereafter"; some say it is "the continuation of their being guided while they were in this world". Both explanations are transmitted; I make no preference.

This much is visible from the text: the verb presupposes a walking even after death. The reward is not a state of standing still.

In the second verse this expression came in the perfect: أَصْلَحَ بَالَهُمْ. Here it comes in the imperfect: يُصْلِحُ بَالَهُمْ.

The same expression, in the same sūra, in two different tenses.

And two of the four occurrences of the word bāl in the Qurʾān are these two. The word is used twice in the sūra, both times together with a single verb.

What this does needs to be recorded — and this is my own reading:

The second verse gave a promise to living believers and used the perfect: the setting right of the inward state is something already done. The fifth verse gives it to those who have died and uses the imperfect: the setting right is something that will continue.

That is, the sūra puts the same promise at both ends of life: to the living, "it has happened"; to the dead, "it will happen".

I do not present this distinction as a binding exegesis; the difference of tense stands in the text, the meaning I draw from it is mine. It is also possible that the difference of tense arises from the context in which the sentences stand (one where past rulings are being listed, the other where future promises are).

This two-word expression is one of the places where the classical commentaries differ most.

عَرَّفَ — root ع-ر-ف, Form tafʿīl. The family of primary senses in the root is wide:

• عَرَفَ — he knew, he recognised.
• مَعْرِفَة — the knowledge of recognition.
• عُرْف — 1) custom, what is known and accepted; 2) the mane of a horse, the comb of a cock — that is, a rising edge; 3) sweet scent.
• عَرَفَة / عَرَفَات — a place name.
• تَعْرِيف — to make known; and also to delimit, to determine (in grammar taʿrīf is the making of a noun definite).

And the three separate branches of this root give the verse three separate readings:

All three readings are found in the classical commentaries. I make no preference.

I record this observation — it is my own reading: all three readings look in the same direction. Recognition, scent, and the drawing of a boundary — all of them describe the lifting of strangeness. To know a place the first time you enter it, to know its scent, and to know that your own place there has been set apart: all three say "this belongs to you".

I present this as an attempt at a synthesis, not as a preference.

The parsing of the clause عَرَّفَهَا لَهُمْ has also been disputed: is it an adjective qualifying ٱلْجَنَّةَ ("the garden He has made known to them"), or a circumstantial ("having made the garden known to them"), or an independent sentence ("He has made it known to them")?

The difference of meaning is not great; I content myself with recording it.

One detail: the verb is in the perfect (ʿarrafa), whereas the verbs around it are in the imperfect (sa-yahdī, yuṣliḥu, yudkhilu). That is, a past verb has come in among three future ones.

This shows that the making known is before the entry — I record it as an observation. The bringing into the garden is in the future; the making known is done and finished.