ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ كَرِهُوا۟ مَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ فَأَحْبَطَ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ
The second occurrence of the sūra's dhālika bi-anna pattern. In the third verse the ground of verses 1-2 was given; here the ground of verse 8 is given.
In the third verse the ground was إِتِّبَاع — following, setting off after; a behaviour. Here the ground is كَرِهُوا۟ — disliking; an inward state.
This opens the door to the later sections of the sūra. The sūra will move gradually from outside inward: from behaviour to feeling, from feeling to the heart (20, 24, 29), and finally to the hidden rancour inside the heart (29, 37).
| Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|
| كَرْه (karh) — with fatḥa | Compulsion coming from outside; doing something unwillingly |
| كُرْه (kurh) — with ḍamma | Dislike arising from within, revulsion |
The common core: a thing's weighing heavily on the soul. Its opposites are رِضَا (riḍā) and مَحَبَّة (love).
| Verse | Expression | What they dislike |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | karihū mā anzala'llāh | What God has sent down |
| 26 | karihū mā nazzala'llāh | What God has sent down (a different form) |
| 28 | wa karihū riḍwānahu | God's good pleasure |
In the three occurrences there are two objects: what is sent down, and good pleasure. And verse 28 builds an expression that looks odd on a first reading — "to dislike good pleasure" — which I shall take up there.
There is also a difference of form: in verse 9 أَنزَلَ (ifʿāl), in verse 26 نَزَّلَ (tafʿīl). The same verb, two forms. I shall take this difference up as a whole at verse 20, because there the two forms will stand side by side in the same sentence.
The sūra speaks for the third time of deeds coming to nothing — and for the third time it uses a different verb.
| Verse | Verb | Root | Picture |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1, 8 | أَضَلَّ | ض-ل-ل | To make lost — the deeds are there, their owner cannot find them |
| 9, 28, 32 | أَحْبَطَ | ح-ب-ط | To swell up and burst |
| 33 | لَا تُبْطِلُوا۟ | ب-ط-ل | To render invalid |
The root ح-ب-ط was analysed in full in the section al-Ḥujurāt (49/2 — an taḥbaṭa aʿmālukum). What was recorded there is decisive here and I do not repeat it; the summary is this:
"The concrete use the lexicographers record is this: حَبِطَتِ ٱلدَّابَّةُ — the animal ate its fill of a harmful plant in the pasture; its belly swelled; and the swelling killed it. […] That is, ḥabṭ carries this picture in its root: growth from without, rot from within. […] The deeds do not disappear; they swell and burst. The appearance stays, the content goes."
What is to be added here is that the three verbs stand side by side in the same sūra — and that the three give three separate pictures:
- إِضْلَال: the deed is in place, the connection has been broken.
- إِحْبَاط: the deed has swollen, its inside has emptied out.
- إِبْطَال: the deed has been counted invalid.
All three give the same result but by three different roads. And the sūra keeps the third — the one thing that lies in a person's own hands — for the end.
I record this classification as my own reading. The senses of the three roots are lexical data; the division of labour among them is a frame I am setting up.