لِّتُؤْمِنُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ وَتُعَزِّرُوهُ وَتُوَقِّرُوهُ وَتُسَبِّحُوهُ بُكْرَةً وَأَصِيلًا
"So that you may believe in God and His Messenger, and support him, and hold him in honour, and glorify Him morning and evening."
Four things are set out as the purpose of the Messenger's being sent. And note: the address is again plural — tuʾminū. The eighth verse to the singular, the ninth to the plural.
| Verb | Root | What is asked |
|---|---|---|
| تُؤْمِنُوا۟ | أ-م-ن | To believe — to trust |
| تُعَزِّرُوهُ | ع-ز-ر | To support, to stand behind |
| تُوَقِّرُوهُ | و-ق-ر | To grant weight, to show respect |
| تُسَبِّحُوهُ | س-ب-ح | To glorify |
The root sense of the word may come as a surprise. The primary sense of the root: to hinder, to ward off, to forbid.
- To help — to help someone by warding an enemy off from him. Taʿzīr, that is, is not "backing someone from behind" but clearing an obstacle from in front of him.
- To punish — in law taʿzīr is the disciplinary penalty outside the fixed punishments; its name comes from here, because the penalty holds a person back from doing it again.
The Qurʾān uses the word in the first sense: "…if you believe in My messengers and support them…" (al-Māʾida 5/12); "…those who believe in him, who support him, who help him…" (al-Aʿrāf 7/157).
The word, then, is not "to love" or "to esteem"; it is an actual protecting. A work done not with words but by clearing an obstacle away.
The primary sense of the root: weight. Wiqr — a load, a weight that is carried. Waqār — gravity, seriousness.
And there is one further interesting use of the root: وَقْر is heaviness in the ear, that is, deafness. The Qurʾān uses this in several places: "in their ears there is a heaviness" (al-Anʿām 6/25; al-Isrāʾ 17/46; Luqmān 31/7; Fuṣṣilat 41/44).
The same root, then, names both respect and not hearing. The common idea: that a thing is heavy. Respect is granting something weight; deafness is the ear's growing heavy.
The Qurʾān uses this root of God as well: "What is the matter with you, that you hope for no weight for God?" (Nūḥ 71/13 — waqārā). This verse was treated at Nūḥ.
Taken together, the two verbs form a pair: taʿzīr is the removing of an obstacle from outside, tawqīr the granting of weight from within. The one is actual support, the other the recognition of a standing. Together they describe the two faces of an allegiance.
In the verse all three verbs take the pronoun هُ (him) at the end: tuʿazzirūhu, tuwaqqirūhu, tusabbiḥūhu. And at the head of the verse two parties had been named: God and His Messenger.
Which of them the pronouns refer to has been debated in classical exegesis. I transmit the disagreement as it stands:
| Reading | How it distributes them | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| By dividing | Taʿzīr and tawqīr → to the Messenger; tasbīḥ → to God | Glorification is offered to God alone; support and respect, for their part, have to do with the Messenger's standing |
| All to God | All three pronouns refer to God | That the pronouns are identical; that the Qurʾān uses the expression naṣru'llāh (helping God) (Muḥammad 47/7; al-Ṣaff 61/14) |
| All to the Messenger | All three refer to the Messenger; tasbīḥ here means not "declare free of defect and exalt" but "say nothing unseemly about him" | That the context of the sentence is about the Messenger |
The first reading is the most widespread in classical exegesis. The second has also been defended, and is supported by the Qurʾān's use of the expression "helping God" — there too what is meant is helping the religion of God.
The third reading is a minority one and is not adopted in this commentary, because every use of the verb tasbīḥ in the Qurʾān is for God, and the meaning of the word (declaring free of all deficiency) cannot be framed for a human being. This is not a preference but the limit of the word's meaning.
In this commentary this note is enough: whichever distribution is adopted, the one to whom tasbīḥ is directed is God, and the measure of tanzīh is preserved. The remaining distinction is a matter of language; I do not impose a preference.
بُكْرَة — root ب-ك-ر: to be early, to bring forward. Bikr (firstborn; untouched), bākir, ibtikār (doing a thing first, invention). Bukra — the first part of the day.
أَصِيل — root أ-ص-ل: root, foundation, bottom. Aṣl, uṣūl, aṣīl (one whose root is sound). And aṣīl is the part of the day between mid-afternoon and evening.
The link between these two senses of the word is an explanation the lexicographers record: the end of the day is the day's "root" — the part that goes down to the bottom. I do not present this as a settled etymological ruling.
What do the two mean together? In Arabic, naming the two ends means what lies between them. "Morning and evening" — that is, continually. Not two particular hours but the two ends of the day, and so the whole of it.
The Qurʾān uses the same pair in several places: "Glorify Him morning and evening" (al-Aḥzāb 33/42); "Do not drive away those who call upon their Lord morning and evening" (al-Anʿām 6/52 — there bi'l-ghadāti wa'l-ʿashiyy).
Its meaning as the close of the block: the block had opened with the proclamation of a fatḥ. What is asked at its close is neither a celebration nor a next objective — it is continuity. This is the same pattern as in Sūrat al-Naṣr: what is asked after the outcome is an inward act.