فَبِمَا نَقْضِهِم مِّيثَٰقَهُمْ لَعَنَّٰهُمْ وَجَعَلْنَا قُلُوبَهُمْ قَٰسِيَةً ۖ يُحَرِّفُونَ ٱلْكَلِمَ عَن مَّوَاضِعِهِۦ وَنَسُوا۟ حَظًّا مِّمَّا ذُكِّرُوا۟ بِهِۦ ۚ وَلَا تَزَالُ تَطَّلِعُ عَلَىٰ خَآئِنَةٍ مِّنْهُمْ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا مِّنْهُمْ ۖ فَٱعْفُ عَنْهُمْ وَٱصْفَحْ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ
Fa-bimā naqḍihim mīthāqahum laʿannāhum wa jaʿalnā qulūbahum qāsiya · Yuḥarrifūna'l-kalima ʿan mawāḍiʿihī wa nasū ḥaẓẓan mimmā dhukkirū bih · Wa lā tazālu taṭṭaliʿu ʿalā khāʾinatin minhum illā qalīlan minhum · Fa'fu ʿanhum wa'ṣfaḥ · Inna'llāha yuḥibbu'l-muḥsinīn
"For their breaking of their covenant We cursed them and made their hearts hard. They shift the words from their places, and they have forgotten a portion of what they were reminded of. Except for a few of them, you will not cease to come upon some treachery from them. Even so, pardon them and overlook it. God loves those who do good."
The verse begins with fa-bimā. The bāʾ here conveys causation: "on account of…". The mā, according to most lexicographers, is redundant, that is, it is there for emphasis.
This is the most important linguistic detail of the verse, and it is underlined in this section: the subject of the sentence is not an identity but an act. The curse and the hardness of heart are tied to the breaking of a word, and to nothing else.
The root ن-ق-ض: to unravel, to undo something woven or twisted. To unspin thread after it has been spun; to pull down a building that has been built. Naqḍ — undoing; munāqaḍa — mutual undoing; the Turkish "nakzetmek" (to overturn a decision) is from this root.
The Qurʾān uses this root with a very vivid comparison: ka'llatī naqaḍat ghazlahā min baʿdi quwwatin ankāthā (al-Naḥl 16/92) — "like the woman who unravels her yarn after she has spun it firm." It was treated in al-Naḥl; I rely on that treatment.
| Word | Root | Picture |
|---|---|---|
| Mīthāq | و-ث-ق | An instrument for binding tight (the mifʿāl pattern) |
| Naqḍ | ن-ق-ض | The unravelling of what was bound |
The two words stand side by side in the same sentence: naqḍihim mīthāqahum. A word order that holds the binder and the unraveller in a single construction.
The root ق-س-و: the hardness of stone; hardness. Qaswa — the word is in use in Turkish too (kasvet). The hardening of the heart is a recurring image in the Qurʾān and was treated in detail at al-Baqara 2/74 (thumma qasat qulūbukum min baʿdi dhālika fa-hiya ka'l-ḥijārati aw ashaddu qaswa). I rely on that treatment.
A note on the variant readings: it is transmitted that the word is read qasiyyatan instead of qāsiyatan (not from ق-س-و but from the root قسى — in the sense of "adulterated, debased silver"). I record it because the two readings change the sense; I name no authority. On the second reading the state of the heart is not hardness but the spoiling of its purity.
The root حرف: an edge, a tip, a border. Not the middle of a thing but its margin. Inḥirāf — swerving from the road. On this, taḥrīf is: to bend a thing from its edge. Not to tear the text down the middle; to draw it slightly aside from its margin. A small crookedness produces a great deviation further off. And the classical distinction: distortion of the wording (which can be seen by comparing copies) and distortion of the meaning (the text stays, its interpretation is shifted; it leaves no trace at all).
The expression in al-Baqara was min baʿdi mā ʿaqalūh (after they had understood it); the expression here states a location: the word is shifted from its place.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the construction itself: the expression speaks not of a word's being erased but of its place being changed. The word stands; where it stands has altered. A sentence torn from its context and set elsewhere, a condition passed over, an exception ignored — all of these come under this description.
And this is not a danger belonging to other people alone. The word the verse uses names not a fault peculiar to a community but an operation. The same operation is possible for anyone who reads his own text. I record this as my own reading.
حَظّ — root ح-ظ-ظ: a share, a portion. The choice of word matters: in saying "they forgot", it is said that what was forgotten is not the whole but a portion.
And the verb dhukkirū is passive: "what was reminded to them". That is, a body of knowledge was given, and then part of it dropped away.
The root نسي was treated in al-Kahf and at Ṭāhā 20/115: to forget; and to abandon. Both senses are possible and both are given in the classical commentaries. No preference is adopted.
Immediately after saying "you will not cease to come upon some treachery from them", the verse lays down an exception: illā qalīlan minhum.
This exception cannot be passed over. The grammatical structure of the sentence says that the ruling belongs not to the whole but to those left outside the exception. The text limits its own ruling itself.
خَآئِنَة — root خ-و-ن: to act contrary to a trust. On the word's coming in the feminine there are two explanations in the classical commentaries:
| Explanation | What khāʾina is |
|---|---|
| First | It is a verbal noun: "a treachery, an act of betrayal" |
| Second | It is the adjective of an omitted noun: "a treacherous people / a treacherous group" |
| Third | The feminine is for intensification: "a great treachery" |
I do not impose a preference. But if the first explanation is accepted the sentence speaks of an act, and if the second is accepted, of a group — and in either case the qualification illā qalīlan minhum stands where it is.
تَطَّلِعُ — root ط-ل-ع, Form VIII: to climb up on something and see, to come to know. Ṭulūʿ — to rise, to come up. That the verb comes in the imperfect and with lā tazālu conveys continuity.
This is the command given after all these findings, and it must be brought particularly forward in this section.
The root ع-ف-و was treated at al-Baqara 2/219: to wipe out, to pardon; and what is surplus, beyond need. I rely on that treatment. The word's first sense is "to wipe out a trace" — as the wind wipes out footprints.
The root ص-ف-ح: the broad face or side of a thing. Ṣafḥa — a page, a face; ṣafīḥa — a plate. The verb ṣafaḥa ʿanhu: he turned his face away, he passed the matter by.
| Verb | What is done |
|---|---|
| ʿAfw | To drop the penalty — not exercising a right |
| Ṣafḥ | To turn the page — closing the matter, letting go of the reproach as well |
That is, the second verb goes further than the first: to pardon is to wipe out the offence, while ṣafḥ is never to raise the subject at all.
And the placing of this command here settles how the section is to be read. I record this as my own reading; its ground is the order of the verse: the verse first makes grave findings, then commands the one addressed to pardon. Had these verses been sent down in order to establish a lasting verdict about a community, the concluding sentence would not have been a command to pardon.
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ — and the ground: that those who do good are loved. Form IV of the root ح-س-ن: iḥsān — to do a thing well; and to do good without return. The word was treated at al-Raḥmān 55/60.