إِنِّىٓ أُرِيدُ أَن تَبُوٓأَ بِإِثْمِى وَإِثْمِكَ فَتَكُونَ مِنْ أَصْحَٰبِ ٱلنَّارِ · فَطَوَّعَتْ لَهُۥ نَفْسُهُۥ قَتْلَ أَخِيهِ فَقَتَلَهُۥ فَأَصْبَحَ مِنَ ٱلْخَٰسِرِينَ
Innī urīdu an tabūʾa bi-ithmī wa ithmika fa-takūna min aṣḥābi'n-nār · Wa dhālika jazāʾu'ẓ-ẓālimīn · Fa-ṭawwaʿat lahū nafsuhū qatla akhīhi fa-qatalahū fa-aṣbaḥa mina'l-khāsirīn
"I would have you carry my sin and your own, and be of the people of the Fire. That is the recompense of the wrongdoers. His own soul made the killing of his brother easy for him; he killed him, and became one of the losers."
The concrete sense of the root: to settle in a place, to take up lodging; and to take a thing upon oneself and return with it. Mabwāʾ — a shelter, a place settled in. The Qurʾān uses the verb tabawwaʾū of settling (al-Ḥashr 59/9 — wa'lladhīna tabawwaʾu'd-dāra, treated in al-Ḥashr).
The use here is "to return bearing a load". That is, sin is described not as a load carried but as a place a person settles into.
| View | What ithmī means |
|---|---|
| First | "The sin of killing me" — that is, the burden of the crime committed against me |
| Second | "The sins I have committed" — in the sense of a transfer of burden |
| Third | The phrase is a whole and means "both sins together"; its detail is not entered into |
I do not impose a preference. But it is recorded in the classical commentaries that the second view has to be reconciled with the Qurʾān's principle wa lā taziru wāziratun wizra ukhrā (Fāṭir 35/18; treated in Fāṭir). I transmit this note; I do not settle it.
إِنِّىٓ أُرِيدُ — and the verb's being "to want" is also dwelt upon. How is a person's "wanting" another to be of the Fire to be understood? The explanations given in the classical commentaries: (a) this is not a wish but the preferring of one of two bad outcomes to the other; (b) the verb has the sense "I would consent"; (c) this is the announcing of an outcome, not a wish. I transmit all three; I do not impose a preference.
The root ط-و-ع: to submit, to obey; and for a thing to come easily. Ṭāʿa — obedience; ṭawʿan — willingly; istiṭāʿa — to be able.
The verb is here in Form II (ṭawwaʿa) and is transitive: "it made him yield to it, it made it look easy to him."
| Element | Word |
|---|---|
| Subject | Nafsuhū — his own soul |
| Object | Qatla akhīh — the killing of his brother |
| To whom | Lahū — to him |
That is, the subject of the sentence is not the person himself but his soul. In the sentence the person stands in the position of object: his own soul made him yield to the killing of his brother.
This is the very same pattern as lā yajrimannakum shanaʾānu qawmin, treated at 5/2 and 5/8: there too rancour was the subject and the person the object. The sūra uses the same grammatical structure twice.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the case structure of the two sentences: in recounting evil, the sūra does not make the human being the subject. It recounts something pushing the human being. And this does not lift responsibility — the outcome is still his (fa-qatalahū, fa-aṣbaḥa mina'l-khāsirīn) — but it shows how the process works.
فَقَتَلَهُ — and the verb is bare. How the murder was committed, where, when — none of it is recounted. The account looks not at the detail of the event but at what came before and after it.
فَأَصْبَحَ مِنَ ٱلْخَٰسِرِينَ — the verb أ-ص-ب-ح: to come into the morning; and "to become, to come to be in such a state". The concrete sense is still inside it: a night passes and in the morning he wakes as someone else.
The root خ-س-ر: loss in trade, the diminishing of one's capital. It was treated in al-ʿAṣr; I rely on that treatment. The word describes not something gained but something lost: the murder gained him nothing.