وَفِىٓ أَمْوَٰلِهِمْ حَقٌّ لِّلسَّآئِلِ وَٱلْمَحْرُومِ
Wa fī amwālihim ḥaqqun li'l-sāʾili wa'l-maḥrūm "And in their wealth there is a right for the one who asks and for the one who is deprived."
This verse is all but identical with al-Maʿārij 70/24-25, and it was taken up in two places:
In the discussion of al-Māʿūn 107/3, in building the reading of ownership for the construction "the food of the poor", this verse and al-Maʿārij 70/24-25 were used together as support. The conclusion recorded there was this: in both verses the word used is right — not a favour, a kindness, a gift. And three consequences were listed: the giver's superiority falls away; the receiver's shame falls away; and not giving becomes not "failing to be generous" but "withholding a right".
In the discussion of al-Maʿārij 70/24-25 three things were added: what the qualification maʿlūm brings, the difference between the two recipients (sāʾil / maḥrūm), and the dropping of the pronoun. And the difference from this verse was stated there explicitly: "al-Dhāriyāt says only ḥaqq; al-Maʿārij says ḥaqqun maʿlūm."
I repeat none of these. This is the place where the threefold link has to be made, and what is to be added here is the following.
| al-Māʿūn 107/3 | al-Dhāriyāt 51/19 | al-Maʿārij 70/24-25 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wording | ṭaʿāmi'l-miskīn | ḥaqqun li'l-sāʾili wa'l-maḥrūm | ḥaqqun maʿlūm li'l-sāʾili wa'l-maḥrūm |
| The word | Food — a concrete object | A right — a legal concept | A determined right — a legal concept + a measure |
| What it states | The food belongs to the poor man (on the reading of ownership) | In wealth there is a right | In wealth there is a right whose amount is known |
| Who does what | Nobody urges it — censure | In their wealth there is one — praise | In their wealth there is one — praise |
- al-Māʿūn speaks by way of an object: a plate of food.
- al-Dhāriyāt turns the object into a legal concept: this is a right.
- al-Maʿārij adds a measure to the right: this right is a known one.
And note: the reading of ownership in al-Māʿūn was built by resting on al-Dhāriyāt and al-Maʿārij. The order works in reverse, that is — the most concrete expression (food) takes its sense from the most abstract ones (right).
I record this as a reading drawn from the comparison of the three texts. The wordings of the verses were given above.
In the section on al-Maʿārij this particle was dwelt upon, and the finding there holds here as well: فِى conveys containment; the right is not an obligation that comes from outside the wealth but something found inside it. And the sentence is a nominal sentence — it conveys not an act but a state.
17: kānū … mā yahjaʿūn — a verb. They are doing something. 18: hum yastaghfirūn — a verb. They are doing something. 19: fī amwālihim ḥaqqun — a nominal sentence. Something is there.
The first two of the three-item list convey an action, the third a state. And the difference is meaningful: rising at night and asking forgiveness are works done; a right's being in one's wealth is not a work done but a quality of the wealth.
In the section on al-Maʿārij this grammatical difference was recorded (there by way of the dropping of the pronoun hum). The comparison here — a change of mood within the same list — is an observation about the structure.
The analysis of the root and its difference from sāʾil were given in table form in the section on al-Maʿārij; I do not repeat it. In summary: مَحْرُوم is a passive participle — deprived, cut off from his share; there are two main views (the poor man who does not ask / the man whose property has gone from him) and their common point is that the maḥrūm is the needy person who is not seen. And the conclusion recorded there was this: the presence of the word maḥrūm is the proof of the word ḥaqq — because what triggers a favour is a request, and what triggers a right is not.
The only thing to be added here: al-Dhāriyāt has no qualification maʿlūm, but it does have the two recipients. The "third support" argument built in the section on al-Maʿārij therefore works fully in this verse as well. Even without maʿlūm there is maḥrūm; and maḥrūm by itself shows that what is given is not a favour.
The ground of the view that the nineteenth verse is Medinan is that the verse is associated with the alms tax.
In the sections on al-Maʿārij and al-Māʿūn this difficulty was recorded twice: the institutionalising of alms at fixed rates belongs to the Medinan period; and so a reading of alms into a Meccan sūra is forced.
And in al-Dhāriyāt the difficulty is less, because the verse does not enter the qualification maʿlūm (determined). A right whose amount is not specified needs no institutional rate.
al-Dhāriyāt's wording, that is, is easier than al-Maʿārij's for a Meccan sūra. This is an indication weakening the view that the verse is Medinan.
And let us gather the section up. The sixteenth verse said "they were doers of good"; three verses filled that word in:
| Verse | What is done | Towards whom | Is it visible |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | He sleeps little of the night | Towards God | Invisible — the night, the hour nobody sees |
| 18 | He asks forgiveness before dawn | Towards God | Invisible — the same hour |
| 19 | There is a right in his wealth | Towards people | Visible — wealth changes hands |
I record this as my own reading. But the observation recorded for the night in the section on al-Muzzammil — "the night is the hour nobody sees; what is done cannot be displayed" — explains the first two rows of this table directly.
And this detail stands in the text too: the third item does not tie what is given to the giver's act. It does not say "they used to give", it says "in their wealth there is a right". Even the visible item, that is, has been taken out of the class of a display by the giver.