al-Najm 53:21-22

A-lakumu'l-dhakaru wa lahu'l-unthā · Tilka idhan qismatun ḍīzā "Is the male yours and the female His? That, then, is an unfair division."

What must be noticed is what the verse does not do.

The verse does not say:

• "These idols do not exist."
• "These are made of stone."
• "God has no child."

All three are true sentences and the Qurʾān says them in other places. They are not said here.

What is said is this: by your own measure this division is unjust.

The verse does not judge the other party by a measure from outside them. It takes the other party's own premises and shows the contradiction inside them.

The two premises of the one addressed are these, and both belong to them:

1. A daughter is something unwanted and shameful. — This is a fact the Qurʾān itself records: "When one of them is given news of a female, his face darkens and he is filled with rage" (al-Naḥl 16/58). This verse was treated in detail in the section al-Takwīr. 2. The angels and these three beings are the daughters of God.

What comes out when the two premises are set side by side: he gives to God what he does not want for himself.

In the section al-Ṭūr another instance of the same technique was treated (al-Ṭūr 52/39), and the note recorded there holds here unchanged:

A note is needed: the verse does not accept the worthlessness of a daughter; it uses the premise of the one addressed against him. This is a technique the Qurʾān often uses: to speak by the other party's own measure.

Repeating this note here is obligatory, because the verse is among those most open to being read wrongly. The logic of the verse is: "By your value system this division is unjust." The logic of the verse is not: "A daughter really is of less worth."

And the force of the proof lies exactly here. For a person to be caught by his own measure is far harder to answer than to be judged by a measure from outside. A measure that comes from outside can be refused; your own measure cannot.

The order of the sentence is inverted.

The normal order would be a-dhakaru lakum; the verse has a-lakumu'l-dhakar — here the prepositional phrase (lakum) has already been brought forward. And the same in the second clause: wa lahu'l-unthā.

In Arabic this fronting conveys restriction: "the male belongs to you, the female belongs to Him."

And setting the two sides opposite each other establishes a visual symmetry:

Two pans side by side. And the verse builds a third sentence to say that the pans are not equal.

قِسْمَة — root ق-س-م. To divide, to apportion. Qisma — a share, a portion; taqsīm — division; qāsim — the one who divides.

The choice of the word is worth recording. The verse does not say "this is a lie" or "this is a calumny". It says "this is a division" — and states the quality of the division.

The matter is reduced, that is, to a question of apportioning. And apportioning was the thing that society knew best: spoils are divided, inheritance is divided, well-water is divided, pasture is divided. Whether a division is just was a matter on which everyone in that society could pass judgement.

The verse carries the claim into a field in which the one addressed is an expert.

Root: ض-ي-ز. And this root occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

The sense of the root: to do wrong, to give a deficient share, to divide crookedly. Ḍāzahu ḥaqqahu — he gave him his due short, he gave it clipped.

The grammarians dwell on the pattern of the word and there is a finding worth recording.

The word ضِيزَىٰ appears on the fiʿlā measure. But in Arabic the fiʿlā measure is exceedingly rare as an adjective; the measure expected in adjectives is فُعْلَىٰ (fuʿlā) — as in kubrā, ṣughrā, ḥusnā.

The explanation the grammarians record is this: the word was originally ضُوزَىٰ (ḍūzā, on the fuʿlā measure); the middle letter و turned into ى because of the ى that follows it, and the ḍamma was changed to a kasra as well. The same thing is seen in other words in Arabic (bīḍ — whites, originally būḍ).

I give this explanation as transmitted from the grammarians; it is not a finding of my own.

And a variant reading is transmitted: it is stated that the word is also read ضِئْزَىٰ (with hamza). I do not name an imam. It produces no difference of meaning.

An observation on the rarity of the word — as my own reading. A word that occurs once in the Qurʾān and comes in an unaccustomed measure produces a pause in the sentence. A reader or hearer slows when he meets a word he does not know. And the verse ends exactly on a ruling — at a place where the ruling is meant to be dwelt on.

I do not present this as a claim of intent; the rarity of the word, on the other hand, is a countable datum.

A small but functional particle. إِذًا conveys a consequence in Arabic: "so then, in that case."

The verse does not deliver the ruling directly, then; it delivers it as an inference. Not "this is an unjust division" but "then this becomes an unjust division."

The difference: the particle ties the ruling to the premise of the one addressed. If you do not want a daughter, then this division is unjust. The first half of the conditional is not stated, because the one addressed already accepts it.

This is the placing of a logical inference inside the grammar, and the force of the verse comes from it.