أَفَبِهَٰذَا ٱلْحَدِيثِ أَنتُم مُّدْهِنُونَ · وَتَجْعَلُونَ رِزْقَكُمْ أَنَّكُمْ تُكَذِّبُونَ
"Is it this discourse that you make light of? And do you make your provision consist in your denying?"
The choice of word is worth recording: in the preceding verse the text was named qurʾān, kitāb, tanzīl — three weighty words. Here it is called ḥadīth: "speech".
I give this as my own reading: the word may be reflecting the hearer's point of view. For them this is a piece of speech that has come. The verse looks through the eyes of the objector and asks accordingly.
Duhn — oil. Dahana — he oiled. And mudāhana, by the lexicographers' description: to behave smoothly as though applying oil, to slide past a matter, to pass by neither opposing nor accepting.
The root was analysed in al-Qalam (al-Qalam 68/9: waddū law tudhinu fa-yudhinūn — "they wish that you would soften, and then they would soften"). I rely on that.
The word's work here is exactly in place and worth recording: the verse does not say "do you deny it" — it says "do you make light of it". What is aimed at, that is, is not open denial but not taking it seriously.
The picture of oil carries this well: nothing takes hold on an oiled surface. The word slides off and leaves no trace.
The wording of the verse is short but what it says is disputed. The disagreement must not be concealed.
The problem is this: the clause "you make your provision your denying" does not sit directly either in English or in Arabic. The lexicographers explain it in several ways:
| Reading | Sense | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "You make your thanks for your provision a denial" | It is taken that the word shukr is understood in the clause |
| 2 | "You make your share of your provision to be denial" | That the portion falling to you is to deny |
| 3 | A reading concerning rain | That the word rizq is used in the sense of rain and refers to the belief that ascribed rain to the stars |
The third reading rests on a historical background and is transmitted thus: it is recorded that in that period rain was tied to the rising and setting of particular stars and that when rain fell it was said "it rained because of such and such a star". On this reading the verse is connected with the oath by the stars in the seventy-fifth verse.
I relay this explanation as one transmitted in the tradition; I frame no firm claim about an occasion of revelation.
A note on the variant readings: it is transmitted that in some readings the verse is read wa tajʿalūna shukrakum. This reading directly supports the first explanation. I record it because the variant changes the sense.
I impose no preference. What the three readings share is this: something is given, and the answer given in return goes to the wrong place — either denial in the place of thanks, or the tying of the source to the wrong address.