يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِذَا قِيلَ لَكُمْ تَفَسَّحُوا۟ فِى ٱلْمَجَٰلِسِ فَٱفْسَحُوا۟ يَفْسَحِ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمْ وَإِذَا قِيلَ ٱنشُزُوا۟ فَٱنشُزُوا۟ يَرْفَعِ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مِنكُمْ وَٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْعِلْمَ دَرَجَٰتٍ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ
Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū idhā qīla lakum tafassaḥū fi'l-majālisi fafsaḥū yafsaḥi'llāhu lakum, wa idhā qīla'nshuzū fanshuzū yarfaʿi'llāhu'lladhīna āmanū minkum wa'lladhīna ūtu'l-ʿilma darajāt, wa'llāhu bimā taʿmalūna khabīr
"O you who believe! When you are told 'Make room in the assemblies', make room, and God will make room for you. And when it is said 'Rise', rise. God raises by degrees those of you who believe and those who have been given knowledge. God is aware of what you do."
- تَفَسَّحُوا۟ — Form V (tafaʿʿul). An effort upon oneself: "press yourselves together, widen the space among you". That is, those seated gathering themselves in.
- فَٱفْسَحُوا۟ — Form I. Directly: "make room".
When the command is spoken, the courteous and indirect pattern (tafassaḥū); when obedience is commanded, the direct pattern (ifsaḥū). A small nuance, but it stands in the weave of the text.
The scene is very concrete: a crowded assembly. There are newcomers, and there is nowhere to sit. Some must press together so that another can sit.
One might think this a small matter. That the Qurʾān regulates it with a separate verse has everything to do with the fact that it looks small: great principles are tested in the places no one pays attention to. To hold on to the place where one is sitting is one of the most automatic of human behaviours.
The recompense is given with the verb's own root: ifsaḥū → yafsaḥi'llāhu. "You make room, and God will make room for you."
And note: what He will make room in is not said. The object has been dropped. The verse does not say "your provision", "your breast", "your place in the garden" — only "may He make room for you".
This gap is deliberate, and its effect is this: the recompense is not obliged to be of the same kind as what was given. What will be given to the person who makes a hand's breadth of room is left open.
This is a technique the Qurʾān often uses in its verses of recompense. A promise of a definite recompense turns the transaction into a trade; a recompense left indefinite keeps the transaction open.
Root: ن-ش-ز. The concrete sense of the root is a place higher than the ground, a mound, a swelling. Nashaz: a piece of ground standing higher than its surroundings.
The other use of the same root in the Qurʾān is in a very different context: for discord between spouses the word نُشُوز is used (al-Nisāʾ 4/34 and 4/128). There the word means one party's "rising" from her place in the relationship, lifting herself, going out of line.
When the two uses are set side by side, the root is seen to be neutral: nushūz is a rising; where the rising is directed and against what determines its value. Here rising is commanded; there it is blamed. The word is the same; the context differs.
What is the context? Two possibilities are mentioned in the reports: rising from the assembly to give a newcomer a place, or rising and leaving when the assembly breaks up (so as not to take up the Prophet's time unnecessarily). Both fit the text; the Qurʾān does not specify.
The structure of the command is striking: the verse regulates both situations — pressing together while seated, and rising and going when needed. That is, both making room and leaving one's place. Both are part of the same thing: not counting the place where you sit as your own property.
The command: inshuzū — rise (the root ن-ش-ز, "height"). The recompense: yarfaʿi'llāh — God raises (the root ر-ف-ع).
The same idea, with two different roots and two different agents. A person rises from his place of his own will; God raises him. That is, the matter of the seating order in the assembly is tied to the matter of degrees.
What this link says is plain: giving up a place is positioned as the way to rise to a place. To own the seat in an assembly and to own a degree work in opposite directions.
دَرَجَٰت — Root: د-ر-ج. A step, the step of a stair; and daraja, tadrīj (advancing step by step), idrāj (placing a thing into a sequence) are from the same root.
The word comes as an indefinite plural: "degrees" — how many is not said. The indefiniteness here conveys magnification (taʿẓīm).
The expression وَٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْعِلْمَ raises a grammatical question, and the exegetes differ:
| Reading | Its meaning | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| Two separate groups | God raises those who believe, and He raises those given knowledge too | The conjunction (wa) ordinarily adds a new element |
| The second from within the first | Those who believe, and especially those given knowledge | The note minkum has determined the community; the second group is selected from it |
On the second reading two degrees are established: faith one degree, knowledge added to faith a second degree. This reading is widespread in the classical commentaries.
Here I adopt no firm preference; both readings are grammatically possible. But this must be stated: the second reading does not count knowledge as a cause of rising independent of faith. Knowledge is something added on top of faith. This also accords with the verse's place within the sūra — throughout the sūra the measure is not knowledge itself but what is done with knowledge.
The structure is passive. The verse does not say "those who acquire knowledge", "those who learn knowledge", "the learned". It says "those who have been given knowledge".
This choice is important and is consistent in the Qurʾān. The same pattern occurs many times in Sūrat al-Baqara: أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْكِتَٰبَ — "those who have been given the Book". And in that sūra what this expression does was treated at length: to have been given the Book is not a privilege but a burden; and it is possible to be crushed beneath that burden.
The same structure is built for knowledge too. Knowledge is named not as an acquisition but as a trust. This has two consequences:
1. The ground for boasting falls away. One does not boast of something given. 2. Responsibility arises. An account is asked for a trust.
And this balances the verse's promise of "He raises". The rising is not the automatic consequence of knowledge; it is something that comes about when the person who has been given knowledge makes room, when he rises, that is, when he does not make his knowledge an instrument of position.
Indeed the verse-ending confirms this: وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ — "He is aware of what you do". Not of your knowledge, but of what you do.
Several narratives are transmitted in the sources: that there was a shortage of room in the Prophet's assembly; that when those who had taken part at Badr came, no room was made for them; that the People of the Bench could find nowhere to sit.
These reports differ in detail, and which of them is the direct occasion of the verse has not been settled. I give all of them here with the note "so it is transmitted".
But the following general picture is the common point of the reports and is plausible: in Medina the Prophet's assembly had grown crowded and the seating arrangement had become an issue. When a community grows, who sits where produces a mark of hierarchy of itself. The verse breaks that mark.
One. Sharing your place. This is the most concrete form of the verse, and it has not aged at all. In a community the place one sits in, the turn to speak, the share of attention — all of these are limited resources, and once seized they are not willingly given up. The verse counts giving them up as a cause of rising.
Two. The converting of knowledge into rank. When the promise that those given knowledge will be raised stands beside the verse-ending (aware of what you do), a measure emerges: knowledge does not carry its owner upward automatically. The person who turns knowledge into an instrument of position is already not doing the verse's first command — making room.
Three. Leaving the recompense indefinite. That the sentence "may God make room for you" does not say what will be made room in takes the recompense of a good deed out of being calculable. A calculable recompense turns a good deed into an investment.