al-Ḥashr 59:6

Wa mā afāʾallāhu ʿalā rasūlihī minhum fa-mā awjaftum ʿalayhi min khaylin wa lā rikābin wa lākinnallāha yusalliṭu rusulahū ʿalā man yashāʾ, wallāhu ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr

"As for the fayʾ that God gave His Messenger from them: you spurred for it neither horse nor camel. But God gives His messengers mastery over whomever He wills. And God has power over all things."

Root: ف-ي-أ. The original sense of the root is to turn, to come back.

And the most concrete use of the root is a very fine one: فَىْء (fayʾ) is, in Arabic, the state of the shadow after noon.

The lexicographers draw this distinction between ẓill (shade) and fayʾ: ẓill is the shadow from sunrise until the sun's decline — it shortens from west to east. Fayʾ is the shadow after the decline — the shadow that has turned back, lengthening towards the east.

That is, fayʾ is "what has turned back". In the morning the shadow goes one way; in the afternoon it comes back; and the name of that return is fayʾ.

And the choosing of this word for property obtained without fighting carries a ruling.

It is not said that the property was "taken"; it is said that it "turned back". As though it had left somewhere and had now come back to its proper place. The word shapes the claim of ownership from the outset: this property is not something gained but something returning.

The other uses of the root in the Qurʾān bear this out:

• "If they turn back (fāʾū), God is forgiving" (al-Baqara 2/226) — in the matter of īlāʾ, returning to one's wife.
• "until it returns to God's command" — حَتَّىٰ تَفِىٓءَ إِلَىٰٓ أَمْرِ ٱللَّهِ (al-Ḥujurāt 49/9) — in a conflict between two groups of believers, the aggressor party's returning to the command.

In both places the word means "to come back to the place where a thing ought properly to be".

The two notions are regulated separately in the Qurʾān:

al-Anfāl 8/41 lays down that a fifth of the spoils is to be set aside for God, the Messenger, the near of kin, the orphans, the poor and the wayfarer; that the remainder was distributed to those who took part in the fighting is a matter known from practice.

In the fayʾ there is no such division: the whole is set aside for the same items. And the reason is written openly in this verse: nobody spurred horse or camel, that is, nobody has any labour in it.

The logic of this regulation is simple and consistent: the share depends on the labour. If there is labour there is a share; if there is no labour the property goes to the common items.

In fiqh the details of the fayʾ — which properties fall within its scope, how it was applied in later periods, whether the revenues of the jizya and the kharāj are included in it — form a wide field of discussion. I issue no ruling here and do not enter the discussion; I content myself with showing the logic of the regulation.

Root: و-ج-ف. Its meaning: swift and trembling movement, a jolting motion.

And the most striking use of the root is in Sūrat al-Nāziʿāt:

"Hearts that day will throb" — قُلُوبٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ وَاجِفَةٌ (al-Nāziʿāt 79/8)

The same root names the movement both of the running animal and of the throbbing heart. Both do the same thing: a swift, repeated, jolting vibration.

This shows the concreteness of the word. Ījāf is to drive a horse or a camel hard — and the jolting that such speed produces in the body is named with the same word as the beating of the heart.

What does it say? "You spurred neither horse nor camel" — that is, you did not tire yourself for this property, you covered no road, you wore out no animal of your own.

خَيْل (horse) and رِكَاب (riding camel). The two are the two basic costs of war: a horse is expensive and hard to keep; a camel means load and distance. The verse enumerates the two items of expenditure in war and says "you spent none of them".

And note: the verse does not say "you did not fight", it says "you did not spur an animal". That is, the measure is not courage or intention; it is the resource spent. The claim to a share is bound to the resource spent.

Root: س-ل-ط. Sulṭān: power, dominion, proof. Salīṭ: sharp-tongued. Taslīṭ: to make one man master over another.

At the centre of the root there is sharpness and penetration: sulṭān is that which cannot be resisted.

The structure of the sentence: "God gives His messengers mastery over whomever He wills."

That is, the source of the result is again taken from the agent and given to God — the same structure as huwa'lladhī akhraja in the second verse. In this section the sūra insistently does the same thing: it makes invisible the human contribution that produced the result.

And the reason for this will be understood in the next verse: the regulation of the division can be laid down only upon this ground.