قَدْ كَانَتْ لَكُمْ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ فِىٓ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ وَٱلَّذِينَ مَعَهُۥٓ
Qad kānat lakum uswatun ḥasanatun fī Ibrāhīma wa'lladhīna maʿah, idh qālū li-qawmihim innā buraʾāʾu minkum wa mimmā taʿbudūna min dūnillāhi kafarnā bikum wa badā baynanā wa baynakumu'l-ʿadāwatu wa'l-baghḍāʾu abadan ḥattā tuʾminū billāhi waḥdah, illā qawla Ibrāhīma li-abīhi la-astaghfiranna laka wa mā amliku laka minallāhi min shayʾ, rabbanā ʿalayka tawakkalnā wa ilayka anabnā wa ilayka'l-maṣīr
"In Abraham (Ibrāhīm) and those with him there is a good example for you. They said to their people: 'We have nothing to do with you, nor with what you serve apart from God; we do not acknowledge you. Between us and you there has begun an enmity and a hatred that will last until you believe in God alone.' Except for Abraham's saying to his father: 'I shall certainly ask forgiveness for you; but against God I can do nothing at all for you.' 'Our Lord! In You we have put our trust, to You we have turned; and to You is the journey's end.'"
The sūra is establishing a law of relationship, and it chooses a prophet as its support. The reason for the choice is Abraham's position in the Qurʾān: the man who parted from his forefathers and founded a way.
Abraham was treated in detail at al-Baqara 2/124-129; two points from there serve directly here:
What is added here is the application of the same principle upwards: Abraham does not only learn that his line is no guarantee for him; he also parts from his own father. The principle works in both directions.
And this is the direct continuation of the third verse. There it was said: your kin will not profit you. What is said here is: if you want to see how this is to be done, look.
One of the key words of the sūra, and a word part of which is lost when it is rendered simply as "example".
- أَسَا الجُرْحَ — he treated the wound, he bound it up.
- الآسِي — a physician, one who binds wounds.
- الأُسْوَة / الإِسْوَة — that by looking at which consolation is found, whose state one aspires to.
- المُوَاسَاة (muwāsāt) — to share someone's trouble, to give him a portion of what one has. From the same root.
The bond between these two branches of the root — healing and being an example — is this: in Arabic, the way to console someone is to show him another like himself. To say "you are not alone" is what binds the wound. For this reason an uswa is not merely a "model to be copied"; it is the consolation given by seeing someone who has already walked the same road.
This changes the emotional weight of the verse. Those addressed have to do something hard: to put a distance between themselves and their own kin. The verse does not merely give them a rule; it shows them someone who has already done it.
حَسَنَة — the root ح-س-ن: to be beautiful. The adjective may look unnecessary — an example is an example already. But the Qurʾān could have used the word uswa for a bad example too; the word itself is in fact neutral. The caveat ḥasana says separately that this is an example worth following.
The construct uswa ḥasana occurs in three places in the Qurʾān: al-Aḥzāb 33/21 (of the Prophet), and twice in this sūra — 60/4 and 60/6 (of Abraham and those with him). That is, two of the three occurrences of the construct are in this sūra. Short as it is, the sūra is the centre of the Qurʾān's word for "being an example".
وَٱلَّذِينَ مَعَهُۥ — "and those with him". Abraham is not mentioned alone. This detail will become still more marked in the sixth verse (fīhim — "in them"). The example is not a person but a community; because what is asked for is likewise the attitude of a community.
The root ب-ر-أ. Its concrete sense: to be rid of a thing, to get free of it and be separated from it.
- بَرِئَ مِنَ المَرَضِ — he recovered from the illness, he got well.
- بَرِئَ مِنَ الدَّيْن — he was quit of the debt, his connection with it was cut.
- البَارِئ — one of the names of God: the one who separates the created out of nothingness and brings it forth.
- بَرَاءَة — the cutting of one's connection, keeping away; and, in a document, acquittal.
And here there is a link with Sūrat al-Kāfirūn. One of that sūra's names in the tradition is al-Barāʾa, and the reason is that the sūra is counted a text of cutting one's connection. In the section on al-Kāfirūn the source of this name and what the sūra cuts its connection with were treated: cutting one's connection with partnership in service, not cutting one's connection with people.
إِنَّا بُرَءَٰٓؤُا۟ مِنكُمْ وَمِمَّا تَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ "We have nothing to do with you, nor with what you serve apart from God."
Connection is cut with two things: with persons and with what they serve. The second is plain. And the first? If the cutting of connection had been directed at belief alone, it would have been enough to say "we have nothing to do with what you serve". That the persons too should be counted shows that the separation is not merely a mental classification but an actual separation of position.
But — and this is critical — what this barāʾa is not, the sūra itself will say four verses later: the eighth verse will plainly leave free the relation of doing good and dealing justly with those who do not fight and do not drive out. That is, the barāʾa here does not mean the cutting off of every kind of dealing with people.
An unusual usage. The object of the pattern kafara bi- in the Qurʾān is generally a belief, a verse, a favour: "they denied Our verses", "he denied God". Here the object is persons.
Recall the meaning of the root — as was treated at al-Baqara 2/6, ك-ف-ر is to cover: to cover what is known, to refuse to acknowledge. Then kafarnā bikum means "we do not acknowledge you, we refuse that we have any bond with you". In the language of a tribal order the force of this is heavy: for a community to reject one of its own members is to leave him without protection.
The Qurʾān uses the same structure in another place, in the hereafter, on the tongue of Satan: "I reject your having associated me before (kafartu bimā ashraktumūni min qabl)" (Ibrāhīm 14/22).
- عَدَاوَة — as seen above, from the root ع-د-و: overstepping the limit, turning in deed against the other party. That is, an opposition at the level of behaviour.
- بَغْضَاء — the root ب-غ-ض: detestation, a dislike that comes from within, hatred. The opposite of love (ḥubb). That is, an opposition at the level of feeling.
That the two should be named together states that the separation is both in deed and within. And that the word baghḍāʾ should come on the faʿlāʾ pattern states in Arabic intensiveness and diffusion: a dislike scattered abroad, seeped into everything.
وَبَدَا بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمُ ٱلْعَدَٰوَةُ وَٱلْبَغْضَآءُ أَبَدًا حَتَّىٰ تُؤْمِنُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ وَحْدَهُۥٓ "Between us and you there has begun an everlasting enmity and hatred, until you believe in God alone."
Two words stand side by side and at first sight seem to consume one another: أَبَدًا (for ever, always) and حَتَّىٰ (until…).
It can — if "for ever" qualifies not the time but the continuance of the condition. The logic of the sentence is this: this enmity has in itself no date of ending; it does not finish by wearing away, by being forgotten, by softening with time. The only thing that will end it is the disappearance of its cause.
That is, abadan says this: this is no passing quarrel. And ḥattā says this: but it is no fate either.
And note what is set as the limit: it is not a submission, a defeat, an indemnity: ḥattā tuʾminū billāhi waḥdah — "until you believe in God alone". That is, whatever the subject of the separation is, the condition for the separation's ending is the same thing. The quarrel ends with what it began with.
This caveat already prepares the seventh verse. The sentence that will come three verses later — "Perhaps God will put an affection between you" — enters by the door which this ḥattā has left open. The sūra has thus put a caveat on its own "for ever", within itself.
بَدَا — the root ب-د-و: to come out, to become visible. From the same root come bādiya (the desert — the place that lies open) and badawī (one who lives in the open). The choice of verb is meaningful: the enmity was not invented but became visible. That is, the separation was there already; it came out when it was declared.
First let us look at what the exception attaches to. Three verses back an uswa (example) had been laid down; then the content of that example was described; now an exception comes. In the classical exegesis there are two analyses:
| View | What the exception attaches to | The meaning of the sentence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (the widespread one) | To the uswa ḥasana | "In Abraham there is a good example for you — except for his saying this to his father. That is not to be taken as an example." |
| 2 | To the verb qālū / to the words spoken | "They said these things; but what Abraham said to his father is outside that (that is, it does not fall within the scope of the words of cutting connection)." |
The first view is the widespread one and is supported by the sixth verse: there, when the expression of exemplarity is repeated, no exception is laid down — that is, the exception is a caveat belonging to the exemplarity of the fourth verse.
"Abraham's asking forgiveness for his father was only on account of a promise he had made to him. When it became clear to him that he was an enemy of God, he dissociated himself from him. Abraham was indeed tender-hearted and forbearing." (al-Tawba 9/114)
1. The asking of forgiveness arose from a promise. Abraham had given his father his word (this word is recorded at Maryam 19/47: "I shall ask my Lord to forgive you"). That is, what he did was not an arbitrary act of closeness but the fulfilling of a word given. 2. And it came to an end. When the situation became clear Abraham withdrew. That is, the exception is not a lasting attitude but a period of transition. 3. Its cause is character. Awwāh and ḥalīm — tender-hearted and forbearing. That is, the asking of forgiveness is not a mistake but the overflowing of a mercy.
Now the meaning of the exception becomes clear. What is to be taken as an example is the clarity in cutting the connection. What is not to be taken as an example is asking a guarantee for the hereafter on behalf of someone whose position has been settled.
The difference is fine but real: to wish someone well is one thing; to ask God for the opposite of a position on which judgement has been given is another. The Qurʾān does not forbid the first; it puts the second outside exemplarity.
That is, as the promise is given its limit is stated too. Abraham does not give his father a guarantee; he states an intention, and in the same sentence records that this intention has no authority to produce a result.
أَمْلِكُ — the root م-ل-ك: to own, to hold in one's hand, to have the power of disposal. Mulk, malik, mālik are from the same root. That is, "it is not in my hand, I have no authority".
This caveat softens the exception of the verse too. Abraham's word is a word that draws its own limit. And the Qurʾān sets up this sentence for prophets in other places as well: "Say: if God wills harm for you, I possess nothing for you against Him" (a pattern like al-Fatḥ 48/11; also al-Jinn 72/21).
رَّبَّنَا عَلَيْكَ تَوَكَّلْنَا وَإِلَيْكَ أَنَبْنَا وَإِلَيْكَ ٱلْمَصِيرُ "Our Lord! In You we have put our trust, to You we have turned; and to You is the journey's end."
To cut a bond leaves a person in a void. Every relation severed is a loss of security — and in a tribal order kinship is especially a condition of staying alive. The prayer says with what that void is to be filled.
تَوَكَّلْنَا — the root و-ك-ل: to refer a matter to someone, to appoint him as deputy. And note: this root is a neighbour, in its semantic field, of the root و-ل-ي that forms the backbone of the sūra. A walī too is the party by whom you have your business done, against whom you lean your back. The verse says in exactly this language what is to be put in the place of the walāya that has been cut: in parting from one, one leans on another.
أَنَبْنَا — the root ن-و-ب: to return, to come in turn. Ināba is to return again and again; nāʾiba (a calamity — that which comes round) and nawba are from the same root. That is, the turning is not a single act but a direction to which one returns and returns.
ٱلْمَصِير — the root ص-ي-ر: to turn into a state, to arrive. Maṣīr is the place arrived at. The word is the noun of the verb ṣāra, and that verb in Arabic means "to become something, to come to a state". That is, maṣīr is not merely "the place one goes to" but the place of what one will become.
Three words together draw a map of direction: to lean (now), to turn (the process), to arrive (the end).