al-Munāfiqūn 63:7

Humu'lladhīna yaqūlūna lā tunfiqū ʿalā man ʿinda rasūli'llāhi ḥattā yanfaḍḍū. Wa li'llāhi khazāʾinu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ, wa lākinna'l-munāfiqīna lā yafqahūn

"They are the ones who say, 'Do not spend on those who are with the Messenger of God, so that they may disperse.' Yet to God belong the treasuries of the heavens and the earth; but the hypocrites cannot grasp it."

In the fourth verse there was humu'l-ʿaduww; here humu'lladhīna yaqūlūn. The same structure of restriction: "those who say this — they are the ones".

For this structure it was recorded at al-Māʿūn 107/2: "The description is stuck to the person. This man may have other qualities as well. The verse throws them all aside and makes a single attribute his identity."

Here the attribute made into an identity is a sentence that was said.

The root ن-ف-ق — that is, the root of the sūra's own name. It was opened out above in the discussion of the sūra's name: at the centre of the root are being used up and passing away; infāq is the letting of wealth go out of one's hand.

Now note: the sūra's name is munāfiq (the one with a second door), and the verb in this verse is infāq (the letting of wealth go out of the hand). The same root, two branches.

And the relation does not look like chance. In both there is a "passing away":

• Nifāq: a person's slipping secretly out of his own position.
• Infāq: wealth's going out of the hand.

The difference is this: one is a hidden exit, the other an open one. And the people the verse describes are trying to block the open exit, infāq.

The sūra will return to this root once more in the tenth verse — this time in the imperative: wa anfiqū. So the same root occurs in three positions in the sūra: an identity (munāfiqūn), a prohibition (lā tunfiqū), a command (anfiqū). This is one of the sūra's hidden backbones.

The most striking side of the sentence is this phrase.

What would one have expected to be said? "Do not spend on the Muslims", "do not spend on the emigrants", "do not spend on them". What is said is: "on those who are with the Messenger of God."

There are two things here.

One. The method of definition. People are described not by their own identity but by whom they are with. This shows the picture in the mind of the one who framed the sentence: the group opposite him is not a community of belief but a crowd around one man. That is, the matter is seen not as a cause but as a circle.

This explains why the plan of economic pressure looked reasonable. A circle can be dispersed; a belief cannot. The plan's reckoning follows from its wrong definition of what stood opposite it.

Two. The use of the title. In the sentence it says رَسُولِ اللَّهِ — "the Messenger of God". That is, the person framing the plan uses the title of the man he is opposing.

This is exactly the same as the picture in the first verse. There too they uttered the true sentence: "You are the Messenger of God." Here too they use the title — but they do not draw the conclusion the title requires.

By this repetition the sūra shows something: to use the right word is not to accept the word's meaning. This is the behavioural equivalent of the nashhadu distinction in the first verse.

The root ف-ض-ض was taken up at al-Jumuʿa 62/11. Its concrete sense: to break a thing and scatter its pieces, to separate what is joined. In Form VII it is reflexive: to scatter of oneself, to break up, to empty out.

And the table recorded there is completed here:

Three verses use the same verb about the same community.

And the link between the two neighbouring sūras is established exactly here. In Sūrat al-Jumuʿa the sound of a caravan had scattered the congregation — with no one's plan, of itself. In Sūrat al-Munāfiqūn the same dispersal appears as the aim of a strategy.

That is, al-Jumuʿa records a fragility; al-Munāfiqūn shows how that fragility was meant to be used. Read side by side, the two sūras yield this: the place where a community can scatter of itself can also be targeted from outside.

حَتَّىٰ — here it denotes purpose: "so that…". The aim of the plan is stated openly.

The method this verse describes is worth dwelling on, because it is a simple but effective mechanism.

Historical background. In Medina after the emigration the emigrants had come leaving their property behind in Mecca. Their livelihood depended in large part on the support of the anṣār and on shared resources. That is, one part of the community was economically dependent on the other.

This made the plan described actually workable. If the support is cut off, those who are dependent cannot stay; those who cannot stay disperse; and with those who disperse the community disperses too.

The character of the method: no prohibition, no violence, no open hostility. Only the not doing of something is asked for. And the thing asked not to be done is something nobody is obliged to do — infāq is voluntary.

That is, the plan is built entirely within a lawful field. No one will commit a crime; only generosity will be stopped.

This is the dark side of the finding recorded at al-Māʿūn 107/3. There it was said that even the failure to urge the feeding goes on record: "Not doing evil is not counted as enough; not being the voice of the good goes on record too."

Here a step further is taken: not the failure to be the voice of the good, but the attempt to silence the voice of the good. And the mechanism works from the same place: the not giving of something that does not have to be given breaks no rule at all — but its outcome is the scattering of a community.

Note the form of the answer.

The verse could have said: "This plan will not work", "The believers will not go hungry", "God will provide for them". It says none of these.

What it says is: the treasuries belong to God.

That is, the answer is not a promise but a correction of ownership. The plan's error is not in its reckoning but in its assumption: the person framing the plan supposes that the source is in his own hand.

The root خ-ز-ن: to store a thing, to accumulate it, to take it into safekeeping. A khazīna is the place where what is stored is kept. From the same root comes khāzin (the keeper of a treasury).

At the centre of the word is stock: what is not used at once, what is stored, what is brought out at the moment of need.

And this answers the plan's logic directly. The plan rested on this: if the support is cut off, the source runs out. The answer: the source is not the stock in your hands.

This expression occurs in several places in the Qurʾān, and it generally does the same work: correcting where the source is. What is particular about the use at al-Munāfiqūn 63/7 is that it has been set against a very concrete economic calculation.

The verb that occurred in the third verse comes round again: lā yafqahūn — they do not grasp.

And the choice of the word is particularly apt here. ف-ق-ه, as was recorded above, is "to grasp what lies behind a word" — not knowledge but inference.

What is it they do not grasp? The verse is plain: whose the treasuries are. But this is not a matter of knowledge. Probably, if they heard the sentence "to God belong the treasuries of the heavens and the earth", they would not object either — as we saw in the first verse, they are able to utter the true sentences.

What is not grasped is the sentence's consequence: if the source is there, the reckoning here is empty. Not being able to establish the bond between the knowledge and the reckoning — this is exactly what the lack of fiqh is.

This is connected with the sūra's next verse too. There as well there will be a similar error of reckoning, and the verb used there will be different: lā yaʿlamūn. This difference of word between the two verses will be taken up at the eighth verse.

Being wrong about where the source is. The verse's answer is neither a threat nor a consolation; it is a correction of position. And its mechanism can be generalised: one person's power over another most often rests on the assumption that the source is in his own hand. If the assumption is wrong the power is wrong too — but this is not seen until the power is tried.

Pressure built within the lawful field. The most striking side of the method the verse describes is that it breaks no rule. This is the most widespread form of pressure today as well: withdrawing support, cutting off the relationship, drying up the source. None of them is forbidden, and all of them work. That the verse recorded this shows that moral judgement passes beyond legality.