al-Insān 76:8

Wa yuṭʿimūna'ṭ-ṭaʿāma ʿalā ḥubbihī miskīnan wa yatīman wa asīrā "And they feed food, in spite of their love for it, to the needy, the orphan and the captive."

The best known verse of the sūra, and the last step of a measure built up over several sections of this commentary.

Root: ط-ع-م. And the idea at the centre of the root is not nourishment but taste: ṭaʿima — he tasted; ṭaʿm — taste, savour; ṭaʿām — what is eaten; maṭʿam — the place or the thing to be eaten.

This distinction matters for what follows in the verse. The verse does not say "they distribute provisions" or "they give alms." They give what is tasted.

And the verb takes its object: yuṭʿimūna'ṭ-ṭaʿām — "they feed the food". It could have said only yuṭʿimūna and the sense would have been established. That the object is stated as well makes the thing given visible: what is there is not an abstract help but a plate of food.

This looks in the same direction as the measure set up in Sūrat al-Māʿūn. There too the matter was not an abstract generosity: al-māʿūn — the smallest, the most concrete thing, what passes from hand to hand.

The centre of gravity of the verse is in these three words.

The particle عَلَىٰ here has the sense of maʿa (along with / in spite of). This usage is common in Arabic: ʿala'l-ghinā — in spite of his wealth. That is, the particle states an obstacle: love was an obstacle to giving, and in spite of it they gave.

حُبّ — root: ح-ب-ب. To love. And this root will come once more in the sūra: in the twenty-seventh verse, يُحِبُّونَ ٱلْعَاجِلَةَ — "they love what comes quickly". It will be returned to there; for now let us record this much: the sūra uses the same root once for one who gives and once for one who holds.

What does the pronoun (هِ) refer back to? There are three readings:

The first reading is the strongest, and its ground is the exact parallel in al-Baqara 2/177. In the section on Sūrat al-Balad that verse was cited as well, with the same sequence of elements (faith → giving wealth → orphans, the poor, necks).

I state my preference and record that it is not binding.

Why has this note been put in? Because without it the sentence says nothing. That one who has a surplus should give is not news. The verse adds these three words in order to say that what is given created a lack in the giver as well.

In the section on Sūrat al-Balad the same idea was set up with another word: there the feeding was done on a day of hunger (fī yawmin dhī masghaba). That is, the giver too was hungry. al-Insān says the same thing by way of feeling rather than of time: the giver too wanted it.

All three are indefinite: "a needy man, an orphan, a captive". In the section on al-Balad this distinction was recorded: in al-Māʿūn the word came with the definite article and stated the genus (al-yatīm), while in al-Balad it came indefinite and pointed to individual persons. Here too it is indefinite: someone who comes before you.

The root analyses of the words مِسْكِين and يَتِيم were made in the sections on al-Māʿūn and al-Balad; I do not repeat them. It is enough to recall the measure recorded in al-Māʿūn: what the orphan and the needy have in common is that they cannot give anything back — at the root of yatīm lies infirād (being left alone, having no one behind one).

A note on the sequence. In the other sūras treated in this commentary the pair was always in the order orphan → needy (al-Māʿūn 107/2-3; al-Fajr 89/17-18; al-Balad 90/15-16). Here the order is reversed: needy → orphan → captive.

This should not be over-interpreted. The requirement of the verse-ending binds only the last word (asīrā), not the order of the first two; that is, the order is free and there may or may not be a reason for it. I give no firm explanation.

Here is the real move of the sūra.

Root: أ-س-ر. And the concrete sense of the root is to bind: asara — he bound, he held tight. إِسَار (isār) is the leather thong used in binding. Asīr is a faʿīl with the sense of a passive participle: one who has been bound.

That is, Arabic does not use a word like "captive" or "convict" for the prisoner. It names him by his bond.

And this root will come once more in the sūra — in the twenty-eighth verse: وَشَدَدْنَآ أَسْرَهُمْ ("and We made their binding firm"). It will be returned to there, but let us record the link now: the sūra names the person who is fed "the one bound", and twenty verses later names man's own body "his binding".

To see what it means for the captive to enter this list, one must know the institution of captivity in that world.

In Arabia captivity was not a practice of the state but a custom between tribes. Persons taken in raids and clashes stayed in the hands of the one who took them, were given back for a ransom, and if no ransom came were enslaved or exchanged. The captive was kept in the house of the one who took him and ate from that household's food.

Three things describe the captive's situation, and all three are needed in order to read this verse:

First: the captive is from the other side. The orphan and the needy are from within one's own community; the captive is from outside and most often from the enemy's ranks. The social return on doing him a kindness is not zero but negative: it creates a debt of explanation to one's own side.

Second: the captive has no one behind him — and this is a deprivation different from the orphan's. The orphan may have relatives, he has a neighbourhood, his name is known. The captive has no one at all in the place where he is. The infirād (being left alone) recorded in the section on al-Māʿūn reaches its furthest state here.

Third: the captive is in the hands of the one who feeds him. The person facing the orphan and the needy may do nothing for them. The person facing the captive already holds power. To give him food is not a donation but a decision about the manner in which power is used.

This third point separates the verse from the others. To feed the orphan and the needy is the behaviour of one who has the means. To feed the captive is the behaviour of one who has another human being in his hands.

In this commentary the same measure has been set up in four sūras, and each time it rose a little higher. Placing the four side by side shows what the verse does:

In all three of the other sūras the addressee was within his own community. al-Insān takes the same act and changes its object.

And this change also changes the logic of the measure. al-Māʿūn's measure was "being unable to give anything back." The captive meets that measure — indeed more than meets it. But he adds one thing more: the captive is the person to whom kindness is not required. No one blames anyone for not feeding a captive. For the orphan there is a social expectation; for the captive there is none.

That is, the verse carries the measure to the place where social expectation ends.

I record this as my own reading; the texts of the four sūras and the findings recorded earlier in this commentary stand where they are.

I draw from this verse no ruling about the legal status of captives. The Qurʾān's rulings about captives are dealt with in other verses and will be treated in this commentary when those sūras are reached. The verse here is not a verse of ruling but a verse of attribute: it describes who the abrār are.