إِنَّمَا نُطْعِمُكُمْ لِوَجْهِ ٱللَّهِ لَا نُرِيدُ مِنكُمْ جَزَآءً وَلَا شُكُورًا · إِنَّا نَخَافُ مِن رَّبِّنَا يَوْمًا عَبُوسًا قَمْطَرِيرًا
Innamā nuṭʿimukum li-wajhi'llāhi lā nurīdu minkum jazāʾan wa lā shukūrā · Innā nakhāfu min Rabbinā yawman ʿabūsan qamṭarīrā "We feed you only for the face of God; we want from you neither return nor thanks. We fear from our Lord a day that scowls, a day of utmost harshness."
In Arabic a reported speech is generally attached to a verb of saying (qālū — they said). Here it is not attached; the sentence begins directly.
| View | Explanation | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| The verb of saying has been elided | Its implied form is qāʾilīna ("saying …") or yaqūlūna; it attaches as a circumstantial clause to the preceding verse | A common ellipsis in Arabic; unproblematic linguistically |
| The speech was not uttered with the tongue | This is lisān al-ḥāl — what the behaviour itself says. That is, these people are not saying this, they are doing it; the verse reads their intention and turns it into a sentence | A reading mentioned in the classical sources, and it agrees strikingly with the content of the verse |
For the sentence itself is a sentence that knows that boasting of wanting no thanks is also a way of expecting a return. To say "we expect no thanks from you" while giving food is precisely the refined form of expecting thanks. Counting the speech as unspoken dissolves this tension.
But I do not count the first reading invalid either, and for this reason: the Qurʾān relays the words of righteous persons elsewhere too, and such relaying does not mean the words are a boast. Moreover, the addressees of the sentence are the people being fed (nuṭʿimukum — "we feed you"), and to tell the person being fed "you are not in debt" is one way of removing the burden of obligation.
إِنَّمَا is in Arabic the particle of qaṣr (restriction): "only, solely, nothing else". It locks the sentence onto a single cause.
That is, the sentence does not say "we do this for God as well." It says "only". All other causes are put out of doors — and the next clause will name two of those causes.
Root: و-ج-ه. This construct was treated in the discussion of al-Layl 92/20 (ibtighāʾa wajhi Rabbihi'l-aʿlā), and I summarise the finding there: wajh means face, and from there opens onto the sense of direction; to do something "for someone's face" means to seek in that work no addressee other than that person. There is no need to enter the theological disputes about the attributes; the usage is common in Arabic and requires no anthropomorphism.
In the section on al-Layl it was also recorded that this verse (al-Insān 76/9) is the closest counterpart of al-Layl 92/19-20.
In the section on al-Layl the possible motives behind an act of giving were counted out and it was shown how the verse closes them off. Let us bring that list here and see what al-Insān adds:
| Motive for giving | al-Layl 92/19-20 | al-Insān 76/9 |
|---|---|---|
| Paying a debt (a kindness has been had from him before) | Eliminated explicitly: "no one has with him a favour to be repaid" | — |
| Investment (expecting something from him later) | Closed off by illā ibtighāʾa wajhi Rabbihi | Eliminated explicitly: لَا نُرِيدُ مِنكُمْ جَزَآءً |
| Standing / being seen | Closed off by the same exception | Eliminated explicitly: وَلَا شُكُورًا |
| The only valid motive | ibtighāʾa wajhi Rabbihi'l-aʿlā | li-wajhi'llāh |
The two verses do the same work from two directions. al-Layl looks to the past: this man owes nobody. al-Insān looks to the future: these people expect nothing from you.
And al-Insān adds something. What was eliminated in al-Layl was the material return; al-Insān, having eliminated the material return (jazāʾ), eliminates the immaterial return (shukūr) as well.
This second elimination is harder than the first. To give without expecting money is common. To give without expecting thanks is not common — because thanks is what completes the sentence the giver builds about himself.
جَزَاء — root: ج-ز-ي. As recorded in the section on al-Layl: to give in return, to pay; and jazāʾ is used both of a good and of a bad return.
- Jazāʾ comes from outside: a good, a service, a repayment.
- Shukūr comes from within and stays with the giver: the feeling of obligation, standing, the entry "a good person".
And now the backbone of the sūra becomes visible. In the ninth verse these people refuse shukūr. In the twenty-second verse God calls them mashkūr:
وَكَانَ سَعْيُكُم مَّشْكُورًا — "and your striving has been met with thanks." (76/22)
What they did not want from people is given to them by God. The sūra brings back from another hand the thing that was refused.
I recorded this link in the section on how the sūra is built as well; I mention it again here because the whole weight of the verse comes from it.
The tenth verse is the ground of what is said in the ninth. The answer to the question "why do you want no return?" is: because we fear.
Note the word order: مِن رَّبِّنَا. The verse does not say "we fear our Lord" — that would have been "nakhāfu Rabbanā". It says "we fear a day [coming] from our Lord". The particle min indicates the source: the day feared is a day that comes from the Lord.
This fine difference changes the object of the fear. What is feared is not God Himself but the day that will come from Him. And it sets up the same structure as the seventh verse: there too what was feared was a day.
عَبُوس — root: ع-ب-س. This root was treated in the section on Sūrat ʿAbasa, and the description there was this: to knot up the face, to knit the brows, the hardening of the countenance; عَبُوس (ʿabūs) — sour-faced, scowling.
What is peculiar to this passage is this: there the face that scowled was man's face, here it is the day's.
Sūrat ʿAbasa opened with a man's souring his face before a blind man. In this verse the same adjective is given to a day.
This is an isnād majāzī (figurative attribution): the taking of a quality from its real possessor and giving it to something related. A day has no face; what scowls is the faces of people on that day. The Qurʾān does this elsewhere too.
But the direction of the attribution is meaningful, and I record this reading — it is my own inference:
In ʿAbasa the one who soured his face was the side with power and position; the soured face was turned towards one in need. In al-Insān, however, it is the day that sours its face, and before it everyone is in need.
And a link of consequence is set up between the two sūras: whoever sours his face today meets a soured face on that day. The next verse of the sūra supports this reading — what is given to the abrār is precisely a quality of the face: naḍra (freshness, brightness).
The sense the lexicographers give: utterly harsh, severe, violent; something that knits the brows and knots up the face. It is recorded that the root has been connected with the verb qamṭara (he gathered, he drew tight) — a hardness that draws in and contracts.
In Arabic quadriliteral roots generally state intensity and repetition. The placing of two adjectives one upon the other (ʿabūs + qamṭarīr) does the same work: the first gives the look, the second the severity.