al-Anfāl 8:48-59 — The withdrawal of Satan, the pattern, and the treaty

Wa idh zayyana lahumu'sh-shayṭānu aʿmālahum wa qāla lā ghāliba lakumu'l-yawma mina'n-nāsi wa innī jārun lakum fa-lammā tarāʾati'l-fiʾatāni nakaṣa ʿalā ʿaqibayhi wa qāla innī barīʾun minkum innī arā mā lā tarawn

"When Satan made their deeds seem fair to them and said: 'today no one among the people can overcome you, and I am beside you.' Then, when the two armies came face to face, he turned back upon his two heels and said: 'I am quit of you; I see what you do not see.'"

زَيَّنَ — in many places in the index the verb had occurred in the passive (Fāṭir 35/8, Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/37: zuyyina). Here, however, the verb is active and its subject is named openly.

Here the verb is active and its subject is named openly: zayyana lahumu'sh-shayṭān. I record this difference: the same verb comes in one place without its agent stated, and in another with it stated.

نَكَصَ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيْهِ — ن-ك-ص: to go backwards, to turn upon one's heels. The idiom states a withdrawal made without turning the face away.

And what he says is worth recording: innī arā mā lā tarawn — "I see what you do not see." That is: the parting is grounded in a difference of knowledge.

This sentence has the same structure as al-Raʿd 13/11, and it was treated in detail there: that the two objects are different (mā bi-qawm / mā bi-anfusihim) and that the outer condition is attached to the inner condition. I rely on that treatment.

The two verses can be compared, and the difference must be recorded:

I record this as my own reading: al-Anfāl places the same principle in the context of a favour's being taken back. And it overlaps with the twenty-sixth verse of the sūra: there, fa-āwākum wa ayyadakum bi-naṣrih — what had been given was recalled.

A record per the method (Method): this verse and al-Raʿd 13/11 are not to be made instruments of current political debates; they are not so used in this commentary.

"If you fear treachery from a people, throw back their treaty to them openly, on equal terms."

The root ن-ب-ذ was treated in Maryam 19/16 and in al-Baqara (to throw, to set aside).

And the record ʿalā sawāʾ must be recorded: "upon equality" — that is, with the other side being informed.

I record this as my own reading: the verse closes off acting covertly in return even where treachery is suspected. The breaking of a treaty is itself bound to a procedure.

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْخَآئِنِينَ — and the ground is attached not to the other side's conduct but to this side's attribute.