al-Muṭaffifīn 83:3

Wa idhā kālūhum aw wazanūhum yukhsirūn "But when they measure out to them or weigh out to them, they give short."

The expression has to be dwelt on, because at first sight it looks unintelligible.

Kālū-hum means, literally, "they measured them". But people are not measured.

The classical grammarians explain this by ellipsis: kālū lahum — "they measured for them". The lām has dropped, and the pronoun has attached directly to the verb. Ellipses of this kind are common in Arabic; the second object of a verb can come without a particle.

The same holds for wazanūhum: wazanū lahum — "they weighed for them".

There is also a discussion concerning the orthography of the muṣḥaf: the words are written كالوهم and وزنوهم, with no alif placed after the plural wāw. This spelling is interpreted as supporting the view that hum is not a separate pronoun but an object attached to the verb. The topic belongs to a heading on the orthography of the muṣḥaf, and I do not go into its details here.

A minority view holds that hum is a separate pronoun reinforcing the subject: "when they measured — when they themselves measured". This reading is mentioned in the sources but has not found wide acceptance.

Now we come to one of the most striking details of the sūra, and it is generally passed over.

In the second verse only measuring (kayl) was spoken of. In the third verse both measuring and weighing (wazn) are named.

That is:

Why?

The explanations given in the classical sources:

One. When taking, a single method is enough — whichever it is, they take in full. When giving, they give short by every method. That is, the cheating does not depend on the kind of instrument; it depends on the person's intention. The instrument may change, the result does not.

Two. Kayl and wazn were used in trade for two different kinds of goods: bulk goods such as grain by the measure, valuable goods such as gold, silver and spices by the balance. Naming the two together is a widening of the scope.

Three. By the flow of the verse: the use of a single verb in the first clause and of two verbs in the second shows how detailed the attention on the giving side is. The person thinks harder when giving.

I add this third explanation as my own reading and find it consonant with the sūra's diagnosis: cheating requires not inattention but extra attention. Shaving takes more labour than measuring exactly.

Root: خ-س-ر. This root was taken up in the section on al-ʿAṣr, and what was recorded there is decisive here: its original sense is diminishing and loss, and this sense is settled in Arabic especially in the field of trade and the balance. It was also recorded there that the usual English renderings have picked up an emotional colouring, whereas the Arabic khusrān is a cold balance sheet.

The verb here is in the إفعال (ifʿāl) form: akhsara.

And this gives the root a different direction from its use in al-ʿAṣr.

In al-ʿAṣr the human being is inside the loss; here the human being puts another into loss.

And when the two sūras are read together a result emerges, which I write as my own reading:

Sūrat al-ʿAṣr said that everyone outside the exception is in loss. Al-Muṭaffifīn gives an example of how that loss is produced: the one who puts another into loss writes his own balance sheet into the negative.

That is, ikhsār (putting another into loss) and khusr (being in one's own loss) are not merely of the same root; in the logic of the two sūras the one becomes the cause of the other.

In drawing this link a reservation has to be entered: it was stated plainly in the section on al-ʿAṣr that "a person does not have to harm anyone for his balance sheet to be in the negative." That is, loss does not come by one road only. Al-Muṭaffifīn shows one of those roads.

The diagnosis of the sūra is completed here, and it has to be dwelt on.

The two verses are not describing two different people. They are describing the same person in two different situations.

This is clear from the structure of the sentence: alladhīna (verse 2) is a single subject and two conditional clauses hang on it. Idhā… wa idhā… — "in this case thus, in that case so."

And what is described is not an inconsistency; it is an extremely consistent behaviour. In both situations the person acts by the same principle: let the difference always fall on my side.

Seen from outside, two different behaviours appear. Seen from inside, there is a single principle.

This is the sharpest observation of the sūra: the person who cheats in the measure does not break the measure. He rounds the measure to his own side every time. And taken one by one, this is defensible behaviour — because every rounding is right beside the boundary.

Another result follows from this: the person does not see himself as in the wrong. Taking in full when taking is his right; a small shortfall when giving is an error. Both sentences have a defence. The only thing that has no defence is that both are found in the same person.

This is why the sūra puts the two verses side by side. It is not possible to show the crime in a single sentence; a comparison is required.

One link of vocabulary is worth recording.

The original sense of the Arabic عَدْل (justice) is, as was taken up in the section on al-Infiṭār, equivalence; ʿidl names the load balanced on one side of a camel against the other.

That is, the very concept of justice was born from a picture of weighing: the two pans being equal.

This explains why the Qurʾān gives the matter of measure so much weight. The balance is not a metaphor for justice; it is the source of the word justice. The person who breaks the balance is not breaking an instrument; he is breaking the model of justice itself.

That al-Raḥmān 55/7-9 names the balance in the same sentence as the raising of the heaven is understood in this light.

The forms of shaving today are no different from those of that day — only more abstract.

Taṭfīf is possible wherever two conditions are found together: (a) one of the parties holds the measure in his own hands, (b) the difference is below the threshold at which the other party would notice it.

These two conditions are extremely widespread today: the unread clauses of long contracts, the notes written in small type, the roundings made in a calculation, the silent reductions made in a product's contents, the advertised period differing from the actual one, a line left out of a file.

None of these on its own is grounds for a suit. Every one of them is defensible taken singly. And every one of them is the holder of the measure rounding the difference to his own side.

The test is this question: when I do the same transaction and when it is done to me, do I give it the same name?

The sūra's diagnosis lies exactly here. The person calls the rounding that favours him "an error", "a fraction", "a condition of the market"; the one that goes against him he calls "an injustice". Two names, for the same act.

And this is less a matter of a moral rule than a matter of noticing: to see that the two cases are the same is, most of the time, enough on its own.