al-Tawba 9:91-93

Laysa ʿala'l-ḍuʿafāʾi wa lā ʿala'l-marḍā wa lā ʿala'lladhīna lā yajidūna mā yunfiqūna ḥarajun idhā naṣaḥū li'llāhi wa rasūlih · Mā ʿala'l-muḥsinīna min sabīl

"There is no blame upon the weak, nor upon the sick, nor upon those who find nothing to spend — provided they are sincere towards God and His Messenger. There is no way against those who do good."

Since the eighty-eighth verse the sūra had been relating those who stayed behind. The ninety-first verse separates out a section from within that same group — and the measure of separation is given by three concrete conditions:

And upon all three a condition is laid: idhā naṣaḥū li'llāhi wa rasūlih.

The root ن-ص-ح: the core sense the lexicographers give is to make a thing unmixed — nuṣḥ is used also of honey's being strained and separated from its dross; and the sense of sewing up a tear (niṣāḥa — sewing thread) is recorded as well.

I record this as my own reading: both branches of the root (purifying and sewing) carry the mending of a relationship. And the condition is tied not to an outward act but to an inward posture: the person without means does not go, but his bond is not cut.

مَا عَلَى ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ مِن سَبِيلٍ — "there is no way against those who do good."

Sabīl here means "a way that can be worked against someone, a way of liability". The same expression was treated in al-Fatḥ at 48/17 (laysa ʿala'l-aʿmā ḥarajun wa lā ʿala'l-aʿraji ḥaraj); I rely on that treatment. And in al-Nūr at 24/61 the same list occurred in the context of the etiquette of the table. Three sūras build the same principle in three different fields: the expedition, war, the table.

"Nor upon those who, when they came to you for you to mount them and you said, 'I find nothing to mount you on,' turned back with their eyes overflowing with tears out of grief that they found nothing to spend."

This verse shows how the excuse is established, and I record it as my own reading: the measure is not the word spoken — it is having wept on the way back.

تَفِيضُ مِنَ ٱلدَّمْعِ — fayḍ: a vessel's filling and overflowing. The root was treated in al-Fatḥ and in al-Baqara at 2/198 (fa-idhā afaḍtum min ʿArafāt) — there it was used of a crowd pouring out. Here it is used of the eye: overflowing.

I record this as an observation: the verb relates the tears not as dripping but as overflowing — that is, a filling beyond what the vessel can hold.

And the distinction is completed: wa hum aghniyāʾ — those who ask leave while they have the means.

The word sabīl is denied in verse 91 and affirmed in verse 93. Two verses apart, the same word in two opposite rulings. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.