Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, Verse 9

1. The Questions This Verse Raises

The verse turns concern for one’s own children into a standard for words and decisions that affect another family. Its four questions move from the people addressed, to the speech required of them, to the legal guidance drawn from the Prophetic hadith, and finally to the place of the verse within the surrounding passage.

Q1. Who is told to fear?

The command وَلْيَخْشَ, “let them fear,” does not name one office or one setting. That is why the explanations differ. Some place the hearer beside a dying person, some place him over an orphan’s property, and some place him at the division mentioned in 4:8. The final position in the table is different: it not only identifies executors as the addressees but also claims that the command was later abrogated.

Position 1. Those who sit with a dying man as he bequeaths are told not to press him to give his wealth away, and to advise him as they would want their own small children provided for.

The earliest reports place this duty at the bedside. One form commands the adviser to correct a bequest that harms the heirs; another forbids him to urge the dying man to scatter his wealth (Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما).^[1] The same setting appears in the instruction to command justice and kindness and forbid wrongdoing when a person makes his bequest (Qatāda and other early authorities).^[2] This became the most widely transmitted of the specific applications, although the reports do not place every early statement in exactly the same setting (Ibn Kathīr, al-Qurṭubī, Ibn ʿAṭiyya and Abū Ḥayyān).^[3]

The danger is advice that sounds religious while leaving the children exposed. A person may urge the sick man to send all his wealth ahead for the Hereafter, as though concern for his dependants counted for nothing. The verse turns that concern back upon the adviser: counsel him as you would want someone to counsel you if your own small children would live with the result (al-Zamakhsharī).^[4]

Why this position is strong. If 4:8 is understood as a division made by bequest, 4:9 continues the same subject: the property is being settled, and the people offering advice are warned not to endanger the children. That continuity is the principal contextual argument for giving the bedside explanation priority (al-Ṭabarī).^[5] The wording also asks the hearer to imagine children of his own left weak. That comparison fits most directly when his advice might leave another parent’s children dependent on others (al-Rāzī).^[6] Saʿd’s hadith gives the same reason: leaving the heirs well provided for is better than leaving them poor and asking from people. Question 3 explains how that reason governs the amount of a bequest.

The transmission evidence strengthens this application without deciding the whole scope of the verse. The Ibn ʿAbbās report supporting it has an isnād graded ḥasan (Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn),^[7] while one route for the guardian explanation is graded weak (al-Malībārī).^[8] The guardian position nevertheless has other reported and contextual support, considered below. The result is a preference among specific applications, not a reason to close the verse around a single setting: the bedside explanation receives priority, while the warning may still reach other people who can harm vulnerable children (al-Ṭabarī, al-Rāzī and al-Jaṣṣāṣ).^[9]

Position 2. The reverse: those who sit with a dying man and forbid him to bequeath to his relatives are told to fear for those relatives as for their own children.

The opposite danger is also possible. An adviser may use concern for the children as a reason to stop every gift, even when the children are secure. One account describes visitors telling the dying man to keep everything for his children although, had they been his relatives, they would have wanted him to bequeath to them (Miqsam). Another requires the adviser to direct the testator toward those entitled to a bequest (an unnamed Ḥaḍramī, transmitted by al-Muʿtamir b. Sulaymān from Sulaymān al-Taymī).^[10] The connection with 4:8 depends on taking the relatives mentioned there as people who may receive a bequest.^[11]

The wording, however, speaks most directly about children who will be left behind, which gives Position 1 the stronger claim in this comparison. The reverse explanation is therefore more distant (al-Rāzī and al-Ālūsī).^[12] The fact that both bedside explanations were placed in the period before the inheritance shares does not choose between them; it only places them in the same historical setting (al-Qurṭubī).^[13]

The practical answer is not to give the same advice in every family. Where the heirs are independent and well provided for, encourage a bequest. Where they are weak and the estate is small, preserve what they need, even if that means advising no additional charitable bequest. Saʿd’s hadith gives the governing reason: the family must not be left dependent on others. The detailed juristic applications appear in Question 3 (Ibn ʿAṭiyya, al-Qurṭubī and al-Shawkānī).^[14]

Position 3. The guardians of orphans are told to treat their wards as they would want their own small children treated after them.

This explanation is also transmitted from early authorities. It reaches Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما through more than one route and is reported from al-Kalbī. The al-ʿAwfī route is graded weak, and the placement of Ibn Zayd’s words differs between the later records.^[15] Even with those transmission distinctions, the contextual force of the position led a number of commentators to adopt or favour it.^[16]

The surrounding passage explains why. The property of orphans has already been placed under protection, and the next verse threatens those who consume it. Between those commands, the guardian is made to imagine his own children left weak in somebody else’s hands. What he would want for them becomes the measure of what he owes the orphan before him (al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār).^[17] The explicit return to orphan property in 4:10 strengthens that connection (Ibn Kathīr).^[18]

Its limit is that the competing bedside interpretation follows only when 4:8 itself is taken as a bequest passage (al-Ṭabarī).^[19] The context of 4:10 still supports the guardian application. A general address can therefore retain both responsibilities without forcing one to erase the other.

Position 4. The dying man himself is told not to bequeath much and to leave his heirs rich.

The same concern can restrain the owner of the wealth directly. If his children will be left in need, he must not exhaust the estate through a bequest. Before the one-third limit was established, the warning would prohibit leaving them destitute; after that limit, it would guide him toward a third or less according to their need (al-Zajjāj, al-Rāzī and al-Khāzin).^[20]

Saʿd’s hadith and the Companions’ preference for smaller bequests support that legal restraint. The third is the outer limit applied to the case, not a fraction stated in this verse (al-Rāzī).^[21] But the same hadith can also tell an adviser what advice to give, so it does not by itself prove that the owner is the person addressed. This is therefore a valid application of the warning, but a less direct identification of its addressee.

Position 5. The heirs at the division of 4:8 are told to have compassion for those present.

The link begins with the preceding command. If 4:8 places the heirs at an estate division and tells them to speak kindly, 4:9 gives them the fear that must stand behind those words. The closest early wording places Mujāhid’s explanation at a division of wealth; the connection is also recorded as a possibility in later commentary (al-Zamakhsharī).^[22]

A gift can be prevented by someone who does not own the money. At the division, a bystander may discourage giving to the needy orphans and poor people who are present. Where the heirs are wealthy and influential, appearing protective of their money can be a way of winning their favour. The verse turns that person’s attention from the wealthy heirs to the children he might leave behind: if they needed help, would he want someone to persuade others to deny it? The consideration he wants for his own children should govern his advice about the needy people before him.

On this explanation, the link with 4:8 concerns not only the heirs’ response but also the words of people influencing them. The warning corrects an adviser who obstructs kindness at the division, rather than identifying him simply as an heir (Muḥammad ʿAbduh).^[23]

The connection is not compulsory. If 4:8 is an aside within the broader orphan-property passage, the heirs mentioned there do not automatically become the people addressed in 4:9 (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[24] The same restraint appears when the guardian explanation is given first and the connection to the heirs only as a possibility (al-Zamakhsharī).^[25]

Position 6. The verse gives a general warning about the rights of vulnerable people.

The verse can cover more than one setting because the same standard governs them: do not treat another family in a way you would fear for your own. That standard reaches harmful advice at a bequest, neglect of an orphan’s property and other conduct that injures vulnerable children. Its breadth does not make all the explanations identical. It can include advisers and guardians while still excluding the heirs addressed in the aside of 4:8 (Ibn al-ʿArabī, Muftī Muḥammad Shafīʿ and Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[26]

Allowing several applications is therefore different from pretending that every commentator chose the same addressee. The decisions differ, but the shared prohibition against harming children can govern them all. Some commentators expressly allow the early explanations together; others merely record several possibilities without choosing among them (al-Jaṣṣāṣ and others).^[27]

This wider principle remains concrete. Fear for one’s own child becomes the measure for caring for another’s child (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[28] It also teaches a parent to fear for the children he will leave and to seek Allah’s protection for them through obedience (Ibn al-Daylamī’s counsel to al-Saybānī).^[29] The words required in each setting will differ: fair advice to a dying person is not the same speech as kindness to an orphan or to someone present at a division. The common duty is to say what puts that particular responsibility right (al-Zamakhsharī and al-Ālūsī).^[30]

Why the wording permits this breadth. The verse describes a shared human fear without naming a guardian, adviser or heir. The concern itself brings the hearer within the warning (al-Ṭībī).^[31] It also leaves the object of the opening command unstated, allowing the mind to turn to every danger that might threaten the children (Ibn ʿĀshūr and Ibn ʿAjība).^[32] The specific settings can therefore be genuine applications without exhausting the command (al-Jaṣṣāṣ).^[33]

The same moral comparison appears in the Prophetic rule of love for others:

The verse makes that comparison concrete: give another person’s children the consideration you would want for your own. At the bedside, that means giving the dying person the advice you would want if the children affected were yours (Ibn ʿĀshūr and al-Jaṣṣāṣ).^[35]

Position 7. The executors are told to enforce the will as the testator drew it; the verse was then abrogated by 2:182.

A minority position argues that the verse is addressed directly to the estate's executors. On that account, they were first commanded to enforce a will exactly as the testator made it, and 2:182 later allowed them to correct it; the second instruction is therefore said to cancel the first.^[36]

The claim fails because right speech cannot require the enforcement of injustice. If the will contains partiality or sin, correcting it fulfils the command rather than cancelling it (Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Sakhāwī).^[37] The duty of right speech applies both when a sound bequest is carried out and when an unjust one is corrected (Ibn al-ʿArabī).^[38]

The historical record does not establish the claimed cancellation either. Several works on abrogation do not list this verse, while the works that do list it provide no proof for the change. The separate statement that fixed inheritance shares replaced the former duty to bequeath to one’s own children concerns another ruling; it does not show that an executor was ever required to enforce an unjust will (al-Malībārī and al-Zajjāj).^[39]

The tarjīḥ: the address is general, and the command remains in force.

The warning concerns people whose words or actions affect the rights of the vulnerable. The guardian holding an orphan’s property and the person advising a dying parent are two clear examples. Each must give the children affected the care he would want for his own, fear Allah and speak rightly.^[40]

This conclusion accounts for the wording and the context together. The verse identifies a shared fear for vulnerable children, not one particular role. It leaves the object of its opening command unstated. And it stands within a passage concerned with the rights and property of people who need protection. The adviser and the guardian are therefore two clear applications of its command, without either application exhausting it.^[41]

Within the bequest setting, right advice still depends on the family’s circumstances. Encourage giving where the heirs are well provided for; protect what remains where they are weak and the estate is small. That distinction follows the reason given in Saʿd’s hadith. Correcting a harmful bequest fulfils the command to speak rightly, so there is no need to treat the verse as abrogated.^[42]

And Allah knows best.

Q2. What is “the right word”?

قَوْلًا سَدِيدًا, “a right word,” is speech that is just, correct and suited to the responsibility before the speaker. The word سَدِيد (sadīd) is connected with setting something right and closing a gap. The aim is therefore not softness for its own sake, but speech that repairs what is wrong without introducing another wrong.^[43] This is why the early explanations name justice, truth, moderation and correcting a person who strays. They describe different forms of the same task.^[44]

What that requires in each setting

Good management of property does not exhaust this duty. A guardian may keep the accounts honestly and still wound the child through contempt, especially by speaking badly of the child’s parents:

This is why the command about speech stands beside the commands protecting property and upbringing.

The same phrase can become good or bad advice. “Send ahead for yourself” is sound when it is joined to “and leave for your children”: the advice makes room for giving while protecting the family (a report from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما).^[50] It becomes harmful when it is joined to “bequeath all your wealth” and used to press the owner to neglect those who will depend on what remains (al-Suddī).^[51] The difference is not whether charity is praised. It is whether the advice respects the family’s rights.

Right advice also makes the person’s affairs clear: what he owns, what he owes and whom he intends to benefit.^[52] It can remember a needy relative without wronging the small orphan heir who cannot defend himself.^[53]

Why speech comes last. Right speech is the least outward expression of a larger duty; it cannot replace the fear, taqwā and right conduct from which it should arise (Abū Ḥayyān).^[54] Fear begins that movement and taqwā completes it (al-Rāghib).^[55] The full rhetorical sequence is explained in Balāghah.

The right word is the one that puts its own situation right: fatherly care when speaking to an orphan, fair advice when a person is settling an estate, and honourable speech to those present at a division. In the bequest case, the permitted maximum must never become a reason to overlook weak heirs. Question 3 explains that distinction.

And Allah knows best.

Q3. What does Saʿd’s hadith establish about the bequest?

The full account of Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ رضي الله عنه appears in Historical Context. The words that govern the legal discussion are:

The hadith permits a third, but it also gives the reason for leaving more to the family. A permitted maximum is not a target for every estate. The heirs’ circumstances determine which advice is appropriate.

How the heirs’ circumstances change the advice

Why some preferred less than a third. The Prophet ﷺ called a third “much.” That is why a quarter was preferred to the full third (Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما).^[60] The same concern produced a scale of preference: a fifth before a quarter, and a quarter before a third (a reported preference of the Companions).^[61] These are preferences within the permitted limit, not new fixed fractions. A bequest of a fifth, a fourth or a third can remain valid according to the circumstances (Makkī).^[62]

What the hadith tells the adviser. Do not urge a gift that neglects the family’s needs. This remains true even when the adviser is an heir: he must give the fair advice he would want in the dying person’s place (al-Kiyā al-Harrāsī and al-Sakhāwī).^[63] It applies with particular force to bystanders who press the testator beyond the third (Muqātil).^[64] The same hadith therefore belongs naturally in an explanation of the verse’s bequest setting (Muftī Muḥammad Shafīʿ).^[65]

The instruction also governs the owner of the wealth. He must not use a lawful bequest to leave his family dependent (al-Rāzī).^[66] But this does not settle who is grammatically addressed in 4:9, because the hadith guides both the person making the bequest and the people advising him.

What it settles. The third is the normal limit for a bequest; the exception requiring the heirs’ valid consent is explained in the appendix. The heirs’ welfare explains why less may be better. That reason, rather than the fraction alone, supports the distinction between encouraging a bequest and preserving a small estate for those who need it.^[67]

And Allah knows best.

Q4. How does the verse connect with 4:8 and 4:10?

No single proposed connection settles the full scope of the verse. Each one explains part of the sequence, and each has a limit.

The guardian explanation can continue the earlier passage in three ways. It may tell guardians to preserve what has been handed over after 4:7, add a charge to those caring for the younger heirs, or continue the testing and care of orphans commanded in 4:6. These connections differ over which earlier instruction is being continued, not over the guardian’s responsibility. The bequest-adviser interpretation remains another possible connection with what precedes (al-Ālūsī).^[72]

The wider movement of the passage is clearer than any single disputed seam. The preceding commands protect the property of orphans and other vulnerable people. Verse 4:9 then appeals to the hearer’s fear for his own children. Its veiled warning is that worldly ruin may return upon the wrongdoer’s own family; 4:10 follows it with the threat of punishment for consuming orphan property. The movement therefore runs from fear of Allah, through parental compassion and the warning of worldly recompense, to the renewed warning about the property and its punishment (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[73]

That explanation does not make the heirs addressed in 4:8 the addressees of 4:9. On this account, 4:8 is an aside and the warning returns to the wider group responsible for vulnerable people’s rights (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[74] This differs from the position that connects the warning directly to the stronger heirs at the division (al-Maẓharī).

The final connection is ethical rather than sequential: the hearer reverses the positions. The guardian pictures his own child in the orphan’s place and makes the treatment he would want for that child the measure of his own conduct (al-Biqāʿī and al-Zuḥaylī).^[75]

Conclusion. No single neighbouring verse identifies the only possible addressee. Verse 4:9 belongs to the wider sequence protecting vulnerable people and their property. Verse 4:8 explains why speech at a division or bequest matters; verse 4:10 gives particular force to the guardian application. Together they support the general address adopted in Question 1 while preserving the settings mentioned by the commentators.

And Allah knows best.

2. How the Commentators Explain This Verse

The Questions have already used the principal evidence for the competing addressees and the bequest limit. The profiles below retain only the commentators’ distinctive syntheses or legal extensions.

Al-Jaṣṣāṣ (d. 370 AH / 981 CE)

One reciprocal test can govern opposite advice. The distinctive method tests both direction and intention. Advice to give or to hold back becomes forbidden when the adviser means to harm either the heirs or the people meant to receive the bequest and would reject the same counsel if he were in their place. This allows the early applications to remain genuinely different while bringing them under one rule (al-Jaṣṣāṣ).^[1]

Ibn ʿĀshūr (d. 1393 AH / 1973 CE)

The treatment of vulnerable families can become a community's habit. The warning therefore concerns more than the guardian immediately responsible for an orphan. Others must care about the weak person's rights and resist wrongdoing by bad guardians. If exploitation becomes normal, their own children and property may eventually suffer from it:

What first appears shocking can become familiar, and familiarity can make people more willing to repeat it. Protecting another family's rights therefore helps prevent an accepted practice of exploiting the weak.

Ibn ʿUthaymīn (d. 1421 AH / 2001 CE)

Who is included when an endowment is left to “my descendants”? A waqf is an endowment whose property is set aside for specified beneficiaries or purposes. Here the wording matters because it identifies the people entitled to benefit.

On the position Ibn ʿUthaymīn describes as well known among scholars, “my descendants” includes sons and daughters, and descendants through sons, but not descendants through daughters. He applies that distinction to a person who declares a waqf for his descendants.

An objection follows from the Qurʾān's inclusion of ʿĪsā among Ibrāhīm's descendants through Maryam: does that not establish descent through a daughter? Ibn ʿUthaymīn answers that ʿĪsā had no father, so his mother occupied that place in his lineage. This is his explanation of the legal position governing the endowment's beneficiaries.^[3]

3. Iʿrāb: Grammatical Structure

The starting point is Dār al-Ṣaḥābah's Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, which analyses the verse word by word and then places each clause.^[1] The other grammarians agree with it on almost every word; where one of them adds a reason or construes a word differently, that is given where the grammar changes the meaning.

Word / Grammar / What it does

Clause / Position

Where the Grammar Changes the Meaning

The opening وَ: a fresh sentence or a conjunction

Dār al-Ṣaḥābah treats the opening wāw as استئنافية (istiʾnāfiyya), beginning a fresh sentence. Darwīsh calls it عاطفة (ʿāṭifa), joining the command to the preceding discourse. The English can remain “And let those fear” in either case. The grammatical label alone does not decide whether the people addressed are heirs, guardians or advisers; that question also depends on the surrounding argument.^[3]

يَخْشَ: the unstated object of “fear”

The verse does not state the object of يَخْشَ (yakhsha), “fear.” The command also changes the verb’s ending. The lām puts the verb into jazm, and its final alif is dropped. Al-Naḥḥās records Sībawayh's explanation: dropping the letter distinguishes this form from rafʿ and naṣb, where the alif remains.^[4]

What is the hearer told to fear? The next command explicitly names lafẓ al-jalālah, the divine name. That gives one answer: the first command also means “let them fear Allah,” with the object understood rather than repeated. This is the construction given by al-Kharrāṭ^[5] and Maḥmūd Ṣāfī, who points to the divine name in the next command as the reason the omission can be understood.^[6]

The later words “they would fear for them” offer another way to understand the omission: the sentence itself makes clear that fear for children is at issue, so the earlier verb need not repeat its object. Makkī gives that explanation and also records “let them fear Allah.”^[7] A related account understands the first command as “let them fear this,” meaning be on guard against the situation described, before the verse makes the duty explicit with “let them fear Allah” (al-Akhfash).^[8]

If the understood object is lafẓ al-jalālah, there are still two ways to describe the grammar. It may simply be omitted from the first command. Or the two verbs may share an object that is stated only with the second: both “let them fear” and “let them be mindful” concern Allah, but the divine name follows the second verb. This second construction is تَنَازُع (tanāzuʿ), two verbs seeking the same object. These are the two analyses set out by al-Samīn al-Ḥalabī.^[9]

But leaving the object unspoken can also widen the command. Instead of naming a single danger, it allows each hearer to think of what he fears most for his own offspring. That is Ibn ʿĀshūr’s preferred explanation,^[10] while Ibn ʿAjība likewise understands the omission as giving general scope.^[11] The surrounding discussion can also identify a particular danger: squandering the orphans’ property, as Ibn ʿUthaymīn explains.^[12]

These are different explanations of what is left understood. On al-Samīn’s construction, the object is lafẓ al-jalālah, either omitted directly or shared by the two verbs. Ibn ʿĀshūr expressly prefers leaving the object open to the harm each hearer fears for his offspring. Ibn ʿUthaymīn names a particular harm: squandering the orphans’ property. Not all of these scholars think the missing word is simply 'Allah'.

“Let those fear” preserves the omission and can therefore remain unchanged in English. An expanded translation would differ: “let them fear Allah” on the first explanation, or “let them fear what may happen to the children” on the others. The first remains a supported grammatical construction; the wider explanations show why it should not be presented as the only one.

لَوْ تَرَكُوا: “if they left” or “if they leave”?

The second point is لَوْ (law), and here the grammar does change the sense of "if they left". Two constructions are held, law in its own sense, reflected in Saheeh International’s wording, “as if they [themselves] had left weak offspring behind and feared for them”; the second is set out because al-Shanqīṭī rules for it. On the first, law keeps its own sense, a supposition about the past: had they left weak offspring, they would have feared for them. Ibn ʿAṭiyya and al-Zamakhsharī take it so, as al-Samīn reports them,^[13] and al-Samīn rules for it: what is right is that law keeps its own sense, a suspension in the past.^[14]

On the second, law stands for إِنْ (in), the conditional of the future, turning the past verb into a future one: let those fear who, if they leave weak offspring, will fear for them.

This construction treats the answer clause as following a law that carries the meaning of in, a grammatical analysis supported by al-ʿUkbarī^[15] and by Ibn Mālik, as quoted by al-Samīn.^[16] The verse itself serves as a direct instance of law giving a past-form verb a future meaning, an application noted by Maḥmūd Ṣāfī.^[17] Even al-Samīn, despite offering a different account elsewhere in his work, concedes that law can mean in and cites this exact verse to demonstrate the usage.^[18]

The primary argument for adopting this rare future construction is that forcing the verse's clause into the past tense creates an "evident strain," an assessment that leads al-Shanqīṭī to rule in its favor. To illustrate this future usage, he points to lines attributed to Qays b. al-Mulawwaḥ:

The imagined meeting is after the speaker’s future death. Al-Shanqīṭī therefore regards a past interpretation as impossible in these lines and takes them as evidence that law can introduce a future condition.^[19]

The difficulty the second construction answers is this: the addressees are told to fear now, and a person who has already left offspring behind him is dead and past addressing.

The first construction answers it another way, by taking "left" as being on the point of leaving. Al-Zamakhsharī reads the state as that of the approach of death, when a person is about to leave weak children,^[20] and Ibn al-Munayyir gives his reason: the answer, "they would fear for them", can only happen before the leaving, in this world, so the leaving must mean being on the point of it, or the answer would fall before its condition.^[21]

Al-Suyūṭī counts this among the kinds of مَجَاز (majāz), explaining the verse as "were they on the point of leaving, they would fear",^[22] and repeats it in Muʿtarak al-Aqrān.^[23] Ibn ʿĀshūr calls the past verb a figure for the nearness of the event,^[24] and al-Maydānī explains what the past form is for: a future matter is made to stand as a past one, and among the uses of that is warning and instilling fear.^[25] Muḥyī al-Dīn Darwīsh adds that this construal does not tie the address to the executors; it holds as well if the address is to the heirs or to those sitting with the sick.^[26]

The English changes with the construction: "if they left ... would fear" on the first, "if they leave ... will fear" on the second. What does not change is the state the verse pictures. On either construction the fear is felt before the leaving, by a person who can still act.

The construction to keep is the first, law in its own sense with "left" understood as being on the point of leaving, which is al-Samīn's ruling with Ibn ʿAṭiyya, al-Zamakhsharī and Ibn ʿĀshūr, and Saheeh International’s “as if they [themselves] had left weak offspring behind and feared for them” reflects it.

Al-Shanqīṭī's ruling the other way rests on the strain he sees in a past clause under a present command, and Abū Ḥayyān had answered that point before him: the strain would bind only if the leaving had actually happened, and a past on a supposition may stand as the clause of a relative governed by a future verb, as in "let him visit us who, had he died yesterday, we would have mourned".^[27]

Al-Samīn also considers poetic evidence for the future use. He quotes Ibn Mālik’s example:

He adds another:

The first example is an instruction about future conduct; the second describes restraint from marital relations when going to war. While the surrounding context of these lines clearly requires a future sense, the verse itself does not necessarily have to follow them: its condition can simply be an imagined past situation rather than an event that actually occurred, an answer provided by al-Samīn.^[28]

The counterargument is that a past interpretation is impossible in the poetic example and grammatically strained in this verse. This perceived strain is the primary reason for preferring the future construction (as argued by al-Shanqīṭī), rather than it being a concession to al-Samīn’s preference.

Ultimately, the past supposition remains defensible. Because the "leaving" is an imagined scenario rather than an event that has already happened to the people addressed, the fear logically takes place before the separation, an explanation of approaching death supported by Ibn al-Munayyir. This is the construction retained here, while the future construction remains a supported alternative. And Allah knows best.

مِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ: what “behind them” describes

“Behind them,” مِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ (min khalfihim), can describe either the leaving or the children left behind. Attached to the verb, it completes the thought “they left behind them”: the children remain after their death. This is the Dār al-Ṣaḥābah analysis.^[29]

On the alternative analysis, the phrase describes the offspring’s state: children “being behind them.” Grammatically this is a حَال (ḥāl), a description of a state. A phrase following the indefinite noun “offspring” could function as its adjective; placed before that noun, it is instead analysed as a state, with “being” understood. Al-Samīn gives both constructions and calls attachment to the verb clearer;^[30] al-ʿUkbarī records both without choosing.^[31]

The distinction changes what the phrase attaches to, but not the ordinary English “behind them.” In either analysis, the phrase pictures the parent as gone and the children as remaining. The wording pictures those who come immediately after their parents, as though standing behind them (al-Sāmarrāʾī).^[32]

فَلْيَتَّقُوا: how the commands connect

The فَ (fāʾ) at the start of فَلْيَتَّقُوا (fa-l-yattaqū) connects the fear just described with the command to fear Allah. In the Dār al-Ṣaḥābah analysis, the command answers a condition left unspoken; the fāʾ links that implied condition to its answer. This gives the command a jussive grammatical position.^[33] A second analysis takes the fāʾ as expressing consequence: taqwā should arise from the fear already awakened in them (Darwīsh).^[34]

Both analyses explain why the verse moves from fear to taqwā. Feeling concern is the beginning; guarding one’s conduct is its completion. Al-Rāghib describes fear as the beginning of taqwā and taqwā as its end.^[35] The order therefore calls for more than a feeling: the first command must lead to the second, since fear is of no use without that result (Ibn Kamāl Pāshā).^[36]

The English “so let them fear Allah” can express either grammatical connection. The vowel of the lām of command is a separate matter of recitation, discussed under Qirāʾāt.

قَوْلًا سَدِيدًا: naming the act or what is said

Does قَوْلًا describe the act of speaking, or name what is spoken? As مفعول مطلق (mafʿūl muṭlaq), it is the action noun related to “speak,” with سَدِيدًا describing the kind of speech required. This is the Dār al-Ṣaḥābah analysis. As مفعول به (mafʿūl bihi), it is the object: the right word that is spoken, in Maḥmūd Ṣāfī’s analysis. The first describes the act; the second identifies its content. Both can be rendered “let them speak a right word,” and neither changes the duty to speak justly.^[37]

4. Ṣarf: Roots and Word Formation

Ten words of the verse are built on a root. The table gives each one its root, its pattern and its inflection, and what the form adds to the sense; the paragraphs after it give what the lexicons say of the roots that decide the meaning. The particles, the relative pronoun and the pronouns have no root and are not given one.

At its broadest, خَشْيَة (khashya) means fear and alarm, the sense given by Ibn Fāris.^[1] A more specific explanation joins that fear with reverence and says that it usually arises from knowing what is feared (al-Rāghib).^[2] Knowledge is usual in that account; a stronger explanation makes it necessary. Ibn ʿUthaymīn calls it the strongest form of dread and says that it occurs only with knowledge.^[3]

Such fear can remain even when a person is presently safe. That qualification appears in al-Zuḥaylī’s explanation^[4] and in al-Jazāʾirī’s phrase “fear in a place of safety.”^[5]

Do reverence and knowledge, however, explain every use of خَشْيَة? A line of ʿAntara raises that difficulty. Rashīd Riḍā cites it in his objection:

The poet fears dying before the reversal he hopes for. Riḍā argues that this use expresses neither reverence nor knowledge of the kind just described. He therefore suggests that, if the two words differ, khashya is more nearly fear where there is hope.^[6]

The root of تَرَكُوا (tarakū), “they left,” means letting a thing go (Ibn Fāris).^[7] That can happen through choice or through necessity, the distinction made by al-Rāghib.^[8] Death gives the word its estate-related sense: a person’s تَرِكَة (tarika) is what he leaves behind when he dies.^[9] This is the sense relevant to the verse’s picture of children left after a parent. Whether the past form describes an imagined past situation or the approach of death is the separate grammatical question discussed above, including Ibn ʿĀshūr’s explanation of the event as drawing near.^[10]

The letters خ ل ف cover three senses in Ibn Fāris’s account: succeeding something and taking its place, being behind rather than in front, and change.^[11] The phrase “behind them” uses the second sense, also given by al-Rāghib.^[12] It pictures the children who come immediately after their parents, as though standing behind them, an explanation drawn out by al-Sāmarrāʾī.^[13]

The lexicons provide three derivations for ذُرِّيَّة (dhurriyya). The first links it to الذَّرّ (al-dharr), meaning "small ants," using the pattern فُعْلِيَّة. Under this derivation, the preferred reading uses a ḍamma (the vowel u) on the dhāl, though a kasra (the vowel i) is also permitted and has been read this way, an analysis provided by al-Zajjāj.^[14] The root itself (dhāl and doubled rāʾ) conveys fineness and spreading, with dharr referring to small ants.^[15] A second possible root, ذ ر أ, carries two meanings: a color tending toward white, and what is sown and planted, as outlined by Ibn Fāris.^[16]

The third derivation, falling under the root ذ ر و, provides the sense most relevant to this verse. Fundamentally, dhurriyya refers to the small ones among the children, though in practice it applies to both young and grown children. It can mean a single child or many, since its origin is plural, a definition established by al-Rāghib.^[17] The grammatical consequence is that the word already functions as a plural by its form, making further pluralization unnecessary. This verse itself serves as proof that the single word covers multiple children, an argument drawn by Makkī.^[18] Finally, the verse pairs this noun with the adjective ضِعَافًا (ḍiʿāfan, weak), adding it to a word whose root sense already means the small ones to reinforce that original vulnerability.

The weakness in ضِعَافًا (ḍiʿāfan) is the opposite of strength. One reported distinction assigns ضُعْف (ḍuʿf, with the vowel u) to bodily weakness and ضَعْف (ḍaʿf, with a) to weakness of judgement or mind; Ibn Manẓūr records that distinction rather than giving the two forms different roots.^[19] He also lists several plurals of ضَعِيف (ḍaʿīf): ḍuʿafāʾ, ḍaʿfā, ḍiʿāf, ḍaʿafa and ḍaʿāfā.^[20]

The same consonants can express increase by an equal amount, or doubling, but that is a separate sense from weakness in Ibn Fāris’s account.^[21] His entry on weakness includes both ḍuʿafāʾ and ḍiʿāf.^[22] Weakness itself remains defined against strength,^[23] and it can concern a person’s body, inner capacities or circumstances (al-Rāghib).^[24]

The plural used here is therefore one of several attested forms, not a different kind of person. Several forms occur together in al-Zamakhsharī’s lexicon.^[25] In particular, ḍiʿāf is a regular plural of ḍaʿīf and ḍaʿīfa, just as ẓirāf is formed from ẓarīf, as al-Zajjāj explains.^[26] Why ḍuʿafāʾ is used in 2:266 and ḍiʿāf here is a question al-Zarkashī raises.^[27]

What matters here is the children’s inability to protect their own interests. “Helpless, with no resource” is Saʿīd b. Jubayr’s explanation.^[28] The examples include a small child, a person without sound mental capacity, or someone whose poor judgement leaves him unable to manage his affairs (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[29]

A سَدِيد (sadīd) word is one that is right and hits its mark. The related سَدَاد (sadād) expresses correctness in speech,^[30] while tasdīd concerns being guided to what is right in word and deed (Ibn Manẓūr).^[31] The ordinary expression “I said to him sadād of speech” likewise means saying what is correct, as al-Zamakhsharī records.^[32]

The connection with closing a gap helps explain this sense. Right speech removes what is amiss rather than leaving it unresolved (al-Rāghib).^[33] The root سَدّ (sadd) names the removal of a gap; its use for speech and action points to straightness and correctness (Abū Ḥayyān).^[34] The same connection explains the adjective as upright, like something that closes a gap (al-Samīn al-Ḥalabī),^[35] or as a word that does not depart towards corruption (al-Ḥaddād).^[36]

The form سَدِيد is a صِفَة مُشَبَّهَة (ṣifah mushabbahah), an adjective expressing a quality. Maḥmūd Ṣāfī connects it with سدّ يسدّ in the sense “to be upright in word and deed,” and allows both an active and a passive sense. Put simply, the adjective may describe speech as straight and right, or as rightly directed. Either gives the ordinary English “a right word”; the grammatical distinction does not change the duty to speak justly.^[37]

The early explanations make that required quality plain: “a just word,” in the answer attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما to Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq,^[38] and “the just and correct one” in al-Ṭabarī’s explanation.^[39]

Al-Ālūsī illustrates the root’s concrete sense with a line he attributes to al-ʿArjī:

Here سِدَاد, sidād, is what closes or defends a gap. The related expression for right speech concerns words that put a matter right rather than leave a fault in it. The poem illustrates that concrete sense of closing a gap.^[40]

Written Form of ضِعَافًا

Al-Mārghanī, explaining the verse of Mawrid al-Ẓamʾān on the word, reports from Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī's al-Muqniʿ that the alif of ḍiʿāfan is omitted in the muṣḥaf, the written copy of the Qurʾān, the word written without the letter after the ʿayn.^[41] The spelling is a matter of the written copy and does not touch the recitation.

5. Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

Six features of the verse's wording are explained by the rhetoricians and the commentators. Each is given with the ordinary way of saying the same thing, what the chosen wording does, and what the reader gains from it.

The unstated object of fear (الإِيجَاز بِالحَذْف, al-ījāz bi-l-ḥadhf)

Brevity by omission, الإِيجَاز بِالحَذْف (al-ījāz bi-l-ḥadhf), is the shortening of a sentence by leaving out a word the hearer understands from the context.

Where it is. خَافُوا عَلَيْهِمْ (khāfū ʿalayhim), "they would fear for them". The verb says whom the fear is for and never says what is feared.

The plain way. A full sentence would name the thing feared: they would fear poverty for them, or loss, or ill treatment. Any one of those words closes the sentence to the others.

What it does. The omission keeps the danger from being reduced to one item. Muḥyī al-Dīn Darwīsh names the device:

The open wording can gather loss, wandering and homelessness, with no one to provide for the children or manage their affairs.^[2] It also allows each hearer to imagine the danger he fears most for his own offspring (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[3] The context can identify particular dangers without exhausting the wording: punishment, reproach and distance from the beloved are included in one explanation (Ibn ʿAjība),^[4] while the surrounding passage gives the squandering of orphan property as another immediate danger (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[5]

The effect. The verse does not tell the reader what a father fears for his children, because he already knows. For one it is hunger, for another the relative who will take the house, for another a daughter with no one to speak for her. The omission lets each hearer think of the danger he knows: whatever you would fear for yours, fear it for theirs.

Darwīsh illustrates that fear with a father’s concern for his daughters:

The poetry names several fears, not just a lost income: deprivation, exposure and humiliation. That is the breadth Darwīsh sees in leaving the object of fear unspoken.

“Left” for being on the point of leaving (المَجَاز, al-majāz)

Figurative use, المَجَاز (al-majāz), includes using a verb for being on the point of an act, drawing near to it or intending it. Here “left” can mean “were near to leaving” (al-Suyūṭī).^[7]

Where it is. لَوْ تَرَكُوا مِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ ذُرِّيَّةً ضِعَافًا (law tarakū min khalfihim dhurriyyatan ḍiʿāfan), "if they left behind them weak offspring". The verb is in the past, and the people it describes are alive to be addressed.

The plain way. Stated without the figure, the words would say "if they were about to leave behind them weak offspring". The verse says "left".

What it does. The person addressed is still alive, approaching the moment when his children will lose their guardian and provider. Understanding “left” as “were about to leave” places the fear at that moment (al-Zamakhsharī).^[8]

The order of events explains the construction. The parent fears for the children before he dies; the fear cannot first arise after he has left them. Taking “left” to mean an already completed departure would put the fear before its own condition. The verb therefore describes approaching the act, not completing it (Ibn al-Munayyir).^[9] Ibn ʿĀshūr expresses the same point briefly:

A different construction takes لَوْ (law) in the sense of إِنْ (in) and gives the past verb a future sense. The future event is expressed as though it had already happened, which makes the warning more immediate (al-Maydānī).^[11] On this account, whoever does not fear Allah regarding other people's offspring may expect to leave children of his own and fear the wrong of whoever takes charge of them.^[12] The Iʿrāb section retains the past supposition with “left” understood as being on the point of leaving; the future construction remains a distinct grammatical explanation.

The effect. The past form brings the threatened separation close. The hearer imagines approaching death and the children he is about to leave. He still has time to act, so the picture bears on how he treats another family’s children now.

The addressees are described, not named

Where it is. الَّذِينَ لَوْ تَرَكُوا ... خَافُوا عَلَيْهِمْ (alladhīna law tarakū ... khāfū ʿalayhim), "those who, if they left ... would fear for them". The verse does not say "let the guardians fear" or "let those at the bedside fear".

The plain way. al-Ṭībī states the ordinary alternative:

What it does. al-Ṭībī explains the change:

A description can reach people in several roles at once. Those addressed by the preceding commands about orphans' property and the rights of vulnerable women and children can recognise themselves in it (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[15] The comparison then reverses their position: they imagine themselves in the place of the people they have wronged, and their own offspring in the place of the children whose rights they have consumed.^[16]

The effect. The description asks the hearer to imagine vulnerable children left behind, rather than merely recognize the name of an office. The person need not already have young children: Ibn ʿĀshūr expressly includes those whose children have grown up, those past childbearing and those with no children. They too can imagine the situation.^[17] That comparison helps explain the verse’s wider appeal, while the particular addressees remain the question examined above.

“Weak” and “behind them” deepen the appeal and imply a warning (تَعْرِيض, taʿrīḍ)

Where it is. ذُرِّيَّةً ضِعَافًا (dhurriyyatan ḍiʿāfan), "weak offspring", and مِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ (min khalfihim), "behind them".

The plain way. "if they left offspring" would make the point by itself. "Weak" is added, and "behind them" is stated although leaving is always behind.

What it does. Calling the offspring ضِعَافًا, “weak,” directs attention to their vulnerability and calls for compassion. The phrase مِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ, “behind them,” is then stated expressly rather than left understood. Its explicit mention intensifies the dread of the situation the hearer is asked to imagine. These are the two effects al-Ālūsī identifies.^[18]

The comparison can also warn the wrongdoer through the fate he fears for his own family. The warning is that his children will meet the treatment he has inflicted on the children of others. This is the تَعْرِيض (taʿrīḍ), an indirect warning, identified by Ibn ʿĀshūr.^[19]

The effect. The appeal brings together what a guardian wants for his own children and what he owes the orphans in his care. Imagining his children weak, alone and without protection makes the orphans' vulnerability harder to overlook. The concern he already feels for his own family becomes a reason to care for another's children. This movement from parental fear to compassion is what Sayyid Quṭb describes.^[20]

Why لَوْ (law, “if”) rather than إِذَا (idhā, “when”)?

Where it is. لَوْ تَرَكُوا (law tarakū), "if they left".

The plain way. Fear for weak children seems certain: if a parent leaves them in that state, he will fear for them. Why, then, does the verse use لَوْ (law, “if”), the form of an unrealised supposition, rather than إِذَا (idhā, “when”)? The question rests on the distinction between a condition whose consequence is treated as established and one whose consequence is denied (Ibn ʿArafa).

What it does. The answer he reports turns attention from the fear to what gives rise to it: the children being left weak. His words are لينتفي كون الذرية ضعافا, “so that the offspring's being weak is negated.” On this account, the state held out as unrealised is their weakness, the very condition that would cause the parent's fear.^[21]

The effect. This explanation draws attention to the children's vulnerable condition. Rather than treat their being left weak as an ordinary expected outcome, it presents that condition as one to be averted. The concern is for how the children are left, not for preventing the parent's death.

The three commands run from the heart to speech

Where it is. وَلْيَخْشَ ... فَلْيَتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَلْيَقُولُوا قَوْلًا سَدِيدًا (wa-l-yakhsha ... fa-l-yattaqū Allāha wa-l-yaqūlū qawlan sadīdan), "let them fear ... let them be mindful of Allah and let them speak a right word".

The plain way. the verse could have commanded the right word alone. Instead, it first addresses the fear and taqwā from which right conduct and speech should follow.

What it does. Abū Ḥayyān explains:

The effect. The commands connect inward concern with what a person does and says. Fear for vulnerable children should lead to taqwā in dealing with their rights, and that care must also govern the advice or reassurance they hear. As Abū Ḥayyān explains, the final command includes right conduct; it does not let a guardian replace responsible action with comforting words.

6. Qirāʾāt: Variant Readings

ضِعَافًا: the transmission from Ḥamza

Ibn al-Jazarī records the reading of ضِعَافًا, “weak,” with إِمَالَة (imālah, inclining the long vowel):

Muḥammad Muḥaysin, explaining the corresponding line in Ibn al-Jazarī’s poem, identifies the two transmitters:

Al-ʿUlaymī likewise reports imālah from Ḥamza, with a difference from Khallād.^[3]

Khalaf is named here as Ḥamza’s transmitter, rather than for his separate reading as the tenth imam.

خَافُوا in al-Fārisī’s account

Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī attributes the imālah of خَافُوا, “they feared,” to Ḥamza, as well as that of ضِعَافًا:

How the sources explain the forms. Al-Fārisī relates the imālah in ضِعَافًا to the kasra before its long vowel. He discusses why it can occur despite the emphatic ض: the movement is from that consonant towards the lower vowel, rather than from a lower sound towards an emphatic consonant.^[5] For خَافُوا he points to the kasra that appears when the verb changes form.^[6] Abū Ḥayyān gives خِفْتُ, “I feared,” as the example.^[7]

The supporting accounts identify the same two reasons. Al-Wāḥidī explains the kasra in ضِعَافًا and the verb’s changing form in خَافُوا.^[8] Al-Samīn likewise relates the first to its kasra,^[9] and the second to the underlying خَوِفَ.^[10] Al-ʿUkbarī records the open vowel and imālah as alternatives in both words;^[11] al-Ālūsī repeats his explanation.^[12]

Al-Fārisī’s explanations concern the recited vowels in ضِعَافًا and خَافُوا, not a different meaning for either word.

The lām of command in Abū Ḥayyān’s account

The following reports concern the vowel of the lām of command before the three verbs. Abū Ḥayyān writes:

Al-Samīn explains both. The majority's sukūn, the lām left without a vowel, وَلْيَخْشَ (wa-l-yakhsha), is the lām of command, and the verb after it is in jazm by it;^[14] the kasra of al-Ḥasan and ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar, وَلِيَخْشَ (wa-li-yakhsha), is the vowel the lām has at its origin, and the sukūn is a lightening of it, the separate lām treated as if it were joined to the verb.^[15]

Further plural forms reported by the commentators

The commentators record further plurals of ضَعِيف, “weak.” Their named attributions and qualifications differ:

Al-Samīn also gives ضُعُفًا to Ibn Muḥayṣin and ضُعَفَاءَ to al-Sulamī and ʿĀʾisha رضي الله عنها, explaining the latter as a regular plural of an adjective on فَعِيل.^[19]

The qualification concerning ضُعَافَى matters. Al-Zamakhsharī lists it with the other forms.^[20] Al-Samīn considers whether that wording indicates a different first vowel or different treatment of the final vowel. Although he finds the first explanation more apparent, he judges it more likely that the ḍamma form was not transmitted as a reading.^[21] Al-Ālūsī and Abū al-Suʿūd list the three additional plural forms without assigning them to readers.^[22]

The lexical explanation remains “weak”: these are discussed as plural forms of the same adjective. The unassigned or questioned forms must not be presented as securely established readings merely because a commentator lists them.