Thafseer Lafzi 4 — Sūrat al-Balad (90) complete — āyāt 1–20, naḥw focus سُورَة الْبَلَد

1 · Āyah 1 — the oath, and the problem in lā uqsimu

لَآ أُقْسِمُ بِهَٰذَا ٱلْبَلَدِ

Lā uqsimu bi-hādhā-l-balad

Taken at face value, lā uqsimu would read "I do not swear." That is the linguistic problem in the āyah, and two meanings are reported for it:

1. "I do not swear by this city" — the lā read as a real negation;
2. "I do swear by this city" — lā uqsimu read as simply uqsimu.

The scholars' resolution: lā zāʾidah

The mufassirūn and the language specialists resolve it this way: this lā is extra — lā zāʾidah, an additional letter. When a particle comes as zāʾidah (redundant) it carries no negating meaning at all. So the sense is uqsimu bi-hādhā-l-balad, "I swear by this city."

The other view keeps the negation and reads it as: "I have no need to swear by this city" — a way of saying the matter is so obvious that an oath is not even required. Both readings were called strong.

2 · Balad — and what definiteness does

The point drilled here is the article:

Parallel examples given: هَٰذَا رَجُلٌ hādhā rajulun, "this is a man"; هَٰذَا كُرْسِيٌّ hādhā kursiyyun, "this is a chair."

The city here is Makkah — and Makkah, like Madīnah, is a balad, not a qaryah.

3 · Why the Qurʾān swears oaths at all

To confirm and emphasise the matter that follows. We ourselves swear only when we want something established firmly — so when Allah swears, a weighty matter is coming right after it. The oath is a signal of the importance of what is about to be said.

The parallel: Sūrat aḍ-Ḍuḥā

وَٱلضُّحَىٰ ۝ وَٱلَّيْلِ إِذَا سَجَىٰ ۝ مَا وَدَّعَكَ رَبُّكَ وَمَا قَلَىٰ

Wa-ḍ-ḍuḥā · wa-l-layli idhā sajā · mā waddaʿaka rabbuka wa-mā qalā — "By the morning brightness; by the night when it grows still: your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He detested you."

• Occasion: it came down during the pause in revelation (fatrat al-waḥy). Revelation stopped for a time, Rasūlullāh ﷺ was severely distressed, and the Quraysh taunted him — "see, your Lord has left you."
• The connection between oath and message: He swears by the day and by the night, and night and day alternate — that rotation never stops. Just as day follows night, so revelation returns after its pause.

4 · Āyah 2 — wa-anta ḥillun bi-hādhā-l-balad

وَأَنتَ حِلٌّۢ بِهَٰذَا ٱلْبَلَدِ

Wa-anta ḥillun bi-hādhā-l-balad

Ḥill is related to ḥalāl. The verb ḥalla, when followed by bi-, means to stay, to lodge, to reside in a place. So the sense taught here is: "while you are staying / residing in this city."

The oath becomes twofold: an oath by the city, and an oath by the city because the Prophet ﷺ is dwelling in it. To reinforce the oath Allah says, in effect, "and you are living there."

The other sense of the root

5 · Āyah 3 — wa-wālidin wa-mā walad

وَوَالِدٍ وَمَا وَلَدَ

Wa-wālidin wa-mā walad

So: "by a father and what he begot." The father is taken to be Ādam ʿalayhi-s-salām, and "what he begot" is his progeny — all mankind. An oath by Ādam and by his descendants.

6 · The three wāws — the centrepiece of this class

Having two or three oaths here, and having called wa-anta ḥillun a ḥāl, the class stops to sort out the ways a wāw comes.

1. Wāw al-ʿaṭf — the wāw of conjunction

جَاءَ مُحَمَّدٌ وَأَحْمَدُ — jāʾa muḥammadun wa-aḥmadu — "Muḥammad and Aḥmad came."

It does not change the case of the word after it: both stay in rafʿ.

2. Wāw al-qasam — the wāw of the oath, "by…"

وَٱلشَّمْسِ — wa-sh-shamsi — "By the sun."

3. Wāw al-ḥāl — the wāw of circumstance, "while…"

Applied to our āyah: "I swear by this city, while you are dwelling in it."

On the ḥāl construction: here it comes as wāw + pronoun (ḍamīr) + clause. But that is not the only form — a ḥāl can also come without a wāw, and it can come before the word it describes, with the meaning intact. (Flagged as a topic to study properly on its own.)

7 · Āyah 4 — man created in hardship

لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ فِى كَبَدٍ

Laqad khalaqnā-l-insāna fī kabad

Man is created in difficulty, and there is no one without hardship — trouble, mashaqqah, exhaustion: everyone gets a share.

8 · Āyah 5 — "does he think no one will have power over him?"

أَيَحْسَبُ أَن لَّن يَقْدِرَ عَلَيْهِ أَحَدٌ

Ayaḥsabu an lan yaqdira ʿalayhi aḥad

"Does he think that no one at all will ever be able to overpower him?" — that there is nobody who could bring him to account.

9 · lā vs lam vs lan — what each does to the verb

Both lam and lan come before the muḍāriʿ, and they do different things.

That is why our āyah reads lan yaqdira with a fatḥah. And the man's thought is: nobody can hold power over me, nobody can call me to account.**

10 · Who this man was

The Qurʾān is pointing at a specific individual — a wealthy man of the Quraysh, named in the class as Abū al-Ashadd, described as a man of great physical strength. When the dīn was being preached he spent his wealth freely to obstruct it, saying in effect: "Who am I? I am rich — no one has done anything to me; no one can control me."

11 · Āyah 6 — the boast, and the word chosen for it

يَقُولُ أَهْلَكْتُ مَالًا لُّبَدًا

Yaqūlu ahlaktu mālan lubadā

"He says: I have squandered piles of wealth." He is boasting — "I poured out enormous sums."

12 · Āyah 7 — lam yara and iltiqāʾ al-sākinayn

أَيَحْسَبُ أَن لَّمْ يَرَهُۥٓ أَحَدٌ

Ayaḥsabu an lam yarahu aḥad — "Does he think that no one saw him?"

The verb is raʾā: رَأَىٰ, "he saw", muḍāriʿ يَرَىٰ yarā.

This man, squandering and destroying his wealth, thought nobody was watching — but Allah is watching, and he does not realise it. Here Allah is questioning the human conscience: man goes about thinking no one saw, no one heard, while Allah sees the whole time. And to make him grasp it, Allah now lists how much He has given him.

13 · Āyah 8 — two eyes, and the dual

أَلَمْ نَجْعَل لَّهُۥ عَيْنَيْنِ

Alam najʿal lahu ʿaynayn — "Did We not make for him two eyes?"

Jaʿala = he made; khalaqa = to create — near enough the same meaning here.

The dual: -āni vs -ayni

All three forms occur in the Qurʾān: عَيْنٌ ʿaynun (singular), عَيْنَانِ ʿaynāni and عَيْنَيْنِ ʿaynayni (dual).

Why ʿaynayn here and not ʿaynāni? Because of its case — in alam najʿal lahu ʿaynayn the word is the object, so it takes the -ayni form.

14 · Āyah 9 — a tongue and two lips

وَلِسَانًا وَشَفَتَيْنِ

Wa-lisānan wa-shafatayn

"…and a tongue and two lips?" Did We not make these for him?

15 · Āyah 10 — the two paths

وَهَدَيْنَٰهُ ٱلنَّجْدَيْنِ

Wa-hadaynāhu-n-najdayn

Najd carries the sense of the way that stands out, the road one takes. The two paths are the straight path and the crooked path — He showed him both.

The argument being built: We showed him the path. We gave him eyes, a tongue, lips — everything he needs. And then it is for him to choose. That was called the beauty of Islam: it will be shown, but he decides. In effect: "I gave you knowledge, I showed you the road, I laid out both — the truth and the falsehood."

16 · Āyāt 11–12 — the barrier he did not cross

فَلَا ٱقْتَحَمَ ٱلْعَقَبَةَ ۝ وَمَآ أَدْرَىٰكَ مَا ٱلْعَقَبَةُ

Fa-lā-qtaḥama-l-ʿaqabah · wa-mā adrāka mā-l-ʿaqabah

"But he has not attempted the steep ascent" — he did not cross the barrier. Then: "and what will make you know what the steep ascent is?"

17 · Āyah 13 — freeing a slave

فَكُّ رَقَبَةٍ

Fakku raqabah

So fakku raqabah = freeing a slave: taking someone held in bondage, paying their owner, and sending them out free. That is the first way to scale the pass.

18 · Āyah 14 — feeding on a day of hunger, and the word dhū

أَوْ إِطْعَٰمٌ فِى يَوْمٍ ذِى مَسْغَبَةٍ

Aw iṭʿāmun fī yawmin dhī masghabah

"Or feeding on a day of severe hunger" — the second way to cross the barrier.

dhū / dhā / dhī — "the possessor of"

The word ذُو in its declined forms ذُو / ذَا / ذِي means "the possessor of, the one having."

19 · Āyāt 15–16 — the orphan and the destitute

يَتِيمًا ذَا مَقْرَبَةٍ ۝ أَوْ مِسْكِينًا ذَا مَتْرَبَةٍ

Yatīman dhā maqrabah · aw miskīnan dhā matrabah

Dhā matrabah is the one who has nothing but the earth to his name — no home, nothing at all: "…or a needy person in the dust."

The order taught: the general case is feeding whoever is hungry; then more specifically the orphan — and an orphan from your own close family; and the destitute.

Summary of this first kind of barrier: crossing the ʿaqabah is, in the first instance, serving human beings — buying a slave and setting them free, or feeding the poor, the orphan, the hungry.

20 · Āyah 17 — the second kind of barrier (new in this class)

ثُمَّ كَانَ مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلصَّبْرِ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلْمَرْحَمَةِ

Thumma kāna mina-lladhīna āmanū wa-tawāṣaw bi-ṣ-ṣabri wa-tawāṣaw bi-l-marḥamah

It is not enough to stop at īmān. Beyond believing, they counsel one another to ṣabr and to raḥmah — that too is part of scaling the pass.

21 · Āyah 18 — the companions of the right (new in this class)

أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ أَصْحَٰبُ ٱلْمَيْمَنَةِ

Ulāʾika aṣḥābu-l-maymanah — "Those are the companions of the right hand."

Maymanah = the right side. The class recalls three categories:

22 · Āyāt 19–20 — the companions of the left, and the closed fire (new in this class)

وَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا هُمْ أَصْحَٰبُ ٱلْمَشْـَٔمَةِ ۝ عَلَيْهِمْ نَارٌ مُّؤْصَدَةٌۢ

Wa-lladhīna kafarū bi-āyātinā hum aṣḥābu-l-mashʾamah · ʿalayhim nārun muʾṣadah

"Over them will be fire closed in upon them" — the fire shut over them on every side, surrounding them.

23 · The sūrah in one shape

1. The oath — sworn by two things: by Makkah, and by the honour Makkah has because Rasūlullāh ﷺ is dwelling there — and by the human being (the father and his offspring).
2. The reality: man is in hardship, from birth to death. On the daʿwah level, this is what you tell people: this is what life is.
3. The opponent is a fool: he thinks nobody sees him, nobody can call him to account. Allah answers with a simple argument — who gave you the eyes to see with, the mind to think with, the tongue and lips to speak with?
4. Paradise is no small thing. There are barriers, and you get there only by crossing them. Two are named:
5. Serving human beings — freeing a slave, feeding the orphan, feeding the hungry;
6. Not stopping at īmān but spreading this creed — tawāṣaw bi-ṣ-ṣabr, tawāṣaw bi-l-marḥamah.
7. Do that and ulāʾika aṣḥābu-l-maymanah — the people of the right. Otherwise aṣḥābu-l-mashʾamah — the Fire.

24 · Where this sūrah sits in Juzʾ ʿAmma

The theme of al-Balad is daʿwah. Taking Juzʾ ʿAmma as a whole, its sūrahs fall roughly into two kinds:

al-Balad belongs to the second, daʿwah block.

The closing note on method: "In this class we focus mainly on the words — vocabulary is very important — and along with the words, the fine points of grammar that come with them, as we did with an-najdayn and the rest."

Notes on what this page does and does not carry

• Newly taught here, not in L03: the second half of āyah 16 (ذَا مَتْرَبَةٍ) and āyāt 17, 18, 19 and 20 in full.
• Re-treated from a different angle: āyāt 1–3 — L03 gave the ṣarf of aqsama and walada; this class gives lā zāʾidah, definiteness, and the three wāws instead.
• Not repeated here: the sūrah's name/type/counts card, and the ṣarf paradigm chains — those were the substance of L03 and this class does not redo them. The only ṣarf stated here is what the lecturer actually said: khalaqa – yakhluqu – khalq.
• Left as the recording left it: the example sentence about Aḥmad and Bishr under āyah 3 (names garbled by the recogniser), and the brief aside on leaving iḥrām under āyah 2 — both are recorded above only as far as they are recoverable, and nothing beyond them is asserted.