Al-Mutaffifin 83:13 - Linguistic Miracle

When Our verses are recited to him, he says, “Legends of the former peoples.”

Commentary covering verses 12–14

One obvious meaning is that the one who denies that he will ever be taken to account, will consider himself free to do whatever he wants. A criminal will only commit more crimes if he thinks he will never be caught. So this denial of judgment day and of being taken to account, serves as the cause of their transgressions and sins. So in this case, denial of judgment day comes first, and sins follow naturally.

But this passage paints an additional picture. The first meaning holds and is true, but here Allah is saying that it is precisely because of their sins themselves that they deny judgment day. Sins come before denial of judgment day, not after. It is these transgressions and sins that lead a person to deny recompense itself. This is explicitly supported by verse 14.

Athīm means slowness at its root and refers to all sins and disobedience to Allah. Sins slow a person down from good, they make him lag behind from goodness and virtue.

The next ayah describes them as calling the Qurʾān as legends of former peoples i.e a made up book that consists of old myths and legends. This denotes a denial of the Qurʾān being divine. The next verse forms the crux of this passage.

كَلَّا ۖ بَلْ ۜ رَانَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِم مَّا كَانُوا۟ يَكْسِبُونَ

No! Rather, rust is over their hearts. What they were earning Linguistically, Qalb (heart) means the inner part or core of something. So this word refers to the well known organ in the chest as well as to our inward faculty of intellect and reason.⁷⁰

The word ( كلا No!) is a negation of what they said earlier. The Qurʾān is not composed

of myths and legends said by previous generations, but the truth itself. You cannot come to this conclusion not because of a flaw in the Qurʾān, but because your hearts have been blinded and covered by the rust and stain of your sinful actions - of you wronging other people. Notice how this goes back to surah ’Abasa where Allah criticized the disbeliever for burying the seed of good deep inside him. Simply put, do you expect one who cheats and wrongs other human beings to have a heart that will be receptive to good and purity? A heart that rejoices in causing harm and grief to others is filthy. Whereas revelation is good and pure. Purity cannot combine with impurity. If you add clean water to a glass of unclean water, the pure water becomes impure as well. Both cannot co-exist independently inside the same space. Hence, when revelation comes in contact with their hearts, their filthy hearts perceive it as impure.

The word Rān (stain or rust) was also used in the meaning of covering or overpowering something as pointed out by Ibn ʿĀshūr and Abu Ḥayyān. They point out that this verb was used for wine when it intoxicates and overpowers the brain, for a person who gets caught in a problem from which he cannot escape (as if the problem overpowers him), as well as for a patient who becomes unconscious - as if the sickness overpowers him so much that he loses consciousness. In this case, this verse would be rendered as - “No! Rather, what they were earning has covered their hearts.”

If you take Rān to mean stain or rust, and not as a verb, then the sentence “What they were earning” would be an apposition (badal) of Rān. In other words, after saying that Rān has covered their hearts, Allah explains what Rān is. It is their sinful deeds that they were continuously committing. The deliberate harm they were doing to other people.

Next Allah defines Rān as what they were earning, because they cheated people to earn money. They were not earning money alone by cheating them, but also stain and rust over their hearts and intelligence.

Just as rust wears a thing away, eats it up and consumes it up, so have their evil deeds of wronging people eaten up and consumed the perception of right and wrong inside their hearts. Every deliberate act of wrong done to another human being eats away at the innate good placed inside our hearts by Allah.

⁷⁰ Al-Muʿjam al-Ishtiqāqī al-Muʾaṣṣal li-Alfāẓ al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, vol. 4, p. 1828; Lisā n al-Arab