Tafsir of An-Nur 24:52

This is a new inception brought forth to confirm the content of what preceded it, regarding the virtue of the state of the believers and to encourage others to join their ranks. That is, whoever obeys Allah—Exalted is He—and His Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—whoever he may be, in the injunctions which He has commanded, both obligatory and non-obligatory. It is narrated from Ibn Abbas that he said: "Whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger in the obligatory duties and the Sunnah." This is susceptible to the interpretation of al-laff wa al-nashr (distributive coordination), and this is the path taken in al-Bahr.

{And fears Allah} regarding the sins he has committed in the past, {and keeps his duty to Him} regarding what is to come. {It is they}—those described with the aforementioned obedience, fear, and piety—{who are the successful ones} with lasting bliss, not those other than them.

Abu Ja’far, Qalun (from Nafi’), and Ya’qub recited wa-yattaqi-hi (وَيَتَّقْهِ) with a kasrah on the qaf and a kasrah on the ha without lengthening (ishba’). Abu ‘Amr, Hamzah (in the narration of al-‘Ajli and Khallad), and Abu Bakr (in the narration of Hammad and Yahya) recited it with a kasrah on the qaf and a sukūn on the ha. Hafs recited it with a sukūn on the qaf and a kasrah on the ha without lengthening. The rest recited it with a kasrah on the qaf and a kasrah on the ha with lengthening, to the extent that a ya is generated.

Abu ‘Ali justified the latter by stating that the original state of the pronoun ha—when preceded by a vowel—is for its vowel to be lengthened, as in yu’ti-hi and yu’addi-hi. The reasoning for not lengthening is that the letter preceding the pronoun is effectively silent, and there is no lengthening of the vowel when the preceding letter is silent, as in fi-hi, min-hu, and ‘an-hu.

The reasoning for making the ha silent is that it is a ha of silence (sakt), and it is made silent in their speech. It is also said: It is the pronoun ha, but it was treated as the ha of silence, so it was made silent; it is common for the state of connection (wasl) to be treated as the state of stopping (waqf). It has been narrated from Sibawayh that he heard some say: "This is the servant of Allah" (hadihi amatu-llah) in both connection and stopping.

The reasoning for the recitation of Hafs is that he applied the rule of katif to yattaqi-hi, as it shares its metrical structure, so he lightened it by making the middle silent to treat it as a single word, just as yulda was lightened in the verse: "And the one who has a child whom the parents did not beget (lam yudlihi)."

It is narrated from Ibn al-Anbari that this is a dialect of some Arabs for all defective verbs where the final letter is dropped; they say lam ara Zaydan (I did not see Zayd), dropping the letter due to the jussive mood, then making the preceding letter silent. To this effect is the saying: "Whoever fears (man yattaq), then Allah is with him," and "The provision of Allah is returning and coming." Also, the verse: "Sayyila said: Buy us some parched barley, and bring the bread of wheat or flour."

The ha is either for silence and was given a vowel due to the meeting of two silent letters, or it is a pronoun. In that case, the analogy would have been to give it a dammah, as in min-hu, but the sukūn was not regarded because it was incidental, and to avoid moving from a kasrah to an implied dammah. The first view—that it is a ha of silence—is weakened by the fact that the ha of silence is given a vowel and maintained in a state of connection. This is what has been said, so do not be heedless.