Chapter: Al-Balad (The City) (Verse 14)

Or feeding on...

Issues Discussed Here:

It is said: sagiba sagaban (سغب سغبا) when one is hungry, so he is sāghib (ساغب) or saghbān (سغبان).

The author of Al-Kashshāf said: Al-masghabah (المسغبة), al-maqrabah (المقربة), and al-matrabah (المتربة) are forms derived from sagiba (he became hungry), qaruba (he became close in kinship), and tariba (تَرِبَ) (he became poor, meaning he stuck to the dust).

Conversely, atrab (أترب) means he became rich, possessing wealth like dust in abundance.

Al-Wāḥidī said: Al-matrabah (المتربة) is the verbal noun (maṣdar) from the saying: tariba yatarabu taraban wa matraba (ترب يترب تربا ومتربة), similar to masghabah (مسغبة), meaning he became so poor that he stuck to the dust.

The essence of the interpretation of {a day of severe hunger} (yawm dhī masghabah) is what Al-Ḥasan (Al-Baṣrī) said: It is a day when one is intensely desirous of food.

Abū ʿAlī (al-Fārisī) said: This is similar to what grammarians say regarding the phrases laylun nā’im (a sleeping night) and nahārun ṣā’im (a fasting day), meaning a day characterized by hunger (instead of sleep or fasting).

Know that spending wealth during a time of famine and necessity is heavier on the soul and warrants a greater reward. This is like His saying: {Righteousness is not that you turn your faces...} (Al-Baqarah: 177), and His saying: {And they give food, despite love for it, to the needy...} (Al-Insān: 8).

Al-Ḥasan also recited it as {dhā masghabah} (ذا مسغبة), making it accusative (naṣb) because of the preceding action of feeding (iṭʿām), meaning: "Or feeding on a day that is a day of severe hunger."

As for His saying:

! 7 < { an orphan near of kin } . > 7 !

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