conceptions of trust in the qur'an

Conceptions of Trust in the Qur’an

Nora S. Eggen

UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Moral Discourse in the Qur’an

As the late Japanese scholar Toshihiko Izutsu (1914–93) observed, there are several

layers of ethical discourse in the Qur’an. In his book Ethico-Religious Concepts

in the Qurʾān, Izutsu differentiates between three layers of moral discourse, or three

different categories of ethical concepts in the Qur’an:1

… those that refer to and describe the ethical nature of God; those that

describe the various aspects of the fundamental attitude of man

towards God, the Creator; and those that refer to the principles and

rules of conduct regulating the ethical relations among individuals who

belong to, and live within, the religious community of Islam.

The first discourse is what Izutsu terms ‘divine ethics’, which is composed of the most

beautiful names of God (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā). This is a group of concepts in the Qur’an

which describe particular aspects of God.2 A second discourse Izutsu identifies is

made up of what he describes as ‘ethico-religious concepts’. These are concepts of a

discourse urging the human being to take up certain attitudes towards God and to act

in certain ways.3 Common to many of these concepts is their manifold and

multilayered content. An example would be the concept of birr – an elusive term

which may be translated both ‘piety’ and ‘righteousness’ and which in Q. 2:177 sums

up a set of religious beliefs, moral attitudes like ṣabr (‘patience’) and actions such as

fulfilling contracts, hence belonging to both a religious and an ethical order. Finally

Izutsu identifies a third moral discourse of social ethics.4 This discourse is made up

of regulations that are sometimes given in the form of specific commands and

prohibitions and sometimes in more general forms. The concepts making up this

discourse form the backbone of Islamic normative reflection and in the post-Qur’anic

were period to be developed into the system of Islamic jurisprudence.5

Journal of Qur’anic Studies 13.2 (2011): 56–85Edinburgh University PressDOI: 10.3366/jqs.2011.0020# Centre of Islamic Studies, SOASwww.eupjournals.com/jqs

These different discourses obviously overlap, as Izutsu acknowledges, because:6

[the] image of God pervades the whole of it, and nothing escapes His

knowledge and providence. Semantically this means that, in general,

no major concept in the Qur’an exists quite independently of the

concept of God and that in the sphere of human ethics each one of its

key concepts is but a pale reflection – or a very imperfect imitation –

of the divine nature itself, or refers to a particular response elicited by

divine actions.

How are trust relationships conceptualised in the Qur’an, and how do different

conceptualisations of trust relate to each other within the various ethical discourses?

These are the questions I will approach is this article. Initially I will give a brief

presentation of the ethico-religious concept of tawakkul (‘trust in God’). This will be

followed by the main discussion which will revolve around conceptions of trust

primarily linked to a discourse of social ethics framed by the semantic field of amāna

(‘trust’).

Inspired by the work of Toshihiko Izutsu,7 the study has a synchronic focus and

will analyse interrelations between lexical items as they occur in the received

Qur’anic text.8 Nevertheless, the hermeneutical endeavour here undertaken will be

informed by insights from some major works in the commentary literature,9 and

in particular by the lexicographical genre of tafsīr literature generally referred to as

al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir.10 Referring to these extra-Qur’anic sources will inevitably

add diachronic perspectives to the discussion. As the focus of this article is

conceptualisations in the Qur’an the ḥadīth literature on the topic will not be presented

in its own right, however individual Prophetic traditions will occasionally be

consulted in the capacity of exegetical tools to the Qur’anic texts in question.

The Semantics of tawakkul

Arabic lexicography developed as an offshoot from the tafsīr tradition, with Khalīl

b. Aḥmad’s (d. 175/791) Kitāb al-ʿayn being the first known dictionary. A semantic

relationship between the permutations of a consonantal root (uṣūl al-kalima) was, to

our knowledge, first suggested in this dictionary. Later scholars such as Ibn Jinnī

(d. 392/1002) and Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1005) developed this idea into a fully-fledged

theory of root meaning that came to be generally accepted.11 The semantic content of

the main body of lexemes in the Arabic lexicon is, accordingly, commonly understood

to be formed by the root denoting a lexical meaning12 in combination with a

morphological template (wazn, sīgha or binya) denoting a grammatical meaning. In

addition, a variety of semantic extensions has developed over time. However, Ibn

Fāris’ dictionary, Muʿjam maqāyīs al-lugha, is unique in discussing root meaning(s)

explicitly. For instance al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. early fifth/eleventh century) claims in

Conceptions of Trust in the Qur’an 57

his al-Mufradāt fī gharīb al-Qurʾān that there are relations (munāsabāt) between

permutations of a root, and offers views on these relations, but he does not suggest a

root meaning per se.13

The root of the maṣdar tawakkul is w–k–l, which, according to Ibn Fāris, has the root

meaning ‘relying on someone else for your affairs’.14 The lexical meaning of the

verb wakala is, according to Ibn Manẓūr’s (d. 711/1311) celebrated dictionary Lisān

al-ʿArab,15 ‘leaving something to someone’, that ‘someone’ taking responsibility for

the ‘something’.16 Morphologically the verb tawakkala is what W. Wright terms an

‘effective form V’; a state produced in the person by himself or someone else,17 and

Ibn Fāris notes that tawakkala means to both realize one’s own incapability and rely

on someone else.18 Other forms of the same root occurring in the Qur’an include the

active participle wakīl, which I will return to shortly, and wakkala, which occurs in the

active in Q. 6:89 where God has entrusted al-kitāb (‘scripture’), al-ḥukm (‘wisdom’)

and al-nubuwwa (‘prophethood’) to people who are not deniers, and in the passive in

Q. 32:11 where people are entrusted to the Angel of Death.

In his book on the semantics of the Qur’an, al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī provides two aspects

of meaning for the term tawakkul: ‘to turn to someone’ (tawallaytu lahu) and ‘to rely

on someone’ (iʿtamadtuhu).19 The latter, iʿtamād, and verbal form VIII forms of the

root ʿ-m-d, do not occur in the Qur’anic text, whereas tawallā occurs on a number of

occasions, with different meanings. The intransitive tawallā lahu does not occur in the

Qur’an, but the transitive tawallā does, connoting either ‘to turn in a physical sense’

(Q. 2:177), ‘to turn away from someone or something’ (Q. 2:246) or ‘to turn to

someone or something for help and protection’, as in Q. 5:56, Those who turn

(yatawalla) for protection to God, His Messenger, and the believers are God’s party:

God’s party is sure to triumph.20 Although al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī seems to consider

tawakkaltu ʿalayhi and tawallaytu lahu to be synonyms, the latter has a wider

application than the former, which is exclusively associated with God. Accordingly, in

Q. 16:100, trusting God is contrasted not to trusting the Devil, but to turning to him

(yatawallawnahu).

The Ethics of Trusting God

The concept of trusting God is treated through the verbal form tawakkala in its various

tenses and moods and the active participle mutawakkil in 38 passages distributed

throughout the Qur’anic text. In these the ethical obligation on man to trust God is

emphasised, and trusting God is associated with other religious values. Tawakkul is

related to a state of belief (īmān) and awe (wajal), to the religious practice of worship

(ṣalāh) and to a social practice of spending out of God’s bounties (nafaqa):

True believers (al-muʾminūn) are those whose hearts tremble with awe

(wujilat qulūbuhum) when God is mentioned, whose faith increases

58 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

(zādathum īmānan) when His revelations are recited to them, who put

their trust in their Lord (wa-ʿalā rabbihim yatawakkalūna), who keep

up the prayer (yuqīmūna’l-ṣalāta) and give to others (yunfiqūna) out of

what We provide for them (Q. 8:2–3).

There is a most intimate relationship between faith and trust in God. A strong impetus

is given to the believers in the expression let the believers put their trust in God

(wa-ʿalā’llāhi fal-yatawakkali’l-muʾminūn: Q. 5:11; Q. 9:51; Q. 14:11; Q. 58:10; and

Q. 64:13), and in Q. 5:23 faith is conditioned by trust: If you are true believers, put

your trust in God (wa-ʿalā’llāhi fa-tawakkalū in kuntum muʾminīn). God loves

whoever has trust in Him (Q. 3:159), and Paradise in the hereafter as well as ease in

this world await whoever beliefs and trusts Him (Q. 42:36; Q. 65:2–3). Trusting God

is further connected to piety or mindfulness (taqwā21), and the believers are

encouraged to act while placing their trust in God alone:22

Anyone who believes in God and the Last Day should heed this: God

will find a way out for those who are mindful of Him (wa-man

yattaqi’llāha yajʿal lahu makhrajan), and will provide for them

(wa-yarzuqhu) from an unexpected source; God will be enough for

those who put their trust in Him (wa-man yatawakkal ʿalā’llāhi

fa-huwa ḥasbuhu) (Q. 65:2–3).

It may seem as if taking precautions, in the sense of acting and trying to facilitate

a beneficial outcome of the action, not in the sense of taking mental, moral or

emotional measures against the trustee, is a prerequisite of tawakkul. In the Qur’an’s

account of the battle of Badr, it is emphasised that success is secured if and when the

believers put their trust in God as well as act steadfastly (taṣbirū) and according

to Gods commands (tattaqū) (Q. 3:122–5). In other verses still thematically associated

with warfare, the believers are encouraged to take precautions (khudhū ḥidhrakum)

in battle (Q. 4:71 and 102). Moreover in Q. 42:36–9, īmān as well as tawakkul

is strongly linked to cultivating one’s virtues and actively taking charge of one’s

own life:

What you have been given is only the fleeting enjoyment of this world.

Far better and more lasting is what God will give to those who believe

and trust their Lord (wa-mā ʿinda’llāhi khayrun wa-abqā li’lladhīna

āmanū wa-ʿalā rabbihim yatawakkalūn); who shun great sins and

gross indecencies; who forgive when they are angry; respond to

their Lord and keep up the prayer; conduct their affairs by mutual

consultation (wa-amruhum shūrā baynahum); give to others out of

what we have provided for them; and defend themselves when they are

oppressed (Q. 42:36–9).


In these verses the association between tawakkul and shūrā (‘mutual consultation’) is

established as yet another way of taking precautionary action, through taking advice

from others and considering other people’s points of view. Such consulting activity

(tashāwur) is encouraged, yet in other verses the believer is reminded that in the end

he should be firm in his decision and put his trust in God:

Consult with them about matters (wa-shāwirhum fī’l-amr), then,

when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God

(fa-idhā ʿazamta fa-tawakkal ʿalā’llāh): God loves those who put their

trust in Him (inna’llāha yuḥibbu’l-mutawakkilīn). If God helps you,

no one can overcome you; if He forsakes you, who else can help

you? Believers should put their trust in God (wa-ʿalā’llāhi

fal-yatawakkali’l-muʾminūn) (Q. 3:159–60).

The strong claim on the human being to trust God is grounded in the moral ontology

of God being trustworthy: put your trust in God: God is enough to trust (wa-tawakkal

ʿalā’llāhi wa-kafā bi-llāhi wakīlan (Q. 33:3), see also an identical formulation in

Q. 3:48) Likewise, in Q. 39:62, God’s omnipotence is expressed in His wakāla:

wa-huwa ʿalā kulli shayʾin wakīl (He has charge of everything), and in Q. 17:2 the

Banū Isrāʾīl are exhorted through the revelation of Moses not to take anyone but God

as wakīl, al-wakīl23 being defined as one of the Qur’anic asmāʾ ḥusnā. Human trust in

God is thus grounded in what Izutsu calls ‘divine ethics’.24 Al-Asmāʾ al-ḥusnā are,

according to Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), descriptions of absolute attributes

of divinity, which are qualities human beings can, and should, strive to appropriate

something of, although man will manifest the attribute in a different way.25 With

regards to the epithet al-wakīl, al-Ghazālī says there are two types of wakīl; the holder

of a limited trusteeship, and the holder of an all-compassing trusteeship. God is the

only absolute wakīl in all aspects of being, ‘the one to whom things are entrusted, who

is fully capable of carrying them out and faithful in executing them perfectly’.26

Consequently there is no limit to God’s trustworthiness and to man’s trust in God.

The Semantics of amāna

Whereas in the ethico-religious discourse in the Qur’an the normative weight is on

man trusting God, in the socio-ethical discourse the normative weight is on man being

trustworthy, to God or to fellow human beings. This idea is emphasised most clearly

in the obligation to return the amānāt (sing. amāna), the ‘entrusted goods’ (Q. 4:58;

Q. 23:8; Q. 70:32).

The maṣdar amāna is derived from one of the most ubiquitous roots in the Qur’an;

ʾ–m–n.27 According to the lexicographer Ibn Fāris, the root meaning of ʾ–m–n is two-

fold, although he admits the two senses are close: ‘one is trust which is opposite to

betrayal and its meaning is inner peace (sukūn al-qalb) and the other is confirmation


(taṣdīq)’.28 He assigns first and foremost the sense of inner peace to amana (form I)

and the sense of belief to āmana (form IV).29 Ibn Manẓūr initially explains the three

main notions to be discussed under the lemma ʾ–m–n by their opposites: amn

(‘safety’) is the opposite of khawf (‘fear’), amāna (‘trust’) is the opposite of khiyāna

(‘betrayal’) and īmān (‘faith’) is the opposite of kufr (‘denial’).30

The meaning attached to the verb āmana (form IV) implies, according to al-Rāghib

al-Iṣfahānī, both ‘rendering secure’ and ‘confirming/believing’ (taṣdīq).31 In the

Qur’anic vocabulary, however, although the transitive yuʾminu minhu may be

translated ‘to make someone safe from something’ (cf. Q. 106:4), it seems that the

best attested meaning for the intransitive yuʾminu is ‘to believe’.32 In the wujūh

literature all the aspects mentioned for īmān are related to the denotation taṣdīq.33 The

cognate participle muʾmin retains the sense of ‘believer’, although when applied to

God al-muʾmin (Q. 59:23) takes on the meaning ‘the One in whom security and safety

originates’.34 Ibn Manẓūr emphasises the meaning of taṣdīq for īmān, but also

mentions a second meaning of ‘confidence’ or ‘tranquillity’ (ṭumaʾnīna),35 and he

attests to ‘trust’ (thiqa) being given as a meaning of īmān.36 The intertwinedness of

the two aspects is further elucidated in that īmān ‘(believing’) according to Ibn

Manẓūr is an act of returning the amāna (the ‘trust’) to God.37 Although these

derivatives of ʾ–m–n (īmān, muʾmin) thus may retain an original double meaning, in

the ethico-religious discourse of the Qur’an they seem to unanimously denote

‘believing’ or ‘having faith’, of which in the English language the latter is slightly

more inclusive then the former.

As a verbal noun the term amāna has both an abstract and a concrete meaning,

and according to al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī it denotes sometimes the state (ḥāl) of a person

and sometimes whatever has been entrusted to him.38 The term translates in E.W.

Lane’s Lexicon as, respectively, ‘trustiness, trustworthiness, trustfulness, faithfulness,

fidelity’ and ‘a thing committed to the trust and care of a person, a trust, a deposit’,39

by Ambros it is translated as ‘trust’ or ‘entrusted goods’,40 and by Badawi and Abel

Haleem as ‘trust’ or ‘charge’.41

My analysis of the notion of amāna in the Qur’anic usage will be framed by a

literature dedicated to the polysemic features of the Qur’anic language, the al-wujūh

wa’l-naẓāʾir and al-aḍdād lexicographical sub-genres. The analytical perspective of

tracing aspects of meaning (wujūh) in the Qur’anic vocabulary entails a sensitivity to

textual and historical contexts that enables a truly hermeneutical approach to the text,

as attested by Paul Nwyia:42

Ce dictionnaire est repris à un niveau supérieur, dans les Wuĵūhwa-naẓā’ir al-Qur’an où la traduction … debouche, à partir de la

definition des mots, sur une veritable herméneutique, c’est-à-dire sur

l’explication des richesses contentues dans chaque mots, à des niveaux


différents, selon les contexte où il est employé. Alors que dans l’ovrage

precedent, le choix portait sur des mots à sens unique, pris ne varieteur,

ici sont retenus les mots à plusieurs wuĵūh, c’est-à-dire à significationsmultiple, ou les mots qui ont des naẓā’ir, des synonymies repérable

d’une sourate à l’autre.

Polysemy and the Genres of al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir and al-aḍdād

Early scholars of the Arabic language considered the existence of homonymous

polysemic words (mushtarakāt) an intrinsic trait of the language.43 In the introduction

to his book on autoantonyms (al-ḍidād), which may be considered as the ultimate

form of polysemy, the linguist Ibn al-Anbārī (d. 328/940) emphasises the absolute

necessity of a holistic perspective and of co-textual sensitivity in understanding

speech. According to Ibn al-Anbārī, there are those who scorn the polysemy of the

Arabs saying it is due to their lacking in wisdom, shortcomings in eloquence and to

obscurity of their argumentation. They claim that since words do not have one sense

only it is thus impossible to affix a particular name to each particular meaning.44 Ibn

al-Anbārī answers these accusations by referring to the complexity of speech:45

The speech of Arabs is internally certified, the beginning being related

to the end, and the meaning of speech cannot be understood without

the fullness of it, and the completeness of all its vocables. Accordingly

it is possible for a word to carry two opposite meanings, because

before and after it comes what will support one particular meaning

over the other, and only one meaning will be intended in any given

speech or communication.

Large parts of the early tafsīr literature were concerned with the meaning of individual

words in the Qur’an, and the literature exhibits a keen awareness of the contextually

related polysemic nature of the Qur’anic language.46 An identical or similar lexical

unit (al-mutashābih (al-lafẓī)) may, according to al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392) in his

theoretical work al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, take on different nuances of meaning

dependent on its individual textual environment and a host of different grammatical

and stylistic features, thus providing internal structures on the level of form as well as

meaning.47 The linguist and lexicographer Aḥmād b. Fāris points specifically to the

way semantic structures pervade the text, holding that textual coherence (naẓm) is

expressed in the various ways that a passage in a sura connects to another passage in

another sura by sharing a common word.48

The aspects of meaning of specific lexical items within the Qur’anic vocabulary

were collected and discussed in a particular lexicographical genre developing from the

tafsīr literature known as al-ashbā or al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir.49 Wujūh (sing. wajh,

‘face’ or ‘aspect’) refers to the various meanings of a particular lexical item, which


may be explained as polysemy. In my view ‘aspects of meaning’, though less

technical, is a more valid translation of the term wujūh as we are not dealing here with

lexical polysemy as much as conceptual polysemy, which involves interpretation of

words in specific contexts.50 Al-Naẓāʾir (sing. naẓīr, ‘likeness’, syn. shibh), on the

other hand, does not refer to synonyms in the wujūh and nazāʾir literature, but most

often to identical lexical items distributed throughout the text, which may, however,

be cognate (i.e. active and passive forms of a verb, noun and derived participle).51

The wujūh are thus the meanings and the naẓāʾir are the lexical items. Lexically

compatible words may either be cognates (etymologically related, that is, developed

from a common ancestor) or they may belong to a common semantic field without

being etymologically related. As Martin R. Zammit points out, lexical compatibility is

attested at a synchronic level, whereas cognancy reflects a diachronic process.52

Zammit shows that a number of roots are common to several Semitic languages, but

he does not to any extent suggest their genealogies or trace them back to an etymon.53

This diachronic perspective is likewise not a central one to the present analysis.54

The earliest extant work of the al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir genre is that of Muqātil

b. Sulaymān al-Balkhī (d. 150/767).55 Later scholars who wrote in this genre include

al-ʿAskarī (d. c. 400/1010), al-Damāghānī (d. 478/1085), Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200)

and Ibn al-ʿImād (d. 887/1482). Although these authors lived in different periods and

subscribed to different theological views, the material contained in these sources is in

many cases identical. This suggests that they all draw on common sources in the tafsīr

literature or possibly on earlier books in the wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾīr genre.56 In this

context Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, a linguist and literary critic of Persian origin, claims

(without mentioning any of these predecessors by name) that he in his book is

correcting some misinterpretations in the books of wujūh and naẓāʾir written by

sympathisers of the Muʿtazilī school of thought.57 The Ḥanafī faqīh Abū ʿAbd Allāh

al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-Dāmaghānī, who served as a qāḍī al-quḍāt in Baghdad

more than 30 years, states that his book is an extension to the works of Muqātil

and others;58 and Jamāl al-Dīn Abū’l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad

b. al-Jawzī, a Ḥanbalī scholar of jurisprudence who also wrote extensively on a

number of other subjects, refers to a number of earlier scholars including al-Kalbī,

Muqātil and al-Dāmaghānī in his Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, which is a collection of what he

found to be the most outstanding in the preceding traditions.59 In Kashf al-sarāʾir, Ibn

al-ʿImād refers to books of tafsīr and lugha generally.60

In addition to the wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾīr works, the literature also includes a related

genre of aḍdād works devoted to a specific form of homonymous polysemic words

named by the lexicographers aḍdād (‘autoantonyms’, sing. ḍidd), which are words

having two mutually exclusive meanings.61 This comprised a genre within the

lexicographical literature, not specifically concerned with the Qur’an in this case,

although it includes passages from the Qur’an among the shawāhid (textual evidences


attesting meaning), which provides lists and explanations of these words. The first

known Kitāb al-aḍdād was written by Quṭrub (d. 206/821), after which a number of

other scholars followed, among them Ibn al-Sikkīt (d. 244/858) and Ibn al-Anbārī

(d. 328/940).62 Ibn al-Anbārī holds that just as in the case of regular polysemy,

autoantonyms can only be properly understood in their particular contexts, hence the

abundance of examples in his text.63

The Ethics of Trustworthiness

Only a selection of the Qur’anic lexicon is treated in the al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir

literature, and obviously not every word is an autoantonym to be treated by the aḍdād

literature. However both these genres have proven useful for my analysis of

the Qur’anic notion of amāna. According to the al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir works of

al-Dāmaghānī and Ibn al-Jawzī, the notion has three aspects in the Qur’an: (i) farāʾiḍ

(‘obligatory matters’, Q. 8:27; Q. 33:72), (ii) wadāʾiʿ (‘deposits’, Q. 4:58; Q. 23:8;

Q. 70:32) and, by way of the cognate participle amīn, (iii) ʿiffa (‘integrity’ or

‘honesty’, Q. 28:26).64

i) Amāna as Obligatory Matters

Amāna can refer to ‘obligatory matters’ in the sense of farāʾīḍ, as in Q. 8:27,

Believers, do not betray God and the Messenger, or knowingly betray what is

entrusted to you (wa-takhūnū amānātikum wa-antum taʿlamūn).65 In the preceding

verse, Q. 8:26, man is reminded that it is by the grace of God he has been delivered

from a position of weakness and victimisation (qalīlun mustaḍʿafūna fī’l-arḍ) to

victory and prosperity (wa-ayyadakum bi-naṣrihi wa-razaqakum), and in Q. 8:28 man

is reminded that with gifts follow responsibility; he is tested through his dealings

when it comes to his wealth and his children (innamā amwālukum wa-awlādukum

fitna). Believers should remain aware of their obligations towards God and the

Messenger with regards to what has been placed under their care when they find

themselves in a position of power and prosperity.

This aspect of amāna is also put forward in Q. 33:72. In the ethico-religious discourse

of the Qur’an, amāna is here conceptualised as the covenant between human beings

and God: We offered the Trust (al-amāna) to the heavens, the earth, and the

mountains, yet they refused to undertake it and were afraid of it; mankind undertook

it – they have always been inept and foolish (Q. 33:72). The mufassir al-Zamakhsharī

(d. 538/1144) paraphrases al-amāna in his commentary on Q. 33:72 with al-ṭāʿa

(‘obedience’) and taklīf (conceptualising the amāna within the framework of the

covenant and human responsibility): ‘it is appropriate for man to be charged with

God’s commands and prohibitions as he is an animal endowed with reason and

capable of taking upon himself responsibility (ḥayawān ʿāqil ṣāliḥ li’l-taklīf).’66 The

general emphasis on keeping social contracts and obligations in the Qur’an reflects


this higher obligation towards the primordial covenant between God and man,

voluntarily undertaken by man. It is in man’s own interest to keep the trust

relationship, as human salvation lies in fulfilling the covenant with God. It is the

hallmark of man’s humanity and breaking it will lead to God’s curse and destruction

(Q. 13:20–5).

ii) Amāna as Deposits

The second aspect given of amāna is ‘deposits’ (wadāʾiʿ), as in Q. 4:58:

God commands you to return things entrusted to you to their rightful

owners (an tuʾaddu’l-amānāti ilā ahlihā), and, if you judge between

people, to do so with justice (an taḥkumū bil-ʿadl): God’s instructions

to you are excellent, for He hears and sees everything.

Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) refers in his tafsīr to the historical context of revelation (sabab

al-nuzūl) for this verse: ‘It was sent down about ʿUthmān b. Ṭalḥa b. Abī Ṭalḥa.

The Prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, grabbed the keys of the

Kaʿba and went into it on the day of the opening (yawm al-fatḥ). Then he came out

reciting this verse, called upon ʿUthmān, and gave him the key.’67 Al-Ṭabarī prefers,

however, to understand the text in its textual context, connecting it to the following

verse, Q. 4:59, concerning the responsibility that the leaders of the Muslims (wulāt

umūr al-muslimīn) have to distribute both booty and alms, as well as to judge with

justice.68

The later mufassir al-Qurṭubī (d. 671/1272) suggests that the most obvious

interpretation is that the command concerns both the responsibilities of the leaders

(al-wulāt) and all others (man dūnahum) with regards to protecting their deposits,

being careful in their testimonies, and other things.69 He is referring here to the saying

of the ṣaḥāba al-Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib (d. 72/691–2), Ibn Masʿūd (d. 32/652–3) and Ibn

ʿAbbās that ‘trustworthiness (al-amāna) is in everything’, mentioning specifically

religious rituals and commercial transactions.70

Al-Qurṭubī also suggests that Q. 4:58 should be read in the context of the preceding

verses about the People of the Book suppressing the true character of the Prophet

when they say that the mushrikūn are more rightly guided, referring to Q. 4:51, they

say of the disbelievers, ‘They are more rightly guided than the believers’. Their

statement is, in his view, tantamount to betraying the covenant they had made with

God.71

In Q. 23:8 and Q. 70:32 the concept of trustworthiness is put into a framework of an

ethical system. The same idea is expressed in the two verses, with identical wording:

those who are faithful to their trusts and pledges (wa’lladhīna hum li-amānatihim

wa-ʿahdihim rāʾūna), but with slightly different co-text. In the co-texts of Q. 23:1–11,


the obligation to be faithful to trusts and pledges is associated with other religious and

social virtues, such as establishing prayer, paying religiously obligatory taxes,

shunning idle talk and illegal sexual relationships, while in Q. 70:19–35 it is

associated with prayer, distributing due parts of one’s wealth, believing in the Day

of Judgement, fearing God’s punishment, shunning illegal sexual relationships and

giving honest testimony. Religious virtues and social virtues are mentioned on the

same footing in these two passages, and the normative emphasis on tending to one’s

trusts and one’s agreements is underscored by promises of Paradise,72 in which they

will be secured (āminīn, Q. 44:55; Q. 15:46).

In the reading of Ibn Kathīr (d. 120/738, generally accepted as one of the seven

mutawātir readings) amāna in Q. 23:8 and Q. 70:32 is in the singular in agreement

with the singular of ʿahd: wa’lladhīna hum li-amānatihim wa-ʿahdihim rāʾūna.73

Grammarians have argued, Ibn Zanjalla reports, that a verbal noun is generic and as

such can be understood in the sense of plurality even if it has the grammatical form of

the singular. The majority however read this as amānāt in the plural, and they have

argued that the plural here indicates that there are different kinds of entrusted goods

involved.74 As we have seen, the distribution of singular and plural forms of the noun

cannot be unequivocally linked to respectively divine or human trust relationships.

Amāna may refer both to material and immaterial goods,75 as in the case of sharing

information in Q. 66:3:

The Prophet told something in confidence (asarra ḥadīthan) to one of

his wives and she disclosed it – God made this known to him so he

confirmed part of it, keeping the rest to himself – so he confronted her

with what she had done. She asked, ‘Who told you about this?’ and he

replied, ‘The All Knowing, the All Aware told me. If both of you repent

to God – for your hearts have deviated – [all will be well]; if you

collaborate against him, God will aid him, as will Gabriel and all

righteous believers, and the angels will stand behind him (Q. 66:3–4).

Read against the background of the Prophetic ḥadīth ‘If someone said something in a

gathering and you left it, then it is an amāna’,76 Q. 66:3 can be read as an example of

breaking trust by breaking the bond of confidence. Incidentally it here seems that

restoring trust is possible by repenting.77

iii) Amāna as Trustworthiness

A third aspect of amāna, according to the al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir literature, is, as

mentioned above, ‘integrity’ or ‘honesty’ (ʿiffa), as in the cognate amīn in Q. 28:26,

one of the women said, ‘Father, hire him: a strong, trustworthy (amīn) man is the best

to hire’.


In the Qur’an several prophets claim to be trustworthy (amīn), and the co-texts to

each passage support their claim.78 The angel Gabriel is likewise designated as the

trustworthy spirit (al-rūḥu’l-amīn, Q. 26:193). Only once is the word amīn used in

connection with an individual other that a prophet or the angel Gabriel. In Q. 27:39 a

devilish jinn (ʿifrītun mina’l-jinn) is trying to portray himself as trustworthy (wa-innī

ʿalayhi la-qawīyun amīn), but he is, in Q. 27:40, immediately discredited by a

knowledgeable person (alladhī ʿindahu ʿilmun mina’l-kitāb). Prophets are trustworthy

not only in the mundane sense, but specifically in the sense of being trustworthy

custodians of the divine message. A special aspect of the divine covenant is the

mīthāq concluded with the prophets (wa-idh akhada’llāhu mīthāqa’l-nabiyīn) that

they have been (as mentioned in Q. 3:81) given scripture and wisdom (la-mā

ataytukum min kitābin wa-ḥikma), and that moreover special knowledge is entrusted

to them: those are the ones to whom We gave the Scripture, wisdom and prophethood.

Even if these people now disbelieve in them, We have entrusted them (wa-qad

wakkalnā bihā)[79] to others who do not disbelieve (Q. 6:89). It may seem that the

trustworthiness of the prophets is what guarantees the integrity of the divine

knowledge once it has been released into the world. From this perspective, attesting to

Muḥammads trustworthiness may be perceived as crucial, recalling the epithet of the

Prophet known from the sīra literature: Muḥammad al-amīn.80 However, while earlier

prophets and Gabriel are described as amīn, Muḥammad is not given this specific

epithet in the Qur’anic text. Rather, the text insists on its independence of any external

corroboration (Q. 2:2) or any guardian of integrity other than the divine ‘We’

(Q. 15:9). The integrity of the Qur’an is then altogether beyond the human, even

prophetic, sphere. Learned people have, however, in the wake of the prophets been

entrusted with divine knowledge of the scripture (ustuḥfiẓu min kitābi’llāh, Q. 5:44).

Some of them broke this covenant and others ignored it (Q. 3:187). Divine knowledge

is, in a simile, likened to something charged upon or entrusted to (ḥummilu) the

human being, and preserving and acting upon this knowledge is what defines him as a

human being, without which man would be like an animal: Those who have been

entrusted (ḥummilū)81 with the Torah, yet do not undertake it (lam yaḥmilūhā), are

like asses carrying books (ka-mathali’l-ḥimāri yaḥmilu asfāran) (Q. 62:5).

In the aḍdād-literature we are informed that the adjective amīn is an autoantonym

carrying both the sense of someone who trusts (al-muʾtamin) and someone who is

trusted (al-muʾtaman), although the shawāhid offered are from poetry, not from the

Qur’an.82 On this basis, in addition to the understanding that prophets are trustworthy,

they are also understood to be trusting. Trust in God (tawakkul) is an intrinsic quality

in a prophet. In Sūrat al-Naml Muḥammad is ordered to trust God after having been

reassured that the revelation he had received was true and that he himself was on the

right path (Q. 27:76–9). In this instance tawakkul is associated with prophetic

knowledge. Moreover, in Q. 14:12 it is argued that tawakkul is a natural consequence


of divine guidance, and the words of the prophets are cited: why should we not put

our trust in God when it is He who has guided us to this way we follow? (wa-mā lanā

allā natawakkala ʿalā’llāhi wa-qad hadānā subulanā). In the preceding verse it

is emphasised that this compasses not only divine guidance directly given to the

prophets, but rather means that any believer acknowledging prophetic authority, and

thereby gaining access to prophetic knowledge, is a mutawakkil: we cannot bring

you any proof unless God permits it, so let the believers put all their trust in Him

(wa-mā kāna lanā an naʾtiyakum bi-sulṭānin illā bi-idhni’llāhi wa-ʿalā’llāhi

fal-yatawakkali’l-muʾminūn) (Q. 14:11). With the possible autoantonymity of the

notion amīn yet another dimension of trust may be added to the picture; a prophet’s

self-trust in bringing forth the entrusted message (amāna) and trusting others as

helpers in this endeavour.

Trusting God, Trusting Fellow Human Beings

The origin of amāna is, according to Ibn al-Jawzī, ‘safety’ (amn) and ‘tranquillity’

(ṭumaʾanīna).83 Although the main emphasis in the Qur’an is on the moral obligation

to be trustworthy, even trusting is portrayed as a positive value, associated with

relaxation and safe sleep in Q. 3:154 (after sorrow, He caused calm to descend upon

some of you – a sleep that overtook you (amanatan nuʿāsan)) and Q. 8:11 (remember

when He gave you sleep as a reassurance from Him (al-nuʿāsa amanatan minhu), and

sent down water from the sky to cleanse you, to remove Shayṭan’s pollution from you,

to make your hearts strong and your feet firm). Al-Rāzī notes in his tafsīr the different

word order used in these two verses. In Q. 3:154, the historical reference is to Uḥud

where the Muslims were defeated and didn’t sleep until they were safe, as it is not

possible to sleep in fear.84 In Q. 8:11, on the other hand, the historical reference is to

Badr, where the Muslims were sent a soothing sleep before a safe victory. Al-Rāzī

reports, on the authority of the ṣaḥābī Ibn Masʿūd, that while sleep in prayer is from

Satan, sleep in the battlefield is a sign of inner peace, because in the battlefield one can

only sleep when one trusts God completely and has no worldly worries (‘illā min

ghayati’l-wuthūq bi’llāh wa’l-firāgh ʿan al-dunyā’).85 Thus, according to the tafsīr of

al-Rāzī, the sleep of the Muslims is here a sign of trust in God, while the adjective

amana, according to Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Iṣfahānī, also denotes someone ‘who trusts

everyone’.86 In view of this possible double meaning, the notion amn might also be

linked to a form of trust that precedes any form of contractual, negotiated trust,

whether it be in God or in man.87

Additionally, in the Qur’an believers are encouraged to trust in the sense of

‘showing good will’: when you heard it,88 why did believing men and women

not think well of their own people (lawlā idh samiʿtumūhu ẓanna’l-muʾminūna

wa’l-muʾminātu bi-anfusihim khayran) and declare, ‘This is obviously a lie’?

(Q. 24:12).89 In a following passage a general warning is given against slandering


innocents; the slanderer will have his divine punishment in this as well as the next life

(Q. 24:23–5).90 The text gives a strong impetus to be truthful, and truthfulness (ṣidq)

is closely associated with trustworthiness.91 Believers are urged to avoid assumptions

(al-ẓann),92 as some assumptions are sinful:

Believers, do not indulge many of your assumptions – some

assumptions are sinful – and do not spy on each other or speak ill

of people behind their backs: would any of you like to eat the flesh of

your dead brother? No, you would hate it. So be mindful of God: God

is ever relenting, most merciful (Q. 49:12).

According to al-Rāzī, the general warning extended here must be understood is

connection to the preceding verse (Q. 49:11), in which believers are forbidden to

mock and abuse others.93 In this context al-Rāzī refers to an alleged Prophetic saying:

‘Think (ẓannū) well about the believer’,94 and specifies that there are good and

useful assumptions which need to be made, such as acceptance of testimony and

acknowledgement of innocence in a criminal case where there is no witness.95

The statement some assumptions are sinful lends itself to two possible interpretations,

connected to the two opposite meanings in the autoantonym al-ẓann; both

interpretations, according to al-Rāzī, are equally valid. Read in the light of the

previous instruction to ‘avoid making too many assumptions’, it points to acting with

prudence. Any assumption should be made after careful deliberation and mature

reassurance. Read in the light of the later instruction do not spy, it points to acting with

indifference with regard to the weaknesses and flaws of others. Even if asserting the

weakness by witnessing, so that the al-ann effectively takes on its second meaning of

certainty (yaqīn), this information should not be spread.96

Although one is obligated to be trustworthy to others, to fulfil one’s obligations and to

show good faith, the Qur’an does not appear to promote naive or blind trust. The

believer is not asked to trust anyone other than God unconditionally. On the contrary,

human trustworthiness is to be assessed according to the character of the person,

although even the words of a person known to be a liar are, however, not to be

outright rejected, but rather to be treated with caution and checked against other

sources: Believers, if an immoral person (fāsiq)97 brings you news, check it first

(tabayyanū), in case you wrong others unwittingly and later regret what you have

done (Q. 49:6). Moreover, one is encouraged to protect one’s interests with written

contracts and witnesses (Q. 2:282). Yet, even if preference is given to written

contracts, trust is an underlying condition both in written and unwritten agreements:

If you are on a journey, and cannot find a scribe, something should

be handed over as security (rihānun maqbūḍa). If you decide to trust

one another, then let the one who is trusted fulfil his trust; let

him be mindful of God, his Lord (fa-in amina baʿḍukum baʿḍan


fal-yuʾaddi’lladhī uʾtumina amānatahu wa’l-yattaqi’llāha rabbahu).

Do not conceal evidence: anyone who does so has a sinful heart, and

God is fully aware of everything you do (Q. 2:283).

Is there in this verse necessarily a contrastive relationship between either setting up a

written contract or trusting each other, as suggested by Abdel Haleem’s rendition cited

above but if you decide to trust one another, then let the one who is trusted fulfil

his trust?98 If the particle fa-in is read as a plain marking of the apodosis in this

conditional clause, there need not be a strongly contrastive relationship between the

three different ways of concluding a contract implied here: a written/witnessed

contract, handing over a security, or a fiduciary transaction. The contract may

therefore be seen not as an expression of mistrust, but as a means of organisation.

According to al-Rāzī, trusting someone means not fearing betrayal on his part (‘lam

yakhuf khiyānatahu’).99 Against some people who argue that Q. 2:283 is abrogated by

Q. 2:282, in which a clear command is given to write down one’s contracts, al-Rāzī

responds that what is given in Q. 2:283 is an allowance (rukhsa).100 Trusting someone

without taking any security (no written contract, witness or guarantee) is, according to

al-Rāzī, a strong impetus and driving force for the other part to respond justly: if a

person is seen as trustworthy and trusted according to the assumption (ẓann) of the

truster, he should not defy this trust when it comes to returning his trust and his

right.101 Both trusting and being trustworthy are, then, seen as relational and

reciprocal, and in particular the virtue of trustworthiness is developed when a person

is trusted.

This idea of reciprocity is further supported in the tafsīr al-Rāzī offers on the greeting

al-salām ʿalaykum (‘peace be upon you’).102 According to al-Rāzī, the world is a

place of suffering, and human life is a struggle to avoid suffering as much as possible,

although any solution to avoid suffering entails other forms of suffering. This is the

great dilemma of human life.103 Social institutions are normative conventions installed

to solve this dilemma. As, according to al-Rāzī, the natural disposition of man is

perceived to be evil, when meeting others his natural inclination is scepticism. To

overcome this scepticism, the individual will reassure the other of his own peaceful

intention by way of the conventional greeting of peace, because ‘when a man reaches

another man, the most important consideration will be to inform him that, in relation

to himself, he is in a state of peace, security and safety’.104

Khiyāna as an Antithesis of Trust

Although trusting others in the above-mentioned instances is contrasted to doubt and

mistrust, based on the preceding discussion of the concept of amāna, I would suggest

that the emphasis in the Qur’an is on being trustworthy. The main conceptual

antithesis to trustworthiness is khiyāna (‘betrayal’): Believers, do not betray God and


the Messenger, or knowingly betray [other people’s] trust in you (takhūnū

amānātikum) (Q. 8:27).

The root meaning of kh–w–n is, according to Ibn Fāris, ‘reduction’ (tanaqquṣ) – and

to betray is ‘a reduction of faithfulness’ (nuqṣan al-wafāʾ).105 The emphasis on

honouring agreements is expressed in the Qur’an in the notion of wafāʾ (‘being

faithful to an engagement, or promise’).106 According to Lane, the primary

signification of the noun khawn is ‘making someone suffer loss or diminution’, that

of the verb khawana is ‘he acted unfaithfully, to the confidence, or trust, that he

reposed in him’ or ‘he was treacherous, perfidious, or unfaithful, to him’, and that

of khiyāna is ‘the neglecting, or failing in amāna’.107 In Lisān al-ʿArab, betrayal

is defined as being when someone has been entrusted [something] and is not sincere

(fa-lā yanṣaha),108 and betrayal and trust are given as antonyms. Both Ibn al-Jawzī

and al-Damāghānī support this view in their analysis of the term khiyāna.109

According to these two scholars khiyāna takes on five different aspects in the Qur’an,

of which two can be placed within the ethico-religious discourse and three within a

social ethics discourse with specific relevance to trust; respectively violating or

renouncing it.110 The two aspects related to the ethico-religious discourse are ‘sin’

(maʿṣiya fī’l-Islām, Q. 2:187; Q. 8:27; Q. 40:19) and ‘opposition with regards to

religion’ (al-khilāf fī’l-dīn, Q. 4:107; Q. 8:71; Q. 66:10).111 The difference between

the two first aspects is not all that clear. Q. 2:187 refers to those people who commited

a sin by betraying themselves (kuntum takhtānūna anfusakum)112 by engaging in

sexual conduct at night during the fasting period, at a time when this was still not

permitted. ‘Opposition with regards to religion’ is, on the other hand, understood as

committing a sin (although in Q. 4:107 we find the same expression as in Q. 2:187 –

yakhtānūna anfusahum). Additionally it is understood in terms of betraying the

prophets (Q. 8:71) or denying their prophethood and their message, as in the case of

the wives of the prophets Noah and Lot in Q. 66:10.

In terms of the third semantic aspect of khiyāna, as signifying ‘illegal sex’ (al-zinā),

the chosen example of both Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Dāmaghānī is taken from the narrative

of Joseph, in Q. 12:52, this was for [my master] to know that I did not betray him

behind his back: God does not guide the mischief of the treacherous.113 The utterance

I did not betray him behind his back (lam akhunhu bi’l-ghayb), interpreted as Joseph’s

speech, refers to him being worried that al-ʿAzīz believes Joseph has betrayed him

by committing adultery with his wife, whereupon al-ʿAzīz assures him that he knows

the truth, and continues, according to one anonymously transmitted interpretation

reported in al-Qurṭubī: ‘I am not unaware of him acting with respect towards the

licentiate of his trust’.114 That is, Joseph has not violated the discretionary power of

the trust shown him by the husband. The trust relationship is thus one between the two

men.115 If the utterance, according to another option, is interpreted as the wife’s

speech, the focus is on the trust relationship within the marital relationship.116


In either case khiyāna in the sense of zinā refers to the inter-human aspect of marital

fidelity,117 but the text’s reference to God’s guidance in the last part of the cited verse

grounds the social relationship in an ethico-religious discourse.

Two further aspects of khiyāna may be placed within the category of social ethics:

‘violating the pledge’ (‘naqḍ al-ʿahd’, with regard to Q. 8:58; Q. 5:13) and

‘renouncing the trust’ (‘alladhī yakūnu ḍidd al-amānat fa-yakhūnuhā’, with regard

to Q. 4:105).118 In Q. 8:58 the al-khāʾin is a traitor, one who violates a pledge (nāqiḍ

al-ʿahd): and if you fear119 (takhāfūna) treachery (khiyāna) on the part of any people,

throw their treaty back at them, for God does not love the treacherous (al-khāʾinīn).

In Q. 4:105 al-khāʾin is someone who renounces or abandons the amāna given to

them (tāriku’l-amāna): We have sent down the Scripture to you with the truth so that

you can judge between people in accordance with what God has shown you. Do not

be the advocate for those who betray trust (wa-lā takun li’l-khāʾinīna khaṣīman).’

Here the amāna may imply the divine covenant, and the betrayer may be someone

who betrays his covenant with God and with himself, as the text continues, ask God

for forgiveness: He is the most forgiving and merciful. Do not argue for those who

betray their own souls: God does not love anyone given to treachery and sin

(khawānan athīman) (Q. 4:106–7).

Al-Damāghānī mentions that Q. 4:107 was revealed about the Medinese Ṭuʿma

b. Ubayriq,120 and in al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr we find more information about the historical

context of the section Q. 4:105–15.121 Ṭuʿma b. Ubayriq had stolen a coat of mail in

Medina and hidden it with a Jew who was then accused of having stolen it himself

until this revelation came down to clarify that the Jew was actually innocent and that

Ṭuʿma b. Ubayriq had turned out to be one of the hypocrites (munāfiqūn) who later

turned against the Prophet. Ṭuʿma’s treachery was, according to what al-Ṭabarī sees

as the most obvious interpretation of Q. 4:115, that he opposed the plain truth even

after it had been made clear to him, which, according to al-Ṭabarī, is ‘the common

meaning of khiyāna (‘betrayals’) in the Arab tongue’. Khiyāna is here related to nifāq

(‘hypocrisy’), another conceptual antithesis to trust.

Nifāq as the Antithesis of Trust

The maṣdar ‘nifāq’ occurs only in three verses (Q. 9:77, 97 and 101), while most

references in the Qur’an are to the active participle munāfiq. According to Ibn Fāris,

the root n–f–q has two semantic origins, although these have drawn closer to each

other over time. One primary meaning is that something is disrupted and disappearing,

and the other that something is hidden and concealed.122 Ibn Fāris holds that from the

first semantic origin the meaning ‘death’ is extrapolated, with reference to the verse

Q. 17:100.123 The meaning of spending, or paying out also originates from this first

semantic value, as in anfaqa (‘becoming poor’).124 From the second origin, the word


nafaq (‘a burrow of a desert rat or a mole’),125 the concept of nifāq is derived:

‘whoever has it conceals the opposite of what is apparent, “as if belief (īmān) is

running out of him, or he is secretly leaving belief”.’126 Against the background of the

examples given of the two semantic values, Ibn Fāris then suggests the possibility of

one common semantic origin: ‘exit’ (khurūj).127 A variant of this image is given in

Lisān al-ʿArab: the munāfiq is so called because ‘he enters a burrow and slips out

through another, and precisely the same is said of the munāfiq: he enters Islam and

slips out in another fashion than he entered’.128 According to Lane, the verb nafaqa

(form I) translates ‘it … was in much demand’, anfaqa (form IV) ‘he expended

money’ and nāfaqa (form III) ‘he played the hypocrite in religion’.129 Whether there

are two separate semantic values connected to the root n–f–q or not, there is

nevertheless a conceptual tension between the concept of ‘spending in the cause of

God’ (Q. 4:39, Q. 13:22, Q. 35:29) and hypocrisy:

They are the ones who say, ‘Give nothing (lā tunfiqū) to those who

follows God’s Messenger, until they abandon him’, but to God belong

the treasures of the heavens and the earth, though the hypocrites (al-

munāfiqīn) do not understand this (Q. 63:7).

In the Qur’an, the hypocrites are described as having a sickness (maraḍ) which

prevents them from trusting God (Q. 8:49), and the hypocrisy in their hearts is a result

of their breaking their pledge with God (Q. 9:75–7). They are in turn not to be trusted:

they say ‘We obey you’, but as soon as they leave your presence, some of them scheme

by night to do other than what you said. God records what they scheme, so leave them

alone, and put your trust in God: He is sufficient protector (Q. 4:81). Trustworthiness

towards man is connected to trusting God; hypocrites do not trust God, and shall in

return not be trusted by men, who instead should trust God. Moreover, trustworthiness

is associated with truthfulness, and in a transmitted narration the ṣaḥābī Abū Bakr

(d. 13/634) equates the two notions: ‘Truthfulness is trust, lying is betrayal.’130 The

munāfiq, on the other hand, is neither truthful nor trustworthy. According to a ḥadīth

reported on the authority of the ṣaḥābī Abū Hurayra, the Prophet Muḥammad said,

‘The signs of the hypocrite are three: If he speaks, he lies, if he makes a promise, he

breaks it, and if he is entrusted with something, he will betray the trust.’131

Thus, whereas ‘betrayal’ (khiyāna) relates to ‘a compact or covenant or the like, and

trustiness, or faithfulness’,132 and is connected to single acts, though they may well

be repetitive, so ‘hypocrisy’ (nifāq) relates to religion. Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī is

highlighting this point explicitly when he says ‘nifāq is entering the sharʿ by one

door, and exiting from it by another’133 and refers to Q. 9:67, the hypocrites are the

disobedient (al-fāsiqūn) ones. That is, the moral standards of a hypocrite have already

been established by his being a hypocrite, and every other moral shortcoming is a

direct and natural consequence of his hypocrisy, which is a lasting quality within


his personality. In Q. 33:73 the question of sincerity, belief and hypocrisy is linked to

the covenant in the preceding verse, so that the amāna (‘the covenant-trust’) is a test

with regards to belief, forming a moral frame of responsibility and accountability:

We offered the Trust to the heavens, the earth, and the mountains,

yet they refused to undertake it and were afraid of it; mankind

undertook it – they have always been inept and foolish. God

will punish the hypocrite men and hypocrite women and the

idolating men and idolating women, and turn with mercy to the

believing men and believing women:134 God is most forgiving, most

merciful (Q. 33:72–3).

Concluding Remarks

In contemporary discourse trust is a concept discussed in such diverse disciplines

as social sciences, business administration, information technology and moral

philosophy. Whereas from a functionalistic approach, trust is primarily seen as a

way to reduce complexity in a situation of risk and uncertainty, a phenomenological

approach will address the moral claims perceived as inherent in trust relationships

with a focus on the dichotomy of trust versus mistrust. Professor of Political Science

Russel Hardin holds that trust is, or at least can be treated as, an unmoralised

notion.135 Hardin notes that trust is often seen as a focal problem where in fact the

issue at stake is trustworthiness, and he points to the fact that ‘writers often transfer to

trust the moral approbation that might be thought applicable to trustworthiness’.136 I

find the distinction Harding makes between trusting and trustworthiness useful when

discussing trust in an Islamic context, although both concepts are written into a

normative landscape. The Qur’an does not treat trust per se as a moral value, but

moral claims are certainly presented around the acts and attitudes of trusting and of

being trustworthy.

Moral philosopher Anette Baier holds, in her seminal article on trust, the view that

‘theological literature on trust in God is of very limited help to us if we want to

understand trust in human persons’.137 Whether this is true when it comes to the

Islamic context needs further investigation, but my contention is that the two

discourses of ethico-religious and social ethics in the Qur’an are informed by each

other and that they in the case of ‘trust’ converge in the concept of the covenant

(amāna) between God and humankind. The notions of having faith (īmān) and

trusting God (tawakkul) are conceptually close in the Qur’anic text. Trustworthiness

(amāna) is likewise both linguistically and conceptually related to belief (īmān).

Being trustworthy is an indication of having faith and, the other way around, true faith

will manifest itself in trustworthiness. When entrusted with something, either from

God or from man, a moral claim is put upon the person to prove himself worthy of that


trust – to be amīn. To be amīn is to take on responsibility in terms of taking care of

whatever is entrusted to you, that being deposits of different quantities or different

kinds.138 But, neither prophets nor other human beings are asked to take full charge of

other people as a wakīl (‘guardian’). At least when it comes to choosing one’s path

each person must take responsibility for themselves, as the Qur’an has the Prophet

Muḥammad say, whoever follows the right path follows it for his own good, and

whoever strays does so to his own loss: I am not your guardian (wa-mā ana ʿalaykum

bi-wakīl) (Q. 10:108).

Trusting, both trusting God and trusting man,139 seems in the Qur’anic accounts to

be a form of implicit or explicit choice, based on knowledge of the trustee, whether

this knowledge is innate in human nature inherited from the era of the primordial

covenant, or is gained through revelation or experience. Even those people who

have a natural disposition towards trusting are guided to put their trust in God

before anyone else. The believer trusts God, because He is ‘the trustworthy Absolute’

(al-wakīl). When it comes to social ethics, the normative claim on the human

being human is reversed. Whereas trusting God is an absolute moral claim, placing

one’s trust in human beings is conditioned by circumstantial factors. However Izutsu’s

description of social ethics in the Qur’an as an ethics which ‘relates to the basic

attitude of a man to his brethren living in the same community’ seems, on the basis

my study of trust, to be an undue qualification.140 On the contrary, it would seem

justified to claim that the social ethics of the Qur’an reaches beyond boundaries

defined by geography, ethnicity or religion. One is advised not to trust people who

are likely to betray one’s trust on the grounds of shortcomings in their moral

standards. However, although one is advised to refrain from suspicion and, by

extension, to incline towards good will, the normative emphasis is put on being

trustworthy (amīn) and fulfilling ones obligations (amānāt), towards God and man.

Thus the Qur’an formulates a perspective on trust in which the ethico-religious

and social discourses converge in a virtue ethics which highlight the moral agency of

man.

NOTES

1 Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qurʾān (Montreal: McGill UniversityPress, 1966), p. 17.

2 The phrase al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā occurs in the Qur’anic text in Q. 7:180, Q. 17:110, Q. 20:8and Q. 59:24. A main reference in the literature on al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā is al-Ghazālī’s Maqṣadal-asnā fī sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā (ed. Aḥmad Qabbānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya,2001), translated into English in David B. Burrell and Nazih Daher (tr. and annot.), TheNinety-nine Beautiful Names of God: Maqṣad al-asnā fī sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā(Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1992)).

3 Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts, p. 17.





7 Izutsu produced several studies of the ontology of the Qur’an through a semantic analysisof the Qur’anic vocabulary using a variety of tools: contextual definitions, synonyms,contrast, definition by negation, patterned semantic relations between words, parallelisms anduse in non-religious contexts. See in particular Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in The Qurʾān:Semantics of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung (Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 2002 (1964));Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts.

8 As Angelika Neuwirth observes, it has become incumbent on every researcher in the field ofQur’anic studies to state a particular vantage point with regards to the historicity of the text(Angelika Neuwirth, ‘Qur’an and History – A Disputed Relationship: Some Reflections onQuranic History and History in the Qur’an’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 5:1 (2003), pp. 1–18).The contested views on the historicity of the Qur’anic text lie outside the scope of this article:committing myself to a methodological traditionalism, I maintain that ‘the point in history’ ofthe Qur’anic text is a stretch of some twenty-odd years in the first half of the sixth century AD.A recent discussion of the historicity of the Qur’anic text founded in the Islamic traditionis presented in M.M. Al-Azami, The History of The Qur’anic Text from Revelation toCompilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testament (Leicester: UK IslamicAcademy, 2003). Recent scholarship is presented in Stefan Wild (ed.), The Qur’an as Text(Leiden: Brill, 1996); Gabriel Said Reynolds (ed.), The Qur’an in its Historical Context(London: Routledge, 2008); and in Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai and Michael Marx (eds),The Qur’an in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’anic Milieu (Leiden:Brill, 2010).

9 Notably al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī (30 vols, Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1990); al-Zamakhsharī, Abū’l-Qāsim Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar, Tafsīr al-kashāf, ed.Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām Shāhīn (4 vols, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1995); al-Rāzī,Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿUmar, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr aw Mafātiḥ al-ghayb (33 vols in 17,Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2009); al-Qurṭubī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmadal-Ansārī, Tafsīr al-Qurṭubī, ed. Sālim Muṣṭafā al-Badrī (21 vols in 11, Beirut: Dār al-Kutubal-ʿIlmiyya, 2000).

10 Al-Balkhī, Muqātil b. Sulaymān al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir fī’l-Qurʾān al-karīm, ed.Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīrī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2008); Ibn al-Jawzī, Jamālal-Dīn Abū’l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn al-nawāẓir fī ʿilm al-wujūhwa’l-naẓāʾir, ed. Khalīl al-Manṣūr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2000); al-ʿAskarī,Abū’l-Hilāl, Taṣḥīh al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, ed. Muḥammad ʿUthmān (Cairo: Maktabaal-Thaqāfa al-Dīniyya, 2007); al-Dāmaghānī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad,al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir li-alfāẓ kitāb Allāh al-ʿazīz, ed. ʿArbī ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ʿAlī(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003); Ibn al-ʿImād, Kashf al-sarāʾir fī maʿna al-wujūhwa’l-ashbāh wa’l-naẓāʾir, ed. Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Munʿim Aḥmad (Alexandria: al-Maktabaal-Miṣriyya, 2004).

11 Rajab ʿAbd al-Jawād Ibrāhīm, Dirāsāt fī’l-dalāla wa’l-muʿjam (Cairo: Dār Gharīb, 2001),p. 169, p. 180; Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2001(1997)), p. 76. Badawi and Abdel Haleem’s dictionary from 2008 is a rare exampleof a bilingual dictionary giving root meanings, whereas more commonly the first entry underthe root is the f–ʿ–l form I verbal meaning. However Badawi and Abdel Haleem do not definea single primary root meaning, but offer an ‘inventory of the basic concepts covered by theroot … in an attempt to show the range of semantic scatter it compasses’ (Elsaid M. Badawiand Muhammad Abdel Haleem, Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage (Leiden: Brill,2008), p. xix f.).

12 I understand ‘lexical meaning’ as the aspect of meaning given in a lexical entry.


13 Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, Abū’l-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn, al-Mufradāt fī gharīb al-Qurʾān, ed.Muḥammad Khalīl ʿĪtānī (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1998), p. 10. In spite of its title al-Mufradāt ismore of a general dictionary of Qur’anic and extra-Qur’anic vocabulary.

14 Ibn Fāris, Abū’l-Ḥusayn Aḥmad b. Fāris b. Zakariyā, Muʿjam maqāyīs al-lugha, ed. ʿAbdal-Salām Muḥammad Harūn (6 vols, n.p.: Dār al-Fikr li’l-Ṭibāʿa wa’l-Nashr wa’l-Tawzīʿ,1979), vol. 6, p. 136.

15 Ibn Manẓūr’s dictionary, based on al-Jawharī’s (d. 400/1009) Tāj al-lugha wa-ṣiḥāḥ al-ʿArabiyya and other works, incorporates a major part of the lexicographical literature up to histime. See Ibn Manẓūr, Jamāl al-Dīn, Lisān al-ʿArab (15 vols, Beirut: Dār Sāder, 1992); cf.Ibrāhīm, Dirāsāt, p. 191.

16 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, vol. 11, p. 734; cf. translations in Lane, E.W. Arabic-English Lexicon(2 vols, Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, (1877) 1984), vol. 2, p. 3,059.

17 W. Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language (2 vols in one, Beirut: Librairie de Liban,1981 (1874)), vol. 1, p. 38. Tawakkul is described by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī as being a state(ḥāl) of belief, all aspects of belief being composed of knowledge (ʿilm), state of being (ḥāl) andactivity (ʿamal) (al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (6 vols in 5, Beirut: Dār al-Khayr,1993), vol. 5, p. 118, translated into English in David B. Burrell (tr., intr. and annot.), Faith inDivine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence: Kitāb al-Tawḥīd wa’l-Tawakkul: Book XXXV ofThe Revival of the Religious Sciences Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (Cambridge: The Islamic TextsSociety, 2001), p. 9).

18 Ibn Fāris, Muʿjam, vol. 6, p. 136.

19 Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 546. In the books on al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir I havebeen able to consult, tawakkul is not considered.

20 Cf. Q. 18:44, the only protection is that of God. Citations of the Arabic text will beaccording to the reading of Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim unless otherwise noted. Translations of the Qur’anwill follow M.A.S. Abdel Haleem’s translation, The Qur’an (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2004). Clarifying and explaining square brackets in his translation have, however, in most casesbeen removed. Further modifications to Abdel Haleem’s translation, and occasional referencesto the translations of Arthur J. Arberry (London: Oxford University Press, 1964) andMarmaduke Pickthall (London: George Allen, 1948 (1930)) will be duly noted in each case.

21 Taqwā is derived from the root w–q–y, with the root meaning ‘to protect somethingfrom something by means of something else’ (Ibn Fāris, Muʿjam, vol. 6, p. 131). Accordingto E.W. Lane ‘its explanations in relation to religion are many and various, but are allresolvable into fear of God, or of sin; or the preservation, or guarding, of oneself from sin’(Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 2, p. 3,059). Toshihiko Izutsu refers to pre-Islamic poetryin which the term meant ‘self-defence by means of something’. Then, in the early Qur’anicconception the term takes on a specific meaning of ‘guarding oneself against the imminentdanger of divine chastisement by putting between it and one’s own soul a protective shield ofpious obedience and belief’, until it reaches a stage where it has ‘little or nothing to do withthe concept of “fear” and becomes the nearest equivalent of “piety”’ (Izutsu, God and Man,pp. 260–5). Erik S. Ohlander suggests that the semantic development is not so much a clear-cutshift as it is a semantic expansion from the primitive connotation of ‘guarding’ and ‘defending’through the Meccan understanding of the term as ‘fear of God’ in a Medinan expansion into‘piety’ and ‘religious conscience’. Thus the term ‘harbours a particular semantic load whicheven though developed and expanded with subsequent usage, retains something of its earliestQuranic meanings’, that is connotations of fear (Erik S. Ohlander, ‘Fear of God (Taqwā) in theQur’ān: Some Notes on Semantic Shift and Thematic Context’, Journal of Semitic Studies 50(2005), pp. 137–52, at p. 147). In his translation, Abdel Haleem does not subscribe to the ideaof a chronological development of the term and states that the basic meaning is ‘to be mindful


or wary of something’, and that translating it with ‘fear of God’ would be an ‘over-expression ofthe term’ (Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, p. 4, note c, and ‘Introduction’, p. xxxi). Accordingly hetranslates taqwā and the verbal cognate ittaqā with words connoting piety both in the Medinansuras (‘consciousness of God’ in Q. 9:108; ‘to be mindful of God’ in Q. 2:197; ‘godliness’ inQ. 2:237; ‘awareness of God’ in Q. 5:8) and in the Meccan suras (‘true piety’ in Q. 96:12; ittaqāas ‘is mindful of God’ in Q. 92:5; ahl al-taqwā as ‘the Lord who should be heeded’ inQ. 74:56).

22 In Ibn Manẓūr’s dictionary, Lisān al-ʿArab, the corresponding explanation ‘He isthe originator and guarantor of people’s sustenance’ (‘huwa al-muqīm al-kafīl bi-arzāqal-ʿibād’) is given as the main gloss to the term wakīl (Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, vol. 11, p. 734).In Ṣūfī writings, tensions between the virtue of earning a living and the virtue of completetrust in God appeared as a major motive. Benedikt Reinert has documented discussionsin Ṣūfī literature on questions such as whether to take provisions when travelling, whetherto take medicine when sick, and whether to provide for one’s family when travelling(Benedikt Reinert, Die Lehre vom tawakkul in der klassischen Sufik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,1968).

23 The definite form al-wakīl occurs only once in the Qur’an, in Q. 3:173.


25 Al-Ghazālī,Maqṣad al-asnā, p. 72; cf. Burrell and Daher, The Ninety-nine Beautiful Names,p. 51.

26 Al-Ghazālī, Maqṣad al-asnā, p. 158; translated in Burrell and Daher, The Ninety-nineBeautiful Names, p. 126.

27 Through nineteen derivatives, the root occurs 858 times in the Qur’an (Badawi and AbdelHaleem, Arabic-English Dictionary, p. 50).


29 Al-Munjid argues against Ibn Fāris that there is no confirmation (taṣdīq) without innerpeace (sukūn al-qalb) and reassurance (al-ṭumaʾnīna) (Muḥammad Nūr al-Dīn al-Munjid,‘Dalālat al-jidr [ʾ–m–n] fī’l-Qurʾān al-karīm’, Āfāq al-thaqāfa wa’l-turāth vol. 2 no. 33(2001), pp. 6–15.

30 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, vol. 13, p. 21. The term ḍidd is here used in the sense antonym, whereasit as a technical term in the aḍdād-literature means autoantonym.

31 Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 36.

32 Arne Ambros, A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag,2004), p. 29; Badawi and Abdel Haleem, Arabic-English Dictionary, p. 51.

33 Muqātil, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 41 f.; Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 45 f.; al-ʿAskarī,Taṣḥīh al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 53 ff.; Ibn al-ʿImād, Kashf al-sarāʾir, p. 207 f. According tothe reading of Q. 9:12 of Ibn ʿĀmir (d. 118/737, generally accepted as one of the sevenmutawātir readings), aymānahum (‘their oaths’) is to be read īmānahum. Lane gives themeaning ‘granting protection’ for this reading, but according to Ibn Zanjallah it here takes upthe meaning of belief (islām or dīn) (Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 1, p. 100; Ibn Zanjalla,Abū Zarʿa ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Ḥujjat al-qirāʾāt, ed. Saʿīd al-Afghānī (Beirut: Muʾassasatal-Risāla, 2001), p. 315).

34 Al-Ghazālī,Maqṣad al-asnā, p. 84; cf. Burrell and Daher, The Ninety-nine Beautiful Names,p. 62.

35 Cf. several other possible translations in Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 2, p. 1,882.In the wujūh literature three aspects are given for the concept of iṭmiʾnān: ‘tranquillity’ (sukūn,Q. 2:260, Q. 13:28), ‘contentment’ (riḍā, Q. 22:11) and ‘stability’ (aqāma/iqāma, Q. 4:103)(Muqātil, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 31 f.; al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 181 f).


The third aspect is, according to Abū’l-Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, ‘safety’ (amn) (al-Askarī, Taṣḥīh al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 308 f.).

36 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān, vol. 13, p. 21.



39 Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 1, p. 102.

40 Ambros, A Concise Dictionary, p. 29.

41 Badawi and Abdel Haleem, Arabic-English Dictionary, p. 52.

42 Paul Nwyia, Exégèse Coranique et langage mystique: Nouvel essai sur le lexique techniquedes mystiques musulmans (Beirut: Dar al-Mashreq, 1970), p. 35.

43 Homonymous words have two or more non-related senses, whereas polysemic words havetwo or more related senses. In the second case the question is raised as to of whether thedifferent senses are going back to a common (root) meaning, in the case of homonymy thequestion is whether the words are derived from different roots. The existence of homonymouspolysemic words is accepted as a trait of language, and compilations and identification ofmeanings were recorded in the lexicographical works as well as discussed in the literature oflegal hermeneutics (Lidia Bettini, art. ‘Mu�starak’ in Kees Versteegh, Mushira Eid, AlaaElgibali, Manfred Woidich and Andrzej Zaborski (eds), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language andLinguistics (5 vols, Leiden: Brill, 2005–9), vol. 3, pp. 320–3, at p. 322).

44 Ibn al-Anbārī, Muḥammad b. Qāsim, Kitāb al-aḍdād, ed. Muḥammad Abū Faḍl Ibrāhīm(Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1987), pp. 1–2.

45 Ibn al-Anbārī, Kitāb al-aḍdād, p. 2.

46 Several scholars have observed possible semantic developments within the Qur’anicvocabulary. Toshihiko Izutsu attested that ‘since Theodor Nöldeke published his epoch-makingview on the matter, may important discoveries have been made regarding the “history” of theQur’anic vocabulary, which have made it clear that the language of Revelation underwent aprofound change semantically after the Prophet’s migration to Mādīnah’ (Izutsu, God and Man,p. 35). One recent example is found in Ohlander, ‘Fear of God (Taqwā) in the Qur’ān’. In thepresent study my focus will not be on polysemy of the text in historical terms, contending withIzutsu that ‘we may also treat the Qur’anic vocabulary as a whole as a static system’ (Izutsu,God and Man, p. 35).

47 Al-Zarkashī, Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad, al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, ed. Yūsuf ʿAbdal-Raḥmān al-Maraʿshlī (4 vols, Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1994), vol. 1, p. 207 ff.

48 Ibn Fāris, Abū’l-Ḥusayn Aḥmad b. Fāris b. Zakariyā, al-Ṣāḥibī fī fiqh al-lugha al-ʿArabiyyawa-masāʾilihā wa-sunan al-ʿArab fī kalāmihā, ed. Aḥmad Ḥasan Busuj (Beirut: Dār al-Kutubal-ʿIlmiyya, 2007), p. 183 f. I use coherence here ‘semi-technically of the way in which thecontent of connected speech or text hangs together’ (P.H. Matthews, art. ‘Coherence’ in OxfordReference Online, URL: http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t36.e558 [accessed 15.09.09]. Apparently one of the first challenges to the thenprevalent idea in Western scholarship of the disjointedness of the Qur’anic text came in anarticle by Richard M. Frank in which he demonstrated textual coherence within the unit of thesura through an analysis of Sūrat al-Munāfiqīn (Richard M. Frank, ‘The Literary Unity of Sūratal-Munāfiqīn (Q. 63)’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 23 (1961), pp. 257–69). In the past fewdecades a number of studies have appeared which theoretically and empirically highlight thecoherence of the Qur’anic text. See examples of a variety of approaches in: Mustansir Mir,Coherence in the Qur’an: A Study of Iṣlāhī’s Concept of Naẓm in Tadabbur-i Qur’an(Indianapolis: American Trust Publication, 1986); Neal Robinson, Discovering the Qur’an: AContemporary Approach to a Veiled Text (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2003


(1996)); Hussein Abdul-Raof, Consonance in the Qur’an: A Conceptual, Intertextual andLinguistic Analysis (München: Lincom Europa, 2005); Salwa M.S. El-Awa, Textual Relationsin the Qur’an: Relevance, Coherence and Structure (London: Routledge, 2005); AngelikaNeuwirth, Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007(1981)); Michel Cuypers, Le Festin: Une lecture de la sourate al-Māʾida (Paris: Lethielleux,2007), translated into English as The Banquet: A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qur’an(Miami: Convivium, 2009). Semantic coherence through the wujūh and naẓāʾir perspective is,however, still understudied, with the exception of Nwyia, Exégèse Coranique; MuhammadAbdus Sattar, ‘Wujuh al-Qur’an: A Branch of Tafsir Literature’, Islamic Studies 17 (1978),pp. 138–52; Salwā Muḥammad al-ʿAwwā, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir fī’l-Qurʾān al-karīm (Cairo:Dār al-Shurūq, 1998).

49 Al-Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-Dīn, al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, ed. Muṣṭafā Dīb al-Bughā (2 vols,Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1996), vol. 1, p. 445. Following A.J. Arberry, wujūh and naẓāʾirhave been translated as respectively ‘polysemy/homonymy’ and ‘synonymy’ (Herbert Berg, art.‘Polysemy in the Qur’an’ in Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān). To my understanding this is not acompletely precise translation.

50 In the literature of ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, the word wujūh also refers to levels of meaning, that is,alternative interpretations of one passage, often on the basis of a literal (ḥaqīqī) versusmetaphorical (majāzī) reading. Ibn al-ʿImād seems to understand the term wujūh in the broadsense as encompassing both contextually defined aspects of meaning in one lexical item orexpression in different contexts and levels of meanings in a single textual unit. He is referring toa ḥadīth from the Prophet in which he says, ‘Nobody will have a thorough understanding unlesshe sees many aspects (wujūh) in the Qur’an’ (Ibn al-ʿImād, Kashf al-sarāʾir, p. 43). Cf.Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Namarī al-Qurṭubī, Jāmiʿ bayān al-ʿilmwa-faḍlihi wa-mā yanbaghi fī riwayatihi wa-ḥamlihi, ed. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmānn Fūʾāz AḥmadZamarlī (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2003), p. 98, where the ḥadīth is reported on the authorityof Shidād b. Aws (d. 58/677). Nevertheless, when analysing different aspects of a word Ibnal-ʿImād confines himself to citing different Qur’anic passages, and hence he is confininghimself to the first meaning of wujūh.

51 As we will see the adjective amīn is included in the discussion of amāna.

52 Martin R. Zammit, A Comparative Lexical Study of Qur’ānic Arabic (Leiden: Brill, 2002),p. 13.

53 Others have however made such attempts, among them al-Suyūṭī, in his Itqān fī ʿulūmal-Qurʾān and al-Muhadhdhab fī-mā waqaʿa fī’l-Qurʾān min al-muʿarrab, translated intoEnglish in William Y. Bell, The Mutawakkili of as-Suyuti: A Translation of the Arabic Text withIntroduction, Notes and Indices (Yale University, unpublished PhD thesis, 1924). Although afew more recent works have contested some of his conclusions, Arthur Jeffery’s The ForeignVocabulary of the Qur’an (Baroda: Oriental Intitute, 1938) is still the standard reference. Cf.Michael Carter, ‘Foreign Vocabulary’ in Andrew Rippin (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to theQurʾān (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), pp. 120–39.

54 I contend with scholars such as Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) that foreign words haveat different stages been incorporated into the Arabic lexicon, but I will take an interest in theirgenealogy only so far as I find it semantically informing.

55 Ibn al-Jawzī is, however, referring to an earlier work of al-Kalbī (Muḥammad b. al-Sāʾibb. Bishr al-Kalbī, d. 146/763) (Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 11). Reference has also beengiven to earlier works by ʿIkrima (d. 105/723–4) and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭalḥa (d. 143/760), but little isknown about these non-extant works (al-ʿAwwā, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 19).

56 Editors of some of the works trace many of the interpretations to the great tafsīrcompilation of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), although we cannot conclude from this whether


the authors actually used al-Ṭabarī as a direct source or if they were drawing on a commonheritage.

57 Al-ʿAskarī, Taṣḥīh al-wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 25.

58 Al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 37.

59 Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 11 f.

60 Ibn al-ʿImād, Kashf al-sarāʾir, p. 47.

61 As in the case of synonyms, there was a debate about whether there is such a thing asautoantonyms in the Arabic language. However the prevalent view was that the phenomenonexists, and further discussions concentrated on which words are to be considered autoantonyms(Bettini, art. ‘Mu�starak’).

62 Al-Sikkīt, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq, Kitāb al-aḍdād, ed. Muḥammad ʿAwda Salāma AbūJarī (Port Said: Maktaba al-Thaqāfa al-Dīniyya, n.d.); Ibn al-Anbārī, Kitāb al-aḍdād. Cf.Bettini, art. ‘Mu�starak’; al-ʿAwwā, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 80 ff. Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāqb. al-Sikkīt was a specialist in lexicography and Arabic poetry who wrote a number of books onthe Arabic lexicon, while Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim b. al-Anbārī was a philologist andtraditionist. Among Ibn al-Anbārī’s teachers was the renowned philologist Thaʿlab (d. 291/904)of the Kufan school, and he states in the introduction to his Kitāb al-aḍdād that his ambition inthe present work is to gather whatever bits and pieces of the aḍdād of the Arabic language havebeen presented by his forerunners (Ibn al-Anbārī, Kitāb al-aḍdād, p. 13).

63 Ibn al-Anbārī, Kitāb al-aḍdād, pp. 3–4.

64 Al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 73; Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 24.

65 Abdel Haleem’s translation runs as follows: … or knowingly betray [other people’s] trustin you.

66 Al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashāf, vol. 3, p. 547. Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī offers differentexplanations for amāna in this verse: ‘divine unity’ (tawḥīd), ‘integrity’ (ʿadāla), ‘thealphabet’ (al-ḥurūf al-tahajjī) and ‘reason’ (ʿaql). However he prefers the latter on account ofreason being instrumental in gaining insight into the divine unity, developing integrity andlearning the alphabet (al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 35).

67 Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, vol. 5, p. 91. Al-Dāmaghānī is by mentioning the word ‘key’ (miftāḥ)here alluding to this historical context mentioned (al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 73).

68 Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, vol. 5, p. 91.

69 Al-Qurṭubī, Tafsīr, vol. 5, p. 166.



72 In Q. 8:55–6 the people who do not fulfil their pledges are described as disbelievers,unmindful of God and the worst creatures (sharra’l-dawābb). Abdel Haleem translates the termdawābb as ‘creatures’ in accordance with the general lexical meaning of the word, whichincludes both rational and irrational beings, while another predominant signification is ‘beasts’(Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 1, p. 842). The latter is recalling the aforementioned idea oftrustworthiness as true humanity.

73 Ibn Zanjalla, Ḥujjat al-qirāʾāt, p. 482, p. 724.

74 Ibn Zanjalla, Ḥujjat al-qirāʾāt, p. 482, p. 724.

75 Cf. also Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 1, p. 826.

76 This ḥadīth is reported in slightly differing variants from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh (Aḥmad b.Ḥanbal, Musnad Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh (n.p.: n.d.), no. 14,186).


77 The historical context is, according to al-Ṭabarī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, Qatāda(d. 117/735), Zayd b. Aslam (d. 136/753–4), ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Zayd (d. 182/798), al-Shaʿbī(d. between 103/721 and 110/728) and al-Ḍaḥḥāk (d. 105/723–4), an incident in the Prophet’shousehold. His wife Ḥafsa had seen the Prophet with Maryam the Copt when he was due atʿĀʾisha’s room, allegedly because of some honey Maryam served him. The Prophet askedḤafsa not to tell ʿĀʾisha, but she did, and this verse was sent down on that occasion (al-Ṭabarī,Tafsīr, vol. 28, p. 151).

78 Wa-anā la-kum nāṣiḥun amīnun, of Hūd in Q. 7:68; innī la-kum rasūlun amīnun, ofNoah, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Lot, Shuʿayb and Moses in, respectively, Q. 26:107, 125, 143, 162, 178 andQ. 44:18.

79 According to al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr, the feminine pronoun -hā is referring specifically to theQurʾān (masc.) or āyāt al-Qurʾān (fem.), linking the verse to the historical context of thechallenging situation in Mecca versus the new situation of relief in Medina (al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr,vol. 7, p. 174). Al-Rāzī, on the other hand, contends that it refers to the concept of monotheism(al-tawḥīd, masc.), while in al-Zamakhsharī’s tafsīr it refers either to the Scripture, wisdom andprophethood (fem. in capacity of being plural) or to prophethood (fem.) (al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr, vol.13, p. 56; al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashāf, vol. 2, p. 41).

80 According to Ibn Isḥāq, the Prophet was given this epithet in pre-Islamic Mecca(Ibn Isḥāq, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya li-Ibn Hishām (2 vols, Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, n. d.), vol. 2,p. 661).

81 Whereas Abdel Haleem translates the term ḥummilu with ‘charged to obey’, I choose thetranslation of Marmaduke Pickthall for ḥummilu in order to elucidate my point, and I translatelam yaḥmiluhā as ‘do not undertake it’ in accordance with the translation of Q. 33:72 in whichthe human being takes upon himself (ḥamala) the trust (al-amāna).

82 Ibn al-Anbārī, Kitāb al-aḍdād, p. 34; al-Sikkīt, Kitāb al-aḍdād, p. 137. Likewise Ibn Fāriscites a verse: ‘I kept my innermost secret safe with a trustee who grasped it, and the trustee keptthe truster’, and he observes that the first al-amīn is a mafʿūl and the second is a fāʿil (Ibn Fāris,Muʿjam, vol. 1, p. 134).

83 Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 23.

84 Al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr, vol. 9, p. 36.


86 Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 23; al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 36.

87 This form of trust may be referred to as basic trust, as moral philosopher Annette Baier doesin her article ‘Trust and Antitrust’, Ethics 96 (1986), pp. 231–60, at p. 241.

88 Abdel Haleem translates here ‘heard the lie’, the pronoun ‘it’ interpreted as referring to ‘lie’(ʿifk) in the previous verse.

89 The historical context of passage Q. 24:11–20 is, according to al-Ṭabarī, the so-called ʿifk,the incident where ʿĀʾisha, the wife of the Prophet, was falsely accused of adultery (al-Ṭabarī,Tafsīr, vol. 18, p. 68 ff).

90 See also Q. 24:13.

91 Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts, p. 90 ff.

92 ẓann is a ḍidd (‘autoantonym’) carrying in the Qur’an meanings of certainty, of doubtand suspicion, of imagination, reckoning and lying (Muqātil, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 158; Ibnal-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 196; al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 332). Accordinglyẓann has to be interpreted contextually. When it is qualifyed by khayran in Q. 24:12 it translates‘think well’, whereas when it is associated with a possible ithm in Q. 49:12 it may translate as‘suspicion’, as indeed is Abdel Haleem’s preferred choice. In view of the following discussion


in al-Rāzī’s tafsīr on ẓann in the latter verse, it seems, however, more appropriate to translatethe term with the slighly more neutral term ‘assumption’.


94 Al-Rāzī does not provide an isnād for this alleged ḥadīth, neither is this exact wordingreported in the major works of ḥadīth. However wordings to a similar effect are found in otherreports, such as the following Prophetic saying on the authority of Abū Hurayra: ‘Avoidassumption, for assumption is the most fallacious speech’ (Abū’l-Ḥusayn Muslim b. al-Hujjājal-Qushayrī al-Naysābūrī, ṢaḥīḥMuslim (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2008), p. 994, in theKitāb al-birr, Bāb taḥrīm al-ẓann wa’l-tajassus wa’l-tanāfus wa’l-tanājush wa-naḥūhā. Seealso al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad Maḥmūd Ḥasan Naṣṣār (Beirut:Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2007), p. 506, in the Kitāb al-wasāya, Bāb fī qawl Allāh taʿālā minbaʿd waṣīya yūṣī bihā aw dayn).



97 A fāsiq is, according to al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, a ‘transgressor’ in Qur’anic vocabulary,accepting the faith but disobedient to its rulings. The notion of fāsiq then is more generalthan kāfir, and ẓālim is even more general than fāsiq (al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt,p. 382). I’m adopting one of Lane’s translations of the term here, while Abdel Haleemtranslates it with the less marked ‘troublemaker’ (Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 2,p. 2,398).

98 My underscore. Whereas Arberry chooses the same construction, Pickthall translates thepassage as, and if one of you entrusteth to another ….




102 I would like to thank Dr Ayman Shihadeh for calling my attention to this point.

103 Ayman Shihadeh, The Teleological Ethics of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (Boston: Brill, 2006),p. 170 ff.

104 Al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr, vol. 16, p. 144 f.; cf. Shihadeh, Teleological Ethics, p. 173.


106 Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 2, p. 3,057. Al-Damāghānī notes two aspects ofwafāʾ. The first is ‘completion’ (tamām), as in the cognate verb waffā in Sūrat al-Najm: andIbrāhīm who fulfilled his duty (alladhī waffā, Q. 53:37). The second aspect given is ‘fulfillmentof pledges and promises’ (‘al-wafāʾ bi’l-ʿahd wa’l-waʿd’), as in Q. 2:40 cited above(al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 473). It can, however, be argued that the secondaspect is closer to be a specification of the first than a different one.

107 Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 1, p. 826. The underscored text is my transliteration ofLane’s Arabic text.


109 Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 118; al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 199 f.

110 Badawi and Abdel Haleem do not differentiate between these discourses in theiranalysis of the verb khāna, but suggest three aspects that are all general: ‘to betray’ (Q. 8:71),‘to fail a trust’ (Q. 12:52) and ‘to break a pledge’ (Q. 8:27). The verbal aspect of the maṣdarkhiyāna is, according to Badawi and Abdel Haleem, ‘breaking of a covenant, betraying’, andthe nominal aspect ‘treachery, betrayal’ (Badawi and Abdel Haleem), Arabic-EnglishDictionary, p. 291.


111 Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 118; al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 199 f.Whereas al-Damāghānī chooses the specific term maʿṣiya fī’l-Islām, Ibn al-Jawzī gives thegeneral term al-maʿṣiya here.

112 Abdel Haleem’s translation of Q. 2:187 highlights the moral aspect, in accordance withthe view of M.A. Draz. In Draz’s study on the moral teaching of the Qur’an, he holds thathuman acceptance of a religious responsibility transforms it into a moral responsibility(M.A. Draz, La morale du Korane: Etude comparée de la morale théoretique du Koran suivied’uneclassification de versets choisis, formant le code complet de la morale pratique (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), p. 108; translated in M.A. Draz, The Moral World ofthe Qur’an, tr. Danielle Robinson and Rebecca Masterton (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), p. 69).Draz refers to man’s pre-existential acceptance of the responsibility as a latent aspect inQ. 33:72 (Draz, La morale du Korane, p. 105; translated in Draz, The Moral World, p. 68).According to Lisān al-ʿArab the social aspect should however be taken into consideration withregard to this verse: ‘that is they betray each other’ (‘ayy baʿḍukum baʿdan’) (Ibn Manẓūr,Lisān, vol. 13, p. 144).

113 Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 118; al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 199 f.


115 This is the interpretation chosen by Abdel Haleem in his translation, in accordance witha number of mufassirūn, among them al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī (al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, vol. 12,p. 140; al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashāf, vol. 2, p. 461). According to al-Rāzī this is the tafsīr of themajority (al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr, vol. 18, p. 123).

116 This interpretation is chosen by Ibn Kathīr (Ibn Kathīr, ʿImād al-Dīn Ismāʿīl, TafsīrIbn Kathīr, ed. Muṣṭafā al-Sayyid Muḥammad, Muḥammad Faḍl al-ʿAjmāwī, Muḥammadal-Sayyid Rashād, ʿAlī Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Ḥasan ʿAbbās Quṭb (15 vols, Giza: Muʾassasatal-Qurṭuba, 2000), vol. 8, p. 50. Al-Rāzī noted that this interpretation would be according to thelogic of the textual context, yet he does not prefer it (al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr, vol. 18, p. 123).

117 Yet another two options not related to zinā are given in the literature. The wife may betalking about the trust relationship between her and Joseph, in which case her intended meaningwould be that she didn’t say anything about him opposing the truth while he was in prison(al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr, vol. 18, p. 123). The other option is that it may be al-ʿAzīz who is reassuringJoseph that he was not unaware of his fidelity (al-Qurṭubī, Tafsīr, vol. 9, p. 137).

118 Ibn al-Jawzī, Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn, p. 118; al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 199.

119 Abdel Haleem chooses here the translation ‘learn of’ instead of the more common ‘fear’for takhāfūna following the meaning of the verb ‘to know’, ‘to be certain’ (Abdel Haleem, TheQur’an, p. 114, n. a). I have not found support for this view, but it would suggest that breakingthe treaty has to be based upon a stronger impetus than mere fear of the other party’s intentionto break it.

120 Al-Dāmaghānī, al-Wujūh wa’l-naẓāʾir, p. 199.

121 Al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, vol. 5, p. 169 ff.


123 Ibn Fāris, Muʿjam, vol. 5, p. 454. Abdel Haleem, like other translators, translates infāq as‘spending’ in this verse: Say, ‘If you possessed the very stores of my Lord’s bounty, you wouldhold them back in your fear of spending (khashyata’l-infāq): man is ever grudging.


125 See Q. 6:35.






130 Ibn Isḥāq, al-Sīra, vol. 2, p. 661. Cf. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts, p. 91.

131 In a variant ḥadīth, reported on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar, a fourthcharacteristic is added: ‘and if he quarrels, he acts indecently’ (al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī,22, in the Kitāb al-īmān, Bāb ʿalāmat al-munāfiq; Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 46, in the Kitābal-īmān, Bāb bayān khiṣāl al-munāfiq).



134 The text (li-yuʿadhdhiba’llāhu’l-munāfiqīna wa’l-munāfiqāti wa’l-mushrikīna wa’l-mushrikāti wa-yatūba’llāhu ʿala’l-muʾminīna wa’l-muʾmināt) reads in Abdel Haleem’stranslation: God will punish the hypocrites and the idolaters, both men and women, and turnwith mercy to the believers, both men and women.

135 Russel Hardin, ‘Trustworthiness’, Ethics 107 (1996), pp. 26–42, at p. 28.

136 Hardin, ‘Trustworthiness’, p. 28; see also Russel Hardin, Trust (Cambridge: Polity Press,2006), p. 25.

137 Baier, ‘Trust and Antitrust’, p. 242.

138 A responsibility framed by the general command of the Qur’anic social ethics, help oneanother to do what is right and good (al-birr wa’l-taqwā); do not help one another towards sinand hostility (Q. 5:2).

139 The option of translating tawakkul as ‘reliance’ and amāna as ‘trust’ to distinguishbetween the two Arabic terms as well as the two different discourses they pertain to, has herebeen abandoned. First, there is a long tradition for translation of both terms with ‘trust’,secondly, translating them with the same term highlights the intersection between thediscourses. In addition, in the literature on trust, several authors have distinguished between‘trust’ and ‘reliance’ in a way that gives reliance an instrumental sense that does not make theterm ‘reliability’ suitable for tawakkul. Annette Baier suggests that while trust is a form ofreliance on the good will of others, reliance on predictability in particular attitudes and reactionsof others is another form of dependency which cannot be described as trust; trust can bebetrayed, not just disappointed. Trust then involves morality, whereas reliance does not (Baier,‘Trust and Antitrust’, pp. 234–5). Philosopher Richard Holton has, on the other hand, claimedthat the difference is made by the stance of the truster; the truster takes a stance of trust towardsthe person he relies on (Richard Holton, ‘Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe’, AustralasianJournal of Philosophy 72 (1994), pp. 63–76, at p. 4). In both cases it seems to me that theelement of discretionary power is less dominant in reliance than in trust, but as far as theQur’anic concept of tawakkul is concerned, divine discretionary power is limitless.



conceptions of trust in the qur'an

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