Sūrah 113 · Āyāt 3–5

The Three Particular Evils (113:3–5)

Having sought refuge from the evil of all creation, the surah singles out three evils for special mention. al-Tabatabaʼi (al-Mizan) reads this as “the specific after the general, for added attention,” and names the three — the night when it enters, the sorcery of sorcerers, and the envier — “because of the prevalence of heedlessness regarding them.” The Enlightening Commentary likewise frames vv. 3–5 as “the main origins of evil” that must be carefully noted.

{Darkness when it gathers} (v. 3)

al-Tabarsi, al-Tusi, and al-Mizan converge on the night when it enters with its darkness (Ibn ʿAbbas, al-Hasan, Mujahid). The night is singled out, says al-Tabarsi, because “the dissolute proceed to corruption by night” and vermin and beasts do most harm then; al-Mizan explains that darkness “aids the evildoer by concealing him,” and the person is weaker against attack by night. The sources also preserve a lexical alternative — al-ghasiq as “whatever assaults with its harm” — and al-Tusi and al-Mizan report Kaʿb’s eschatological gloss (a house/door in Hell whose opening makes its people cry out). al-Burhan records ʿAli’s reading that al-ghasiq idha waqab is “the night when it turns away (adbar),” while al-Qummi’s terse gloss links it back to “the one cast into the pit.” The Enlightening Commentary roots qasiq/ghasaq in Raghib’s “intense darkness of midnight” and notes the concomitant sense of “attack or rush,” so the verse covers both the literal night and the evildoer who exploits it.

{Those who blow upon knots} (v. 4)

On al-naffathat fi al-ʿuqad the sources give two complementary readings. The first, from al-Hasan and Qatada in al-Tabarsi and al-Tusi, is the sorceress women who blow upon knots; al-Mizan notes that women are named because sorcery was more prevalent among them, and that the verse “confirms the effect of sorcery in general” — comparing it to the Harut–Marut passage ({they harm no one save by Allah’s leave}, 2:102) and the tale of Pharaoh’s sorcerers. The second reading, which al-Tabarsi ascribes to Abu Muslim (and al-Mizan mentions but calls “far-fetched”), takes the naffathat metaphorically as women who “sway the opinions of men,” ʿaqd meaning “resolve” and nafth its undoing. The Enlightening Commentary surveys both, adds Fakhr al-Razi’s note on women who capture the hearts of the powerful, and — importantly — flags in its own footnote that the “tempting women” reading is “a biased male opinion,” since it would be equally possible to speak of “tempting men.”

On the famous occasion of revelation — that Labid b. al-Aʿsam (or his daughters) bewitched the Prophet, the charm being recovered from the well of Dharwan and undone knot-by-knot as the two surahs were recited — the sources part company over its historicity. al-Tabarsi narrates it (from ʿAʼisha and Ibn ʿAbbas) and then rejects it: one called “bewitched” is as if his intellect were deranged, which God denies of the Prophet ({you follow none but a man bewitched}, 25:8–9); at most the sorcerers tried and failed, and God exposed their deception as a proof of his truthfulness. al-Tusi reasons identically. al-Mizan takes a middle position: the many narrations (Sunni and Shiʿi alike) need not be rejected wholesale, for “bewitched/mad” in 25:8 means intellectual derangement, and there is no proof the Prophet was safeguarded from a merely bodily affliction; al-Burhan transmits the fullest version (with twenty-one knots, and al-Sadiq’s statement that “sorcery is given power only over the eye and the genitals”). The Enlightening Commentary sides with al-Tabarsi: the sanctity of prophethood cannot be impugned, and “there is no trace in the verse” compelling the sorcery reading — the Prophet seeks refuge from such evil as a healthy man seeks refuge from a disease he has never caught. al-Mizan and al-Burhan also record the surah’s standing as part of the Qurʼan against Ibn Masʿud’s reported doubt, which both refute by mass-transmission (tawatur).

{An envier when he envies} (v. 5)

The surah seals with envy. al-Tabarsi and al-Tusi define the envier as “one who wishes the removal of a blessing from its possessor,” distinguishing blameworthy ḥasad from praiseworthy ghibṭa (wanting the like for oneself without begrudging the other) — a distinction al-Burhan caps with al-Sadiq’s words: “the believer feels ghibṭa and does not envy; the hypocrite envies and does not.” al-Tabarsi adds the dimension of the evil eye (“the eye is real”) and the protective formula ma shaʼ Allah, and al-Mizan agrees the verse comprehends “the one with the [evil] eye,” a “psychic envy.” al-Burhan gathers a rich cluster of traditions on envy — that it “devours faith as fire devours firewood,” that God warned Moses against it, and the parable of Jesus’ short companion who walked on water until self-admiration sank him. The Enlightening Commentary concludes with the same verdict the classical sources reach: envy is “the worst and most disgraceful” of traits, the motive of the first murder (Cain and Abel) and a perennial obstacle in the path of prophets — which is why the surah, having gathered all evils, “seals it with envy, that it be known the basest of dispositions.”