تزکیہ قرآن کریم میں

Sūrat al-Shams opens with a series of oaths without parallel in the entire Qurʾan: by the sun and its brightness, and the moon when it follows it, and the day when it displays it, and the night when it covers it, and the heaven and Him who built it, and the earth and Him who spread it. Seven successive cosmic oaths, describing the cosmos in its greatest forms: light following light, darkness following darkness, and the edifice above the expanse. Then, after this immense gathering of the greatness of creation, the context suddenly descends to the smallest possible point: the soul of a single human being. "And [by] the soul and Him who proportioned it, and inspired it [with discernment of] its wickedness and its righteousness — he has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who buries it" [91:1–10]. The entire cosmos is summoned as a witness to a single case: that this small soul carries within it two contradictory possibilities, and that its success depends upon a single specific act: that it be "purified (tuzakkā)."

This act — tazkiyah (purification) — is the axis of this article in the series of Qurʾanic concepts, and it is a concept that carries in its very linguistic root a surprise: that it does not distinguish between purification and growth, but makes them a single meaning.

Delimiting the word and the count

The root "z-k-w" occurs in the Qurʾan fifty-nine times, in seven forms: once as the triliteral verb "zakā" [24:21], twelve times as a verb from the form-II "zakkā" (among them 2:129, 2:151, 3:164, 4:49, 9:103, 91:9), eight times as a verb from the form-V "tazakkā" [20:76, 35:18 twice, 79:18, 80:3, 80:7, 87:14, 92:18], four times as the elative "azkā" [2:232, 18:19, 24:28, 24:30], thirty-two times as the noun "zakāh" — which alone constitutes more than half the occurrences of the whole root — once as the adjective "zakiyy" [19:19, describing Yaḥyā (peace be upon him)], and once as the noun "zakiyyah" [18:74, in the story of al-Khiḍr]^[2].

This very distribution carries a methodological significance: thirty-two times out of fifty-nine turn to "zakāh" in its specific juristic meaning (the obligatory charity, occurring often paired with prayer), while twenty-seven times remain distributed over verbal forms describing the process of "tazkiyah" as an act connected to the soul, not to wealth. This article is concerned with both branches together, because the single linguistic root that gathers them is the key to understanding, as will become clear.

The linguistic root: when purification unites with growth

In the origin of the language, "zakā" indicates two meanings that seem at first glance separate: purity and cleanness on one hand, and growth and increase on the other. It is said "the crop grew (zakā al-zarʿ)" when it grew and became good, and it is said "the soul was purified (zakat al-nafs)" when it became pure and sound. But the ancient lexicographers did not count these two meanings as two, but as a single meaning: for the crop does not grow a true growth except when it is free of blight, and the soul is not purified a true purification except when it is in a state of growth and increase. Purification, in this origin, is not a diminishment torn from the thing, but is itself the very condition that enables it to grow.

This union between the two meanings is what explains the most wondrous phenomenon in the distribution of the root: that the very word describing the giving out of a portion of wealth — whose outward appearance is a material diminishment — is "zakāh," and that the Qurʾan describes it as "purifying them and causing them to grow (tuṭahhiruhum wa tuzakkīhim)" [9:103] at the same time that it describes what is more than it with the word "azkā" [2:232, 18:19, 24:28, 24:30] — that is, the more growing and the more blessed. So the giving out of wealth, which seems an arithmetical loss, is itself the very act of true growth, exactly as the pruning of the tree — which is a cutting whose outward appearance is diminishment — is what makes it more abundant in fruit.

The central structure: he has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who buries it

The Qurʾan presents in a single verse of Sūrat al-Shams a contrasting image that abridges the central structure of the whole concept: "He has succeeded who purifies it (zakkāhā), and he has failed who buries it (dassāhā)" [91:9–10]. For opposite "zakkāhā" — grew it and purified it — comes the verb "dassāhā," from "al-dass": concealing and burying, as though the one who did not purify his soul did not merely leave it in its first state, but buried it and interred it under layers of heedlessness and caprice, thus preventing it from the growth it was originally inspired with ("and inspired it with its wickedness and its righteousness"). Tazkiyah, then, is not a neutral process, but a battle between a growth that is released and a burial that is practiced, and the result is either success or failure, with no third station.

And the Qurʾan adds to this duality another important tension: who possesses the right of tazkiyah? Eight times the form-V verb "tazakkā" occurs in a form ascribing the act to the human being himself ("And whoever purifies himself only purifies himself for [the benefit of] himself," [35:18]), as though the door of personal striving in self-purification is open to everyone. But in contrast, the Qurʾan warns explicitly against anyone claiming this purification for himself as a self-testimony: "Have you not seen those who claim purity for themselves? Rather, God purifies whom He wills, and they will not be wronged a hair's breadth" [4:49]. So striving in tazkiyah is an obligation upon the servant ("tazakkā" is an act required of him), but the final testimony that this striving has borne fruit is not his to own, but a judgment that none issues save God alone. Whoever purifies himself by himself — that is, testifies to his own purity independently — falls into the very rejected claim that the Qurʾan warned against in another verse: "So do not claim purity for yourselves. He is most knowing of who fears Him" [53:32].

Two additional models: a name and a soul

This root carries two other indications deserving a pause. The first is in the story of Yaḥyā (peace be upon him), when God gives Zakariyyā glad tidings of a boy He describes with a single attribute: "Indeed, We give you glad tidings of a boy whose name is Yaḥyā," then in another place on the tongue of Gabriel: "to give you [tidings of] a pure boy (zakiyyan)" [19:19]. So the attribute chosen for Yaḥyā while he is still glad tidings, before he is born or reaches maturity or is tested, is "pure (zakiyy)" — as though tazkiyah here is prior to the entire human act, an initial gift from God to a servant He selected to bear prophethood, not the result of a cumulative effort alone. This does not oppose what was drawn from tazkiyah being required of the servant ("tazakkā"), but adds to it another dimension: that some servants are granted the origin of purity as a prior gift, so that their striving thereafter is a building upon a foundation, not a founding from nothing.

And the second is in the story of Moses and al-Khiḍr, when al-Khiḍr kills a boy and Moses cries out in objection: "Have you killed a pure soul (nafsan zakiyyah) for [having killed] no soul?" [18:74]. Here Moses describes the soul as "pure" by a purely outward criterion: that it had not committed a known crime. And this solitary place reminds us that the description "purity" in the language may also be used as an initial description of outward innocence, not an unseen testimony to the inner, and that God alone — as became clear to al-Khiḍr afterward — knows of the realities of souls what the most just of prophets does not know outwardly.

A Qurʾanic model: the ordering of the prophetic mission

There recurs in the Qurʾan a threefold description of the mission of the Messenger ﷺ in nearly a single form in four places: "reciting to them His verses and purifying them (yuzakkīhim) and teaching them the Book and wisdom" [2:129, and close to it 2:151, 3:164, 62:2]. Three ordered missions: recitation, then purification, then teaching. This ordering is striking: for purification is not mentioned after teaching as its later fruit, but occupies the middle of the prophetic mission, between the recitation of the text and the teaching of its detailed content. As though the Qurʾan establishes that the purification of the heart and its preparation is not a final result of knowledge, but a condition accompanying it from the very first moment the revelation is recited — for the unpurified heart may hear the verses and memorize the Book and wisdom, without benefiting from either.

And the frequent pairing of "zakāh" with "prayer" — in more than twenty of the thirty-two places — points to an additional dimension of the concept: that tazkiyah in its juristic form is not an isolated individual matter like the psychological purification the verses of Sūrat al-Shams describe, but a social extension of it. For just as the heart needs an inner purification with which its possessor is inspired and in which he strives, the whole society needs a parallel purification embodied in the regular flow of wealth from the rich to the poor, so that riches do not accumulate in a single place and become — as other verses describe it — "a circulation among the wealthy." So the single word draws the two dimensions together: a purity in the breast of the individual, and a purity in the body of the community, and neither is severed from the other in the Qurʾanic system.

The Prophetic witness

The Prophet ﷺ himself, despite being the purifier of his community by the text of the Qurʾan, would supplicate to God to undertake the purification of his own soul: "O God, grant my soul its piety and purify it, for You are the best of those who purify it; You are its Guardian and its Master"^[1]. This supplication embodies precisely the tension the verses disclosed: the Prophet ﷺ does not say "I have purified my soul," but requests purification from God explicitly, and describes God as "the best of those who purify it" — that is, that other than Him, however great his righteousness and standing, is neither its first source nor its final witness. So if this is the supplication of the best of creation, then those below him are more deserving not to purify themselves independently of the judgment of their Lord.

An objective-based (maqāṣidī) reading

A number of exegetes observed, in treating the threefold ordering "recitation, purification, teaching," that placing purification before detailed teaching directs toward the fact that the aim of sending the messengers is not the accumulation of information in the mind, but the reform of the locus of will and intent in the heart first, so that the acquired knowledge thereafter becomes fruitful rather than a burden. And this accords with the Qurʾan's warning against a knowledge that does not benefit — which the Prophet ﷺ sought refuge from in the very supplication in which he requested purification: "O God, I seek refuge in You from a knowledge that does not benefit, and from a heart that is not humbly submissive." For knowledge without a prior or accompanying purification may turn into an instrument for the inspired wickedness rather than the inspired piety, since the very verse that established the concept determined that the soul was inspired with both together: "its wickedness and its righteousness."

The contemporary applied dimension

Whoever strives today to develop or refine himself finds in this concept a correction of two common understandings: the first, that purifying from a defect means only its removal, while the Qurʾan teaches that true purification is that which is accompanied by a growth that takes the place of what was removed — for whoever left a bad habit without replacing it with a righteous act has not yet purified his soul in the complete Qurʾanic sense, but stopped at the halfway point. And the second, that a person supposes his own testimony to his righteousness is enough, while the verses warn against a person being the judge of the purity of his own heart — for the need for an external evaluation, and for the continuation of supplication and neediness, is not a sign of weakness in the journey of tazkiyah, but an essential part of it, as the Prophet ﷺ did when he requested it from his Lord despite his standing.

And in this too is a message to everyone who spends wealth or time that he supposes a loss: zakāh, by its very linguistic root, teaches that the giving that seems a diminishment is often the hidden condition for true growth — in wealth as in the soul.

And the scene of Yaḥyā (peace be upon him) serves as a reminder to whoever raises his children or those under his care: that some readiness for purity is granted early as a gift rather than an acquisition, and that the role of the educator is not to plant purity from nothing so much as it is to protect what was granted and not to bury it — which is the very meaning the verse "and he has failed who buries it" warned against. For how many a sound innate readiness is buried not because it did not exist, but because those around it dealt with it with neglect or harshness until it was interred.

Conclusion

From a cosmic oath by the sun and the moon to a soft prophetic supplication in the depth of the night, the Qurʾan draws the concept of tazkiyah as a growth that is not realized except through purification, and a purification that is not completed except through growth. "He has succeeded who purifies it" is not a promise to whoever cleaned his soul of a defect, but to whoever released in it a new life — and this is what the concepts of this Qurʾanic series, from ḥanīfiyyah to tazkiyah and beyond, seek to describe: a heart established upon its innate origin, so that it stands firm, widens, and grows, until it meets its Lord pure. And God, the Exalted, knows best; He is the Guardian of success.