The corrupt and the good
ٱلْخَبِيثَ مِنَ ٱلطَّيِّبِ
al-khabīth min aṭ-ṭayyib — the corrupt from the good
Across five contexts the Qur'an pairs khabīth and ṭayyib as a fixed opposition, but shifts both the verb that joins them (distinguish, exchange, be equal) and the domain (people, wealth, gendered pairings, with 5:100 naming no domain), showing the pair as a general sorting principle rather than a term for one thing.
The pair al-khabīth and aṭ-ṭayyib recurs in five distinct contexts, and the differences between them are as instructive as the recurrence. In (3:179) Allah 'has not been such as to leave the believers upon what you are upon until He distinguishes the corrupt from the good' – here the pair is what a process of separation yields, applied to a mixed community of believers. In (8:37) the same verb yamīzu appears with Allah as subject: He distinguishes 'the corrupt from the wholesome' and then piles the corrupt together for Hell, so the pair marks the two outcomes of a sorting. In (4:2) the pair appears in a prohibition against exchanging the foul for the good, in the context of giving orphans their wealth; what the two terms denote is left unstated, and the verb is yatabaddalu, exchange. In (5:100) the pair is a statement of non-equality: 'The foul and the good are not equal, even if the abundance of the foul impresses you' – quantity is explicitly denied the power to overturn the distinction, and no domain is named. In (24:26) the pair is distributed across gendered forms and joined by li-, 'for': corrupt females for corrupt males, good females for good males, in a context where people are cleared of what they say. Read together, the occurrences show the pair functioning as a movable opposition: the words stay constant while the domain (people, property, gendered pairings, or none named) and the joining verb change, and each change tells the reader what kind of operation is at issue – separating, swapping, comparing, or matching.
Where it occurs
- 3:179 The pair is the outcome of Allah's distinguishing within a community left in its mixed state until that separation occurs.
- 4:2 The pair appears in a prohibition against exchanging the foul for the good in the context of giving orphans their wealth; what the two terms denote is left unstated.
- 5:100 The pair is set in a declaration of non-equality, with abundance of the foul explicitly unable to equalize them.
- 8:37 The pair is again what Allah distinguishes, with the corrupt then gathered and consigned to Hell.
- 24:26 The pair appears in gendered plural forms joined by 'for', matching corrupt with corrupt and good with good.
All Qur'anic expressions