Trust as the people have trusted
ءَامِنُوا۟ كَمَآ ءَامَنَ ٱلنَّاسُ
āminū kamā āmana n-nāsu — Trust (in God) as the people have trusted
In (2:13) the verb from the root ا م ن appears four times in one verse: a command to trust is issued, and those addressed repeat its exact wording back with a substitution, turning the command into a question of refusal.
The verse opens with an impersonal command: 'when it is said to them, "Trust (in God) as the people have trusted"' (2:13). The command uses the verb twice — an imperative, 'trust', second person masculine plural, followed by a perfect, 'have trusted', third person masculine singular, joined by 'as' to make the people's prior trusting the model for the addressees' action. The addressees then echo the structure word for word: 'Shall we trust as the frivolous have trusted?' (2:13). Their reply repeats the same verb in the imperfect, first person plural, and the same perfect with 'as', but replaces 'the people' with 'the frivolous'. The verse's own comment reverses the substitution: 'It is they who are the frivolous' (2:13), applying the substituted noun to the speakers themselves, and adds 'but they do not know'. The mirror here is not an exchange of the same action between two parties, as in a reciprocal pair, but a quoted command and its distorted echo within one verse: the same verb, the same comparative structure, and one noun swapped. The effect, visible in the verse's words, is that the speakers' attempt to label others rebounds onto them. The final clause, 'they do not know', marks their mislabeling as ignorance rather than informed judgment.
Where it occurs
- 2:13 The verb from ا م ن appears four times: twice in the command 'Trust (in God) as the people have trusted' and twice in the reply 'Shall we trust as the frivolous have trusted?', the reply mirroring the command's structure with one noun substituted.
All Qur'anic expressions