Al-Baqarah 2:124

The issue

Within this verse we notice that the reading that would make the word “evildoers'' more proper in Arabic would be in the nominative instead of the accusative case of the noun, i.e., “The evildoers are not within the reach of My Promise.” “Evildoers'' should read in Arabic al-z. ālimūn instead of al-z. ālimīn. But “evildoers” is written in the current Arabic Qur’ān in the accusative (objective case), the case that some Muslim exegetes try to defend. For example, al-Tabarī gives the following explanation:

[I]t is possible to use the nominative or the accusative of ‘al-z. ālimīn’;… that is, because everything a man achieves, has been achieved by him….

[It could be stated]: The good of so-and-so has reached me, or I have received his good. One time the action of the verb is directed to the good [that the person has received], and another time it is directed to the person himself.

However, we find the nominative case was present in other codices. In the codex of Ibn Mas‘ūd, the word is found in the nominative: “But My Promise is not within the reach of evildoers (al-z. ālimūn),” meaning that the evildoers are the ones who do not reach the Promise of Allah.

Reading the word in the nominative case has been affirmed by others. “Some of them read: “‘But My Promise is not within the reach of evildoers,’ al-z. ālimūn, meaning that the one who is an evildoer among your descendents will not reach my Promise.”

There are also those who admit to the erroneous use of al-z. ālimīn found in the common Qur’ān. Abū Raja’, Qatāda, al-A‘mash, Ibn Mas‘ūd, and T. alh. a Ibn Mus.arrif read it as “al-z. ālimūn” in the nominative, because a promise is not achieved. Thus, the meaning is [“]My Promise does not extend to the evildoers[”] or [“]the evildoers will not reach it[”].

Al-Zajjāj commented, “It is a very good and eloquent reading. However, I do not read by it; neither should it be read as such because it contradicts the Qur’ān.”