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Al-Mumtahana الممتحنة

In plain wordsEditorial

An editorial summary of the translations. Not a translation or tafsir.

Thirteen verses on migrating women arriving from Mecca and being examined, on families divided by belief, and on the instruction that God does not forbid kindness and justice toward those who did not fight you over religion or drive you out. Abraham is held up as an example, with one thing in what he said explicitly excepted.

AALAMIN Editor · signed 29 August 2026

not a scholar — what this signature means

I am not a scholar, and nothing here asks you to treat me as one. The plain words on this site are my restatement of what the five translations shown above say, together with counts derived from the text itself — nothing more. I sign them so that a named person is accountable for every sentence, not so you'll take my word for anything. The authority on this page is the text and its translators. If my words don't match theirs, mine are the ones that are wrong.

Read the surah Go to a verse

Every verse as a number; tap one to open it. Shaded numbers mark verses where the translations differ most.

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worded differently

Where the translators differDerived

The verses of this surah whose wording differs most, most differently worded first. Under each, the two renderings that share the fewest words are quoted in full under their translators' names; every rendering is on the verse's own page. This measures wording, not meaning.

60:2
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.69. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.86.

Talal Itani · 2012

Whenever they encounter you, they treat you as enemies, and they stretch their hands and tongues against you with malice. They wish that you would disbelieve.

John Medows Rodwell · 1861

If they meet with you they will prove your foes: hand and tongue will they put forth for your hurt, and will desire that you become infidels again
60:13
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.67. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.80.

Talal Itani · 2012

O you who believe! Do not befriend people with whom God has become angry, and have despaired of the Hereafter, as the faithless have despaired of the occupants of the graves.

John Medows Rodwell · 1861

O Believers! enter not into amity with those against whom God is angered; they despair of the life to come, even as the Infidels despair of the inmates of the tombs
Show all verses the translators word differently
60:7
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.67. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.79.

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

It may be that Allah will ordain love between you and those of them with whom ye are at enmity. Allah is Mighty, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful

George Sale · 1734

Peradventure God will establish friendship between yourselves and such of them as ye now hold for enemies: For God is powerful; and God is inclined to forgive, and merciful
60:8
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.67. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.72.

Talal Itani · 2012

As for those who have not fought against you for your religion, nor expelled you from your homes, God does not prohibit you from dealing with them kindly and equitably. God loves the equitable.

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

Allah forbiddeth you not those who warred not against you on account of religion and drove you not out from your homes, that ye should show them kindness and deal justly with them. Lo! Allah loveth the just dealers
60:6
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.66. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.78.

Talal Itani · 2012

There is an excellent example in them for you-for anyone who seeks God and the Last Day. But whoever turns away-God is the Self-Sufficient, the Most Praised.

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

Verily ye have in them a goodly pattern for everyone who looketh to Allah and the Last Day. And whosoever may turn away, lo! still Allah, He is the Absolute, the Owner of Praise
More about this surahDerived
Verses
13
Words
348
Place
Medinan
Revelation position
91th of 114 in an ordering its source does not name
Opening letters
None
Bismillah
Carried by the surah, unnumbered
Word-by-word breakdown
53.2% of 348 words carry an analysis
  1. 96
  2. 68
  3. 73
  4. 74
  5. 1
  6. 111
  7. 81
  8. 87
  9. 92
  10. 89
  11. 93
  12. 94
  13. 103
  14. 100
  15. 108
  16. 102
  17. 107
  18. 109
  19. 105
  20. 113
  21. 114
  22. 112
  23. 53
  24. 80
  25. 97
  26. 91
  27. 85
  28. 95
  29. 106
  30. 101
  31. 75
  32. 104
  33. 77
  34. 50
  35. 90
  36. 86
  37. 54
  38. 38
  39. 7
  40. 72
  41. 36
  42. 25
  43. 35
  44. 19
  45. 20
  46. 56
  47. 26
  48. 27
  49. 28
  50. 17
  51. 10
  52. 11
  53. 12
  54. 15
  55. 6
  56. 37
  57. 31
  58. 34
  59. 39
  60. 40
  61. 41
  62. 42
  63. 43
  64. 44
  65. 45
  66. 46
  67. 51
  68. 88
  69. 18
  70. 16
  71. 71
  72. 14
  73. 21
  74. 23
  75. 32
  76. 52
  77. 67
  78. 69
  79. 70
  80. 78
  81. 79
  82. 82
  83. 84
  84. 30
  85. 29
  86. 83
  87. 2
  88. 8
  89. 3
  90. 33
  91. 60
  92. 4
  93. 99
  94. 57
  95. 47
  96. 13
  97. 55
  98. 76
  99. 65
  100. 98
  101. 59
  102. 24
  103. 22
  104. 63
  105. 58
  106. 49
  107. 66
  108. 64
  109. 61
  110. 62
  111. 48
  112. 5
  113. 9
  114. 110

Meccan Medinan

Counted from the text and the spine at build time, not written into the page. Opening letters are derived from the edition's orthography: an opening token of at most five letters carrying none of its vocalisation marks. The revelation position is reproduced from Revelation order as encoded by the Tanzil metadata, which does not name whose ordering it is.

Analysis detailsDerived

These figures count the words the translations share. They measure wording, not meaning, and they do not say which translation is right.

Mean score across this surah
0.61 across 13 scored verses

The page says a verse is worded differently only above the cut below. The cut is a stated convention, not a property of the text, and it can be changed.

The cut
0.644
Share of measured verses above it
33%
Verses above it
2,079
Verses measured
6,236
Method Wording differences — derived 13 September 2026
Method
Mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the lowercased word sets of the cleared translations of each verse. A verse is marked as worded differently when its score falls in the top third of the corpus — the cut set out in Analysis details.
Scored
6,236 verses
As at
13 September 2026, 10:56 UTC
Sources for this page

Surah metadataTanzil Qur'an metadata ·quran-data.xml v1.0·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution — version not specified by the source·retrieved 24 Aug 2026

Surah metadata from Tanzil Qur'an metadata (quran-data.xml, version 1.0), Tanzil Project, tanzil.net. (C) 2008-2009 Tanzil.info. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution; the source does not state a version. Values are reproduced unchanged; this site selects and arranges them, and derives verse ranges from the division start points. https://tanzil.net/res/text/metadata/quran-data.xml