عسى

Core meaning

Verb of eventuality: it sets as possible a fact one hopes for or fears, without asserting it.

Uses

1. عَسَىٰٓ أَن → "it may be that" : a possible fact, most often a favor awaited from God.

   • «عَسَىٰ رَبُّكُمْ أَن يَرْحَمَكُمْ» — "It may be that your Guardian will show you benevolence" (17:8)
   • «وَعَسَىٰٓ أَن تَكْرَهُوا۟ شَيْـًۭٔا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌۭ لَّكُمْ» — "And it may be that you dislike a thing, while it is a good for you" (2:216)

2. هَلْ عَسَيْتُمْ → "might it be that" : the conjugated form, in a question: one suspects in the other what he might do.

   • «هَلْ عَسَيْتُمْ إِن كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلْقِتَالُ أَلَّا تُقَٰتِلُوا۟» — "Might it be that, if combat were prescribed for you, you would not fight" (2:246)

Evidence from the text

The possibility stays open on both sides. In 2:216, the sentence is doubled: "And it may be that you dislike a thing, while it is a good for you; and it may be that you like a thing, while it is an ill for you" (2:216). Human judgment is set there before its limit.

Most often, عسى carries a hope turned toward God: that He restrain the violence of those who disown (4:84), that He overlook (4:99), that He turn with clemency (9:102), that He bring back the lost sons (12:83), that He place affection between enemies (60:7). The fact is never promised: it remains suspended on God, and on what the one who awaits it will do; in 7:129, the annihilated enemy gives way to a test, "so as to look at how you would act".

Distinctions

• لعل — "perhaps": the expected result of an act, whereas عسى sets the possibility of a fact