Yūnus 10:61

Wa mā takūnu fī shaʾnin wa mā tatlū minhu min qurʾānin wa lā taʿmalūna min ʿamalin illā kunnā ʿalaykum shuhūdan idh tufīḍūna fīh, wa mā yaʿzubu ʿan rabbika min mithqāli dharratin fi'l-arḍi wa lā fi's-samāʾi wa lā aṣghara min dhālika wa lā akbara illā fī kitābin mubīn

"Whatever matter you are engaged in, whatever you recite of the Qurʾān, whatever work you all do — We are witnesses over you at the moment you plunge into it. Not the weight of a mote escapes your Lord, on the earth or in the sky; nor anything smaller than that or greater, but it is in a clear book."

The verse counts three things, and the sequence must be recorded:

And the change of person must be recorded: two singulars, then a plural. The rhetoricians record this too as iltifāt — as in the twenty-second verse, but in the opposite direction: from singular to plural.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the chain of pronouns: the verse addresses first the messenger and then everyone. And the sentence gathers them all into a single ruling: illā kunnā ʿalaykum shuhūdā.

شَأْن — root ش-أ-ن: a state, a condition, the matter one is engaged in. The breadth of the word is worth recording: not a particular work but any state whatever.

إِذْ تُفِيضُونَ فِيهِ — the root ف-ي-ض: to overflow, to brim and pour. Afāḍa fi'l-ḥadīth — he plunged into the talk, he was immersed in the subject.

And the picture in the word must be recorded: ifāḍa is to enter into something by overflowing into it. The verse, that is, chooses the moment when a person is immersed in his work — the moment when his attention is most scattered and he is least aware of himself.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the concrete sense of the word: the witnessing is stated not from outside the work but from right inside it.

This construct was analysed in detail at Sabaʾ 34/3, and a plain limit was set there per the method (Method). I keep that limit unchanged:

"The atom of modern physics is not to be drawn out of this word."

The renderings the lexicographers give were tabulated there (a mote of dust, a small ant, the smallest part of a thing) and the common point was recorded: dharra is "the smallest thing that can be seen" — not a unit of measurement but a description of a limit.

And it was shown there that the verse itself requires this reading: wa lā aṣgharu min dhālika wa lā akbar — "nor anything smaller than that, nor greater." If dharra were the absolutely smallest particle, the expression "smaller than that" would be meaningless.

The same sentence is in Yūnus as well and yields the same conclusion. I do not go hunting for scientific miracles.

And at al-Zilzāl 99/7-8 the construct had been treated as the measure of a deed; this verse was named there too. The table can be completed:

And the difference in Yūnus must be recorded: in Sabaʾ the construct came as proof that the Hour will come; here it comes as the continuation of the watching over a man at the moment he plunges into his work. The same ruling, that is, looking in the one place to the future and in the other to the present.

لَا يَعْزُبُ — the root ع-ز-ب was analysed at Sabaʾ 34/3: to move away, to fall apart from, to pass out of sight. And it was recorded there: the verse does not say "He does not know", it says "it does not stay far from Him" — knowledge is described not as an act of searching but as an absence of distance. I do not repeat it.

The only difference that belongs here is one of order, and it can be counted:

I record this as an observation about the wording and draw no ruling from it; the contexts of the two verses differ (the one the Hour, the other man's deed), and that the order has to do with this is a possibility, not a finding.