قَالَ يَٰقَوْمِ أَرَءَيْتُمْ إِن كُنتُ عَلَىٰ بَيِّنَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّى وَءَاتَىٰنِى رَحْمَةً مِّنْ عِندِهِۦ فَعُمِّيَتْ عَلَيْكُمْ أَنُلْزِمُكُمُوهَا وَأَنتُمْ لَهَا كَٰرِهُونَ
qāla yā qawmi a-raʾaytum in kuntu ʿalā bayyinatin min rabbī wa ātānī raḥmatan min ʿindihī fa-ʿummiyat ʿalaykum, a-nulzimukumūhā wa antum lahā kārihūn
"He said: 'My people! Tell me: what if I stand on a clear proof from my Lord, and He has given me a mercy from Himself, and it has been hidden from you? Are we to force it upon you when you have no wish for it?'"
This address occurs sixteen times in the sūra (tabulated in the section on the backbone) and does not occur at all in al-Shuʿarāʾ.
The root ق-و-م: to stand upright. Qawm — the body of people who stand at the head of an affair. And in the construction yā qawmi the yāʾ of the possessive pronoun (ī) has been dropped and the word shortened: "my people."
I record this as an observation about the word order: the messenger calls the very body of people who are denying him "my people". Belonging is not undone by opposition.
a-raʾaytum in Arabic does not mean "did you see?" but "tell me now, what do you say?" The pattern has been treated across this series (al-Furqān 25/43, al-Najm 53/33, al-ʿAlaq 96/9, al-Māʿūn 107/1).
And the work the pattern does here must be recorded: it places the other side inside a supposition. "And what if it were so?" — no answer is wanted; what is wanted is that he think.
And this pattern occurs in the sūra in word-for-word the same sentence in the mouths of three prophets (28, 63, 88). This was tabulated in the section on the backbone.
The root ع-م-ي: blindness. And the verb here is passive and in Form II: ʿummiyat — "it was made hidden, made closed".
What must be recorded is this, and it is a grammatical observation: the verb is used of the mercy, not of the one addressed. The verse does not say "you went blind"; it says "it remained closed to you".
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the subject of the verb: the sentence describes the situation without naming the one addressed with a fault. And this is consistent with the refusal of compulsion in the next sentence.
A variant reading is transmitted: it is also reported that the verb is read ʿammaytuhā ("I closed it", as it were); the widespread reading is the passive. I do not go into the detail, because the sense of the widespread reading is given above.
The root ل-ز-م: to cling to a thing, to be inseparable from it. Ilzām — to make a thing obligatory for someone, to stick it onto him.
And the inflection of the verb is grammatically striking: a-nulzimukum-ū-hā. Two object pronouns are joined onto one verb: -kum (you) and -hā (it). The ū between them is a connecting letter that comes in to hold the two pronouns apart. This is a combination rarely met with in Arabic, and it makes the word heavy.
I record this as an observation about the language: the heaviness of the word matches the heaviness of the act it describes — to force two things to stick together.
This sentence is one of the plainest statements of a principle the Qurʾān repeats, and it has been treated in many places across this series:
| Verse | Expression | Where it was treated |
|---|---|---|
| al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/4 | in nashaʾ nunazzil ʿalayhim mina'l-samāʾi āyatan fa-ẓallat aʿnāquhum lahā khāḍiʿīn | al-Shuʿarāʾ — compulsion is possible, and is not chosen |
| Yūnus 10/99 | a-fa-anta tukrihu'l-nāsa ḥattā yakūnū muʾminīn | — |
| al-Ghāshiya 88/22 | lasta ʿalayhim bi-musayṭir | al-Ghāshiya |
| Qāf 50/45 | wa mā anta ʿalayhim bi-jabbār | Qāf |
| Hūd 11/28 | a-nulzimukumūhā wa antum lahā kārihūn | here |
And what Hūd adds must be recorded: here the sentence is framed not by God but by the messenger himself.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the table above: in the other verses the limit was announced to the messenger; here the messenger states the limit himself. Noah, that is, knows it before he is told.
And the circumstantial clause at the end of the sentence must be recorded: wa antum lahā kārihūn — "when you have no wish for it". The root ك-ر-ه: to find distasteful, not to want.
The refusal of compulsion, that is, is tied to the condition of the addressee's unwillingness. The sentence does not say "nothing can be made acceptable to anyone"; it says "it cannot be forced on one who does not want it." This is a note about the wording.
The sentence draws the line between persuasion and imposition by way of a question. And the one to whom the question is put is not the side that thinks its hand is strong — it is the messenger himself.
I record this as a reading: believing that a view is true does not confer the authority to impose it. Noah holds a bayyina; even so he asks the question.