نَحْنُ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ أَحْسَنَ ٱلْقَصَصِ بِمَآ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَيْكَ هَٰذَا ٱلْقُرْءَانَ وَإِن كُنتَ مِن قَبْلِهِۦ لَمِنَ ٱلْغَٰفِلِينَ
Naḥnu naquṣṣu ʿalayka aḥsana'l-qaṣaṣi bimā awḥaynā ilayka hādhā'l-qurʾāna wa-in kunta min qablihi la-mina'l-ghāfilīn
"By revealing this Qurʾān to you, We recount to you the finest of accounts. Before it you were indeed among those unaware."
The construction is an iḍāfa (a genitive construction), and in Arabic such a structure can be resolved in two ways. Both readings are transmitted in the classical commentaries:
| Reading | What al-qaṣaṣ is | Sense of the construction | Ground |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A verbal noun — the act of recounting | "The finest recounting" — the telling itself is praised | qaṣaṣ is used in Arabic as a verbal noun; and the verb of the sentence is naquṣṣu — that is, the act brought forward is the recounting |
| 2 | A noun — the thing recounted, the story | "The finest story" — the event recounted is praised | qaṣaṣ also occurs in the Qurʾān in the sense of "the account related" (Āl ʿImrān 3/62: inna hādhā la-huwa'l-qaṣaṣu'l-ḥaqq) |
This is worth recording and is verifiable from the text: the same root occurs twice in the verse — once as a verb (naquṣṣu), once as a noun (al-qaṣaṣ). In Arabic this is an emphasis close to the mafʿūl muṭlaq (the cognate accusative), and it feeds both readings: the verb carries the act of recounting, the noun the thing recounted.
And a third note must be entered: the pattern aḥsan is an elative (ism al-tafḍīl) — "finer / finest". With what the comparison is made, the verse does not say. In the classical commentaries it is said that the comparison is with "the other stories in the Qurʾān" or with "the tales people tell". Both are transmitted; there is no decisive record.
A point of word order must be recorded: the sentence does not say "We recount to you" — it says "we recount to you by revealing this to you".
بِمَآ the bāʾ here is explained by the lexicographers as either cause or means. That is, the way of the recounting is named: revelation.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the preposition: the verse places the source of the story inside the sentence. And this will turn into a proof at the end of the sūra: dhālika min anbāʾi'l-ghaybi nūḥīhi ilayka wa-mā kunta ladayhim (102).
The إِن here is the in mukhaffafa — that is, the lightened form of inna, not a negation. Its mark is the لَ in the following clause (the lām al-fāriqa, the lām of distinction). The sense: "you were indeed, before it, among those unaware."
This is a grammatical detail, but it carries the meaning: if the sentence is read as a negation ("you were not unaware"), the sense is reversed. The lām prevents this.
غَٰفِلِين — root غ-ف-ل: to be unaware of something, to have one's attention turned elsewhere. The root was treated at al-Anbiyāʾ 21/1 (wa-hum fī ghaflatin muʿriḍūn).
And the choice of the word is worth recording: the verse does not say "you did not know", it says "you were unaware". Heedlessness is not a lack of knowledge but attention being elsewhere. This distinction comes from the same place as the proof treated at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/44-46: wa-mā kunta bi-jānibi'l-gharbiyy — a proof built upon the source of knowledge.