قُلِ ٱدْعُوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ زَعَمْتُم مِّن دُونِهِۦ
Quli'dʿu'lladhīna zaʿamtum min dūnihi fa-lā yamlikūna kashfa'l-ḍurri ʿankum wa lā taḥwīlā · Ulāʾika'lladhīna yadʿūna yabtaghūna ilā rabbihimu'l-wasīlata ayyuhum aqrabu wa yarjūna raḥmatahu wa yakhāfūna ʿadhābah, inna ʿadhāba rabbika kāna maḥdhūrā
"Say: 'Call upon those you allege beside Him! They have no power to remove your affliction, nor to turn it aside.' Those they call upon are themselves seeking a way to their Lord — which of them shall be nearest — and they hope for His mercy and fear His punishment. Your Lord's punishment is a thing to be guarded against."
The root ز-ع-م: to assert without proof, to suppose so. In Arabic this verb puts a distance between the speaker and what is said.
I record this as an observation about the language: in reporting the claim the verse carries an assessment along with the word. Not "what you say", that is, but "what you allege".
I record this as an observation: the verse does not only say "they cannot lift it". It also says "they cannot pass it on to another" — that is, even the smallest possibility of intervention is closed off.
And the word taḥwīl will come once more in the sūra, at the seventy-seventh verse: wa lā tajidu li-sunnatinā taḥwīlā.
| Verse | What cannot be altered |
|---|---|
| 56 | The affliction — they cannot turn it aside |
| 77 | The way — God's manner of working |
The same word, once for incapacity and once for unchangeability. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.
The verse describes the state of the party that is called upon, and this is a turn the Qurʾān repeats.
The same turn was treated at 25/17 in al-Furqān, and at 46/5-6 in al-Aḥqāf and 35/14 in Fāṭir: the party called upon ends by disowning them, or is itself in need. I rely on those treatments.
The difference here must be recorded, and it is a difference of time: in al-Furqān and in al-Aḥqāf the disowning happens on the day of resurrection. In al-Isrāʾ the present state is described: they too are seeking a way now.
And the construction is worth recording: ayyuhum aqrab — "which of them shall be nearest". What is described, that is, is a contest: they too are seeking nearness.
I record this as my own reading, and its support is this construction: those counted as means of nearness are themselves seeking nearness. If the intermediary needs an intermediary, the claim of intermediacy runs out within itself.
The word qurbān (that by which nearness is sought) was treated in the same field at 46/28 in al-Aḥqāf. I rely on that treatment.