وَمَن يَهْدِ ٱللَّهُ فَهُوَ ٱلْمُهْتَدِ
Wa man yahdi'llāhu fa-huwa'l-muhtad, wa man yuḍlil fa-lan tajida lahum awliyāʾa min dūnih, wa naḥshuruhum yawma'l-qiyāmati ʿalā wujūhihim ʿumyan wa bukman wa ṣummā, maʾwāhum jahannam, kullamā khabat zidnāhum saʿīrā · Dhālika jazāʾuhum bi-annahum kafarū bi-āyātinā wa qālū a-idhā kunnā ʿiẓāman wa rufātan a-innā la-mabʿūthūna khalqan jadīdā · A-wa lam yaraw anna'llāha'lladhī khalaqa'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa qādirun ʿalā an yakhluqa mithlahum wa jaʿala lahum ajalan lā rayba fīh, fa-aba'l-ẓālimūna illā kufūrā
"Whomever God guides is the one guided; and for whomever He lets go astray you will find no protectors besides Him. We shall gather them on the Day of Resurrection upon their faces, blind, dumb and deaf. Their refuge is Hell; whenever its fire dies down We increase the blaze for them. That is their recompense, because they denied Our signs and said: 'When we have become bones and dust, are we then to be raised in a new creation?' Have they not seen that God, who created the heavens and the earth, is able to create their like, and has appointed for them a term of which there is no doubt? Yet the wrongdoers wanted nothing but to persist in ingratitude."
And this trio can be compared with the trio of the thirty-sixth verse, and I record this as my own reading:
| Verse | The trio | State |
|---|---|---|
| 36 | Al-samʿ, al-baṣar, al-fuʾād | Working — and answerable |
| 97 | ʿUmyan, bukman, ṣummā | Not working |
The same sūra names the same faculties twice: once called to account, once in a state of loss. And the word aʿmā (blind) had already occurred in the seventy-second verse.
I give this as my own reading, and its support is the verbal overlap of these three verses: the sūra uses the senses three times and in three different positions — given, lost, called to account.
And the same trio was treated at 2/18 in al-Baqara (ṣummun bukmun ʿumyun); there it was used of the state in this world. I rely on that treatment.
كُلَّمَا خَبَتْ زِدْنَٰهُمْ سَعِيرًا — khabat: root خ-ب-و: a fire's beginning to die down, the flame subsiding.
The argument belongs to the same family as the argument in the forty-ninth and fifty-first verses, but its wording differs.
| Verse | The argument |
|---|---|
| 51 | Alladhī faṭarakum awwala marra — the first creation |
| 99 | Khalaqa'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ — the creation of what is greater |
I record this as an observation: the sūra answers the same objection (repeated in exactly the same wording at 49 and 98) with two different arguments — one the person's own past, the other the vastness of the universe.
And the verbatim repetition of the objection must be recorded: a-idhā kunnā ʿiẓāman wa rufātan a-innā la-mabʿūthūna khalqan jadīdā — the same sentence in verses 49 and 98. Twice, forty-nine verses apart. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.
وَجَعَلَ لَهُمْ أَجَلًا لَّا رَيْبَ فِيهِ — ajal: an appointed term. The root was treated at 35/45 in Fāṭir (yuʾakhkhiruhum ilā ajalin musammā) and at 31/29 in Luqmān. I do not repeat it here.