إِنَّ ٱلسَّاعَةَ ءَاتِيَةٌ أَكَادُ أُخْفِيهَا
The sentence is among the expressions most debated by the lexicographers and the exegetes, and the disagreement must not be concealed. Akādu means "I all but"; ukhfīhā means "I keep it hidden". A literal rendering: "I all but keep it hidden." The difficulty is this: the Hour is hidden already; what does "I all but keep it hidden" mean?
| Reading | What it says |
|---|---|
| 1 | Akādu here is for emphasis and carries no sense of "all but": "I keep it hidden" |
| 2 | The furthest limit of hiddenness: "I hide it as though I hid it even from Myself" — an intensification |
| 3 | That the verb akhfā is among the aḍdād: the root means both to hide and to bring out into the open; "I shall all but bring it out" |
The ground of the third reading is a fact of the language: the root خ-ف-ي is among those the lexicographers count under the heading aḍdād (a word's bearing two opposite senses). I transmit this as the lexicographers record it. All three readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.
What can be verified from the text is this: the ground of the hiddenness is given in the verse. Li-tujzā kullu nafsin bimā tasʿā — "so that every soul may be repaid for what it strives after."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the purpose clause: the not-knowing of the time is given not as a lack but as the condition on which the repayment can be just. A test whose time is known cannot measure what it measures.
The root س-ع-ي: to walk fast, to hurry, to exert oneself for a task. The word occurs three times in this sūra and its distribution is worth recording:
| Verse | Expression | What |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | Bimā tasʿā | A person's striving |
| 20 | Fa-idhā hiya ḥayyatun tasʿā | The movement of the serpent |
| 66 | Annahā tasʿā | The ropes of the sorcerers |
The same verb: one of them the subject of the reckoning, two of them a movement the eye sees. This is a distribution that can be verified from the text.
فَتَرْدَىٰ (16) — root ر-د-ي: to fall from a height, to tumble into a chasm. Tardā — you will perish; the concrete picture of the root is a fall. The same root was treated at al-Layl on 92/11 (idhā taraddā); I rely on that treatment.