بَلْ قَالُوٓا۟ أَضْغَٰثُ أَحْلَٰمٍۭ بَلِ ٱفْتَرَىٰهُ بَلْ هُوَ شَاعِرٌ فَلْيَأْتِنَا بِـَٔايَةٍ كَمَآ أُرْسِلَ ٱلْأَوَّلُونَ · مَآ ءَامَنَتْ قَبْلَهُم مِّن قَرْيَةٍ أَهْلَكْنَٰهَآ أَفَهُمْ يُؤْمِنُونَ
Bal qālū aḍghāthu aḥlāmin bali'ftarāhu bal huwa shāʿir, fa'l-yaʾtinā bi-āyatin kamā ursila'l-awwalūn · Mā āmanat qablahum min qaryatin ahlaknāhā a-fa-hum yuʾminūn
"No — they said: 'A jumble of dreams!' 'No, he has invented it!' 'No, he is a poet!' Then let him bring us a sign, as the ancients were sent with one! · No town We destroyed before them believed; will these, then, believe?"
The verse turns three times with bal. And bal in Arabic is the particle that abandons the preceding statement and puts a new one in its place.
| Order | Claim | What it grants |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aḍghāthu aḥlām — a jumble of dreams | He sees something, but it is meaningless |
| 2 | Iftarāhu — he invented it | Deliberate production |
| 3 | Huwa shāʿir — he is a poet | A craft whose source is known |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the three bals: the three claims do not hold together. One does not say of a man who dreams that "he invented it"; one who invents is not counted a "poet". The text ranges the objections one after another without correcting them — and this arrangement shows that the objections cancel one another.
The same technique was tabulated at al-Furqān on 25/4-8: there four objections were ranged and it was recorded that "not one of them looks at what the text says". I rely on that treatment. What al-Anbiyāʾ adds is that the objections contradict one another.
أَضْغَٰث — root ض-غ-ث: a mixed bundle of stalks gathered into one handful. Ḍighth — a tangled sheaf held in the hand. And the same word occurs at Ṣād on 38/44, in the command given to Job: wa khudh bi-yadika ḍighthan. The same root, in two different offices: one the confusedness of a dream, the other a sheaf held in the hand. I give this as a note about the root.
And the answer of the sixth verse rests on a datum of history: mā āmanat qablahum min qaryatin ahlaknāhā — "no town We destroyed believed."
The logic of the sentence must be recorded: the sign demanded had been given to those before; and when it was given, they did not believe. So the answer does not reject the demand — it shows from history that the demand does not work.
A-fa-hum yuʾminūn — a question that carries its answer within it (a rhetorical question implying denial).