al-Muʾminūn 23:64-65

ḥattā idhā akhadhnā mutrafīhim bi'l-ʿadhābi idhā hum yajʾarūn · lā tajʾarū'l-yawma innakum minnā lā tunṣarūn

"Until, when We seize those of them who live in ease with the punishment, at once they bellow for help. 'Do not bellow today: you will not be helped against Us.'"

This pattern opens three different scenes three times in the sūra:

All three occurrences can be verified from the text. And I record this as my own reading: each time, the pattern marks the moment at which an ongoing state is cut off. Ḥattā is the particle that draws the limit of a going.

The root ت-ر-ف was treated at the thirty-third verse. And the link tabulated there is completed here: at 33 atrafnāhum (We gave), at 64 mutrafīhim (those who live in ease) — the same root, once in the giving and once in the taking.

And the word order must be recorded: what is seized with the punishment is not the whole people but mutrafīhim — those among them who possess ease.

I give this as an observation, its ground being that the word comes in a genitive construction: mutrafīhim — "those of them who live in ease". The verse, that is, marks off one part from within a group. The same distinction had been made for al-malaʾ in the twenty-fourth, thirty-third and forty-sixth verses.

The concrete sense of the root is given by the lexicographers as follows: the bellowing of cattle; and, generally, to shout aloud calling for help. Juʾār — bellowing.

The root is worked out here for the first time in this series. The word occurs once more in the Qurʾān, at al-Naḥl 16/53 (thumma idhā massakumu'l-ḍurru fa-ilayhi tajʾarūn).

And the choice of verb is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading, its ground being that the root rests on an animal's cry: the verse does not say yadʿūn (they call) or yaṣrakhūn (they scream). The word chosen is the word used for a sound that has no words in it.

And the sixty-fifth verse forbids this sound: lā tajʾarū'l-yawm. The form of the prohibition resembles the pattern treated at al-Furqān 25/14 — there too the cry (thubūr) was not forbidden; they were told to multiply it. The difference here must be recorded: al-Furqān multiplies the cry, al-Muʾminūn cuts it off and gives a ground: innakum minnā lā tunṣarūn.

And the word order of the ground must be recorded: minnā has been brought forward — "against Us — you will not be helped". The impossibility of help, that is, is explained not by the absence of a helper but by who the other party is.