قَالَ أَفَرَءَيْتُم مَّا كُنتُمْ تَعْبُدُونَ · أَنتُمْ وَءَابَآؤُكُمُ ٱلْأَقْدَمُونَ · فَإِنَّهُمْ عَدُوٌّ لِّىٓ إِلَّا رَبَّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Qāla a-fa-raʾaytum mā kuntum taʿbudūn · Antum wa ābāʾukumu'l-aqdamūn · Fa-innahum ʿaduwwun lī illā rabba'l-ʿālamīn
"He said: 'Have you then seen what you have been serving — · you and your most ancient forefathers? · They are an enemy to me; only the Lord of all the worlds is not.'"
The pattern occurs often in the Qurʾān and was treated in this commentary in al-Najm and al-Wāqiʿa. A-raʾayta — word for word "have you seen?", but its function is "tell me, then, what do you say?". It asks not for seeing with the eye but for thinking.
And the point of word order stands here. The people had said "our forefathers" (74); Abraham adds one word to the sentence: al-aqdamūn — "the most ancient".
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the added word: the proof from the forefathers rests on continuity. Abraham does not reject the proof; he extends it. He carries the chain back to its very beginning. Because the longer the chain grows, the sharper becomes the question of what the first link rests on.
And what was recorded at al-Zukhruf 43/23 supports this reading: there it was said that the same answer is given in every age. The proof from the forefathers is thus a chain that produces itself; each generation cites the one before it as its ground, and the head of the chain is never asked after.
And the word order of the sentence must be recorded. Abraham does not say "I am an enemy to them"; he says "they are an enemy to me".
| Construction | Its meaning |
|---|---|
| Anā ʿaduwwun lahum | I am the enemy — I am the subject |
| Innahum ʿaduwwun lī | They are the enemy — they are the subject |
| Explanation | Ground |
|---|---|
| Reciprocity is meant | In Arabic enmity is two-sided; when one is said the other is understood |
| The idols do harm | What is worshipped, by leading its worshipper to the wrong place, has acted as an enemy to him |
| They will be enemies at the gathering | The Qurʾān says this openly: wa kānū bi-ʿibādatihim kāfirīn (al-Aḥqāf 46/6, treated in al-Aḥqāf) |
The third explanation has the strongest ground within the Qurʾān and accords with the sūra's own continuation as well: from the ninety-second verse onward it will be recounted that at the gathering those served are nowhere to be found.
عَدُوّ — the word comes in the singular but is the predicate of a plural group (hum). In Arabic ʿaduww is used for both singular and plural — it is a property of the faʿūl pattern; the same was said of rasūl in the sixteenth verse.
The tension is this: it is said "what you serve is an enemy to me, except the Lord of all the worlds". But the people were not serving the Lord of all the worlds.
| Explanation | Kind | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| A disjunctive exception | An exception not of the same class | In Arabic illā can come in the sense of "but rather"; "they are my enemy — but the Lord of all the worlds is not" |
| A conjunctive exception | An exception of the same class | The people were not denying God altogether; they counted the idols as bringing them near to Him (as in li-yuqarribūnā ila'llāhi zulfā, al-Zumar 39/3) |
Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. What is to be recorded is this: from the next verse onward Abraham will describe with five sentences the party he has excepted. Who the exception is, that is, is explained immediately after.