فَلَمَّا جَآءَتْهُمْ ءَايَٰتُنَا مُبْصِرَةً قَالُوا۟ هَٰذَا سِحْرٌ مُّبِينٌ · وَجَحَدُوا۟ بِهَا وَٱسْتَيْقَنَتْهَآ أَنفُسُهُمْ ظُلْمًا وَعُلُوًّا فَٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلْمُفْسِدِينَ
fa-lammā jāʾathum āyātunā mubṣiratan qālū hādhā siḥrun mubīn · wa jaḥadū bihā wa'stayqanathā anfusuhum ẓulman wa ʿuluwwā, fa'nẓur kayfa kāna ʿāqibatu'l-mufsidīn
"When Our signs came to them, laid open to sight, they said: 'This is plain sorcery.' They denied them out of wrongdoing and self-exaltation, though their own selves were certain of them. Look, then, how the end of those who spread corruption came about!"
The root ب-ص-ر: to see. The word here is mubṣira — an active participle from Form IV: "that which makes one see, that which opens the eye."
A point about the word order must be recorded: the adjective used of the signs is not "visible" but "making visible". The signs themselves furnish a seeing. And this makes the denial that follows immediately upon it sharper still: not to see, in the face of what makes one see.
The same pattern will occur once more, at verse 86 of this sūra: wa'n-nahāra mubṣiran — "and the day, giving sight." The same adjective, once for the signs and once for the day. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and I shall return to it there.
The root ج-ح-د was treated in al-Aḥqāf at 46/26, and the core recorded there was this: to deny what one knows; and the concrete sense the lexicographers record — arḍun jahād: ground that is barren and dry. Denial is thus described not as ignorance but as a ground that does not give back what it takes in. I rely on that treatment.
What belongs to al-Naml is that this verse defines juḥūd in a single sentence — and the definition is in the text itself:
| Element | Expression | What |
|---|---|---|
| What is outside | wa jaḥadū bihā | Denial — with the tongue, in the open |
| What is inside | wa'stayqanathā anfusuhum | Certain knowledge — within |
| Cause 1 | ẓulman | Wrongdoing |
| Cause 2 | wa ʿuluwwan | Self-exaltation |
ٱسْتَيْقَنَتْهَآ — root ي-ق-ن, Form X. The same root as the yūqinūn of the sūra's third verse. And the subject of the verb is anfusuhum (their own selves): it does not say "they knew", it says "their own selves knew it with certainty".
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of subject: the sentence divides the person in two — the one who denies with his tongue, and the inner self that knows. The verse thus describes denial not as a lack of knowledge but as a division.
And its link with the third verse of the sūra is worth recording: there the believers were defined as yūqinūn (they are certain). Here the same root is found inside those who deny. The difference does not lie in whether the knowledge is present — but in whether it comes to speech. This is a repetition of a root that can be verified within the sūra.
The root ع-ل-و was set out in a table in al-Qaṣaṣ as the spine of that sūra:
| Place | Expression | Who |
|---|---|---|
| al-Qaṣaṣ 28/4 | inna Firʿawna ʿalā fi'l-arḍ | Pharaoh — he exalted himself in the land |
| al-Qaṣaṣ 28/83 | lā yurīdūna ʿuluwwan fi'l-arḍi wa lā fasādā | To whom the abode of the hereafter is given |
| al-Naml 27/14 | ẓulman wa ʿuluwwā | The people of Pharaoh — the cause of the denial |
| al-Naml 27/31 | allā taʿlū ʿalayya wa'tūnī muslimīn | Solomon's letter — what is forbidden |
And the closing of the ring must be recorded: in al-Qaṣaṣ, ʿuluww and fasād stood side by side in the same two verses (4 and 83). Verse 14 of al-Naml carries the same pair: ʿuluwwā, and immediately after it ʿāqibatu'l-mufsidīn.
| al-Qaṣaṣ 28/4 | al-Naml 27/14 | |
|---|---|---|
| The first word | ʿalā — ع-ل-و | ʿuluwwan — ع-ل-و |
| The second word | mina'l-mufsidīn — ف-س-د | ʿāqibatu'l-mufsidīn — ف-س-د |
The two sūras use the same pair in the same scene. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the table above: al-Naml repeats in a single verse the frame built in al-Qaṣaṣ, and then passes on to its own narratives.
And the word ʿuluww will occur once more in this sūra, at verse 31, in Solomon's letter — this time as a prohibition. The sūra thus uses the same word once as the cause of denial and once as the first condition of a letter of embassy. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and I shall return to it at verse 31.