al-Qaṣaṣ 28:61-70 — Three times, "He calls to them"

Wa yawma yunādīhim fa-yaqūlu ayna shurakāʾiya'lladhīna kuntum tazʿumūn

"On that day He will call to them and say: 'Where are those you claimed were My partners?'"

The same sentence occurs three times in the sūra, and each time a different question is asked:

Three callings, two questions — and the first and the third are word for word the same. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

تَزْعُمُون — root ز-ع-م: to claim without ground. The lexicographers record that the word is used of speech whose truth is uncertain. That is, the question takes as its subject not the existence of the partners but the claim itself.

فَعَمِيَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلْأَنۢبَآءُ يَوْمَئِذٍ فَهُمْ لَا يَتَسَآءَلُونَ (66) — "on that day the tidings will be closed off from them; they will not even be able to ask one another."

عَمِيَتْ — root ع-م-ي: blindness. The subject of the verb is al-anbāʾ (the tidings): what goes blind is not the person but the tidings themselves.

I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence makes the knowledge unreachable — and makes the tidings the subject of the verb. And the result is that solidarity is cut off as well: fa-hum lā yatasāʾalūn — they cannot ask one another.

At Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/47 it was treated that the dispute continues in the fire; here what is told is that speech is cut off. The two scenes do not contradict each other — they tell of different moments.

"Your Lord creates what He wills and chooses; they have no choice."

The lexicographers dwell on the scope of the sentence, and the disagreement must not be concealed:

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.

The first reading is closer to the context — because in this part of the sūra it is the messengers and the answer given to them that is being spoken of (65). I record this as a supporting indication, not as a preference.

And the same objection had been treated at al-Zukhruf 43/31-32 (law lā nuzzila hādha'l-qurʾānu ʿalā rajulin mina'l-qaryatayni ʿaẓīm) — there too the measure of the choosing was in dispute. The two sūras take up the same matter from two different places.