وَلَوْ شِئْنَا لَءَاتَيْنَا كُلَّ نَفْسٍ هُدَىٰهَا وَلَٰكِنْ حَقَّ ٱلْقَوْلُ مِنِّى لَأَمْلَأَنَّ جَهَنَّمَ مِنَ ٱلْجِنَّةِ وَٱلنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ · فَذُوقُوا۟ بِمَا نَسِيتُمْ لِقَآءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَٰذَآ إِنَّا نَسِينَٰكُمْ وَذُوقُوا۟ عَذَابَ ٱلْخُلْدِ بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
Wa law shiʾnā la-ātaynā kulla nafsin hudāhā wa lākin ḥaqqa'l-qawlu minnī la-amlaʾanna jahannama mina'l-jinnati wa'l-nāsi ajmaʿīn · Fa-dhūqū bimā nasītum liqāʾa yawmikum hādhā, innā nasīnākum wa dhūqū ʿadhāba'l-khuldi bimā kuntum taʿmalūn
"Had We willed, We would have given every soul its own guidance. But this word from Me came true: 'I shall fill Hell with jinn and men all together.' So taste — because you forgot the meeting with this day of yours. We too have forgotten you. Taste the lasting punishment for what you used to do."
The sentence is again built with law: an unrealised condition. And what is said is a statement of power: had We willed, it would have been — but it was not willed.
I record this as an observation: the verse does not say that the guiding of everyone is impossible. It grants the possibility openly and states that the possibility was not used. That is, the matter is not one of power but one of how the order was set up.
A limit per the method (Method): from here I do not enter the discussion of destiny and compulsion, and I do not argue the views of the schools of theology. What the verse says in its wording is two things: the willing was possible; and a word came true beforehand.
حَقَّ ٱلْقَوْلُ مِنِّى — ḥaqqa — root ح-ق-ق: to be fixed, to come true, to find its place as a right. The same verb in the same pattern occurred in Fuṣṣilat 41/25 (ḥaqqa ʿalayhimu'l-qawl), and there it was the sentence that ended the block. The two sūras use the same expression.
The difference is worth recording: in Fuṣṣilat ḥaqqa ʿalayhim — "it came true against them"; in al-Sajda ḥaqqa'l-qawlu minnī — "the word came true from Me". One says whom the word touches, the other from whom it issued.
The same reciprocal structure was treated in al-Jāthiya 45/34 (nansākum kamā nasītum liqāʾa yawmikum hādhā), and it was recorded there as a "verb built reciprocally". I rely on that treatment.
| Place | Expression | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| al-Jāthiya 45/34 | Nansākum kamā nasītum | A particle of likeness is present — "as you forgot" |
| al-Sajda 32/14 | Bimā nasītum … innā nasīnākum | A particle of cause is present — "because you forgot" |
Al-Jāthiya builds the response as a likeness, al-Sajda as a cause and effect. This is a difference between the two sūras that can be verified.
And the explanation recorded in the classical works of exegesis about the ascription of nisyān (forgetting) to God is this, and I transmit it as it has been transmitted: the word here is not in the sense of real forgetting but in the sense of "leaving as though forgotten, remaining unconcerned" — indeed nisyān carries this use in Arabic. The same explanation was recorded in al-Jāthiya as well.
فَذُوقُوا۟ … وَذُوقُوا۟ — and the command is repeated twice, on two separate grounds: the first is tied to the forgetting, the second to what was done. That is, the ground takes in both a neglect and an act.