أَوَلَمْ يَهْدِ لَهُمْ كَمْ أَهْلَكْنَا مِن قَبْلِهِم مِّنَ ٱلْقُرُونِ يَمْشُونَ فِى مَسَٰكِنِهِمْ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَـَٔايَٰتٍ أَفَلَا يَسْمَعُونَ
A-wa-lam yahdi lahum kam ahlaknā min qablihim mina'l-qurūni yamshūna fī masākinihim, inna fī dhālika la-āyātin a-fa-lā yasmaʿūn
"Has it not guided them, how many generations We destroyed before them? And yet they walk about in the dwellings of those people. In this there are surely signs. Will they still not hear?"
The same proof was treated in Fāṭir 35/44 and in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/21, 40/82 (a-wa-lam yasīrū fi'l-arḍi fa-yanẓurū kayfa kāna ʿāqibatu'lladhīna min qablihim), and what was recorded there was this: the proof is brought not from a distant history but from the ruins along the road. I rely on that treatment.
| Place | Verb | What is asked |
|---|---|---|
| Fāṭir 35/44 · Ghāfir 40/21, 82 | A-wa-lam yasīrū fi'l-arḍ | Let them go and look — a journey is asked for |
| al-Sajda 32/26 | Yamshūna fī masākinihim | They are already walking there — no journey is needed |
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the mood of the verb: in the other verses there is a command or an urging (go, look); here there is a declarative sentence — they are there already. That is, al-Sajda removes even the distance needed to take up the proof: the ground being walked on is itself the proof.
مَسَاكِن — root س-ك-ن: to come to rest, to settle. The root was analysed in detail in al-Fatḥ 48/4 (sakīna), and the note was entered there that a maskan is "not a house but the place where movement ends". I do not repeat it here.
The use of the word here is worth recording, and I give it as an observation: the word chosen for those who were destroyed is from the root that states coming to rest. And now there are people walking there — yamshūna. Stopping in one root, walking in the other; in the same place.
The verse recounts a proof of sight (walking among the ruins), but ends the question with hearing: a-fa-lā yasmaʿūn.
And the next verse does the reverse: the reviving of soil by rain is recounted, and the question ends with sight: a-fa-lā yubṣirūn.
| Verse | Proof | Closing question |
|---|---|---|
| 26 | Ruins — what is seen | A-fa-lā yasmaʿūn — will they not hear |
| 27 | Dry soil and the crop — what is seen | A-fa-lā yubṣirūn — will they not see |
I record this as my own reading; its ground is that the two verses come one after the other and end with two different senses: the first two members of the triad given in the ninth verse (samʿ and abṣār) are here distributed over the closes of two separate verses. That is, at the end of the block of proofs the sūra tests one by one the instruments it gave. And these are the same two words as abṣarnā wa samiʿnā in the twelfth verse.
One further choice of word must be recorded: the twenty-sixth verse speaks of past generations — they are not seen; only the report of them is heard. That is, the question fits the way the proof arrives. This is an observation.
قُرُون — the plural of qarn, root ق-ر-ن: to bind two things side by side. The root was treated in Fuṣṣilat 41/25 (quranāʾ). The derivative here, qarn, means "a generation that lived together in one period" — before it states a measure of time, the word states a being together.