al-Aḥzāb 33:63-64

Yasʾaluka'l-nāsu ʿani'l-sāʿah, qul innamā ʿilmuhā ʿinda'llāh, wa mā yudrīka laʿalla'l-sāʿata takūnu qarībā · Inna'llāha laʿana'l-kāfirīna wa aʿadda lahum saʿīrā

"People ask you about the Hour. Say: Knowledge of it is with God alone. And what will make you know? Perhaps the Hour is near. · Indeed God has cursed the disbelievers and has prepared for them a blazing fire."

This verse was mentioned at al-Nāziʿāt and its pattern was treated at al-Qadr and al-Balad. I rely on those treatments.

The finding recorded at al-Balad works here exactly:

"A consistent distinction in the Qurʾān: the pattern مَا أَدْرَاكَ (what made you know — the perfect) is used in places where an explanation follows. The pattern مَا يُدْرِيكَ (what will make you know — the imperfect) is used in places where no explanation follows, where the knowledge is left closed to man (for example about the time of the resurrection: al-Aḥzāb 33/63)."

This verse is one of the examples of that rule, and the rule is confirmed here: the pattern is mā yudrīka and no explanation follows it — what follows is a possibility: laʿalla'l-sāʿata takūnu qarībā.

And what was recorded at al-Qadr: "There the time of the resurrection is asked about and is not told."

إِنَّمَا — the particle of restriction. And for the second time in this sūra (33 and 63).

The structure of the answer is worth recording: the verse does not have him say "I do not know"; it has him say "the knowledge is there". That is, the answer is not a declaration of ignorance but the giving of an address.

I record this as my own reading.

And there is an addition in the answer: the time is not told, but the possibility of its being near is stated.

This is a structure worth recording: the verse does not give the knowledge, but neither does it leave the knowledge without effect. That the time is unknown cannot be made a ground for postponing preparation.

قَرِيبًا — root ق-ر-ب. Near. And that the word comes masculine and not feminine (although al-sāʿa is feminine) is recorded by the lexicographers and explained in several ways; it produces no difference in meaning.

Here the sūra enters its final block. Verses sixty-four to sixty-eight set up a scene, and that scene will close the matter of "obedience" which the sūra has been treating from the beginning.

سَعِير — root س-ع-ر. To catch fire, to blaze. Suʿār — the fire of hunger; siʿr — a price (that rises).