قُلْ إِنَّ رَبِّى يَبْسُطُ ٱلرِّزْقَ لِمَن يَشَآءُ وَيَقْدِرُ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
"Say: 'My Lord spreads out provision for whom He wills, and straitens it too. But most people do not know.'"
The sentence is word for word the same as al-Shūrā 42/12: yabsuṭu'r-rizqa li-man yashāʾu wa yaqdir. There the roots ب-س-ط and ق-د-ر were analysed in detail (basṭ — to spread out, to lay open; qadr — to measure, to straiten) and the distinction between 42/12 and 42/27 was tabulated: the one said that the distribution is in a single hand, the other that the total is measured. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat it.
| Place | What precedes the sentence | Its function |
|---|---|---|
| al-Shūrā 42/12 | Lahū maqālīdu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ — the keys of dominion | A statement — who owns the distribution |
| Sabaʾ 34/36 | Naḥnu aktharu amwālan wa awlādā — the claim from abundance | An answer — the distribution is not a proof |
I record this as my own reading, and its support is the context of the two verses: what the sentence does in Sabaʾ is not to deny the abundance — it is to say where the abundance comes from and so to strip it of its standing as a criterion. If both the spreading out and the straitening are the work of the same hand, the amount in one's hand cannot measure the favour of that hand.
وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ — and this clause is word for word identical with the last clause of the twenty-eighth verse.
| Verse | What is not known |
|---|---|
| 28 | The scope of the mission — that it is to all mankind |
| 36 | The measure of provision — that the distribution is not a proof |
The same clause, two different ignorances. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.