Yāsīn 36:48-50

Wa yaqūlūna matā hādha'l-waʿdu in kuntum ṣādiqīn · Mā yanẓurūna illā ṣayḥatan wāḥidatan taʾkhudhuhum wa hum yakhiṣṣimūn · Fa-lā yastaṭīʿūna tawṣiyatan wa lā ilā ahlihim yarjiʿūn

"They say: 'When is this promise, if you are truthful?' They are waiting for nothing but a single cry — which will seize them while they are wrangling. They will be able to leave no bequest, nor to return to their households."

ن-ظ-ر — the known sense of the root is to look. But the second branch of the root is to wait: intiẓār — waiting; naẓira — he waited, he granted a respite. Anẓara — he granted a respite (fa-naẓiratun ilā maysara, al-Baqara 2/280).

The lexicographers make the connection thus: to look is to watch for what is to come. I transmit this relation as the lexicographers record it.

And the sense here runs towards waiting: mā yanẓurūna illā ṣayḥatan wāḥida — "they wait for nothing but a single cry."

A point of word order: the sentence ascribes to them a waiting — whereas they are not waiting, they are asking in mockery (matā hādha'l-waʿd). The verse, that is, names the real state of affairs beneath the mocking question: something really does stand in front of the one who asks "when".

Word order: wa hum yakhiṣṣimūn — a circumstantial clause. The cry, that is, seizes them while they are at some occupation, and that occupation is named: wrangling.

خ-ص-م — the root: to be an adversary, to wrangle, to go to law. Khaṣm — the opposing party in a suit; khuṣūma — contention. The root has occurred in Qāf.

The form of the word here is striking: its original is yakhtaṣimūn (Form VIII), and the tāʾ has been turned into a ṣād and assimilated (idghām). Several different readings of this word are transmitted in the sources on the variant readings (yakhiṣṣimūn, yakhaṣṣimūn, yakhṣimūn and the like). Since I am not certain of their details or of their ascriptions I give no names. On one reading the sense slides towards "they wrangle with one another", on another towards "they are at enmity"; the difference is not fundamental.

And a repetition within the sūra can be verified:

The same root in two different places. My own reading: in the forty-ninth verse wrangling is a moment, in the seventy-seventh an attribute. The sūra first catches man in the act of arguing, then names him an arguer.

The concrete sense of the root belongs to plants, and the lexicographers record it: waṣā'n-nabtu — the plant grew thick, its branches ran into one another. It is close to waṣala: to join, to attach one thing to another.

From here waṣiyya: a person's attaching his word to what comes after him. A bequest, that is, is an attempt to continue by words the bond that death cuts.

The picture in the word determines the work of the verse: fa-lā yastaṭīʿūna tawṣiyatan — no word can be attached. The cut is complete.

The pattern must be recorded: tawṣiya — the verbal noun of Form II, that is, it announces the performing of the act. And it comes indefinite: "not even a single bequest."

The verse counts two things, and both belong to "afterwards":

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the direction of the two verbs: suddenness is the absence of an interval. And when there is no interval two things become impossible at once — leaving something behind and returning somewhere. All of a person's preparation with regard to death is these two; the verse removes both in a single sentence.

And the word ahl is worth recording: the verse does not say "to their houses", it says "to their households". What is prevented is returning not to a place but to people.

The third occurrence of the root ر-ج-ع in the sūra, and it closes block V. A table of the five occurrences was given in the section on structure.