وَٱتَّخَذُوا۟ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ءَالِهَةً لَّعَلَّهُمْ يُنصَرُونَ · لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ نَصْرَهُمْ وَهُمْ لَهُمْ جُندٌ مُّحْضَرُونَ · فَلَا يَحْزُنكَ قَوْلُهُمْ إِنَّا نَعْلَمُ مَا يُسِرُّونَ وَمَا يُعْلِنُونَ
Wa'ttakhadhū min dūni'llāhi ālihatan laʿallahum yunṣarūn · Lā yastaṭīʿūna naṣrahum wa hum lahum jundun muḥḍarūn · Fa-lā yaḥzunka qawluhum, innā naʿlamu mā yusirrūna wa mā yuʿlinūn
"They have taken gods besides God — in the hope that they might be helped. Yet they cannot help them; and they are an army brought out ready for them. So let their speech not grieve you. We know what they hide and what they make public."
A point of word order: the ground for taking gods is given in the verse, and it is given with a word of hope: laʿallahum yunṣarūn — "in the hope that they might be helped."
And the verb is passive: yunṣarūn. By whom they will be helped is not said — because the one who is to help is the very thing they have taken up.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the particle laʿalla: the verse names the taking of gods not as a matter of belief but as an expectation. What is sought is not a truth but a support. And the next verse cuts off exactly this expectation: lā yastaṭīʿūna naṣrahum.
And this should be compared with the sixty-first verse: there wa ani'budūnī — service was called for with a command, and no promise was counted out in return. Here service is built upon an expectation. There is a difference of word order between the two sentences, and it can be verified.
This sentence is one of the most disputed places in the sūra, because it is not clear to whom the pronouns hum and lahum refer.
| Reading | Who hum is | Who lahum is | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The people | The gods | "They are an army standing ready for those gods" — the one who awaited help has fallen into the position of the helper |
| 2 | The gods | The people | "Those gods are an army brought out ready for them" — but a useless one |
| 3 | Both, in the hereafter | — | They will be brought present together at the resurrection |
The reversal the first reading carries is worth recording, and I give it as an observation: on that reading, the people who expect help from their gods are in fact the party that defends its gods. The direction of service, that is, has been turned round: what was taken up in order to be protected has turned into a thing that must be protected.
| Word | Its earlier occurrence | Here |
|---|---|---|
| Jund | 28 — min jundin mina's-samāʾ (the army not sent down from the sky) | 75 — jundun muḥḍarūn |
| Muḥḍarūn | 32, 53 — jamīʿun ladaynā muḥḍarūn | 75 — jundun muḥḍarūn |
Both can be verified. My own reading: jund occurs twice in the sūra, and in both the word announces a crowd that is of no use — one that is not thought worth sending down, one that cannot defend. And muḥḍarūn, in all three of its occurrences, announces being brought without one's own will.
A point of word order, and it matters for the structure of the sūra: the sūra had begun in the third verse with direct address to the Prophet (innaka lamina'l-mursalīn). In the seventy-sixth verse it turns to him again — and this is the closing of block VII.
I record this as my own reading: both sentences concern the same matter. In the third verse there was an addressee opposite who rejects, and the sentence was built with three devices of emphasis. In the seventy-sixth verse the same rejection is still going on — but what is now given him is not a proof but a consolation.
ح-ز-ن — the lexicographers dwell on the concrete sense of the root: ḥazn — hard, stony, broken ground; a place difficult to walk on. And ḥuzn is derived from here: the heart's becoming rough, losing its evenness.
The root has occurred in al-Mujādala.
The picture in the word is worth recording, and I give it as an observation: grief is expressed in Arabic with a word for ground — the difference between walking on a level road and walking on stones. And the answer the verse gives is not to forbid the grief but to show what it rests on: innā naʿlamu…
س-ر-ر — the core of the root is secrecy: sirr — a secret; sarīra — what is kept within. And from the same root comes surūr (joy); the lexicographers explain the connection by the picture of "what is born inside the heart". I transmit this relation as the lexicographers frame it.
ع-ل-ن — the core of the root is coming out into the open: ʿalana'l-amru — the matter came out; ʿalāniya — openness.
And the two verbs coming together announce a comprehension: hidden and open — there is no third state in between. The pattern is used often in the Qurʾān to express knowledge comprehensively.
My own reading: the consolation is not given by saying that what is said is false. It is given by saying that it is known how much of what he says the speaker is saying. What the other side says openly, that is, is not all it has to say — and this agrees with the three closed sentences of the fifteenth verse: mā antum illā… wa mā anzala… in antum illā… Closed sentences are most often sentences behind which something unsaid is standing. This is an interpretation.