وَقَالُوا۟ مَا لَنَا لَا نَرَىٰ رِجَالًا كُنَّا نَعُدُّهُم مِّنَ ٱلْأَشْرَارِ · أَتَّخَذْنَٰهُمْ سِخْرِيًّا أَمْ زَاغَتْ عَنْهُمُ ٱلْأَبْصَٰرُ · إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ لَحَقٌّ تَخَاصُمُ أَهْلِ ٱلنَّارِ
Wa qālū mā lanā lā narā rijālan kunnā naʿudduhum mina'l-ashrār · Attakhadhnāhum sukhriyyan am zāghat ʿanhumu'l-abṣār · Inna dhālika la-ḥaqqun takhāṣumu ahli'n-nār
"And they said: 'What is it with us that we do not see men we used to count among the evil? Did we take them for a mockery, or have our eyes swerved away from them?' This is the truth: the quarrelling of the people of the Fire."
And now, in the middle of the scene of the Fire, something quite different happens: some of them look about and search for someone.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the position of the verse: between the fifty-ninth and the sixty-first verses there was accusation and imprecation. In the sixty-second the subject changes all at once: no one is accusing anyone any longer; an absence is noticed.
نَعُدُّ — root ع-د-د: to count. ʿAdad — a number. The verb is not "to suppose" but to count — to place in a list.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of verb: the verse does not say "we supposed them to be evil"; it says "we used to count them among the evil." There was not a conviction, that is, but a classification. People had been put on a list.
أَشْرَار — its singular sharr. And the word is the exact opposite of al-akhyār (the best) in the forty-seventh and forty-eighth verses.
| Verse | Word | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 47, 48 | al-akhyār | The prophets — God's classification |
| 62 | al-ashrār | The men looked for — people's classification |
This is a verbal opposition that can be verified, and I record it as my own reading: the sūra sets two lists of the same kind against one another. And the sixty-second verse shows that the people's list does not hold.
| Possibility | What it means |
|---|---|
| Attakhadhnāhum sukhriyyā | "We took them for a mockery" — the fault was in us |
| Am zāghat ʿanhumu'l-abṣār | "Our eyes have swerved away from them" — now we cannot see |
سِخْرِيّ — root س-خ-ر. It was treated at the eighteenth verse: the two branches of the root — taskhīr (to press into service) and sukhriyya (mockery). Here the second branch.
| Verse | Word | Who | What |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | sakhkharnā | God → David | The mountains were pressed into service |
| 36 | sakhkharnā | God → Solomon | The wind was pressed into service |
| 63 | sukhriyyā | People → the believers | They were made an object of mockery |
زَاغَتْ — root ز-ي-غ: to swerve, to slip, to depart from the straight. This root was treated in al-Najm at 53/17 (mā zāgha'l-baṣaru wa mā ṭaghā — "the eye neither swerved nor overstepped"). I rely on that.
| Verse | Expression | Who |
|---|---|---|
| al-Najm 53/17 | mā zāgha'l-baṣaru wa mā ṭaghā | The envoy's eye — it did not swerve |
| Ṣād 38/63 | am zāghat ʿanhumu'l-abṣār | The eyes of those in the Fire — have they swerved? |
And the word abṣār had occurred in the forty-fifth verse: uli'l-aydī wa'l-abṣār. It was tabulated above.
| Verse | Abṣār | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 45 | uli'l-aydī wa'l-abṣār | Three prophets — those who possess them |
| 63 | zāghat ʿanhumu'l-abṣār | Those in the Fire — those whose eyes have swerved |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is these two occurrences: in the forty-fifth verse the sūra defined a class as "those possessed of eyes". In the sixty-third there are men asking whether their eyes have swerved.
I record this as my own reading: the answer had in fact already been given between the forty-ninth and the fifty-fourth verses. The reader knows where the men asked about are — because that tableau was shown ten verses earlier. Those who ask do not know.
This is a consequence of the sūra's having set the two tableaux side by side, and it can be verified from the construction: hādhā… wa inna li'l-muttaqīna la-ḥusna maʾāb (49) → hādhā wa inna li'l-ṭāghīna la-sharra maʾāb (55) → and in the sixty-second verse those in the first tableau are being looked for.
تَخَاصُم — root خ-ص-م, Form VI: to go to law against one another. It was tabulated above: the root occurs four times in the sūra (21, 22, 64, 69).
| Verse | Expression | Where | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21-22 | al-khaṣm / khaṣmāni | In the miḥrāb | A judgment was given |
| 64 | takhāṣumu ahli'n-nār | In the Fire | No outcome at all |
| 69 | al-malaʾu'l-aʿlā idh yakhtaṣimūn | On high | (To be recounted in 71-85) |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is these three occurrences: the sūra shows the same verb on three levels. And the middle one — the quarrel of those in the Fire — is the only one without an outcome. The suit on earth ended in a judgment; those in the Fire arrive nowhere.
| Verse | Expression | About what |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | fa'ḥkum baynanā bi'l-ḥaqq | A request |
| 26 | fa'ḥkum bayna'n-nāsi bi'l-ḥaqq | A command |
| 27 | (bāṭilā — its opposite) | Creation |
| 64 | inna dhālika la-ḥaqq | Reality |
| 84 | fa'l-ḥaqqu wa'l-ḥaqqa aqūl | God's own word |
Five occurrences, four different works: as a measure, as a command, as a reality, and as a quality of speech.
And la-ḥaqq here confirms the reality of a scene. I record this as my own reading: what is recounted is not left as a description or a likeness. The sūra breaks in and says "this is true" — and considering how ordinary the things happening in the scene are (accusation, imprecation, looking about), this is a note worth attention.