إن الذين كفروا وصدوا عن سبيل الله قد ضلوا ضلالا بعيدا … · يا أيها الناس قد جاءكم الرسول بالحق من ربكم فآمنوا خيرا لكم وإن تكفروا فإن لله ما في السماوات والأرض
Inna'lladhīna kafarū wa ṣaddū ʿan sabīli'llāhi qad ḍallū ḍalālan baʿīdā … · Yā ayyuha'l-nāsu qad jāʾakumu'l-rasūlu bi'l-ḥaqqi min rabbikum fa-āminū khayran lakum, wa in takfurū fa-inna li'llāhi mā fi's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ
"Those who deny and bar others from the way of God have strayed far into error… O mankind! The Messenger has brought you the truth from your Lord. Believe; it is better for you. And if you deny — to God belongs whatever is in the heavens and the earth."
This address returns here for the first time since the first verse of the sūra, and it will come once more in the hundred and seventy-fourth.
| Verse | Address | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yā ayyuha'l-nās | Creation from a single soul, mindfulness of God, kinship |
| 170 | Yā ayyuha'l-nās | The Messenger's bringing the truth |
| 174 | Yā ayyuha'l-nās | Burhān and nūr mubīn |
Three occurrences: a countable fact. And the sūra's widest address stands at its beginning and at its end.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the distribution of the address: the sūra has thus placed all the rulings in between two wide addresses.
Different explanations of the case of the construction khayran lakum are transmitted in the literature of grammar; it is widely said to be attached to an elided verb. I do not go into the details.
What belongs here is this: the return is set beside the command. And this is a pattern repeated in the sūra: in the twenty-fifth verse wa an taṣbirū khayrun lakum, in the hundred and twenty-eighth wa'l-ṣulḥu khayr, in the forty-sixth la-kāna khayran lahum wa aqwam.
In four places the same word stands beside a command or an alternative. This is a weave that can be verified within the sūra.