سَنُرِيهِمْ ءَايَٰتِنَا فِى ٱلْءَافَاقِ وَفِىٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ ٱلْحَقُّ · أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِ بِرَبِّكَ أَنَّهُۥ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ شَهِيدٌ
"We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves, until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is witness over everything?"
آفاق — singular ufuq: the furthest limit sight reaches, the surroundings, the outer world. أنفس — the person himself, his inner world.
The pair sums up the whole order of proof in the sūra: in the third block the peoples that were destroyed (outer), in the twentieth verse the organs that bear witness (inner), in the thirty-seventh verse the sky (outer), in the forty-seventh verse birth (inner). The two fields had been used alternately throughout the sūra; here the two are named in a single sentence.
In the modern period this verse has been made the subject of a great many claims. Per the method (Method) I write it out plainly:
I derive from the verse no pointer to any particular scientific discovery, invention or historical event. There is no ground in the text for such a determination; the verse specifies neither a field nor a time.
| Reading | What sanurīhim announces |
|---|---|
| 1 | Historical developments — the spread of the call, the confirmation of events |
| 2 | The signs of the Hour — what will be seen at the end |
| 3 | A state continually in operation — what goes on being seen in every age |
And the verse's own closing is worth reading as a note: a-wa-lam yakfi bi-Rabbika annahū ʿalā kulli shayʾin shahīd — "Is it not enough that your Lord is witness over everything?"
I record this as my own reading: after the signs that are to be shown, the sentence puts a question to the search for proof itself. The sūra opened in the fifth verse with those who drew a veil, reported in the twenty-sixth verse those who drowned it out with noise, and showed in the forty-fourth verse that whichever option had been taken an objection would be found. The last question stands at the end of this chain: multiplying proofs changes nothing for one who does not want proof.
أَلَآ إِنَّهُم فِى مِرْيَةٍ مِّن لِّقَآءِ رَبِّهِمْ أَلَآ إِنَّهُۥ بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ مُّحِيطٌ — the sūra closes with two alā (take note).
مِرْيَة — root م-ر-ي: the concrete sense the lexicographers record is squeezing and pulling at an animal's udder to milk it; from this comes the sense of "to wrangle over a matter, to waver in doubt".
مُّحِيط — root ح-و-ط: to encompass, to surround. The root was treated at al-Baqara 2/255 (wa lā yuḥīṭūna bi-shayʾin min ʿilmih — man's not being able to encompass). Here the same root from the other side: He is the one who encompasses everything.
The last two words of the sūra complete the picture set up in its first five verses: there were those who set a veil in between. At the close it is announced that there is no place left to stay outside of.