قُلْ مَا كُنتُ بِدْعًا مِّنَ ٱلرُّسُلِ وَمَآ أَدْرِى مَا يُفْعَلُ بِى وَلَا بِكُمْ
"Say: I am not an unprecedented one among the messengers. Nor do I know what will be done with me or with you."
The sense of the root: to bring forth for the first time something that has had no prior example. Badīʿ, ibdāʿ and bidʿa are from the same root. The root occurred in al-Ḥadīd.
What the sentence does: it says that what has come is not a new thing, but the continuation of a chain. Here is the answer to the demand for "an earlier Book" made in the fourth verse: the claim places itself not outside the earlier Books but along their line.
This sentence is one of the most limiting statements the Qurʾān has its Prophet say, and it must be treated honestly.
What is said is plain: that he does not know what will befall him in this world. The scope of this statement has been debated in the classical commentaries:
| Reading | Scope |
|---|---|
| 1 | The outcome in this world — what will befall him, what sort of life he will live |
| 2 | Knowledge of particulars — the particular items beyond what has been made known in general |
I do not impose a preference. What is to be recorded is this: the sentence conveys a limit, and this limit agrees with the frame set in the third verse — the term has been given a name, but it is not man who set the name.
إِنْ أَتَّبِعُ إِلَّا مَا يُوحَىٰٓ إِلَىَّ — and immediately after, where the source lies is stated: the knowledge is not from himself.