Muḥammad 47:18

Fa-hal yanẓurūna illa's-sāʿata an taʾtiyahum baghtatan; fa-qad jāʾa ashrāṭuhā; fa-annā lahum idhā jāʾat-hum dhikrāhum

"Are they waiting for anything but the Hour, that it should come upon them suddenly? Its signs have already come. And when it has come to them, what use will their remembering be?"

Root: ن-ظ-ر. In the tenth verse this verb was in the sense of "to look": fa-yanẓurū kayfa kāna ʿāqibatu…

Here it is in the sense of "to wait".

And these two senses are joined to one another in the root: naẓar is a look turned in a direction; and to wait for something is likewise to turn one's eye in that direction. From the same root come إِنْتِظَار (intiẓār — waiting) and مُنْتَظِر.

The sūra uses the same root in two senses, eight verses apart:

And this sets up a noteworthy opposition — it is my own reading: the tenth verse proposed looking back; the eighteenth says that those who do not look back are looking forward. The same verb, two directions. And what they are waiting for is the very thing they do not look at: a destruction.

The sentence looks like a question but announces a ruling.

The combination of هَلْ (the particle of interrogation) + إِلَّا (the particle of exception) announces restriction (qaṣr) in Arabic: "anything other than…?" = "only …".

That is, the sentence says: the only thing they are waiting for is the Hour. They have no other expectation.

And this is a hard sentence — because no one says he is waiting for the Hour. The verse names what they are in fact waiting for: the end of what they are doing, and that alone.

Root: ب-غ-ت. Its meaning: suddenly, all at once, to be caught unprepared. Baghatahu'l-amr — the matter caught him suddenly.

بَغْتَةً is in the accusative, and the grammarians count it either a circumstantial or an absolute object; the difference of meaning is not great.

And what the word carries is not the lack of time but the lack of preparation. A thing does not come "suddenly"; it comes suddenly to the one who is unprepared.

أَشْرَاط — the plural of شَرَط. Root: ش-ر-ط.

The family of meanings in the root is interesting:

The common core: a distinguishing mark placed upon a thing.

And that sharṭ and ʿalāma are from the same root is meaningful — I record it as an observation: both show that one thing is tied to another. A condition is the qualification to which a result is tied; a sign is the mark to which what is coming is tied.

The tense of the sentence is perfect: فَقَدْ جَآءَ — "they have already come". And at its head is قَدْ; with the perfect it announces certification (taḥqīq).

That is, the verse states in a language of certainty that the signs have come.

And a note on method is needed here: the verse does not say what the signs are. It gives no number, no list, no description.

In the classical commentaries there is a wide literature on these signs, and I do not enter that literature in this commentary. The reason is the method (Method): I do not transmit reports of which I am not certain, and the subject of the signs of the Hour contains more disputed transmission than the method of this commentary can carry.

The only thing I shall record is an explanation widely transmitted in the classical commentaries: that the Prophet's having been sent is itself counted among the signs. I transmit this as a view; there is no such determination in the wording of the verse.

And a warning — I write it plainly: no event of the present day will be marked as a "sign" on the strength of this verse. The verse already uses the perfect: the signs have come. To draw a reckoning for today comes not from the language of the verse but from outside it.

أَنَّىٰ — an interrogative particle: "how, from where, in what way". It is an interrogative of denial: "from where should it come?"

The word order of the sentence is inverted and requires attention:

• ذِكْرَىٰهُمْ — the subject (at the end).
• أَنَّىٰ لَهُمْ — the predicate (at the head).
• إِذَا جَآءَتْهُمْ — the condition interposed.

Turned into a straight order: dhikrāhum annā lahum idhā jāʾat-hum — "their remembering, when it comes upon them, from where [should it profit] them?"

ذِكْرَىٰ — root ذ-ك-ر: to remember, to call to mind. Dhikrā is a verbal noun in the sense of "remembering, taking heed".

And the pronoun is striking again: ذِكْرَىٰهُمْ — "their taking heed". That is, taking heed is named not as something that comes from outside but as an act they will perform.

What the sentence says is simple, and its hardness lies here: taking heed has a time, and that time is before the event happens. To "understand" after the event has happened is no longer taking heed.

The Qurʾān sets this idea up elsewhere too — al-Fajr 89/23: "On that Day man will remember; but what use will the remembering be to him?" (treated in al-Fajr).