al-Dhāriyāt 51:12

Yasʾalūna ayyāna yawmu'l-dīn "They ask: 'When is this day of reckoning?'"

In the discussion of al-Qiyāma 75/6 a question of exactly the same structure was taken up: yasʾalu ayyāna yawmu'l-qiyāma. And what was recorded there was this:

• The difference between ayyāna and matā transmitted by some of the lexicographers was reported, and no ruling was built upon it.
• It was recorded that the word's use in the Qurʾān shows a pattern, and this verse was already named there.
• The mood of the question was analysed: the question is not "will it happen?" but "when?"; that is, it is in appearance an acceptance, but a challenge in the dress of acceptance.
• And the question was shown to be an instrument of postponement: if the date of a thing is unsettled, that thing does not bind the present; the question suspends the ruling.
• It was recorded that the Qurʾān does not answer the question, but opens a scene in place of a date.

I do not repeat these. Three things are to be added here: that the verb is plural, the place of the question within the sūra, and the form of the answer given.

In al-Qiyāma the verb was singular: yasʾalu — "he asks". And there the sūra set the scene of the resurrection between one man's two questions.

Here the verb is plural: yasʾalūna — "they ask".

The difference comes from how the sūras are built. al-Qiyāma was following one person; al-Dhāriyāt is describing a group — since the eighth verse the address has been plural (innakum).

And that it is plural changes the nature of the question. A question asked by one person may be a curiosity or an objection. The same question asked by a group is a formula: the question is in circulation, it is repeated, it passes from one to another.

This joins with the question in the fifty-third verse: "did they enjoin this on one another?" The sūra, that is, is concerned with how repeated sayings circulate.

The question does not stand in a void. Note the arrangement:

Verse 6: inna'l-dīna la-wāqiʿ — the reckoning will come to pass. Verse 10: qutila'l-kharrāṣūn — the guessers. Verse 11: fī ghamratin sāhūn — covered over and heedless. Verse 12: ayyāna yawmu'l-dīn — "when is it?"

The question, that is, comes after a diagnosis. The text first describes the state of those who ask — speaking by guesswork, covered over, heedless — and then reports their question.

The sequence says where the question comes from. In al-Qiyāma the question was tied to an intention (yafjura amāmah — he wants to break open the way ahead of him). Here it is tied to a state: the source of the question is not a plan but a loss of attention.

The two sūras point to two different sources, and both are possible. I record this as a comparison.

In al-Qiyāma the answer to the question was a scene. Here it is too — but the scene begins from a different place.

The next verse: yawma hum ʿala'l-nāri yuftanūn — "the day when they are tested over the fire."

The answer, that is, is not a date but an adverb of time. Yawma — in the accusative, and attached to yawmu'l-dīn in the preceding verse.

The question says "which day?"; the answer says "that day", but defines the day not by a calendar but by what will happen on it. The finding recorded in the section on al-Qiyāma holds exactly: the question is asked as "when?", and the answer comes as "how it will be".