al-Najm 53:55

Fa-bi-ayyi ālāʾi rabbika tatamārā "Then which of your Lord's favours do you dispute?"

In the section al-Raḥmān this verse was compared in detail, and what was recorded there is decisive here:

The one parallel to the refrain in the Qurʾān. The same pattern occurs once more in the Qurʾān — and there it is singular: | | al-Najm 53/55 | al-Raḥmān 55/13 and onwards | |---|---|---| | The one addressed | Singular — Rabbika, tatamārā | Dual — Rabbikumā, tukadhdhibān | | Verb | تَتَمَارَىٰ — to fall into doubt, to hesitate | تُكَذِّبَانِ — to deny | | How many times | Once | Thirty-one | The difference in the verbs is worth dwelling on. Tamārī is Form VI from the root م-ر-ي: to be unable to be sure of a thing, to go back and forth, to wrangle. It is lighter than denial — doubt is not rejection. In al-Najm the one addressed hesitates; in al-Raḥmān he rejects. And when the one addressed hesitates the question is put once; when he rejects, thirty-one times.

The section on al-Raḥmān made the connection; here I add two details.

As recorded above at verse 12, this root occurs twice in the sūra:

And the difference is real.

• Form III (mufāʿala) conveys reciprocity: two parties doing something against each other. At verse twelve those addressed dispute with the messenger.
• Form VI (tafāʿul) is the occurrence of that reciprocity within the person himself. At verse fifty-five the one addressed goes back and forth within himself.

The sūra closes with an inner hesitation the subject it opened with an outward dispute.

I record this as my own reading; the difference of form is a grammatical datum and is beyond dispute.

And the turn to the singular runs the same way: at verse twelve tumārūna (plural, you all), at verse fifty-five tatamārā (singular, you). The sūra begins by addressing a crowd and descends to a single person. This runs in the same direction as the a-fa-raʾaytum / a-fa-raʾayta transition at verses 19 and 33, and was recorded above.

Root: أ-ل-و. آلَاء is a plural whose singular is إِلًى / أَلًى: favours, benefits, bounties.

This word was treated in detail in the section on al-Raḥmān; I do not repeat it.

And its place in the word order here is worth recording: bi-ayyi ālāʾi rabbika — "in which of your Lord's ālāʾ?"

The question requires an enumeration. And the fifty-fifth verse comes immediately after the eleven anna clauses. The question "which favour" does not hang in a void; it is put upon a list just counted.

And the last row is striking. The destroyed peoples are included in the list too, and the question covers them as well: "in which ālāʾ do you doubt?"

I offer a reading and state that it is my own: a destruction can be counted an ālāʾ (a favour) only if the stopping of the wrongdoer is seen as a favour. The last items of the list carry, that is, the assumption that justice too is a favour.

I present this as an inference; the verse gives no such explanation, and it is not stated which part of the list the word ālāʾ covers.