al-Wāqiʿa 56:49-50

Qul inna'l-awwalīna wa'l-ākhirīn · La-majmūʿūna ilā mīqāti yawmin maʿlūm

"Say: the earlier ones and the later ones will surely be gathered to the appointed time of a known day."

For the first time in the sūra the command qul (say) comes.

In the forty-seventh and forty-eighth verses the objection was relayed: wa kānū yaqūlūn — "they used to say". Now the other side speaks, and the speaker is the Prophet, under command.

This reciprocity in the word order is worth recording:

And the content of the answer is not an argument but a declaration. The verse does not enter into the mechanism of the question "how is one who has become dust raised?"; it says that the time is appointed. The proof about the mechanism will come eight verses later (57-62). The sūra sets down the verdict first, that is, and then sets out the proof.

This is the pair's third and last occurrence in the sūra. In verses 13 and 14 it was thullatun mina'l-awwalīn / qalīlun mina'l-ākhirīn, and in verses 39 and 40 thulla / thulla.

In the section on verses 13 and 14 I recorded that this verse is an indication bearing on the disagreement there. The reason is visible here: in this verse awwalīn and ākhirīn cover the whole of humankind with no distinction of class at all — because the gathering covers everyone. The sense the same pair has here, within the same sūra, weighs that earlier debate in favour of the "communities" reading.

I give this again as an indication, not as a firm judgement.

The root was analysed in detail in al-Jumuʿa on the occasion of that sūra's name: to gather, to bring together; jamʿ, jamāʿa, majmūʿ. I do not repeat it.

Two things belong here.

First, the pattern: majmūʿūn — a passive participle. Not "they will gather", that is, but exactly "those who are gathered", "those who have been gathered". The act is done to them; they do not gather, they are gathered. In the command fa'sʿaw ilā dhikri'llāh (hasten) in Sūrat al-Jumuʿa man is the subject; here man is the object.

Second, the particle lām: la-majmūʿūn — together with the inna at the head of the sentence, a double emphasis. In Arabic this means closing what is said to debate. And the place of the emphasis is meaningful: the objection had been asked with two emphases — "shall we really be raised?" (a-innā la-mabʿūthūn); the answer comes with two emphases too. Question and answer at the same weight of stress.

The word was analysed in al-Nabaʾ (al-Nabaʾ 78/17, inna yawma'l-faṣli kāna mīqātā): the mifʿāl metre and the appointedness of the time were treated there. I do not repeat it.

The difference here is in the word order: in al-Nabaʾ mīqāt was the predicate — "the day of separation was an appointed time". Here, with the preposition ilā, it is the point arrived at: la-majmūʿūna ilā mīqāti yawmin maʿlūm.

People are gathered not to a place, that is, but to a time. The goal of the gathering is given as time, not as place.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the preposition: ilā in Arabic marks where a limit ends. On this account the resurrection is not a place to be gone to but a moment to be arrived at. The objection in the forty-seventh verse was thinking in terms of place — dust, bones, dispersal. The answer thinks in terms of time.

Maʿlūm — a passive participle: known. But its agent is not stated: who knows it is not specified.

In Arabic the omission of the agent is mostly deliberate. The explanation the lexicographers give here is this: the day is known with God; it has not been made known to man. And indeed it is stated in many places in the Qurʾān that knowledge of the time of the resurrection is closed to man.

And the choice of word and the work of the verse coincide exactly: by saying maʿlūm (known) indefiniteness is rejected, yet by not saying whose knowledge it is, it is kept closed to man. It says, that is, "it is not indefinite, but it is outside your knowledge". Two tasks in a single word.