al-Mujādala 58:18

Yawma yabʿathuhumu'llāhu jamīʿan fa-yaḥlifūna lahu kamā yaḥlifūna lakum wa yaḥsabūna annahum ʿalā shayʾ, alā innahum humu'l-kādhibūn

"On the day when God raises them all up, they will swear to Him as they swear to you, and will suppose that they are on something. Know well: it is they who are the liars."

This verse builds one of the most disturbing scenes in the Qurʾān, and its force comes from the strangeness of the scene.

The moment of resurrection. Everything is open. And at that moment what are they doing? They are swearing.

The illogic of this is plain: the function of an oath is to confirm something not seen. In a place where everything is seen an oath has no meaning at all. And yet they swear.

كَمَا يَحْلِفُونَ لَكُمْ — "as they swear to you". The same verb, the same pattern, the same reflex.

What the verse says is this: if a behaviour is repeated enough, it ceases to be the result of a calculation and becomes a reflex. A reflex continues even when the setting changes — because it does not read the setting.

This is an extremely accurate observation from the point of view of moral psychology. A person who has told a lie often enough no longer chooses the lie; the lie has become his default response. For this reason he goes on lying even in places where it is obvious that it will bring no benefit.

The Qurʾān builds this scene in other places too: "Then they will have no excuse left but to say 'By God, our Lord, we were not mushrikūn'" (al-Anʿām 6/23). The same reflex.

"They suppose that they are on something."

The expression is strangely indefinite. "Something" — what it is is not said. And this indefiniteness looks deliberate.

عَلَىٰ شَىْءٍ — "on something". The particle ʿalā here conveys resting: standing upon a ground. That is, they suppose they have a support.

That what it is is not said suggests that the support is undefined for them too. They feel that they have a position, but they cannot say what it rests on. This is the exact counterpart of the state described at the beginning of the sūra, "neither of you nor of them": the person who has a relation with both sides supposes that he is standing somewhere, but cannot say where he stands.

The Qurʾān uses this expression in a positive context elsewhere, and the contrast is instructive: "O People of the Book! You are on nothing until you apply the Torah, the Gospel and what has been sent down to you from your Lord" (al-Māʾida 5/68). There the same pattern: lastum ʿalā shayʾ. Having a ground is tied to putting into practice.

أَلَآ — the particle of drawing attention: "know well, take note!". In the Qurʾān it is used where a ruling is to be made definitive.

هُمُ ٱلْكَٰذِبُونَ — a threefold emphasis: inna + the separate pronoun hum + al-kādhibūn with the definite article.

In Arabic one could have said inna hum kādhibūn ("they are liars"). When humu'l-kādhibūn is said, restriction (ḥaṣr) arises: "it is they who are the liars" — as though the category of lying were assigned to them.

And this pattern will recur three times in the sūra, always in the same structure:

Three verses give three rulings with the same pattern: the liars, those who suffer loss, those who attain deliverance. This threefold repetition is spread over verses 18, 19 and 22, and the sūra closes with it; the structure sets up a closing rhythm.