يَوْمَ يَبْعَثُهُمُ ٱللَّهُ جَمِيعًا فَيُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا عَمِلُوٓا۟ أَحْصَىٰهُ ٱللَّهُ وَنَسُوهُ وَٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ شَهِيدٌ
Yawma yabʿathuhumu'llāhu jamīʿan fa-yunabbiʾuhum bimā ʿamilū, aḥṣāhu'llāhu wa nasūh, wa'llāhu ʿalā kulli shayʾin shahīd
"On the day when God raises them all up and informs them of what they did. God has counted it, and they have forgotten it. God is witness to everything."
The centre of the verse is here, and the structure is very tight: two clauses, ending with the same pronoun, carrying opposite verbs.
أَحْصَىٰ — Root: ح-ص-ي. The concrete sense of the root is pebble (ḥaṣā). Iḥṣāʾ is to count with pebbles.
This is the oldest and most concrete form of counting. Before the invention of writing, before the numeral even, a man counted his flock or his crop with pebbles: one stone for each sheep. The operation of counting rested not on an abstract number but on a tangible counterpart.
That the word comes from this root separates iḥṣāʾ from ordinary knowing. To know a thing is one matter; to count it one by one and set aside a counterpart for each is another. Iḥṣāʾ is an inventory in which nothing is passed over.
The Qurʾān uses this word insistently in the context of deeds: "What a book this is! It has left out nothing, small or great, but has counted it all" (al-Kahf 18/49) — there too the bewilderment of the guilty is directed not at the existence of the knowledge but at its completeness.
The force of the sentence lies in the asymmetry of the contrast. The two sides stand in opposite positions with regard to the same event — one has counted every detail of it, the other has forgotten the whole of it. And this asymmetry shows that something which looks to be in a person's favour is in fact against him: forgetting is the easiest way of counting a thing as not having happened.
It is worth recalling here the distinction between sahw and nisyān in Sūrat al-Māʿūn: nisyān is the complete departure of knowledge from the mind. That is, these people are not suppressing what they did, not denying it — they genuinely do not remember. And it is exactly for this reason that the verb fa-yunabbiʾuhum (He will inform them) is used: as though a new piece of information were being given to them.
نَبَّأَ — Root: ن-ب-أ. Nabaʾ means important and new news (it was treated in Sūrat al-Nabaʾ). That is, a person's own deeds will be presented to him as news. His own life will become a story told to him.
This image is disturbing, and it looks as though its being disturbing is intended: a person's own deed carries news value for himself.
This sentence occurs twice in the sūra: here and at 58/18, in exactly the same wording.
This is an important sign for the architecture of the sūra. Two separate groups in the sūra — those who commit muḥādda (5-6) and the hypocrites (14-19) — are brought onto the same stage. Both sections are tied to the day of raising by the same sentence.
جَمِيعًا — "all together". Root ج-م-ع. This word turns up in an interesting way both in this sūra and in the next (al-Ḥashr 59/14: taḥsabuhum jamīʿan). Here a real gathering; there a false appearance of togetherness.
شَهِيد — Root: ش-ه-د. The one present, the one who sees, the one who bears witness. At the centre of the root lies being present: the shāhid is the one who was there at the moment of the event.
The choice of verse-ending again suits the verse: the verse is built upon forgetting, and at the close it says "witness to everything". The witness is the one who does not forget — because he was there.
And the link with the first verse: there we had Samīʿ and Baṣīr. Here Shahīd. All three are different faces of the same idea: what was spoken was heard, the condition was seen, what took place was recorded by being present.