وَٱلْوَزْنُ يَوْمَئِذٍ ٱلْحَقُّ فَمَن ثَقُلَتْ مَوَٰزِينُهُۥ فَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ · وَمَنْ خَفَّتْ مَوَٰزِينُهُۥ فَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ خَسِرُوٓا۟ أَنفُسَهُم بِمَا كَانُوا۟ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا يَظْلِمُونَ
Wa'l-waznu yawmaʾidhini'l-ḥaqqu fa-man thaqulat mawāzīnuhū fa-ulāʾika humu'l-mufliḥūn · Wa man khaffat mawāzīnuhū fa-ulāʾika'lladhīna khasirū anfusahum bimā kānū bi-āyātinā yaẓlimūn
"The weighing on that day is the truth. Whoever's scales are heavy, those are the ones who prosper. · And whoever's scales are light, those are the ones who have lost themselves, because they used to wrong Our signs."
These two verses are identical in structure with 101/6-9 in al-Qāriʿa and 23/102-103 in al-Muʾminūn (fa-ammā man thaqulat mawāzīnuh… wa ammā man khaffat mawāzīnuh). The root was further treated at 21/47 in al-Anbiyāʾ (al-mawāzīna'l-qisṭ) and at 42/17 in al-Shūrā (wa anzala … al-mīzān). I rely on those treatments and do not undo the root و-ز-ن again here.
| Place | Sentence | The name of the outcome |
|---|---|---|
| al-Qāriʿa 101/6-9 | Fa-huwa fī ʿīshatin rāḍiya / fa-ummuhū hāwiya | Place — where he will go |
| al-Muʾminūn 23/102-103 | Fa-ulāʾika humu'l-mufliḥūn / khālidūn | Duration — permanence |
| al-Aʿrāf 7/8-9 | Humu'l-mufliḥūn / khasirū anfusahum | Loss — what he has lost |
The word al-Aʿrāf adds is khasirū anfusahum: "they have lost themselves". What answers to the measure is neither a place nor a duration, but the person himself.
The sentence is a nominal sentence and its predicate is definite (al-ḥaqq). In Arabic a definite predicate states restriction: "the weighing on that day — that is the truth."
| Reading | What al-ḥaqq is | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The predicate | "The weighing on that day is the truth" — it will take place |
| 2 | An attribute of wazn / "justice" as predicate of the subject | "On that day there is a true weighing" — a measure without shortfall |
In Arabic ẓalama is most often directly transitive (ẓalamnā anfusanā, 7/23). Its coming with bi- gives the sense "to do wrong in the matter of something, not to put a thing in its proper place".
The concrete sense of the root ظ-ل-م is "to put a thing somewhere other than its own place"; the root was treated at 31/13 in Luqmān (inna'sh-shirka la-ẓulmun ʿaẓīm). I rely on that treatment.
I record this as my own reading: the sentence does not say "they denied Our signs"; it says "they did wrong in the matter of Our signs" — that is, they put the sign somewhere other than where it stood. And precisely this verb will be used of Pharaoh and his people in verse 103 of this sūra: fa-ẓalamū bihā ("they did wrong in the matter of the signs"). The same rare construction in two places. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.