al-Jinn 72:24

Ḥattā idhā raʾaw mā yūʿadūna fa-sa-yaʿlamūna man aḍʿafu nāṣiran wa aqallu ʿadadā

"Until, when they see what they are promised, they will know whose helper is weaker and whose number fewer."

Ḥattā states the end point of a process: "until, at last". The structure relates that the earlier situation continued up to a point and changed there.

That is: the rejection goes on and on — until at last that day comes.

The verb is in the past tense, but because it comes after the conditional particle idhā it has a future sense. This structure is widespread in Arabic and conveys certainty: what is certain to happen is related as though it had happened. The kānū in verse 15 served the same function.

And that the verb should be a verb of seeing is meaningful. Throughout the sūra the matter of knowledge was argued: who knows what, and from where. Here the final form of knowledge comes: seeing. Where the argument ends is where there is not proof but direct witnessing.

The particle سَ (sīn) conveys the future, and in Arabic this pattern (sa-yaʿlamūna) generally carries a tone of threat: "they will see", "they will find out". The tone of the English "they will find out."

And the verb is again a verb of knowing: aʿlamū — they will know. The sūra had recorded two confessions of not knowing (10 and 25); here a knowing is promised. But the knowledge promised is knowledge that will no longer be of use — this pattern was recorded in the sections on al-Ghāshiya and al-Fajr: "a remembering that is no longer of any use."

The sentence is in the form of a question but its answer is not given: "whose helper is weaker, whose number fewer?"

This is an effective technique in Arabic rhetoric. The answer is not said because there is no need to say it — and because it is not said it stands the more sharply in the reader's mind.

And the question turns the addressee's own argument back on him.

One of the objections levelled at the Prophet and the first Muslims in Mecca was about numbers: you are few, you are weak, there is no one behind you. The Qurʾān records this argument in several places — the word of the owner of the garden is its plainest instance: "I am richer than you in wealth and mightier in company" (al-Kahf 18/34).

The verse does not refute that argument; it changes the measure. It does not say "we are numerous too". It says: when that day comes, it will be understood who is really few.

Grammatically both words are specifications: the element that comes after a comparative and removes its indeterminacy. "Weaker" — in what? In respect of a helper. "Fewer" — in what? In respect of number.

نَاصِر — root ن-ص-ر: to help; especially to give support at a moment of difficulty. Nuṣra, anṣār, naṣīr are from the same root. This root was taken up in the section on Sūrat al-Naṣr.

عَدَد — root ع-د-د: to count. In the section on al-Humaza the verb ʿaddada (to count over and over) was treated.

Two measures: quality (the strength of the helper) and quantity (number). In the society of the Jāhiliyya what determined a person's weight was exactly these two things: the men of influence behind him and the number of men behind him. The verse names both and puts both on the scale.

The word occurs here and will return in verse 28, as the last word of the sūra: "wa aḥṣā kulla shayʾin ʿadadā" — "and He has counted all things by number."

The relation between the two occurrences sets up one of the sūra's most elegant closes:

That is, to a society boasting of numbers the sūra first says "you will see who is few", and then shows the real owner of the work of counting. A claim of superiority in numbers closes before the one who counts all things.