قُلْ إِنْ أَدْرِي أَقَرِيبٌ مَّا تُوعَدُونَ أَمْ يَجْعَلُ لَهُ رَبِّي أَمَدًا
"Say: I do not know whether what you are promised is near, or whether my Lord will set for it a term."
إِنْ is used here not as a conditional particle but as a negative: in adrī = mā adrī = "I do not know". This use of in is settled in Arabic and occurs in several places in the Qurʾān.
And the verb is the verb of verse 10: the root د-ر-ي. The jinn said lā nadrī; the Prophet says in adrī.
This parallel was taken up at verse 10; here it is completed. The sūra has it said from two separate mouths that the unseen is not known:
- The jinn (10): we do not know what is intended for those on earth.
- The Prophet (25): I do not know when what is promised will come.
That is, the sūra sets up a sequence: two instances, then the rule. Beings supposed to be a source of divination do not know; God's messenger does not know; because the unseen is His alone.
| 72/10 (the jinn) | 72/25 (the Prophet) | |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | a-sharrun … am arāda | a-qarībun … am yajʿalu |
| What is unknown | What will happen | When it will happen |
| Named in the second half | Rabbuhum — "their Lord" | Rabbī — "my Lord" |
And one further point in common: in both verses the name "Lord" is named in the second half. The owner of what is unknown is named with the name that nurtures.
Root أ-م-د: an interval of time — and especially an interval that has an end. Amad is a period whose beginning and end are settled.
This is what distinguishes it from zamān: zamān conveys duration in general, amad a period that is limited and whose ends are known. The classical lexicographers also explain amad as "the terminus of a thing".
The choice of the word says something: even in saying "or will it be long", the verse speaks of a period that has an end. That is, what is uncertain is when it will be, not whether it will be. Both halves of the sentence assume the event will take place: near, or far?
This draws exactly the scope of the declaration of ignorance. The Prophet does not know the date, not the event.
The accustomed expectation is this: someone bearing a teaching should be able to answer every question of the teaching he bears; to say that he does not know weakens what he bears.
The sūra does the opposite. And its logic is plain: whoever draws the limit of his knowledge makes the knowledge within the limit trustworthy. A source that answers every question has no answer that can be checked; a source that stops somewhere and says "this is not my field" makes the word within its field weighable.
Second: separating what is in one's hand from what is not. What is enumerated across the four verses is not a list of absences but a description of a task. The one thing the messenger has in his hand has been stated: balāgh — to carry. Everything outside it — the outcome, the timing, the addressee's response — is someone else's business.
To know the limits of a work makes that work doable. Whoever does not know the limit either goes under a load he cannot carry or drops what he could have carried.
Third: the person at the centre of the crowd making himself small. In verse 19 there was a scene: a man praying and a mass piling upon him. These four verses are the answer to that scene. And the form of the answer is striking — the crowd is not dispersed, not warned, not censured. The person at the centre speaks and corrects his own position.
This is an answer given to the oldest problem of religious structures: the intermediary passing to the centre is most often prevented, or not prevented, by the intermediary's own attitude.
The last three verses are a single sentence and settle the whole matter of the sūra in a ruling. In verse 25 the Prophet said "I do not know"; verse 26 says why this is so.