al-Mursalāt 77:50

Fa-bi-ayyi ḥadīthin baʿdahū yuʾminūn "In what discourse after this will they believe?"

The last verse of the sūra. And it closes not with a judgement but with a question.

This is not a question that expects an answer. The grammarians call it istifhām inkārī: a question asked because it has no answer. The closest English rendering: "What else is there left for them to believe in?"

And the logic of the question is this: the strongest discourse available has already been presented. There is no next in line; the line ends here.

What was recorded for the question "does he not know?" in the section on al-ʿĀdiyāt holds here too: "the question is a question of reproach, and its answer is known." But there is a difference. In al-ʿĀdiyāt the question asked for a diagnosis (does he know or not?). Here the question announces an impossibility.

Root: ح-د-ث. And the root's two branches work together here.

• حَدَثَ — it became new, it came about, it came into being where it had not been.
• حَادِث / حَدَث — what is new, what has come into being afterwards. In theology the concept of ḥudūth (coming into being in time) is from this root; its opposite is qidam.
• حَدِيث — both "new" and "discourse, report".

That the two senses are in the same word is no coincidence: a report is by definition something new. What is already known is not a report. Arabic puts the same word between "discourse" and "new".

This word was treated in this commentary in the section on al-Ḍuḥā, and this very verse was cited there:

حَدِيث (ḥadīth) — both "new" and "discourse, report". The Qurʾān uses it of itself as well: "In what discourse after this will they believe?" (al-Mursalāt 77/50).

The Qurʾān's using this word of itself is seen in several places:

• "God has sent down the best of discourse." (al-Zumar 39/23) — aḥsana'l-ḥadīth.
• "Do you marvel at this discourse?" (al-Najm 53/59) — a-fa-min hādha'l-ḥadīth.

Baʿdahū — "after it". After what?

All three have been defended and there is no great difference between them: all come out in the same place — the discourse that has reached the addressee.

The first view is the more widespread.

This verse occurs in one other place in the Qurʾān with exactly the same wording:

"…In what discourse after this will they believe?" (al-Aʿrāf 7/185)

And a similar one once more:

"These are the signs of God; We recite them to you in truth. In what discourse after God and His signs will they believe?" (al-Jāthiya 45/6)

In all three places the sentence is the close of a section. And in all three it does the same work: after the proofs presented, it announces that there is nothing beyond the proof.

What precedes al-Aʿrāf 7/185 is particularly striking: there they are asked to look at the dominion of the heavens and the earth, at the things created, and at the nearness of their term — that is, proofs of the same kind as al-Mursalāt's three proof sections. And it closes with the same sentence.

I record this shared feature as an observation.

Now let us look at where the sūra ends.

Across fifty verses:

• Five oaths were sworn.
• A judgement was set down: what is promised will come to pass.
• The four ruptures of the resurrection were told.
• Three proofs were presented: history, the body, the earth.
• Four scenes were framed: the driving, the silence, the gathering, the challenge.
• One counter-tableau was drawn.
• One diagnosis was made: they do not bow.
• And the judgement was repeated ten times.

After all this the sūra asks a question. And the meaning of the question is: there is no other instrument left.

This is one of the plainest statements the Qurʾān makes about its own position. The text says that there is no proof to come after it. This is not a boast but a statement of a limit: the instrument of persuasion is exhausted.

And this has a consequence, recorded several times before in this commentary (al-Ghāshiya 88/21-22, al-Aʿlā 87/9-10, al-Baqara 2/6): the messenger's task is to convey, not to produce the outcome. In the section on al-Ghāshiya it was recorded: "Not being a musayṭir is not a deficiency but an exemption."

Al-Mursalāt draws the same limit from another place. Al-Ghāshiya limited the messenger's authority; al-Mursalāt announces the limit of the discourse itself. The word has been spoken; there is nothing else to say.

And this frames a circle with the first verse of the sūra.

The sūra had opened with al-mursalāt: those sent. And in the fifth verse what those sent carry was said: ذِكْرًا — a reminder.

There is no fifty-first verse; the sūra ends at fifty. And its last word is يُؤْمِنُونَ — will they believe?

The sūra opens with a certain oath and closes with an open question. The certainty at the head belonged to the discourse's having been sent; the uncertainty at the end belongs to whether it will be accepted.

The difference between the two is the whole matter of the sūra: the delivery was completed, the acceptance was not.

I record this as my own reading.