عَمَّ يَتَسَآءَلُونَ
The original of the word is عَنْ مَا (ʿan mā) — "about what, concerning what". Two words have merged, the nūn has been assimilated into the mīm, and the alif of مَا has dropped: عَمَّ.
This is a general rule at work in Arabic: the interrogative مَا loses its alif when a preposition is prefixed to it.
| Original | Result | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| عَنْ + مَا | عَمَّ | About what, concerning what |
| فِي + مَا | فِيمَ | In what, where |
| لِ + مَا | لِمَ | Why |
| بِ + مَا | بِمَ | With what |
| مِنْ + مَا | مِمَّ | From what, out of what |
| إِلَىٰ + مَا | إِلَامَ | Until what |
| عَلَىٰ + مَا | عَلَامَ | Upon what |
One — distinguishing. In Arabic mā is both an interrogative and a relative pronoun ("that which"). When one says ʿan mā the two can be confused. Dropping the alif marks the interrogative: ʿamma is the question, ʿammā the relative. The elision, then, is a sign made in order to preserve the sense.
Two — lightening (takhfīf). Interrogative particles are heavily used elements; heavily used elements wear down in a language. This is not peculiar to Arabic: in English too "what are you doing" becomes "whatcha doin'".
An observation. The shortening of the question adds a tone to the question itself: the sentence has come down to two words and has become a fast, sharp question.
I record this as my own reading and I must also state its limit: this elision is not a choice peculiar to this verse but a general rule of Arabic. The text, that is, is not doing something here; it is using something the language already does. To draw from this a conclusion such as "the Qurʾān dropped the alif to show the haste of the question" would be to ignore the scope of the rule.
A note on pausal reading. It is transmitted that when one stops on this word a quiescent هـ is added and it is read "ʿammah". This is the same phenomenon as the هاء السكت (the hāʾ of pause) treated in the section on al-Qāriʿa: a letter added to preserve a sound that would otherwise be lost at a stop. In the codices the word is generally written عَمَّ. Since I cannot state with certainty which authority of the variant readings preferred this pause, I give no name; it does not change the sense.
Root: س-أ-ل. To ask, to request. The root has two wings in Arabic and both are at work in the Qurʾān:
The verb is in Form تَفَاعُل. This form has been treated several times in this commentary — especially in the section on al-Takāthur, by way of the reciprocity conveyed by the word takāthur. The finding there holds here too and can be carried a step further.
| Function | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Reciprocity | The act passes back and forth between two or more parties | taqātala (they killed one another), tasāʾala (they asked one another) |
| Affectation / intensification | The act is done with effort, insistently, over and over | tajāhala (he feigned ignorance), tasāʾala (he asked without ceasing) |
The first reading — reciprocity. The question is not one put to someone who knows the answer; it is a question they put to one another. And this distinction carries the whole weight of the verse.
When a question about a matter is put to one who knows, the question has a direction and an end: the answer comes, the matter closes. When the same matter is put to one another, the question loses its direction: nobody knows the answer, everyone is collecting everyone else's guesses, and the conversation feeds itself.
English has a name for this: the matter has turned into gossip. What is being talked about is no longer a question whose answer is sought but a topic that is enjoyed for the talking.
And this must be noticed: it is not a failure to take the matter seriously. On the contrary, the volume of the talk shows the height of the interest. What the verse diagnoses is not indifference but interest that has taken the wrong form.
The second reading — insistence. Form tafāʿul sometimes conveys the continuity and the strain of the act. On this reading the sense is: they ask without stopping, over and over, without tiring. The question is not a request for information but a form of objection — it is asked not to get an answer but to show the impossibility of an answer.
The Qurʾān describes this attitude plainly elsewhere: "They ask you about the Hour: when will it drop anchor?" (al-Nāziʿāt 79/42 — the next sūra) and "When is this promise, if you are truthful?" (Yūnus 10/48; al-Anbiyāʾ 21/38 and in many other places). None of these questions is a request for information.
Both readings fit the text and they do not exclude one another. A matter can be both asked of one another and asked insistently; the two most often go together.
There is one more point on which the grammarians differ over this verse: who is asking the question?
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| God is asking | The question is not a real request for information; it is asked in order to bring the addressee onto the stage and to magnify the subject (istifhām al-taʿẓīm) |
| The angels or the believers are asking | Their astonishment is being reported: "what are these people talking about?" |
| The deniers are asking among themselves | The verse is directly reporting their conversation |
The majority's preference is that the question is a question of astonishment and magnification. The principle recorded for the formula mā adrāka in the section on al-Qāriʿa applies here too: in the Qurʾān a question is most often asked not to seek an answer but to show the greatness of what is asked about.
The plainest proof of this is the next verse: no sooner is the question asked than the text itself gives the answer. There is no silence between the two verses.