كَلَّا سَيَعْلَمُونَ · ثُمَّ كَلَّا سَيَعْلَمُونَ
Kallā sa-yaʿlamūn · Thumma kallā sa-yaʿlamūn "No indeed! They shall know. Then no indeed! They shall know."
This particle occurs in nearly thirty places in the Qurʾān and all of them are in the second half of the codex — that is, predominantly in short Meccan sūras. In this commentary we have met it before in the sections on al-Takāthur, al-Humaza, al-ʿAlaq and al-Balad.
| View | Function | English rendering |
|---|---|---|
| Rejection and restraint (radd wa zajr) | It rejects something just said and holds the addressee back from that attitude | "No, it is not so!", "Stop that!" |
| Affirmation (in the sense of ḥaqqan) | It reinforces what follows | "Truly", "assuredly" |
Some lexicographers say the particle carries the first sense everywhere; others accept that it varies with the context.
In this verse the first sense looks the more fitting, because there is something before it to be rejected: the questioning and the disagreement. Kallā cuts the conversation off.
And this is exactly what the particle does: a cut that comes down into the middle of a conversation. For three verses the sūra reported their talk; in the fourth it breaks in and stops the talk.
In Arabic — and in English — the sentence "you will know" says two things according to the context: either a promise of information ("don't worry, you'll find out") or a threat ("you'll see"). What separates the two is how the knowledge will come.
The verse is in the second sense, and we know this from the following: the knowledge is promised not as an instruction but as an encounter. The rest of the sūra will relate how this knowledge will come — the trumpet will be blown, the sky will open, the mountains will become a mirage.
And this is the very distinction set up in the section on al-Takāthur: the difference between ʿilm al-yaqīn (the certainty that comes by report) and ʿayn al-yaqīn (the certainty that comes by sight). Sūrat al-Takāthur used the same formula: "No indeed! You shall come to know. Then no indeed! You shall come to know." (al-Takāthur 102/3-4).
These two verses of the two sūras are almost word for word the same. In al-Takāthur it is kallā sawfa taʿlamūn (second person, with sawfa), in al-Nabaʾ kallā sa-yaʿlamūn (third person, with sa-).
| al-Takāthur 102/3-4 | al-Nabaʾ 78/4-5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Person | Second plural: taʿlamūn — "you shall know" | Third plural: yaʿlamūn — "they shall know" |
| Future particle | سَوْفَ | سَ |
| Subject | The race for more | The news of the resurrection |
The difference between سَ and سَوْفَ. According to the majority of lexicographers sawfa conveys a more distant future and sa- a nearer one. Some lexicographers do not accept this distinction and count the two equivalent.
If the distinction is accepted, a meaningful conclusion follows here: in Sūrat al-Nabaʾ the coming of the knowledge is marked as near. And the last verse of the sūra will say this plainly: إِنَّآ أَنذَرْنَٰكُمْ عَذَابًا قَرِيبًا — "We have warned you of a punishment near at hand" (78/40).
The particle at the beginning of the sūra and the adjective at its end, then, say the same thing. I record this as an observation conditional on the acceptance of the distinction; I noted above that some of the lexicographers do not accept it.
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Emphasis | The same thing is said twice for reinforcement; it is an established form of emphasis in Arabic |
| Two different times | The first is the knowing at the moment of death, the second the knowing at the resurrection |
| Two different groups | On one view the first is for the deniers and the second for the believers — but this view stands weak, because the context speaks of a single group |
| A difference of degree | Thumma here conveys not time but rank: the second knowing is heavier than the first |
The fourth view is worth dwelling on, because this use of the particle thumma is recognised in Arabic and has a name: التراخي في الرتبة (distance in rank). The particle conveys not an interval of time between two things but an interval of value.
If this reading is accepted, the repetition is not the saying of the same sentence twice; it is the second surpassing the first.
I state no preference. The second and fourth views are the ones that sit most easily with the text; both are defensible and neither excludes the other.
"About what are they questioning one another? About the great tidings — that over which they are in disagreement. No indeed! They shall know. Then no indeed! They shall know."
The answer to the question is not given because the question itself is not a request for information. That is what the tasāʾul form set up in the first verse: the matter had turned into talk. Adding information to a matter that has turned into talk lengthens the talk; it does not close it.
Instead the sūra does two things. First it cuts the talk off (kallā), then it starts from somewhere else: the earth, in the sixth verse.
A similar method was recorded in this commentary in the sections on al-Kawthar and al-Ḍuḥā: changing the measure without arguing the claim. Sūrat al-Nabaʾ does the same — it does not argue the resurrection; it sets before the addressee the ground the resurrection already stands on.