al-Nāziʿāt 79:42-44

Yasʾalūnaka ʿani'l-sāʿati ayyāna mursāhā · Fīma anta min dhikrāhā · Ilā rabbika muntahāhā "They ask you about the Hour: 'When will it cast anchor?' Where are you in the mention of it? Its final end belongs to your Lord."

And now we come to the clearest link between the two neighbouring sūras.

The same root, in two sūras, in two different forms.

Al-Nabaʾ opened with "they ask one another"; al-Nāziʿāt closes with "they ask you".

And the answers the two sūras give are different too:

• al-Nabaʾ: it cuts the question off (kallā) and sets up a table. No answer is given, but a scene is given.
• al-Nāziʿāt: it says "you cannot know". No answer is given, and it is said that none can be given.

I record this parallel as my own reading. But the shared root, the difference of form and the positions in the two sūras are data that can be verified.

And this must be added: the two questions are not the same question. What is asked in al-Nabaʾ is "what?"; what is asked in al-Nāziʿāt is "when?"

The first is about the content of the tiding; the second about its time. And the Qurʾān answers the two in two different ways: the content is described, the time is not disclosed.

In Arabic there are two particles for a question of time: مَتَىٰ and أَيَّانَ.

The difference the lexicographers record: matā is the general question of time; ayyāna is used when the time of a great, fearful or distant event is being asked about.

And the distribution in the Qurʾān supports this distinction. Everywhere ayyāna occurs in the Qurʾān it is about the Hour or the resurrection:

"They ask you about the Hour: when will it cast anchor?" (al-Aʿrāf 7/187 — almost exactly the same as the verse in this sūra)

"When is the Day of Judgement?" (al-Dhāriyāt 51/12 — ayyāna yawmu'l-dīn)

"They have no awareness of when they will be raised." (al-Naḥl 16/21; al-Naml 27/65 — ayyāna yubʿathūn)

I draw attention to this distribution; since I cannot say with certainty whether there is an exception, I do not offer it as a rule. But if the distribution is correct, then the particle itself announces the kind of thing being asked about.

Root: ر-س-و. And as recorded above at the thirty-second verse, the same root was used of the mountains: أَرْسَىٰهَا.

مُرْسَىٰ may be a mīmic verbal noun or a noun of time/place:

Since the question is "when", the reading as a noun of time best suits the context.

And the nautical sense of the word sets up an image here.

As recorded above, irsāʾ is a ship's casting of anchor. And the Qurʾān had used this word of Noah's ark: "Its sailing and its anchoring (مُرْسَىٰهَا) are in the name of God" (Hūd 11/41).

That is, the question resembles this: "When will this ship enter harbour?"

And the answer that comes two verses later is the same as the answer of Hūd 11/41: its coming to rest is God's affair.

I record this as an observation; the shared word is, however, a datum that can be verified.

And here there is a link of sound with Sūrat al-Nabaʾ.

فِيمَ — فِي + مَا, with the alif of mā dropped.

This is the same grammatical event as عَمَّ at al-Nabaʾ 78/1. There the rule was given in the form of a table and is not repeated: interrogative mā, when it takes a preposition before it, loses its alif.

The two neighbouring sūras use the shortened interrogative at the two ends:

This is a datum that can be verified. I do not claim that the two sūras' use of this pattern at the two ends is deliberate; what I record is that two neighbouring sūras carry the same rare pattern.

The sentence is obscure in Arabic too, and the exegetes have differed.

The first and third views are close to one another and are the most widespread. Both arrive at the same result: the Prophet does not know the time of the Hour.

The fourth view does not fit the wording of the sentence and I record it as a transmitted report; I do not prefer it.

I prefer the line of the first and third views; it is not binding. My ground: the next verse gives the sense of the sentence explicitly.

This verse does not stand alone. The Qurʾān says in several places and explicitly that the time of the Hour is not known:

"They ask you about the Hour: when will it cast anchor? Say: knowledge of it is only with my Lord; none but He will disclose it at its time… Say: knowledge of it is only with God; but most people do not know." (al-Aʿrāf 7/187)

"People ask you about the Hour. Say: knowledge of it is only with God." (al-Aḥzāb 33/63)

"The knowledge of the Hour is with Him." (Luqmān 31/34; al-Zukhruf 43/85; Fuṣṣilat 41/47)

This is a consistency worth recording. The Qurʾān writes into the text something its own prophet does not know.

And this has a consequence that looks directly at the present: claims to compute the date of the Hour conflict with the Qurʾān's own text. In this commentary, per the method (Method), claims of the numerical and alphabetical-computation sort are not used; this verse is one of the supports in the text for that rule.

And the answer is given.

مُنتَهَىٰ — Root: ن-ه-ي. As recorded above at the fortieth verse, this root carries both the sense of "to forbid" and the sense of "end". Muntahā — the final point that is reached.

The Qurʾān uses this word in several places:

"And that the final end is to your Lord." (al-Najm 53/42 — wa anna ilā rabbika'l-muntahā)

"By the lote-tree of the utmost boundary." (al-Najm 53/14)

The word order of the sentence is worth recording. "Ilā rabbika" (to your Lord) has been brought forward; muntahāhā (its final end) has been left to the end.

In Arabic an element brought forward from its normal place announces restriction. That is, the meaning is: its final end belongs to your Lord alone — to no one else.

And "end" has two senses, and both may hold here:

The exegetes record both and they do not exclude one another.