فَأَيْنَ تَذْهَبُونَ
Verses 19–25 were entirely declarative sentences: it is this, it is so, it is not. The twenty-sixth verse turns suddenly to the hearer and asks.
A technique the Qurʾān repeats: a thesis is set up, the evidence is arrayed, then a single question is put to the hearer and no answer is given. al-Māʿūn opened with a-raʾayta; ʿAbasa 80/3 asked wa mā yudrīka and gave no answer. Here too there is no answer.
The withholding of the answer is the technique itself: a question that is answered closes; a question that is not answered goes away with the hearer.
The grammar. Ayna (whither) is an adverb of place and has been brought in front of the verb — fronting. This makes the question emphatic and rhetorical: it is not merely information that is asked for; astonishment and reproach are conveyed.
| Reading | How it is understood |
|---|---|
| "Where are you going?" | After all this explanation, which road are you taking? Is there anywhere else to go? |
| "Where is your mind going?" | In Arabic there is an established usage, ayna yudhhabu bika, in the sense of "where is your mind running off to" |
Both readings have been defended in the sources, and they do not exclude one another. Both arrive at the same place: no other place to go is pointed out.
And the question works by recalling the sūra's first half. For the first thirteen verses had recounted the dismantling of every place there is to go: the sun, the mountains, the seas, the sky. For someone who has read the sūra's first half the question already has no answer — there is no place left to go.
I record this connection as my own reading, but it may be the most direct link between the sūra's two halves.