al-Balad 90:5

A yaḥsabu an lan yaqdira ʿalayhi aḥad "Does he suppose that no one has power over him?"

Root: ح-س-ب. That this root carries two verbs — ḥasaba (he counted, he reckoned) and ḥasiba (he supposed, he thought) — was treated in detail in Sūrat al-Humaza. There the nearness between ʿaddada (he kept counting) and yaḥsabu (he supposed) was touched on: the man who counts is making a false reckoning.

The same nearness works here too, and even more plainly: the fifth verse has "he supposes", the sixth has "wealth in heaps". The same figure as in al-Humaza, that is, comes before us with the same root, in the same order.

The verb's coming in the imperfect conveys continuity: he has not thought this once; it is his supposition in a continuing state.

And the question is a rhetorical question of denial: no answer is expected, the question is itself a rejection. "Does he suppose?" = "Does he really suppose so?"

Root: ق-د-ر. This root works in two directions in Arabic, and both are present in the Qurʾān:

1. To have power, to be able. Qadīr, qudra, qādir — these are from this branch.

2. To measure, to determine, to straiten. To set a measure to a thing; to narrow the measure. The Qurʾān uses this openly: "He straitens his provision" (al-Fajr 89/16); "And whoever's provision has been straitened" (al-Ṭalāq 65/7).

The two senses come from the same place: to set a measure is both a mark of power and a limiting.

The usage here is in the first sense: that no one will have power over him.

A parallel within the Qurʾān. The same verb, in the same negative form, occurs in the story of Jonah (Yūnus):

"And remember Dhu'l-Nūn, when he went off in anger and supposed that We would have no power over him (fa-ẓanna an lan naqdira ʿalayh)" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/87)

The structure is almost the same: a verb of supposing + an lan naqdira/yaqdira ʿalayhi. This parallel is meaningful, because in the verse of al-Anbiyāʾ the ascription of this supposition to a prophet occupied the classical exegetes at length, and there the reading of the verb in its second sense ("he supposed that We would not straiten things upon him") is a widespread solution. Here there is no such difficulty: the subject is a man who supposes himself strong.

Root: و-ح-د (the wāw at the head has turned into a hamza). The detailed analysis of this word was made in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ: the difference between aḥad and wāḥid, and aḥad's being used in the overwhelming majority of cases in a negative context in the sense of "no one".

Here we have exactly that usage: in a negative sentence, "no one". This is the word's typical place in the Qurʾān — the positive use in Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ was the exception.

And a fine point: the word occurs twice in this sūra, in two verses (5 and 7). In both it does the same work: filling the void in the man's mind. "No one" has power, "no one" saw. In the man's world there are two "no ones".