قُلْ هَلْ مِن شُرَكَآئِكُم مَّن يَبْدَؤُا۟ ٱلْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُۥ … أَفَمَن يَهْدِىٓ إِلَى ٱلْحَقِّ أَحَقُّ أَن يُتَّبَعَ أَمَّن لَّا يَهِدِّىٓ إِلَّآ أَن يُهْدَىٰ · وَمَا يَتَّبِعُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ إِلَّا ظَنًّا إِنَّ ٱلظَّنَّ لَا يُغْنِى مِنَ ٱلْحَقِّ شَيْـًٔا
"Say: 'Is there among your partners one who begins creation and then repeats it?' Say: 'God begins creation and then repeats it. How then are you turned about!' · Say: 'Is there among your partners one who guides to the truth?' Say: 'It is God who guides to the truth. Is the one who guides to the truth more worthy to be followed, or the one who cannot find the way unless he is guided? What is the matter with you? How do you judge!' · Most of them follow nothing but conjecture. And conjecture avails nothing against the truth."
The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth verses are built on the same pattern (qul hal min shurakāʾikum man … / quli'llāhu …) and they test two distinct fields:
| Verse | The authority asked about |
|---|---|
| 34 | Yabdaʾu'l-khalqa thumma yuʿīduh — existence |
| 35 | Yahdī ila'l-ḥaqq — guidance |
And the first is the fourth verse turned into a test, the second the twenty-fifth. The sūra turns what it has stated into questions afterwards. This is a method that can be verified within the sūra, and I record it as my own reading.
The sentence describes a closed circle: one who himself needs to be guided in order to find the way.
Lā yahiddī — Form VIII in its assimilated shape (yahtadī → yahiddī). The imams of the variant readings have read this word differently (yahiddī, yahaddī, yahdī and the like). The variant readings do not change the meaning here; in all of them the verb concerned is "to find the way". For that reason I do not go into the detail.
And the logic must be recorded: the verse does not say the partners are bad; it says they are insufficient. The measure is not moral but functional.
And this is the middle link of the sūra's ح-ك-م line: in the first verse al-kitābi'l-ḥakīm, here kayfa taḥkumūn, in the hundred and ninth verse yaḥkumu'llāhu wa huwa khayru'l-ḥākimīn. Three occurrences, one root.
It was treated in detail in the section on al-Najm, and it was recorded there: the sentence comes in the context of giving the angels female names, and the first half of the same sentence (in yattabiʿūna illā'ẓ-ẓann) is repeated twice in that sūra, five verses apart; the second time, this ruling is added. I rely on that treatment.
And it was tabulated there that this word is the whole axis of al-Jāthiya (45/24 in hum illā yaẓunnūn, 45/32 in naẓunnu illā ẓannā); at Fuṣṣilat 41/23 the naming of conjecture as a cause of ruin was treated; at al-Dhāriyāt 51/10 kharrāṣūn (those who guess) was analysed, and Yūnus 10/66 was named there.
| Place | What the ẓann is about | What the sentence does |
|---|---|---|
| al-Jāthiya 45/24, 32 | The resurrection and the term | A diagnosis — they have no knowledge in hand |
| Fuṣṣilat 41/23 | Whether or not God knows | A cause — ardākum, it ruined you |
| al-Najm 53/28 | The nature of the angels | A ruling — lā yughnī mina'l-ḥaqqi shayʾā |
| Yūnus 10/36 | The source of what is followed | A ruling — the same sentence |
And the place it holds in Yūnus must be recorded: here the sentence comes immediately after the thirty-second verse. The order, that is, is this: after the truth there is nothing but straying (32) → most of them follow conjecture (36) → conjecture does not take the place of the truth.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the two verses: in al-Najm the sentence closed a question of naming; in Yūnus it closes a question of position. After saying "there is no third place", the sūra names what people hold in that place: conjecture.
The root ي-غ-ن-ي (غ-ن-ي): to suffice, to leave one in no need of another. The literal sense of the sentence, that is: conjecture fills no part of the place of the truth. And the root had occurred in the twenty-fourth verse: ka-an lam taghna bi'l-ams. The same root, once in the sense of "to suffice" and once in the sense of "to stand in place".