وَلَوْ أَنَّ لِكُلِّ نَفْسٍ ظَلَمَتْ مَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ لَٱفْتَدَتْ بِهِۦ وَأَسَرُّوا۟ ٱلنَّدَامَةَ لَمَّا رَأَوُا۟ ٱلْعَذَابَ · أَلَآ إِنَّ لِلَّهِ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ · هُوَ يُحْىِۦ وَيُمِيتُ وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ
"If every soul that did wrong possessed everything on the earth, it would offer it as ransom to escape. And they will keep their remorse to themselves when they see the punishment. Judgment is given between them with equity and they are not wronged. · Know that to God belongs whatever is in the heavens and on the earth. Know that God's promise is true — but most of them do not know. · He gives life and He gives death; and to Him you will be brought back."
The scene of ransom was treated in the index: al-Zumar 39/47 (mā fi'l-arḍi jamīʿan wa mithlahū maʿah) and al-Raʿd 13/18. I rely on that treatment.
| Place | The amount of the ransom |
|---|---|
| al-Zumar 39/47 · al-Raʿd 13/18 | Mā fi'l-arḍi jamīʿan wa mithlahū maʿah — the earth and as much again |
| Yūnus 10/54 | Mā fi'l-arḍ — the earth |
Yūnus does not raise the amount. I record this as an observation: the weight here falls not on the amount but on what follows in the scene.
The root أ-س-ر-ر: to conceal, to keep within. And the lexicographers record that the word also carries an opposite sense (aḍdād): in some uses, "to make plain".
| Reading | What asarru'n-nadāma is |
|---|---|
| 1 | They kept their remorse within, they hid it — they had no strength left to show it |
| 2 | They made their remorse plain — taking the opposite sense of the word |
| 3 | They hid it from one another — the leaders and the followers, each from the other |
And what must be recorded is this: the remorse is there. What the scene shows is not the absence of remorse but its uselessness. At al-Zumar 39/56-58 three excuses were tabulated (remorse → shifting the responsibility → the wish to return) and it was recorded there: the first step in the sequence is remorse. Yūnus gives that first step by itself.
أَلَآ إِنَّ … — and the particle a-lā occurs four times in the sūra (twice in 55, once in 62, once in 66). In Arabic a-lā is a particle that calls attention and brings the sentence after it forward.
| Verse | The sentence beginning with a-lā |
|---|---|
| 55 | A-lā inna lillāhi mā fi's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ — dominion |
| 55 | A-lā inna waʿda'llāhi ḥaqqun — the promise |
| 62 | A-lā inna awliyāʾa'llāhi lā khawfun ʿalayhim — the friends |
| 66 | A-lā inna lillāhi man fi's-samāwāti wa man fi'l-arḍ — dominion, over living beings |
And the fifty-fifth and sixty-sixth verses are almost identical; the difference is in a single word:
| Verse | Expression | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| 55 | Lillāhi mā fi's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ | Mā — everything |
| 66 | Lillāhi man fi's-samāwāti wa man fi'l-arḍ | Man — beings possessed of reason |
In Arabic mā is used of what has no reason, man of what has. I record this as an observation about the language: the fifty-fifth verse states the dominion, the sixty-sixth states that the beings worshipped are themselves inside that dominion. And indeed the rest of the sixty-sixth verse says exactly this: those associated with God belong to Him too.