أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ نَبَؤُا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ قَوْمِ نُوحٍ وَعَادٍ وَثَمُودَ وَٱلَّذِينَ مِنۢ بَعْدِهِمْ لَا يَعْلَمُهُمْ إِلَّا ٱللَّهُ ۚ جَآءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُهُم بِٱلْبَيِّنَٰتِ فَرَدُّوٓا۟ أَيْدِيَهُمْ فِىٓ أَفْوَٰهِهِمْ وَقَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا كَفَرْنَا بِمَآ أُرْسِلْتُم بِهِۦ وَإِنَّا لَفِى شَكٍّ مِّمَّا تَدْعُونَنَآ إِلَيْهِ مُرِيبٍ
Alam yaʾtikum nabaʾu'lladhīna min qablikum qawmi Nūḥin wa ʿĀdin wa Thamūda wa'lladhīna min baʿdihim, lā yaʿlamuhum illa'llāh · Jāʾathum rusuluhum bi'l-bayyināti fa-raddū aydiyahum fī afwāhihim wa qālū innā kafarnā bimā ursiltum bihi wa innā la-fī shakkin mimmā tadʿūnanā ilayhi murīb
"Has the news of those before you not come to you — of the people of Noah (Nūḥ), of ʿĀd, of Thamūd, and of those after them? None but God knows them. Their messengers came to them with clear proofs; and they turned their hands back to their mouths and said: 'We deny what you have been sent with, and we are in disquieting doubt about that to which you call us.'"
Three peoples are named, the fourth is not: wa'lladhīna min baʿdihim — "and those after them." And immediately after, a note: "none but God knows them."
I record this as an observation about the word order: the verse does not close the list, and it says that it does not close it. Per the method (Method) I do not enter here into a counting of peoples, a chronology, or a guess as to who the unnamed communities are — the verse itself declares that it does not give this information.
The expression, word for word: "they turned their hands back into their mouths." And the lexicographers differ over what this idiom conveys. The principal readings:
| Reading | What is being done | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | They bit their fingers in rage | The peoples |
| 2 | They put their hands to their mouths and fell silent / silenced them — the sign for "enough, say no more" | The peoples |
| 3 | They put their hands over the messengers' mouths — they cut off their speech | The peoples → the messengers |
| 4 | They covered their mouths and laughed in mockery | The peoples |
| 5 | Yad here does not mean "hand" but what the messengers brought; they turned it back into their mouths (that is, into speech) — "keep it to yourself" | The peoples |
What can be recorded is this, and I give it as an observation: all the readings converge on the point of a speech being cut off. Where they differ is whose the hand is and what feeling it conveys; where they agree is that the outcome is the same. The continuation of the sentence supports this too: immediately afterwards the speaking party changes, and the peoples frame their own sentences.
The root ش-ك-ك: doubt; for the concrete sense of the root the lexicographers record the picture of "piercing a thing and fitting two pieces into one another" — two possibilities lodged in one another.
The root ر-ي-ب: the doubt that unsettles. Rayb is not a dry hesitation; it is a doubt that troubles a person inwardly and sets him moving.
And a point of word order must be recorded: fī shakkin… murīb — the doubt is qualified as doubt-inducing. That is, the word is reinforced not by an adjective from its own root but by an adjective from a kindred root.
I record this as an observation about the language: a usage close to this in Arabic is the intensification of the type laylun layl (a night of nights). What is said here is that the doubt does not stand by itself — it produces disquiet.