فَٱصْدَعْ بِمَا تُؤْمَرُ وَأَعْرِضْ عَنِ ٱلْمُشْرِكِينَ · إِنَّا كَفَيْنَٰكَ ٱلْمُسْتَهْزِءِينَ · ٱلَّذِينَ يَجْعَلُونَ مَعَ ٱللَّهِ إِلَٰهًا ءَاخَرَ ۚ فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ
Fa'ṣdaʿ bimā tuʾmaru wa aʿriḍ ʿani'l-mushrikīn · Innā kafaynāka'l-mustahziʾīn · Alladhīna yajʿalūna maʿallāhi ilāhan ākhar · Fa-sawfa yaʿlamūn
"Bring out openly what you are commanded, and turn away from the mushrikūn. · We suffice you against those who mock. · Those who set another god alongside God. Soon they will know."
The word was named at al-Ṭāriq and this verse was pointed to there; I rely on that treatment.
The concrete sense of the root: to split a thing, to crack it. Ṣadʿ — a crack, a fissure. And the splitting of the earth for the plant is recounted in the Qurʾān with this root (al-Ṭāriq 86/12 — wa'l-arḍi dhāti'l-ṣadʿ).
I record this as an observation about the vocabulary: the command is not "say" (qul) or "convey" (balligh). The word chosen pictures the splitting of a covering.
And this command meets the third verse of the sūra. This is a link within the sūra that can be verified:
| Verse | Command | What is asked |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Dharhum yaʾkulū wa yatamattaʿū | Leave them — do not intervene |
| 94 | Fa'ṣdaʿ bimā tuʾmar | Split, bring out openly |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the opposition of the two commands: the sūra opens with a command to "leave" and closes with a command to "declare". The two do not conflict, because their objects differ: in the first what is left is their way of living, in the second what is declared is what has been commanded.
And the second command carries the same line: wa aʿriḍ ʿani'l-mushrikīn — "turn away from them." That is, the word will be said openly, but the dispute will not be kept up. The same balance was treated at al-Aḥqāf 46/35 with the note of balāgh. I rely on that treatment.
The mode of the verb must be recorded: kafaynā — perfect (past). That is, not "we shall suffice you" but "we have sufficed you."
I record this as an observation about the word order: the work is announced as finished before it is yet visible. And at Fāṭir 35/4 the same line was treated: consolation is given not by the removal of the event but by its being set in order. Here consolation is given by the announcing of the outcome in advance.
ٱلْمُسْتَهْزِءِين — and the word joins with the eleventh verse of the sūra: illā kānū bihi yastahziʾūn. The same root, one for past peoples and one for the present addressees. The sūra set up mockery as a fact of history, and at the end gives an undertaking against it.