أَفَمَن يَخْلُقُ كَمَن لَّا يَخْلُقُ أَفَلَا تَذَكَّرُونَ · وَإِن تَعُدُّوا۟ نِعْمَةَ ٱللَّهِ لَا تُحْصُوهَآ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَغَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
A-fa-man yakhluqu ka-man lā yakhluq, a-fa-lā tadhakkarūn · Wa in taʿuddū niʿmata'llāhi lā tuḥṣūhā, inna'llāha la-ghafūrun raḥīm
"Is He who creates like one who does not create? Will you still not take heed? · If you set out to count God's favour you could not count it. God is truly most forgiving, most merciful."
The question ties the whole list to a single comparison. A-fa-man yakhluqu ka-man lā yakhluq — and the verb is imperfect: "the one who is creating" set against "the one who does not create".
I record this as an observation about the word order: the sentence uses no name. It says neither "God" nor gives the other side a name. There is only a verb and its negative. The comparison is thus built not on identities but on the work done.
And the word man must be recorded: in Arabic man is used of beings possessed of reason. The sentence therefore puts its question counting the other side as persons — on the most favourable terms available to them. Even so the outcome does not change.
This is one of the most striking sentences in the sūra, and it comes directly after a full enumeration.
The difference between the two verbs carries the whole weight of the sentence, and the lexicographers dwell on it:
| Verb | Root | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| تَعُدُّوا۟ | ع-د-د | To count — to name one by one, to make an inventory |
| تُحْصُوا۟ | ح-ص-ي | To reckon up (iḥṣāʾ) — to grasp the number exactly, to exhaust it, to enter it on record |
The lexicographers give the concrete sense of the root ح-ص-ي thus: ḥaṣā — a pebble. In the old manner of counting one counted with pebbles; from this comes the sense "a complete count, an exhaustive inventory". The word occurred at al-Jinn, 72/28 (wa aḥṣā kulla shayʾin ʿadadā) and at Maryam, 19/94 (laqad aḥṣāhum wa ʿaddahum ʿaddā — the two verbs side by side).
The difference must be recorded, and the meaning of the verse rests on it: in saying "you cannot count them" the verse does not say that counting cannot be begun. It says: if you set about counting (in taʿuddū), you cannot finish (lā tuḥṣūhā).
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that two distinct verbs were chosen: the verb of the conditional clause is taʿuddū, the verb of the answering clause tuḥṣū. Had the verse forbidden counting altogether it could have used both verbs from the same root. That it keeps the distinction shows that it does not annul the act of counting itself.
And this has a direct consequence for the sūra: the sūra has in fact been counting for thirteen verses. The verse therefore halts at a point the very work it has been doing, but does not cancel it.
The lexicographers explain it as a generic noun: it conveys not number but kind. And I give this as an observation: to say of a singular word that it cannot be counted raises the tension of the sentence — not even a single thing can be counted.
And the sūra will use this word insistently: the construction niʿmata'llāh occurs five times in the sūra (18, 53, 71, 72, 83), and once more in the form niʿmatahū (81). This is a countable fact within the sūra and will be tabulated at the end.
The expected closing would have been a sentence about thanks, or a rebuke. The verse names forgiveness.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the two sentences stand back to back: the return for a favour that cannot be counted cannot itself be rendered in full. Instead of saying that the return cannot be made, the verse says that the failure to make it is forgiven. The sentence closes, within the same verse, the account it opened.