سَيَقُولُونَ ثَلَٰثَةٌ رَّابِعُهُمْ كَلْبُهُمْ … قُل رَّبِّىٓ أَعْلَمُ بِعِدَّتِهِم مَّا يَعْلَمُهُمْ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ فَلَا تُمَارِ فِيهِمْ إِلَّا مِرَآءً ظَاهِرًا وَلَا تَسْتَفْتِ فِيهِم مِّنْهُمْ أَحَدًا
"'They were three, the fourth of them their dog', they will say… Say: 'My Lord knows best their number; only a few know them.' So do not dispute about them beyond a surface dispute, and do not ask anyone about them for a ruling."
The verse transmits the dispute over the number (three-four, five-six) and, after giving two different estimates, reports a third: wa yaqūlūna sabʿatun wa thāminuhum kalbuhum.
| Step | Expression |
|---|---|
| 1 | Rabbī aʿlamu bi-ʿiddatihim — leaving the knowledge to its source |
| 2 | Fa-lā tumāri fīhim illā mirāʾan ẓāhirā — limiting the dispute |
| 3 | Wa lā tastafti fīhim minhum aḥadā — cutting off the asking of questions |
I record this as my own reading, and its support is the ordering of the three commands: the text does not fill in a piece of knowledge it does not have — and it forbids the attempt to fill it in as well. The detail is not the subject of the story.
And this agrees with the ninth verse of the sūra: am ḥasibta … kānū min āyātinā ʿajabā — the astonishing quality of the story had already been made unimportant.
مِرَآء — root م-ر-ي: to quarrel, to dispute. The root was treated in Fuṣṣilat at 41/54 (mirya), and the picture the lexicographers record, "to squeeze an animal's udder", was given there. I do not repeat it here.