قَالُوا۟ سَوَآءٌ عَلَيْنَآ أَوَعَظْتَ أَمْ لَمْ تَكُن مِّنَ ٱلْوَٰعِظِينَ · إِنْ هَٰذَآ إِلَّا خُلُقُ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ · وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمُعَذَّبِينَ · فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَأَهْلَكْنَٰهُمْ ۗ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَةً ۖ وَمَا كَانَ أَكْثَرُهُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ · وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
Qālū sawāʾun ʿalaynā a-waʿaẓta am lam takun mina'l-wāʿiẓīn · In hādhā illā khuluqu'l-awwalīn · Wa mā naḥnu bi-muʿadhdhabīn · Fa-kadhdhabūhu fa-ahlaknāhum; inna fī dhālika la-āyatan wa mā kāna aktharuhum muʾminīn · Wa inna rabbaka la-huwa'l-ʿazīzu'r-raḥīm
"They said: 'It is all one to us whether you admonish or are not of those who admonish. · This is nothing but the custom of the ancients. · And we are not going to be punished.' · So they denied him, and We destroyed them. In this there is surely a sign; but most of them were not believers. · And your Lord — He indeed — is the Mighty, the Merciful."
The root س-و-ي was analysed in the ninety-eighth verse (nusawwīkum), and the sense "to hold equal" was recorded there. Here the same root comes as sawāʾ: "equal, it makes no difference".
And a point of word order: the answer does not discuss the content of the admonition. It equates the admonition's existing with its not existing.
The same mould occurs in several places in the Qurʾān: sawāʾun ʿalayhim a-andhartahum am lam tundhirhum lā yuʾminūn (al-Baqara 2/6; Yā Sīn 36/10 — treated in Yāsīn). The difference must be recorded: there the narrator frames the sentence; here the people themselves say it.
| Place | Who says it |
|---|---|
| Al-Baqara 2/6, Yā Sīn 36/10 | The narrator — as a judgement |
| Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/136 | The people themselves — as a confession |
And the mould a-waʿaẓta am lam takun mina'l-wāʿiẓīn must be recorded: the two sides are not symmetrical. The first side is a verb (waʿaẓta — you admonished), the second side a noun (lam takun mina'l-wāʿiẓīn — you were not of those who admonish).
The transmitted explanation: the second side negates not the act but the attribute — that is, not "not to admonish" but "not to be an admonisher". This is another instance of the "assignment to a group" mould that occurs often in the sūra (tabulated in the section on 26/29-31).
| Reading | Word | Root | Sense |
|---|---|---|---|
| khuluq | خُلُق | خ-ل-ق (trait, character) | "The custom, the way of the ancients" — this is something the ancients made up |
| khalq | خَلْق | خ-ل-ق (creating) | "The fabrication of the ancients" or "what has come down from of old" |
Both readings are transmitted, and both are from the same root; the difference is in the vowelling. The difference of sense is not great: on either reading the people count the admonition as "something that has been going on from of old".
| Direction | Its meaning |
|---|---|
| It looks to the admonition | "This threat is a tale the ancients made up" |
| It looks to their own life | "What we do is what our forefathers did too" |
I do not impose a preference. The second direction belongs to the same family as the proof from the forefathers in the seventy-fourth verse — it was treated in al-Zukhruf and Luqmān and I rely on those treatments.
| Order | Sentence | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sawāʾun ʿalaynā | Declaring the admonition ineffective |
| 2 | In hādhā illā khuluqu'l-awwalīn | Denying the source of the admonition |
| 3 | Wa mā naḥnu bi-muʿadhdhabīn | Denying the outcome |
The third sentence is reinforced with the mā … bi- mould (this mould was treated in the hundred and fourteenth verse): "we are never going to be punished."
I record this as an observation about the structure: the people say mā naḥnu bi-muʿadhdhabīn; the text says ahlaknāhum. There is not even one verse between the two sentences. And how the destruction came about is not recounted — only that it did.
The hundred and thirty-ninth verse is one of the two of the sūra's eight seals that carry an addition (the other is 158). This was treated in Table 1 of the section "The backbone of the sūra", and an explanation was proposed there; I do not repeat it.
What is to be added here is a note on word order: the addition consists of two verbs, and both are joined with fāʾ.
فَ (fāʾ al-taʿqīb) announces succession without interval. No distance, that is, is put between the two verbs: they denied, We destroyed.
And as was recorded in al-Ṣāffāt, this is precisely the difference between fāʾ and thumma: thumma puts time in between, fāʾ does not. In the account of Noah the destruction had come with thumma (thumma aghraqnā, 120) — there was time enough there for an ark to be built. Here there is fāʾ.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference between the two particles. This is an explanation, not a ruling.
The fifth seal of the sūra. The mould was treated at 26/8-9.