al-Naml 27:52-53

fa-tilka buyūtuhum khāwiyatan bimā ẓalamū, inna fī dhālika la-āyatan li-qawmin yaʿlamūn · wa anjaynā'lladhīna āmanū wa kānū yattaqūn

"And there are their houses, fallen empty, because of the wrong they did. In that is a sign for a people who know. And We delivered those who believed and were mindful."

The root خ-و-ي was worked out in al-Ḥāqqa at 69/7, and the finding there was this: khawa'l-manzilu — the house was emptied, no one was left in it; khawa'l-baṭnu — the belly was emptied. The centre of the root is the emptying of what is inside. I do not repeat it here.

And this verse was already cited in al-Ḥāqqa and in al-Najm at 53/51: of Thamūd, stone is left, but no one is left.

And the demonstrative tilka ("there they are") must be recorded: a pronoun that points to what is far off. The verse thus shows the ruins as something that can be seen.

This connects with the command at verse 69 of the sūra: qul sīrū fi'l-arḍi fa'nẓurū. The evidence is thus in a place one can travel to. This method was treated in Fāṭir at 35/44 and in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/21 and 40/82; I rely on that treatment.

And the addressee of the sign must be recorded: li-qawmin yaʿlamūn — "for a people who know."

The sūra uses this pattern twice, and the two words differ:

This is a difference that can be verified within the sūra.

I record this as an observation and make no claim about the cause: a ruin out of history requires knowledge (one has to know whose houses they were); night and day, by contrast, are what everyone sees. The two verse-endings name two different kinds of reader.

The same triple pattern (li'l-muʾminīn, li-qawmin yūqinūn, li-qawmin yaʿqilūn) was treated in al-Jāthiya at 45/3-6. I rely on that treatment.

The block closes with a sentence of deliverance, and two attributes are named.

An observation about the word order must be recorded: the first attribute is in the perfect (āmanū), the second is kāna + imperfect (kānū yattaqūn).

In Arabic the pattern kāna + imperfect conveys continuity. Faith is thus given as an event, and mindfulness as a state that continues. I record this as an observation about the grammar.