al-Rūm 30:55-57

Wa yawma taqūmu's-sāʿatu yuqsimu'l-mujrimūna mā labithū ghayra sāʿah, kadhālika kānū yuʾfakūn · Wa qāla'lladhīna ūtu'l-ʿilma wa'l-īmāna laqad labithtum fī kitābi'llāhi ilā yawmi'l-baʿth, fa-hādhā yawmu'l-baʿthi wa lākinnakum kuntum lā taʿlamūn · Fa-yawmaʾidhin lā yanfaʿu'lladhīna ẓalamū maʿziratuhum wa lā hum yustaʿtabūn

"On the day the Hour stands, the guilty swear that they stayed no longer than an hour. Thus were they turned about. But those who were given knowledge and faith say: 'You surely stayed, as is written in the Book of God, until the day of the resurrection. This is the day of the resurrection — but you did not know.' On that day their excuses will not profit those who did wrong; nor will they be asked to make amends."

The same word occurs twice in the same verse and in two different senses:

This is a play on words (jinās) that can be verified within the verse, and the word order must be recorded: the name of the resurrection and the name of the span they claim are the same.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is this shared word: the other side sets out to measure a span they could not measure, and the unit they give is the same as the name of the event confronting them. The sentence says, with the word itself, that the measure is not in their hands.

كَذَٰلِكَ كَانُوا۟ يُؤْفَكُونَ — the root أ-ف-ك: to turn a thing from its direction, to turn it inside out. Ifk — to invert the truth, a slander. The word was treated at al-Dhāriyāt 51/9 (yuʾfaku ʿanhu man ufik). I do not repeat it here.

The verb is passive: yuʾfakūn — "they were being turned about". The one who turns them is not named. And the tense pattern must be recorded: kānū yuʾfakūn — a past conveying continuance. That is, the sentence attaches that day's mistaken estimate to a continuous state in this world.

Those who give the answer must be recorded, and they are named by two words: al-ʿilm and al-īmān.

And the verb is passive: ūtū — "those who were given". That is, both knowledge and faith are mentioned not as acquired but as given.

I record this as an observation and set it opposite the seventh verse of the sūra: there it was said yaʿlamūna ẓāhiran — there was knowledge, and it had stayed outside. Here ūtu'l-ʿilm — knowledge itself is mentioned as a giving. And the end of the sentence closes with the same root: wa lākinnakum kuntum lā taʿlamūn.

The same expression five times in the sūra, and the last of them comes turned to the one addressed: lākinnakum — from the third person to the second. This is a repetition that can be verified from the text.

I record this as my own reading: what is said throughout the sūra as "they do not know" is, in the fifty-sixth verse, said to them. The verdict is the same; the one addressed has changed.

وَلَا هُمْ يُسْتَعْتَبُونَ — the root ع-ت-ب was analysed in detail at Fuṣṣilat 41/24. I do not repeat it here. What was recorded there: to apologise in order to remove another's anger, to try to bring him round; and the concrete branch of the root: ʿataba, a doorstep and the step of a stair — the lexicographers explain the connection by the picture of "the removal of an obstacle set in the way".

The difference of pattern here must be recorded:

The same root, the one an asking and the other a not-being-asked. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the difference of voice: in Fuṣṣilat the door was closing on their own initiative; in al-Rūm the door is not opened at all from the other side: no opportunity to set things right is offered them.

And the sentence at al-Sajda 32/29 holds the same place: lā yanfaʿu'lladhīna kafarū īmānuhum wa lā hum yunẓarūn — no profit + no respite. In al-Rūm it is: no profit + no opportunity. The two sūras build the same structure with two different second elements.