وَلَقَدْ صَدَّقَ عَلَيْهِمْ إِبْلِيسُ ظَنَّهُۥ فَٱتَّبَعُوهُ إِلَّا فَرِيقًا مِّنَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ · وَمَا كَانَ لَهُۥ عَلَيْهِم مِّن سُلْطَٰنٍ إِلَّا لِنَعْلَمَ مَن يُؤْمِنُ بِٱلْءَاخِرَةِ مِمَّنْ هُوَ مِنْهَا فِى شَكٍّ وَرَبُّكَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ حَفِيظٌ
Wa laqad ṣaddaqa ʿalayhim Iblīsu ẓannahū fa'ttabaʿūhu illā farīqan mina'l-muʾminīn · Wa mā kāna lahū ʿalayhim min sulṭānin illā li-naʿlama man yuʾminu bi'l-ākhirati mimman huwa minhā fī shakk, wa rabbuka ʿalā kulli shayʾin ḥafīẓ
"Iblīs proved his surmise about them true; all of them followed him but a group of the believers. Yet he had no compelling power over them. We did so only that We might tell apart the one who believes in the hereafter from the one who is in doubt of it. Your Lord watches over everything."
The expected wording would have been: "Iblīs led them astray." The sentence the verse builds is this: ṣaddaqa … ẓannahū — "he proved his surmise true".
ص-د-ق — root: to be true, for speech to correspond to fact. Form II (ṣaddaqa): to confirm, to prove true.
ظ-ن-ن — root: an opinion that is not certain, a supposition. Ẓann in Arabic lies somewhere between knowledge (ʿilm) and doubt (shakk): the outweighing probability.
The bringing together of the two words must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: what Iblīs had in hand was not knowledge but a supposition. He had made a prediction. And the verse says that the prediction came true — but in naming who made it come true it does not say that the agent was Iblīs; it says that they followed: fa'ttabaʿūh.
That is, the sentence leaves the responsibility not with the one who made the guess but with those who confirmed it.
One more note: the particle ʿalayhim — "against them". The coming true of the surmise is named as an outcome that tells against them.
And the sentence that follows immediately leaves no door open to misunderstanding: wa mā kāna lahū ʿalayhim min sulṭān.
سُلْطَٰن — root س-ل-ط: to prevail, to rule. The word is used both for "proof" and for "compelling power". Here the context indicates the second.
| Verse | What it says |
|---|---|
| 20 | The guess held — they followed |
| 21 | There was no compulsion — they followed of themselves |
I record this as my own reading, and its support is that the second verse follows immediately on the first: had the first verse been read alone, it could have been understood as an outside power being decisive. The second verse closes that possibility off. And this is a structure recorded in several places in the series: the same sentence was framed at al-Ṣāffāt 37/30 as well — wa mā kāna lanā ʿalaykum min sulṭān — where the speakers were the very party who had been followed.
| Place | Who says it | Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| al-Ṣāffāt 37/30 | Those who were followed — in the Fire, defending themselves | Wa mā kāna lanā ʿalaykum min sulṭān |
| Sabaʾ 34/21 | The text itself — as a ruling | Wa mā kāna lahū ʿalayhim min sulṭān |
The same sentence from two mouths. What is said in al-Ṣāffāt as a defence is given in Sabaʾ as a statement of fact. This is an overlap between sūras that can be verified.
The lexicographers dwell on this part of the sentence, because the expression li-naʿlama ("that We may know") suggests at first sight a lack of knowledge.
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| 1 | ʿIlm here means coming to light in fact: knowledge's passing into what has actually happened |
| 2 | The verb has been used in the sense of telling apart / bringing to light (tamyīz) |
Both explanations are transmitted; I do not enter the theological debate and I do not impose a preference.
| Group | Expression |
|---|---|
| 1 | Man yuʾminu bi'l-ākhira — the one who believes in the hereafter |
| 2 | Man huwa minhā fī shakk — the one who is in doubt of it |
How the contrast is built must be recorded: the other side is not called "the one who disbelieves" — it is called "the one in doubt".
I record this as my own reading, and its support is the choice of word: the distinction is drawn not between faith and denial but between faith and hesitation. The measure, that is, is not holding a contrary belief; it is the absence of certainty.
And the word shakk will return in the last verse of the sūra: innahum kānū fī shakkin murīb (54). The state the sūra names in the twenty-first verse it makes its closing ruling in the fifty-fourth. This is a link that can be verified within the sūra.
حَفِيظ — root ح-ف-ظ: to guard, to watch over, to let nothing slip. The root was treated at al-Maʿārij 70/29 and 70/34; I rely on that treatment. The block closes with a name meaning "the watcher over all things" — and it arrives at the same place as the clause lā yaʿzubu ʿanhu (nothing stays far from Him) in the third verse.