Sabaʾ 34:34-35

Wa mā arsalnā fī qaryatin min nadhīrin illā qāla mutrafūhā innā bimā ursiltum bihī kāfirūn · Wa qālū naḥnu aktharu amwālan wa awlādan wa mā naḥnu bi-muʿadhdhabīn

"To whatever town We sent a warner, those of it who lived in ease said: 'We disbelieve in what you have been sent with.' And they said: 'We have more wealth and more children; we are not going to be punished.'"

The word mutraf and the root ت-ر-ف were analysed in detail at al-Wāqiʿa 56/45. The summary of what was recorded there is this: the root conveys an abundance of favour and the softening and slackening that abundance brings; mutraf is the passive participle of Form IV — not "one who runs riot" but "one who has been indulged". And it was also recorded there: what is charged is not wealth but the state wealth brings a person to. I do not repeat it here.

The same word in the same pattern was treated at al-Zukhruf 43/23 too (illā qāla mutrafūhā innā wajadnā ābāʾanā ʿalā umma), and there it was analysed how the pattern of the sentence (negation plus exception) points to a saying repeated throughout history. I rely on that treatment.

And the two verses must be set side by side, because the pattern is the same and the saying is different:

The difference is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: in al-Zukhruf the mutrafs state a ground; in Sabaʾ there is no ground — only rejection. And the ground comes in the next verse: an abundance of wealth and children. That is, Sabaʾ divides the rejection and its ground between two verses.

And at al-Wāqiʿa this note was set down: almost every time the word mutraf occurs in the Qurʾān it is in a context of destruction or of opposition — and this very verse (Sabaʾ 34/34) was already cited there as an example. The circle closes here.

The logic of the sentence must be recorded, because it is plainly an inference:

The argument, that is, runs: abundance is proof of favour.

I record this as an observation: the sentence does not build denial as a metaphysical claim. What it builds is an inference from observation — and the observation is correct (they really do have more), it is the inference that is wrong.

And this is the very point the sūra will answer. The answer will come in three steps:

That is, the objection is framed in the thirty-fifth verse, and the answer given in three stages between thirty-six and thirty-nine. This is a structure that can be verified within the sūra.

أَمْوَٰلًا وَأَوْلَٰدًا — and this pair occurs twice in the sūra: here (35) and in the thirty-seventh verse. In the second place it will be flatly rejected. I take it up below.