قُلْ إِن ضَلَلْتُ فَإِنَّمَآ أَضِلُّ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِى وَإِنِ ٱهْتَدَيْتُ فَبِمَا يُوحِىٓ إِلَىَّ رَبِّىٓ إِنَّهُۥ سَمِيعٌ قَرِيبٌ
Qul in ḍalaltu fa-innamā aḍillu ʿalā nafsī, wa ini'htadaytu fa-bimā yūḥī ilayya rabbī, innahū samīʿun qarīb
"Say: 'If I go astray, I go astray only against myself. If I am guided, it is by what my Lord reveals to me. He is hearing, near.'"
The sentence is built on two conditions — but the answers to the two options are not symmetrical, and the whole point lies there:
| Condition | Answer | Address |
|---|---|---|
| In ḍalaltu — if I go astray | Fa-innamā aḍillu ʿalā nafsī | To me — the harm is my own |
| Wa ini'htadaytu — if I am guided | Fa-bimā yūḥī ilayya rabbī | To Him — the cause is revelation |
The expected symmetry would have been: "if I go astray, against myself; if I am guided, to my own credit." The sentence does not build that.
I record this as my own reading, and its support is the structural difference of the two answers: the wrong is ascribed to oneself, the right to its source. That is, the speaker takes on the responsibility for the error but claims no share in the success.
And this is the final form of the attitude taken in the twenty-fourth verse. The sūra's line of the discipline of disputation is thus completed:
| Verse | Step |
|---|---|
| 24 | Innā aw iyyākum — the verdict is suspended |
| 25 | Lā tusʾalūna ʿammā ajramnā — the heavy word taken on oneself |
| 47 | Mā saʾaltukum min ajrin fa-huwa lakum — a claim given up |
| 50 | In ḍalaltu fa-innamā aḍillu ʿalā nafsī — the possibility of error accepted |
Four steps in four separate places, and all of them face the same way: the speaking party does not put itself in a protected position. This is a line that can be verified from the text, and I record it as my own reading.
What this says to the present must be recorded: the seriousness of a claim is measured by how the claimant meets the possibility of being wrong. The verse does not reject the possibility of error — it takes on its consequence. And it does not claim the possibility of being right for itself either.
The root ق-ر-ب occurs here for the second time in the sūra, and the third will come in the very next verse:
| Verse | Expression | Whose nearness |
|---|---|---|
| 37 | Tuqarribukum ʿindanā zulfā | A human being's drawing near — not through wealth |
| 50 | Innahū samīʿun qarīb | God's nearness |
| 51 | Wa ukhidhū min makānin qarīb | The nearness of being seized |
Three occurrences, three different directions. And the sequence is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: the sūra says first the way by which a person cannot draw near (37), then that God is near already (50), then that escape is blocked from close at hand as well (51). The same root carries three different relations.