فَإِذَا مَسَّ ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ ضُرٌّ دَعَانَا ثُمَّ إِذَا خَوَّلْنَٰهُ نِعْمَةً مِّنَّا قَالَ إِنَّمَآ أُوتِيتُهُۥ عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍۭ
"When harm touches man, he calls upon Us. Then, when We grant him a favour from Us, he says: 'This was given to me only by virtue of a knowledge I have.'"
This verse begins with almost the same words as the eighth verse of the sūra. The two verses may be set side by side:
| 39/8 | 39/49 | |
|---|---|---|
| When harm touches | Daʿā rabbahū munīban ilayh | Daʿānā |
| When favour is given | Nasiya mā kāna yadʿū ilayhi min qabl — he forgets | Qāla innamā ūtītuhū ʿalā ʿilm — he says "I earned it by my knowledge" |
The same pattern, forty-one verses apart, with two different outcomes. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.
I record this as my own reading: in the first there is forgetting, in the second claiming ownership. That is, the verse shows two stages of the same behaviour: first forgetting the source, then claiming to be the source oneself.
عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍ — "upon a knowledge". The same construction occurred in al-Jāthiya at 45/23 (wa aḍallahu'llāhu ʿalā ʿilmin), and the disagreement over whose knowledge it is was set out in a table there. Here the construction is plainly the person's own knowledge: a claim of desert.
And the verse meets this with a single sentence: bal hiya fitnatun wa lākinna aktharahum lā yaʿlamūn — "no, it is a trial." The thing given is not counted as the measure.