وَيَعْلَمَ ٱلَّذِينَ يُجَٰدِلُونَ فِىٓ ءَايَٰتِنَا مَا لَهُم مِّن مَّحِيصٍ
Jadal — to dispute, to wrangle. The concrete sense of the root is striking: jadala'l-ḥabl — to twist a rope tightly, to plait it. Jadīl — a firmly twisted rope.
The transition the lexicographers record is this: two disputing parties plait one another's words by twisting them; each pulls to his own side. The word, that is, carries the picture of a tug-of-war with a rope.
The root is close in sense to yumārūn in the eighteenth verse, and the two do the same work in the sūra:
| Verse | Word | Subject | The root's picture |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | yumārūna fi's-sāʿa | The Hour | Milking — drawing words out |
| 35 | yujādilūna fī āyātinā | The signs | Twisting — a tug-of-war with a rope |
Both words are rendered "to dispute", but they carry different pictures. This is a verifiable fact of language.
The word occurred in Qāf in the series of verse-endings of Sūrat Qāf (hal min maḥīṣ, 50/36), and it was used there in the context of past communities seeking a way out.
The difference in the use here: there past communities, here those who dispute. And what they have in common is that the word is a word of escape.
The word wa yaʿlama comes in the subjunctive, and this is a point the grammarians have dwelt on. The explanations transmitted:
| Explanation | What it says |
|---|---|
| 1 | It is subjunctive by an unexpressed an: "…so that they may know" — a clause of purpose |
| 2 | It is coordinated with the apodosis before it |
The sense is close in either case: the knowing is set down as the purpose or the outcome of the two preceding possibilities (stopping and sinking).