al-Shūrā 42:8

Wa law shāʾa'llāhu la-jaʿalahum ummatan wāḥidatan wa lākin yudkhilu man yashāʾu fī raḥmatih; wa'ẓ-ẓālimūna mā lahum min waliyyin wa lā naṣīr

"Had God willed, He would have made them a single community. But He admits whom He wills into His mercy. As for the wrongdoers — they have neither protector nor helper."

In the seventh verse ummu'l-qurā occurred; in the eighth comes ummatan wāḥidatan. The same root (أ-م-م), two verses apart, in two different derivatives.

And what the sentence establishes is this: plurality is not an accident. Law shāʾa — "had He willed". This pattern conveys an unfulfilled condition; that is, it means "He did not will it". The state of not being a single community is not presented as an outcome that fell outside the divine will.

The same sentence is framed elsewhere in the Qurʾān as well, and there a ground is added:

"Had your Lord willed, He would have made people a single community; but they go on differing." (Hūd 11/118)

In al-Shūrā no ground is added; in its place comes another sentence: wa lākin yudkhilu man yashāʾu fī raḥmatih.

The construction of the sentence deserves attention. It does not say "He gives His mercy to whom He wills"; it says "He admits whom He wills into His mercy".

Mercy here, that is, is framed not as an object but as a place. Yudkhilu… fī — "admits into".

I record this as an observation about the arrangement. The same pattern occurs elsewhere in the Qurʾān too (wa yudkhilahum fī raḥmatih), so it is not peculiar to al-Shūrā; what I record is the pattern itself.

This sentence occurs twice in the sūra, in almost the same wording:

The difference: the third person in the eighth verse (lahum), the second person in the thirty-first (lakum). The same sentence, that is, is said once of "them" and once directly to the one addressed.

The difference between وَلِىّ and نَصِير is set out by the lexicographers as follows:

Negating the two together removes two distinct kinds of support at once: neither a permanent intimate nor a helper for the moment.