وَإِذَا قِيلَ إِنَّ وَعْدَ ٱللَّهِ حَقٌّ وَٱلسَّاعَةُ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهَا قُلْتُم مَّا نَدْرِى مَا ٱلسَّاعَةُ إِن نَّظُنُّ إِلَّا ظَنًّا وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمُسْتَيْقِنِينَ
"When it was said to you, 'God's promise is true, and there is no doubt about the Hour', you said: 'We do not know what the Hour is; we hold no more than a conjecture, and we are not among those who know with certainty.'"
What is striking in the words the verse reports is this: the other side describes its own position correctly. In naẓunnu illā ẓannan wa mā naḥnu bi-mustayqinīn — "we conjecture, we do not know with certainty."
| Verse | Who says it | What |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | The text — about them | In hum illā yaẓunnūn |
| 32 | They themselves — about themselves | In naẓunnu illā ẓannā |
I record this as my own reading: the discussion of knowledge sustained throughout the sūra closes here. The other side says itself that it does not possess certain knowledge; and yet it issues a categorical verdict (mā hiya illā ḥayātuna'd-dunyā — 24). This is the inconsistency the verse displays: an absolute ruling issued on the basis of conjecture.
وَقِيلَ ٱلْيَوْمَ نَنسَىٰكُمْ كَمَا نَسِيتُمْ لِقَآءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَٰذَا — "today We forget you, just as you forgot the meeting of this day of yours."
The verb is framed reciprocally and equated by the particle kamā (just as). It is recorded in the classical commentaries that the nisyān here has the sense of abandoning, of paying no regard, and that forgetting is not in question with respect to God. I enter this note; the care for divine transcendence preserved elsewhere in this series for similar expressions holds here too.