سَيَعْلَمُونَ غَدًا مَّنِ ٱلْكَذَّابُ ٱلْأَشِرُ
This verse carries the clearest point of word order in the sūra, and it is built on a single letter.
In verse twenty-five Thamūd had said: كَذَّابٌ أَشِرٌ — indefinite, with tanwīn. "A liar, an insolent one."
Verse twenty-six answers: ٱلْكَذَّابُ ٱلْأَشِرُ — definite, with the article. "The liar, the insolent one."
| Verse 25 | Verse 26 | |
|---|---|---|
| Who says it | Thamūd | The text |
| Form | نكرة — indefinite | معرفة — definite |
| Its sense | "A liar" | "The liar" |
| About whom | Ṣāliḥ | Unspecified — "they will know who it is" |
The only difference between the two verses is the definite article. And that article turns an epithet from a description into an identity.
And the sentence does not say whose it is. It asks with man (who): "they will know who the liar and the insolent one is." The verse, that is, does not refute the claim; it leaves who the claim belongs to for the future.
I record this as my own reading. The wording of the two verses can be verified; the function of the article is grammatical data; the conclusion I draw from the two is mine.
The word here is not a calendar "tomorrow". In Arabic ghad has a settled use for the near future; the English "one of these days" does the same job.
The Qurʾān makes this use elsewhere too: "No soul knows what it will earn tomorrow" (Luqmān 31/34) — there too no particular day is meant.
The word's function here is to shorten the distance. The sūra names a future of uncertain arrival "tomorrow". And it says this to Thamūd — for Thamūd that "tomorrow" really was near: at Hūd 11/65 it is recorded that a term of three days was given.
I give this detail on the basis of Hūd 11/65; it was also recorded in al-Shams among the things the Qurʾān says about Thamūd.