وَكَم مِّن قَرْيَةٍ أَهْلَكْنَٰهَا فَجَآءَهَا بَأْسُنَا بَيَٰتًا أَوْ هُمْ قَآئِلُونَ · فَمَا كَانَ دَعْوَىٰهُمْ إِذْ جَآءَهُم بَأْسُنَآ إِلَّآ أَن قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا كُنَّا ظَٰلِمِينَ
Wa kam min qaryatin ahlaknāhā fa-jāʾahā baʾsunā bayātan aw hum qāʾilūn · Fa-mā kāna daʿwāhum idh jāʾahum baʾsunā illā an qālū innā kunnā ẓālimīn
"How many a town We destroyed; Our violence came upon them by night, or while they slept at noon. · When Our violence came upon them, they had nothing to say but, "We were indeed wrongdoers.""
| Word | Root | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Bayātan | ب-ي-ت — to pass the night | The sleep of night |
| Qāʾilūn | ق-ي-ل — qaylūla | Sleep in the middle of the day (the noon rest) |
The root ق-ي-ل: qaylūla, the short sleep taken at midday in hot regions. The word occurs also at 25/24 in al-Furqān (wa aḥsanu maqīlā) — there it is the resting place of the people of the Garden. I rely on al-Furqān.
I record this as an observation: by naming two times of sleep the verse covers the two ends of the day — and both are moments of defencelessness. The same pair will be repeated in verses 97-98 of this sūra (baʾsunā bayātan wa hum nāʾimūn / baʾsunā ḍuḥan wa hum yalʿabūn). But there the second time will not be sleep but play. The comparison of the two places will be given at 97-98.
A point of word order: the sentence is built as fa-mā kāna daʿwāhum … illā an qālū — a qaṣr (restriction, ḥaṣr) construction: "their claim was nothing but this".
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of the word: daʿwā means a person's defence, his assertion of a right. And the verse says that when the violence came, the content of the defence was "we were wrongdoers". That is, the defence becomes a confession.
And the sentence innā kunnā ẓālimīn is in the past tense: "we were wrongdoers". The admission is a diagnosis turned towards the past; it is not a sentence of repentance. This distinction becomes visible when it is compared with verse 23 of the same sūra (rabbanā ẓalamnā anfusanā — there a request for forgiveness follows it). This comparison will be completed at 7/23.