al-Aʿrāf 7:44-45

Wa nādā aṣḥābu'l-jannati aṣḥāba'n-nāri an qad wajadnā mā waʿadanā rabbunā ḥaqqan fa-hal wajadtum mā waʿada rabbukum ḥaqqā, qālū naʿam, fa-adhdhana muʾadhdhinun baynahum an laʿnatu'llāhi ʿala'ẓ-ẓālimīn · Alladhīna yaṣuddūna ʿan sabīli'llāhi wa yabghūnahā ʿiwajan wa hum bi'l-ākhirati kāfirūn

"The people of the Garden call out to the people of the Fire: 'We have found what our Lord promised us to be true. Have you found what your Lord promised you to be true?' They say, 'Yes.' Then a crier calls out among them: 'The curse of God be upon the wrongdoers!' · Those who bar others from the way of God and seek to make it crooked, and who deny the hereafter."

A point of word order must be recorded: the question is built so as to carry its own answer within it.

Qad wajadnā mā waʿadanā rabbunā ḥaqqā · fa-hal wajadtum mā waʿada rabbukum ḥaqqā

The same verb (و-ج-د), the same specifying accusative (ḥaqqan), two different subjects. And the answer is a single word: naʿam — "yes".

I record this as an observation: there is no argument in the scene. The other side does not object; it confirms. And this looks to the same place as shahidū ʿalā anfusihim in the thirty-seventh verse: the admission comes from the other side.

And it must be recorded that the verb nādā occurs four times in this block:

Four calls, three different parties. And the people of al-Aʿrāf call out twice — the group that gives the sūra its name is the group that speaks most in the block. This is a countable datum.

The root أ-ذ-ن: ear (udhun), and from this to announce, to proclaim (adhān). Muʾadhdhin is "one who announces".

A point of word order must be recorded: muʾadhdhin comes indefinite — "a crier". Who he is is not stated.

I record this as an observation, and I do not add the detail the Qurʾān does not give: explanations of who this crier is are transmitted in the classical commentaries; none of them can be verified from the text, and none is certain knowledge. I content myself with transmitting them.

And baynahum — "among them" — must be recorded: the crier is not on either of the two sides, but between them. And two verses later "a veil between them" (wa baynahumā ḥijāb) will be named. There is an overlap between the two expressions; but I give it not as a certainty, only as a possible reading.

The root ع-و-ج was treated at 39/28 in al-Zumar (ghayra dhī ʿiwaj) and at 18/1 in al-Kahf (wa lam yajʿal lahū ʿiwajā). I rely on those treatments. The distinction recorded there: ʿiwaj is crookedness that is not seen, ʿawaj crookedness that is seen.

And this sentence occurs twice in al-Aʿrāf:

The two sentences use exactly the same verbs: ṣadda and baghā … ʿiwajan. One a general description, the other a concrete community.

I record this as an observation, and the table can be verified from the text: the sūra applies in the eighty-sixth verse to a people the description it gave in the forty-fifth. And this is the third instance in al-Aʿrāf of the technique tabulated in Hūd Table 4 (the others: lā tufsidū fi'l-arḍi baʿda iṣlāḥihā 56→85, and mā lam yunazzil bihī sulṭānan 33→71).

The sūra applies this technique four times. In a table:

Four rows. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the eight verses themselves: al-Aʿrāf applies in the sequence of prophets the measures it set up in the first fifty-eight verses. And three of the four applications are in the story of Shuʿayb (85, 86, 86).