عَنِ ٱلنَّبَإِ ٱلْعَظِيمِ
The preceding verse asked "about what"; this verse says "about this". Question and answer come from the same text, one after the other.
The rhetoricians have a name for this technique and describe its working thus: the question is asked first so that the hearer's mind opens to await the answer; then the answer is given and lands the more heavily on a mind that has been waiting. In this commentary we saw a three-stage form of this technique in Sūrat al-Qāriʿa.
But there is a difference here. In al-Qāriʿa the question closed with "you cannot know". Here the question is answered at once — and the answer given is not a definition but a name: the great tidings. The matter is named, not described.
Root: ن-ب-أ. Beneath the root lies the idea of coming from one place to another, arriving, being carried across. The lexicographers record the usage nabaʾa mina'l-makān — "he came out from a place". News, then, is what is carried: what breaks off from one place and arrives at another.
- نَبَّأَ / أَنْبَأَ — he gave news, he informed. "Inform them of their names" (al-Baqara 2/33).
- إِنْبَاء / تَنْبِئَة — informing.
- نَبِيّ — prophet.
The relation of the word نبي to this root. The lexicographers give two derivations and both have been defended in the classical sources:
| Derivation | Root | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| From نبأ | ن-ب-أ | One who brings news (active) or one to whom news is given (passive) |
| From نبوة | ن-ب-و | Height, high ground; that which is raised above the ground |
The first derivation has a piece of evidence: it is transmitted that the word is also read in the form نَبِيء (with hamza), and the hamzated reading attaches the word directly to the root nabaʾ. The widespread reading without hamza is the form nabiyy.
The second derivation is also possible linguistically and is explained as "the prophet stands in a high position among his people".
I do not impose a preference. But this must be recorded: the name of this sūra is nabaʾ, and the subject of the sūra is a piece of news. That the word comes from the same root as prophethood is an instance of something met many times in this commentary: the Qurʾān's key concepts often come from the same root families.
Arabic has two words for news: خَبَر and نَبَأ. Both are rendered into English as "news"; in Arabic the two are not the same thing.
The definition recorded in al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī's al-Mufradāt and widely transmitted in the exegetical tradition runs thus: a nabaʾ is news that carries great benefit and by which knowledge or a strong conviction comes about; a report is not called nabaʾ unless it carries these three conditions.
| Condition | What it means |
|---|---|
| Great benefit | The news must have weight; ordinary information is not nabaʾ |
| Producing knowledge or a preponderant conviction | It must be firm enough to form a conviction in the hearer |
| Certainty of its truth | A doubtful transmission is not counted nabaʾ |
Khabar, on the other hand, requires none of these. A report may be true or false, important or trivial. In Arabic the grammatical term khabar (the predicate of a sentence) also comes from this root — that is, the word is as broad as "anything at all said about a subject".
The pair that best captures the difference in English is this: khabar — information; nabaʾ — notice, in the sense of a notice that is served on someone. One is passed on; the other is delivered.
But I must add a note to this definition. The Qurʾān itself uses the word nabaʾ for a false report as well:
"O you who believe! If a transgressor brings you a piece of news (نَبَأ), verify it." (al-Ḥujurāt 49/6)
Here, far from the news being true, the verse commands that it be verified. Nabaʾ, then, is not a word that guarantees truth.
This does not invalidate the definition but puts it in its right place: the condition of a nabaʾ is not that the news be true, but that it be of the kind that would carry weight if it were true. The news in al-Ḥujurāt is of that kind — news heavy enough to lead to an expedition against a community. The verse would not say "verify it" of a trivial piece of gossip.
What determines a nabaʾ, then, is its consequence. A nabaʾ is news such that when it is heard something has to change.
This is exactly the subject of this sūra. The news of the resurrection is, if true, news that requires the whole of life to be reordered. If false, nothing changes. There is no middle.
And when we join this to the sūra's first verse, the picture that emerges is this: the news of the highest weight has become the news most talked about and least acted on.
This connection is one the lexicographers record: bone is the hardest and most enduring part of the body; it is a creature's skeleton, its bearer. ʿAẓīm — bony, big-boned, well-framed; and from there great, exalted.
The English expressions "big-boned" and "heavy-set" carry the same logic. And note: Arabic has more than one word for greatness (kabīr, ʿaẓīm, jasīm); the distinguishing side of ʿaẓīm is that the greatness belongs to a frame that is carried.
The choice of the word in this sūra is meaningful. The news is described not as "much" (kathīr) but as "great" (ʿaẓīm). The weight of the matter, then, lies not in number but in bulk.
| View | Ground | Its weak side |
|---|---|---|
| The resurrection / the last day (the majority) | The whole sūra is on this subject; the threat in verses 4-5, the scene between 17 and 40, all point to it. Moreover the note of "disagreement" in verse 3 shows that in Mecca the division was precisely over the resurrection | — |
| The Qurʾān | Ṣād 38/67-68: "Say: it is a great piece of tidings; you turn away from it." The same phrase is used there of the Qurʾān | The context of this sūra is the resurrection; the usage in Ṣād is not binding here |
| Prophethood | The real subject of the addressees' disagreement is Muḥammad's prophethood | There is no direct indication of this in the text |
The majority's preference is the first and its ground is strong: the context is given over entirely to the resurrection.
But that the phrase in Ṣād 38/67 is word for word the same is a datum worth noting and should not be ignored. What emerges when the two verses are set side by side is this: the Qurʾān can use the expression "great tidings" both of itself and of the resurrection. This is not a contradiction — because the core of the news the Qurʾān carries is the resurrection in any case.
The views do not exclude one another: the Qurʾān is the carrier of this news, prophethood is the manner in which the news is delivered, and the resurrection is the content of the news.
The definite article. The word comes with al-: a particular piece of news. The addressees, that is, know what it is; the sūra is not introducing it to them but recalling it. The definite article presupposes a shared knowledge: the parties know what is being talked about.
This makes the question of the sūra's first verse more meaningful still. "About what are they questioning one another?" — the question does not come from ignorance; what is being asked about is what everyone knows.