al-Nabaʾ 78:27-28

Innahum kānū lā yarjūna ḥisābā · Wa kadhdhabū bi-āyātinā kidhdhābā "For they were not expecting a reckoning. And they denied Our signs with a denying."

The twenty-sixth verse had said "a fitting recompense". And now it is explained on what the fittingness is built.

إِنَّ here conveys a ground: "for". These two verses, that is, are the cause of the whole preceding scene.

And two things are named as the cause:

1. Not expecting a reckoning (27) — inward. 2. Denying the signs (28) — outward.

The order is meaningful: first the inward attitude, then the outward behaviour. Denial is the consequence of not expecting a reckoning — not its cause.

This is the repetition of a pattern recorded several times in this commentary: in al-Humaza "he supposed" (inward) came after "he gathered and counted" (outward) and made the diagnosis. Here the inward attitude comes first.

Root: ر-ج-و. And the choice of this word is the sūra's finest.

The original sense of the root: to hope, to expect, to look forward to. رَجَاء — hope. يَرْجُو — he hopes.

Its positive uses in the Qurʾān:

"Whoever hopes for the meeting with his Lord, let him do righteous work." (al-Kahf 18/110)

"They hope for the mercy of God." (al-Baqara 2/218)

"For those who hope for God and the last day…" (al-Aḥzāb 33/21)

Now back to the verse. The verse does not say "they did not fear a reckoning". Nor does it say "they did not believe in a reckoning". It says "they were not expecting a reckoning".

This says three separate things at once:

One — a reckoning is something to be hoped for. The verb's positive resonance stands in the word. The verse, that is, positions the reckoning not as a threat but as an object of expectation. A reckoning is something to be wanted — because if no reckoning is held, injustice becomes permanent.

This accords with the Qurʾān's understanding of justice: for the wronged, the reckoning is a hope.

Two — denial is not a matter of belief but a matter of expectation. The verse does not speak of a mental assent; it speaks of an orientation. When a person does not expect a thing, he lives without taking it into account.

And this distinction is decisive in practice. A person can accept the existence of the reckoning theoretically and live never expecting it at all. The verse's diagnosis covers this too.

Three — the second sense of the verb رَجَا. The lexicographers record that in negative sentences this verb sometimes means to fear, to take into account, to treat as serious. The Qurʾān confirms this:

"What is the matter with you, that you do not expect any gravity for God?" (Nūḥ 71/13 — mā lakum lā tarjūna li'llāhi waqārā)

The "you do not expect" there plainly means "you are not taking it into account, you are not treating it seriously".

The fullest rendering of the verse, then, is this: "They were not reckoning with there being a reckoning."

As has been recorded several times in this commentary (especially at al-Baqara 2/6), unbelief is not a failure to know; it is the covering over of what one knows.

This verse adds a layer to that finding: the mechanism of the covering is the cancelling of an expectation.

What orders a person's life is not the list of propositions he believes but the things he expects. The person who expects to go to work tomorrow behaves accordingly this evening. And the person who expects no reckoning at all behaves accordingly too.

And note: this may not be something a person knows about himself. Expectations are not conscious decisions; they settle into behaviour.

This is why the verse diagnoses not the behaviour but the expectation.

The link within the sūra. The word حِسَاب in this verse will come back in the thirty-sixth:

• 78/27: lā yarjūna حِسَابًا — they were not expecting a reckoning.
• 78/36: ʿaṭāʾan حِسَابًا — a reckoned/sufficient gift.

The same word, in the ends of the two groups. This link will be returned to at the thirty-sixth verse below; for now I record it: the one who does not expect a reckoning meets a reckoning, the one who expects a reckoning receives a reckoned gift.

Root: ك-ذ-ب. To lie. كَذَّبَ (Form II) — he denied, he called something a lie.

Note here: كَذَبَ (he lied) and كَذَّبَ (he called a lie) are different. The first tells a lie himself; the second calls what another says a lie. The verse has the second.

كِذَّابًا — a point of grammar.

The normal verbal noun of the verb kadhdhaba is تَكْذِيب (takdhīb). But the verse has كِذَّاب — a verbal noun on the fiʿʿāl pattern.

The lexicographers explain this thus: in the dialect of Yemen the verbal noun of Form II most often comes on the fiʿʿāl pattern. Kadhdhaba → kidhdhāb, kallama → killām, and the like. This is one of the instances of Arabic's dialectal variety visible in the Qurʾān.

The word's function here is that of an absolute object: reinforcing the verb with its own verbal noun. The nearest counterpart in English is a doubling: "they denied and denied", "they denied with a denying."

And this word occurs twice in the sūra — which, like maʾāb and ḥisāb, is part of the paired structure the sūra sets up:

What is done in this world becomes what is not heard there.

This is a verifiable repetition of a word. There is a separate disagreement over the sense of the word in the thirty-fifth verse (lie, or denying) and it will be taken up there.

آيَة — a sign, a mark, a proof. In the Qurʾān the word covers three things at once: (1) the sentences of the Qurʾān, (2) the signs in nature, (3) the miracles given to prophets.

Which is meant here? The context supports both:

• The verses of the Qurʾān: the addressees were denying the revelation.
• The signs in nature: those counted in verses six to sixteen. If the sūra, after counting them, says "they denied Our signs", it is understood that what was counted is also a sign.

The second reading accords especially with the structure of the sūra and is worth recording: for eleven verses the sūra counted the earth. And now it says: these they denied.

What is denied, that is, is not only a text; it is the world standing in front of them.

I record this as my own reading; but that the signs in nature are called āya in the Qurʾān is beyond dispute: "In the creation of the heavens and the earth… there are signs for those of understanding" (Āl ʿImrān 3/190).