al-Layl 92:21

Wa la-sawfa yarḍā "And he will surely be well pleased."

The last verse of the sūra. Three words.

لَ — the lām of emphasis. سَوْفَ — the particle of the future; it conveys a wider future than the sīn. When the two come together, certainty and expectation are joined: "surely, in time to come, without fail".

The use of sawfa is interesting: the word normally indicates a distant future and is sometimes used for a threat (sawfa taʿlamūn — you will soon know). Here it is used for a promise, and the lām at its head turns it into certainty.

Root: ر-ض-و/ر-ض-ي. Its meaning is to be content, to be well pleased, to accept, to approve. From the same root riḍā, marḍī (the one approved), riḍwān (good pleasure).

In the Qurʾān this root is used in both directions, and the two directions come together in one verse: "God is well pleased with them, and they are well pleased with Him" (al-Bayyina 98/8; repeated at al-Māʾida 5/119 and al-Tawba 9/100).

The verse does not say what he will be pleased with. Yarḍā — unrestricted.

This is a deliberate leaving-open in Arabic. When the object is not stated the verb becomes unbounded: whatever it is he is to be pleased with, he will be pleased with it.

After describing for eighteen verses people who measure and weigh, who calculate, who give and who withhold, the sūra ends with a sentence in which the whole account is closed. And the closing sentence announces not a quantity but a state.

There is a small disagreement:

The first fits the context better: the subject of verses 17-20 is al-atqā. But the second reading too rests on the two-way use of the word and is not rejected outright.

In fact the two readings require one another: as in the verse of al-Bayyina 98/8 above, being well pleased is mutual.

Al-Shams ended "and He does not fear its outcome" — a sentence announcing, after a destruction, the absoluteness of the ruling.

Al-Layl ends "and he will surely be well pleased".

The two sūras use the same structure and arrive at two different places. And when the two stand side by side the picture is completed: the ruling is absolute (al-Shams), and at the end of the ruling there is being well pleased (al-Layl).