An-Naml · Makki · ayah 68 of 93

An-Naml 27:68

لَقَدْ وُعِدْنَا هَـٰذَا نَحْنُ وَءَابَآؤُنَا مِن قَبْلُ إِنْ هَـٰذَآ إِلَّآ أَسَـٰطِيرُ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ

“We have been promised this, we and our forefathers, before. This is not but legends of the former peoples."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Here the deniers put 'this' first: their scorn falls on the resurrection itself, an old promise they file away as tales of the ancients.

A reflection

'This' first, then the fathers

This ayah returns almost word for word at 23:83, where its fuller treatment lives. What is different here is one change of order.

At 23:83 the deniers say: we have been promised, we and our fathers, this. Here they say: laqad wuʿidnā hādhā naḥnu wa-ābāʾunā, we have been promised this, we and our fathers. Two classical commentaries stop at the swap. Whatever comes first, they say, is what the speaker is really aiming at. In Al-Muʾminun the weight falls on the people promised. Here it falls on 'this', the resurrection itself.

The placement explains why. In An-Naml the sentence follows straight on from their question about dust (27:67). Their mind is fixed on the event and how impossible it seems. The same scorn, turned a few degrees, shows a different face.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.