Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 92 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:92

وَأَمَّآ إِن كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْمُكَذِّبِينَ ٱلضَّآلِّينَ

“But if he was of the deniers [who were] astray,”

Saheeh International

Essence

The same two words were used forty ayat earlier in the opposite order, and one commentary says the order is the point.

A reflection

The two words have swapped places

Forty-one ayat earlier the surah addressed this group directly, and used these same two words. Then you, the astray, the deniers.

Here the order is reversed. The deniers, the astray.

One commentary notices and refers back to its own explanation of the first order. And it then says something general that makes the reversal intelligible.

It notes that the third rank is named three ways across the surah. By a place of ill fortune, by the left hand, and here by their denying. And it explains the change. When He mentioned their state at the gathering by their being of the left, He named what they would have. The scorching wind and the scalding water. Then He did not stop there. He mentioned the cause of it, that they had been given to comfort and had persisted.

So the surah's method with this rank is to give the outcome and then the reason.

And the commentary draws out the principle. The just one mentions a reason for the punishment, and the bestower mentions no reason for the gift and the favour.

That is the whole of why the order matters. The first two ranks at this deathbed are given no grounds at all. He is of the brought near; he is of the right. No reason, because a gift needs none.

The third is given two words, and both of them are grounds.

So the reversal is not stylistic. At the first mention, going astray came first, because that is how it happens. Here denying comes first, because that is the charge.

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