Al-Mursalat · Makki · ayah 14 of 50

Al-Mursalat 77:14

وَمَآ أَدْرَىٰكَ مَا يَوْمُ ٱلْفَصْلِ

“And what can make you know what is the Day of Judgement?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Having just named the Day of Decision, the Quran immediately asks whether you have any real idea what you just heard.

A reflection

Named, then unsettled at once

The Quran uses this same question, wa ma adraka, what will make you know, elsewhere to introduce the Day of Recompense, yawm al-din (82:17), where it is followed by a fuller answer across several ayat: a Day when no soul can help another, and command belongs to Allah alone. That fuller treatment, with its own reflections on knowledge that cannot be hunted down by cleverness and a question asked before an answer is given, is worth reading in full there.

Here the same device lands in a different spot in the sentence. The previous ayah has only just named the Day of Decision, al-faṣl, the moment truth and falsehood are finally parted. This question arrives immediately on its heels, before the listener has had even a breath to settle into the comfort of having been given a name for the thing. Naming something can feel like understanding it; this ayah refuses to let that feeling stand unchallenged for even a moment.

That timing is the real difference worth noticing. In 82:17 the question opens a description still to come. Here it interrupts a description that has, in one sense, already been given, al-faṣl, the parting, and insists that the name itself is not the same as grasping what it names. You can know the word for something and still have no real idea what it means in practice, the way a child can repeat the word grief correctly years before losing anyone they love.

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.