Sūrah 32 · Āyāt 26–30

al-Sajda 26–30 — The signs of ruined nations and living earth, and the final “wait”

What the passage says. The sūra closes with two summoning signs and a challenge. First, history: “Does it not dawn upon them how many generations We have destroyed before them, amid whose dwellings they walk? There are signs in that — will they not then listen?” (v. 26). Then nature: “Do they not see that We carry water to the parched earth and bring forth crops from which they and their cattle eat? — will they not then see?” (v. 27). The deniers retort, “When will this judgement (fatḥ) be, if you are truthful?” (v. 28); the reply: “On the day of judgement their faith will not avail the faithless, nor will they be granted respite” (v. 29). It ends: “So turn away from them, and wait. They too are waiting” (v. 30).

How the present sources read it. On vv. 26–27, al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān read the two signs as appeals to hearing and sight respectively — al-Mīzān making explicit that the ruin of past nations is known “by reports attained through hearing,” while the driving of rain to dead land and the growth of crops is known “by the sense of sight,” which is why “will they not hear?” follows the first and “will they not see?” the second. All gloss al-arḍ al-juruz as the dry, vegetation-less land, al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī adding Ibn ʿAbbās’s note that the water is driven by torrents to elevated villages “between Syria and Yemen,” and supplying the lexical witnesses for juruz (a “cutting sword,” a “voracious she-camel”).

On the “fatḥ” of vv. 28–29, the sources divide. al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān canvass the classical readings — the conquest of Mecca (al-Farrāʾ), the slaughter at Badr whose slain gained nothing by belated faith (al-Suddī), or the judgment of the Day of Resurrection (Mujāhid) — al-Mīzān preferring, from the context, the worldly decision, and judging that “conquest of Mecca” does not fit the answer unless the disbelievers’ faith that day be reckoned mere coerced hypocrisy. The Imāmī hadith-tafsīrs read it through their eschatology: al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī (from ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm) take the parched-then-living earth as “a parable God struck about the Return (al-rajʿa) and the Upholder (al-Qāʾim),” so that the deniers’ “when is this fatḥ?” is their scoffing at the report of the Return; al-Baḥrānī adds al-Ṣādiq’s gloss that “the day of decision is the day the world is opened for the Qāʾim,” when only prior, certain faith avails — “the reward of those loyal to the Commander of the Faithful and his pure progeny.” These attributions are recorded faithfully as the sources transmit them.

On v. 30, al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān read “turn away and wait” as a command to disengage and await God’s decision while the deniers “wait” for the Prophet’s death or defeat — al-Mīzān: “let him wait as they wait, until God makes the truth prevail over falsehood,” al-Ṭabarsī noting the view that the verse was later abrogated by the command to fight. The published Enlightening Commentary closes the sūra on these twin signs of God’s power over death — in ruined nations and in revived earth — and the assurance that the believer’s patient waiting, unlike the deniers’, ends in vindication.