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القرآن
2 The Qur'an explains the Qur'an 1 / 9

The Qur'an answers its own questions

Confirmed principle 3 examples 1 min

When the text asks a question, the answer is often found elsewhere in the Qur'an: further on in the same sura, or in another one. Before looking for an answer outside the text, one looks in the text for the matching question or answer.

In sura 2, the believers under trial ask: "When, then, is the help of God?" (2:214). Sura 110 opens on the answer, with the same words: "When the help of God comes, and the victory" (110:1).

The man of sura 75 asks: "When is the Day of Appearance?" (75:6). Sura 79 takes up the question ("when will it drop anchor?", 79:42) and answers it: "To your Guardian is its final boundary." (79:44). The date is not given; what is given is to whom it belongs.

Sometimes the answer follows at once: "for what Day were they deferred? For the Day of Separation." (77:12-13).

Finally, the same question may return word for word. The disowners say in 74:31: "What did God intend by this image?", exactly as in 2:26. And sura 2 gives the answer straight after: "He leads astray by it many, and guides by it many" (2:26). The translation therefore renders both questions identically, so that the reader can pass from one to the other.

In the text

Example 2:214
مَتَىٰ نَصْرُ ٱللَّهِ
“When, then, is the help of God?”
The question of the believers under trial.
Example 110:1
إِذَا جَآءَ نَصْرُ ٱللَّهِ
“When the help of God comes, and the victory”
The answer, with the same words: نَصْرُ ٱللَّهِ.
Example 74:31
مَاذَآ أَرَادَ ٱللَّهُ بِهَٰذَا مَثَلًۭا
“What did God intend by this image?”
Word for word the question of 2:26, whose answer follows in 2:26.