5 Formulas and refrains 12 / 17

The refrain "Woe, that Day, to the deniers!"

Established rule 2 examples 1 min

The sentence « وَيْلٌۭ يَوْمَئِذٍۢ لِّلْمُكَذِّبِينَ » recurs twelve times, ten of them in sura 77 alone. It falls like a verdict after each proof, and receives exactly the same rendering everywhere: "Woe, that Day, to the deniers!".

Sura 77 is built on this refrain. Between two occurrences the text puts forward a proof: the creation of the human being from a despised water (77:20-23), the earth that gathers the living and the dead (77:25-27), the mountains and the sweet water (77:27), the fate of earlier peoples (77:16-18). After each one, the same sentence returns (77:15, 19, 24, 28, 34, 37, 40, 45, 47, 49).

The refrain's force lies in its exact repetition: the reader must recognise, each time, the same sentence. That is why the rendering is identical in all twelve occurrences and in all six languages. Two occurrences lie outside sura 77: 52:11 and 83:10, where the refrain is followed by a description of the deniers.

In the text

Example 77:15

وَيْلٌۭ يَوْمَئِذٍۢ لِّلْمُكَذِّبِينَ

“Woe, that Day, to the deniers!”

First of the ten occurrences in sura 77 (77:15).

Example 83:10

وَيْلٌۭ يَوْمَئِذٍۢ لِّلْمُكَذِّبِينَ

“Woe, that Day, to the deniers”

Outside sura 77, same rendering.

In the text

In the same theme