Surah 078
An-Nabaʾ
النبأ
40 verses · Meccan
Key structural observations
- The surah distinguishes the functional stability of the present world from ultimate stability: the earth, the mountains, sleep, night, day, the heavens and the rain constitute a real and generous order, destined for maʿāsh, but which is not the final maʾāb.
- What changes on the Day of Separation is not the truth of the earlier benefits, but their function: the mountains really were pegs before becoming a mirage, the sky really was a solid construction before becoming doors.
- The destruction of the visible arrangement does not erase what was accomplished within it: ﴿وَكُلَّ شَيْءٍ أَحْصَيْنَاهُ كِتَابًا﴾ preserves the whole of what was played out in that temporary order.
- The surah leads from collective questioning to individual judgement: they question one another together in the first verse, but each one finally looks at what his own hands have sent forward.
- Discourse, freely multiplied at the opening, becomes at the end a speech subject to the permission of the All-Merciful and to the requirement of truth.