"We have come to trust" – "You have not come to trust"
ءَامَنَّا قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا۟
āmannā qul lam tuʾminū — "We have come to trust." Say: "You have not come to trust"
In (49:14) the root ʾ-m-n sounds three times in one verse: a first-person plural claim, its second-person plural denial, and the verbal noun that grounds the denial, so that the verse turns on who can rightly say the word.
The verse stages a reported speech and a reply built on one verb root. The desert-dwellers say ءَامَنَّا, a IV-form perfect, first person plural: "We have come to trust" (49:14). The command قل introduces a reply that takes up the same verb in the IV-form imperfect, second person plural jussive after the negative particle: لَمْ تُؤْمِنُوا۟, "You have not come to trust" (49:14). The echo is exact in root and form, and the shift is of person and polarity, with the negative لَمْ also moving the verb from the perfect to the imperfect jussive: what the speakers assert about themselves is denied of them in their own grammatical person. The verse then supplies the reason with the same root as a verbal noun, ٱلْإِيمَٰنُ, "the trust": it "has not yet entered into your hearts" (49:14), where the negative لَمَّا marks an action not yet completed. The speakers are redirected to a different verb, أَسْلَمْنَا, "We have yielded" (49:14), so the passage distinguishes the two actions by their verbs while holding the rejected one before the speakers in three grammatical shapes: their claim, its denial, and the noun whose absence explains the denial. The verse then sets a conditional on obedience and a promise that no deed will be diminished (49:14), which frames the correction without withdrawing the deeds themselves.
Where it occurs
- 49:14 A single verse holds the root ʾ-m-n three times: the speakers' claim ءَامَنَّا, the reply's denial لَمْ تُؤْمِنُوا۟, and the verbal noun ٱلْإِيمَٰنُ whose non-entry into the hearts grounds the denial.
All Qur'anic expressions