Teaching Allah while Allah knows
أَتُعَلِّمُونَ ٱللَّهَ بِدِينِكُمْ وَٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ
atuʿallimūna llāha bīdīnikum wa-llāhu yaʿlamu — Are you informing Allah about your judgment‑way, while Allah knows
In (49:16) the root ع ل م appears twice as verbs in one verse, once as the addressees' act of 'informing' Allah and once as Allah's knowing, so that the human action is set directly against the divine one it presupposes.
After the opening قُلْ ('Say'), the question is an interrogative imperfect of Form II, أَتُعَلِّمُونَ, second person masculine plural, with Allah as its object: 'Are you informing Allah about your judgment‑way' (49:16). The same root then returns in a third masculine singular imperfect, يَعْلَمُ, whose subject is Allah: 'while Allah knows what is in the heavens and what is in the earth' (49:16). The structure is a mirror: the addressees perform an act of ع ل م toward Allah, and the verse immediately states Allah's own act of ع ل م over the heavens and the earth. The particle وَ in وَٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ, followed by the fronted subject ٱللَّهُ, places the two clauses side by side so that the second answers the first. The rhetorical force comes from the mismatch the verse itself words: the addressees' verb is causative (Form II, 'to inform/teach'), an action that assumes the recipient lacks the knowledge being supplied, while the paired verb is plain knowing, and the verse then widens its stated scope — from the heavens and the earth to 'every thing' — leaving nothing outside it. A third occurrence of the root closes the verse as an adjective: وَٱللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ عَلِيمٌ, 'And Allah is, of every thing, all‑knowing' (49:16), which generalizes the paired verbs into a standing attribute. The mirror thus works by making the addressees' verb the one thing the verse's own words render unnecessary.
Where it occurs
- 49:16 The verse pairs the addressees' Form II verb atuʿallimūna ('are you informing') with Allah's yaʿlamu ('knows'), setting the human act of informing against the divine knowing it presupposes, and closes with the adjective ʿalīm.
All Qur'anic expressions