They will never wish for it
وَلَن يَتَمَنَّوْهُ أَبَدًۢا بِمَا قَدَّمَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ
wa-lan yatamannawhu abadan bi-mā qaddamat aydīhim — Yet they will never wish for it, ever, because of what their hands have sent ahead
Two verses, (2:95) and (62:7), carry the same clause about never longing for death because of what their hands have sent ahead, differing only in the negation and verb form: lan yatamannawhu versus lā yatamannūnahu.
The clause appears twice with near-identical wording. In (2:95) it reads wa-lan yatamannawhu abadan, with the negative particle lan and the verb yatamannawhu, a form carrying the attached object pronoun -hu. In (62:7) it reads wa-lā yatamannūnahu abadan, with the negative particle lā and the verb yatamannūnahu, where the subject marker -ūna- precedes the object pronoun -hu. The rest of the clause — bi-mā qaddamat aydīhim wa-llāhu ʿalīmun bi-ẓ-ẓālimīn — is identical in both verses, word for word. In each setting the clause answers a challenge issued in the preceding verse: (2:94) says 'then long for death, if you are truthful', and (62:6) says the same: 'then long for death, if you are truthful' — wording identical to (2:94). The clause then states the outcome: they will never wish for it, and the reason given is 'because of what their hands have sent ahead'. In both places the statement is followed by 'and Allah is all-knowing of the wrongdoers'. The following verses diverge: (2:96) describes their intense desire for life, while (62:8) states that the death they flee will meet them. The shared clause thus performs the same function in both contexts — closing the challenge of longing for death with a negation grounded in their own prior deeds — while the grammatical difference shifts the negation from lan with a suffixed object to lā with an overt plural subject marker.
Where it occurs
- 2:95 Answers the challenge of (2:94) by negating that they will ever long for death, attributing this to what their hands have sent ahead.
- 62:7 Answers the challenge of (62:6) with the same negation and reason, in a slightly different grammatical form.
All Qur'anic expressions