An-Nazi'at 79:10 - Linguistic Miracle

They are saying, “Will we indeed be forced to return to the Ḥāfirah?”

There is a lot of emphasis placed inside this ayah. The phrasing of it as a question with the letter lām which is explicitly used to place emphasis, denotes their mockery. They are mocking and making fun of this idea. Are we really to be returned to the

Ḥāfirah? Seriously? Ḥāfirah at its root was used for a well or pit that was dug into the

earth and then widened beyond its size, but the root was also used for the starting or initial point from which one starts digging this well. Hence, it came to be used to mean the start or beginning of something.²⁷ Will we indeed be returned to the Ḥāfirah? Will we indeed be returned to start life all over again?

²⁷ Al-Muʿjam al-Ishtiqāqī al-Muʾaṣṣal li-Alfāẓ al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, vol. 1, p. 464