The Twofold Warning (Kallā Sa-yaʿlamūn) كَلَّا سَيَعْلَمُونَ

Overview

The opening of Sūrah An-Naba reports a dispute: people ask one another about the great news over which they differ (78:1–3). The Qur'an answers not with argument but with a sharp, doubled rebuke: “No indeed! They will come to know. Again, no indeed! They will come to know” (كَلَّا سَيَعْلَمُونَ ۝ ثُمَّ كَلَّا سَيَعْلَمُونَ, 78:4–5). The same warning is spoken twice, and only after it does the sūrah lay out its signs of creation as evidence that the disputed Day is real.

Etymology and meaning

The word كَلَّا (kallā) is a particle of rebuke and refusal — “no indeed,” “nay,” “by no means.” It does more than negate; it cuts off the deniers' position and recoils against it. سَيَعْلَمُونَ (sa-yaʿlamūn) joins the future particle sa- to the verb “they will know,” so the phrase means “they are going to come to know” — a knowledge that arrives whether or not they accept it now. The second verse adds ثُمَّ (thumma), “then” or “again,” restating the whole warning. The repetition is the rhetorical heart of the passage.

Qur'anic references

• 78:2 — “About the great news”
• 78:3 — “over which they are in disagreement”
• 78:4 — “No indeed! They will come to know”
• 78:5 — “Again, no indeed! They will come to know”
• 78:17 — “Indeed, the Day of Decision is an appointed time”
• 102:3 — “No indeed! You are going to know”
• 102:4 — “Then, no indeed! You are going to know”

Significance

The doubled kallā does two things at once. First, it overturns the deniers' premise: their dispute over the resurrection is dismissed as baseless, and the matter is treated as already decided. Second, the repetition presses the certainty home — what is said once for emphasis is said twice for finality, so the reader feels the warning close like a door. The grammar is forward-looking: sa-yaʿlamūn, “they will know,” postpones nothing about the truth itself, only the deniers' recognition of it.

The passage sets the agenda for the whole sūrah. The “knowing” promised here is fulfilled later in the text: the signs of creation make the case, the Day of Decision is named as an appointed time (78:17), and the two ends are drawn — the recompense of the transgressors against the reward of the God-conscious. The same construction recurs in Sūrah At-Takāthur (102:3–4), where the identical doubled warning — kallā sawfa taʿlamūn, then again — addresses those distracted from the reckoning, showing this twofold rebuke to be a fixed Qur'anic device for confronting denial of the Hereafter.

See also

• The Great News (An-Naba al-ʿAẓīm)
• The Day of Decision
• Signs of Creation
• Recompense of the Transgressors

References

1. The Qur'an, Sūrah An-Naba 78:4–5, in the context of 78:1–3 and 78:17.
2. The Qur'an, Sūrah At-Takāthur 102:3–4, the parallel doubled warning.