Walawla kalimatun sabaqat min rabbika lakana lizaman waajalun musamman
English
Ahmed Ali
If the decree (of respite) had not been pronounced by your Lord, (the inevitable judgement would have ensued); but a term is fixed (for everything).
129
Tafseer
'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (and but for a decree that had already gone forth from thy lord) that their punishment shall be postponed, (and a term already fixed) for this nation, (the judgement would (have) been inevitable (in this world)) their punishment would have been inevitable.
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : and but for a decree that had already preceded from your lord, that their chastisement be deferred to the hereafter, it, destruction, would have been an inevitability, [their destruction] would have been necessary in this world, and a specified term, fixed for them (ajalun musamman, a supplement to the pronoun concealed in kāna, ‘it would have been’, the separation [of both subjects] by the predicate of both serves as an emphasis).
