تِلْكَ إِذًا قِسْمَةٌ ضِيزَىٰٓ
Tilka izan qismatun deezaa
Öyleyse bu haksız bir paylaşma;
That, then, would be an unjust division.
The argument works from inside the listeners' own values: people who counted daughters a lesser thing had assigned daughters to God, and the verse holds that arithmetic up to them before it says anything about the idols themselves. Ḍīzā is a rare word for something skewed or lopsided, and its odd shape in Arabic leaves the line sounding off-balance. The premise granted for the sake of argument is removed in the next verse.