وَقَلِيلٌ مِّنَ ٱلْـَٔاخِرِينَ
Wa qaleelum minal aa khireen
اور تھوڑے سے پچھلوں میں سے
and a few from the later generations,
The same two-part count returns some twenty-five verses later for the companions of the right, and there both halves are a multitude, so the scarcity belongs to the foremost rank alone. Readers have taken awwalin and akhirin two ways: earlier communities against later ones, or the first of this community against everyone after them. Thulla itself names a sizeable group, a crowd rather than a handful.