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Al-Nabaʾ 78:6–7: Earth and Mountains

The Verses

﴿أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ ٱلْأَرْضَ مِهَـٰدًا ٦﴾
“Have We not made the earth a resting place?” (78:6)
﴿وَٱلْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا ٧﴾
“And the mountains as stakes?” (78:7)

Translation: Saheeh International.[1]

Simple Explanation

1. Summary

The people who question resurrection are asked to look at the world in which they already live. Allah has made the earth a resting place: ground on which they can settle, cultivate and build. The mountains follow as its pegs, completing the picture of a dwelling made firm for its inhabitants. These familiar surroundings give them reasons to recognize His power and care.[1]

The One who prepared this life is able to create again. These signs also recall blessings for which people owe gratitude. The passage turns their attention from the future they dispute to the gifts they already receive, before the sūrah returns to the appointed Day of Resurrection, when Allah judges His creatures.[2]

2. Word-by-Word Analysis

Each row follows one word occurrence in the Arabic. The word meanings are Quran.com’s word-by-word translations, distinct from the connected Saheeh International translation above.[1]

Verse Arabic word Transliteration Word meaning
6 أَلَمْ alam Have not
6 نَجْعَلِ najʿali We made
6 ٱلْأَرْضَ l-arḍa the earth
6 مِهَـٰدًۭا mihādan a resting place
7 وَٱلْجِبَالَ wal-jibāla And the mountains
7 أَوْتَادًۭا awtādan (as) pegs

3. Understanding the Verses

Verse 6: a question whose answer is before them

أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ, “Have We not made…?” asks the hearers to acknowledge something they cannot reasonably deny. They have questioned what will happen after death; now they are directed to what Allah has already done. The argument begins with the earth beneath them. The One who made it is not powerless to restore the people who live upon it (al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Shawkānī).[1]

The word مِهَـٰدًا, mihādan, “a resting place,” describes a place made ready for its occupant. A bed is prepared so that someone can settle upon it. Here the image extends to daily life: people walk, make homes and grow food on the earth. Fields, houses and roads are examples of that preparation (al-Ṭabarī, al-Nasafī, al-Saʿdī).[2]

The earliest explanations focus on what these gifts make possible. The earth is a spread laid out for its inhabitants, with the closely related image of a bed (Qatādah, al-Ḥasan). These brief explanations direct attention to a place prepared for use.[3]

We need ground that holds our feet and permits cultivation. The earth’s conditions suit living creatures, and their needs fit what the earth offers. This correspondence makes ordinary life possible (Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Quṭb).[4]

Verse 7: the dwelling and its pegs

وَٱلْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا, “And the mountains as stakes?” completes the first image. A tent’s pegs secure the dwelling. In the same way, the commentators explain the mountains in relation to the earth’s firmness for its inhabitants. The two verses therefore belong together: a place prepared for living, with the mountains pictured as its pegs (al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr, Ibn Juzayy, Ibn Kamāl).[5]

Mountains rising above the ground belong to the same picture as the bed beneath us: a dwelling has both a place to rest and pegs to secure it. The comparison describes their role in that dwelling; it does not make mountains identical to wooden stakes (Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Jaṣṣāṣ).[6]

Allah truly makes the earth steady through the mountains. That does not limit His power: He made the mountains and their effect, and He can hold the earth firm without them. Using a cause He created is an exercise of His power, not dependence on something beyond Him (al-Burūsawī, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim).[7]

What the two verses ask us to recognize

The earth and mountains are signs of power and gifts that sustain life. The first consideration answers the claim that resurrection is impossible: their Creator is able to create again. The second calls for gratitude to the One who has made life possible. The following verses extend the appeal through human creation, sleep, night and day, the heavens, rain and growing food (al-Rāzī, al-Ṭabarī, al-Zuḥaylī).[8]

The blessings named from verse 6 to verse 11 call the children of Adam to work in thanks for them (Qatādah, as recorded by al-Suyūṭī). The hearers already receive the generosity of the One whose promise they question.[9]

Verses 1–5 confront their response to “the great news”: at its heart the resurrection, which the Qurʾān announces. The warning that they will know is followed by these reasons to believe it. The signs continue through verse 16; verse 17 then names the appointed Day of Resurrection, when Allah judges His creatures.[10]

4. Thematic Connections

The prepared earth: 20:53, 43:9–10 and 51:48

Ṭā Hā makes the image of a prepared bed concrete through roads, rain and varied plants:

﴿ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلْأَرْضَ مَهْدًا وَسَلَكَ لَكُمْ فِيهَا سُبُلًا وَأَنزَلَ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءً فَأَخْرَجْنَا بِهِۦٓ أَزْوَٰجًا مِّن نَّبَاتٍ شَتَّىٰ ٥٣﴾
“[It is He] who has made for you the earth as a bed [spread out] and inserted therein for you roadways and sent down from the sky, rain and produced thereby categories of various plants.” (20:53)

The earth is prepared for more than resting on it. People can travel across it and live from what grows upon it. Al-Zukhruf joins that provision to an acknowledgment of its Maker:

﴿وَلَئِن سَأَلْتَهُم مَّنْ خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ لَيَقُولُنَّ خَلَقَهُنَّ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ ٩﴾
“And if you should ask them, "Who has created the heavens and the earth?" they would surely say, "They were created by the Exalted in Might, the Knowing,"” (43:9)
﴿ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلْأَرْضَ مَهْدًا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمْ فِيهَا سُبُلًا لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ ١٠﴾
“[The one] who has made for you the earth a bed and made for you upon it roads that you might be guided” (43:10)

Those who acknowledge the Creator of the heavens and earth already acknowledge the One who prepared their dwelling and its roads. The provision calls for gratitude and directs worship to Him alone. Al-Dhāriyāt makes the same preparation a reason for praise:

﴿وَٱلْأَرْضَ فَرَشْنَـٰهَا فَنِعْمَ ٱلْمَـٰهِدُونَ ٤٨﴾
“And the earth We have spread out, and excellent is the preparer.” (51:48)

These passages explain what the brief word mihād gathers into one image: a place furnished for human life, whose benefits direct its inhabitants to their Creator (al-Shinqīṭī).[1]

Mountains, roads and guidance: 16:15–16

Al-Naḥl places the mountains among the means by which people can live and find their way:

﴿وَأَلْقَىٰ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ رَوَٰسِىَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ وَأَنْهَـٰرًا وَسُبُلًا لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ ١٥﴾
“And He has cast into the earth firmly set mountains, lest it shift with you, and [made] rivers and roads, that you may be guided,” (16:15)
﴿وَعَلَـٰمَـٰتٍ ۚ وَبِٱلنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ ١٦﴾
“And landmarks. And by the stars they are [also] guided.” (16:16)

The mountains steady the earth for its inhabitants; rivers bring water, roads connect its regions, and landmarks and stars help travellers find their way. This develops the connection between the resting place and its pegs in 78:6–7. The earth is not merely present beneath us: Allah has made it a place in which we can settle and move (al-Shinqīṭī).[2]

Questions that require acknowledgment: al-Mursalāt

The preceding sūrah also asks its hearers to acknowledge what Allah has done. Its questions move from earlier peoples to their own creation, then to the earth:

﴿أَلَمْ نُهْلِكِ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ ١٦﴾
“Did We not destroy the former peoples?” (77:16)
﴿أَلَمْ نَخْلُقكُّم مِّن مَّآءٍ مَّهِينٍ ٢٠﴾
“Did We not create you from a liquid disdained?” (77:20)
﴿أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ ٱلْأَرْضَ كِفَاتًا ٢٥﴾
“Have We not made the earth a container” (77:25)
﴿أَحْيَآءً وَأَمْوَٰتًا ٢٦﴾
“Of the living and the dead?” (77:26)

The earth question is third in that sequence. Al-Nabaʾ uses the same form of acknowledgment, beginning its signs with the earth as a prepared resting place. This connection between the two sūrahs is al-Suyūṭī’s, quoted by al-Ālūsī.[3]

5. Gems and Subtleties

Gem 1

The ground beneath your achievements is already a gift.

You may build a house, but you did not make the earth capable of receiving it. You may cultivate a field, but the ground was there before you began. The verse calls the earth مِهَـٰدًا, mihādan, “a resting place”: a place prepared for the lives and work of its inhabitants.[1]

Our effort matters. Yet even our most demanding work begins with things we did not create. To recognize those gifts is not to belittle what we have done; it is to see more clearly what made it possible. Gratitude begins when our account of an achievement includes what Allah gave us before the work began.[2]

Gem 2

The verb asks us to look again at what we see every day.

"Have We not made the earth a resting place?" The verb najʿal is in the present form, though "not" turns it to the past, and the present form asks the listener to turn his attention to the earth and the mountains, which are always before his eyes. That is the difficulty: we grew used to them before we were old enough to think about them, and most of us pass over them. The verse turns our eyes back to what familiarity has hidden, so that we acknowledge it with open eyes. When the passage comes to our own creation, which none of us watched, the verb changes to the form of a finished act: "And We created you in pairs" (78:8).[3]

Gem 3

The argument ends on the earth where it began.

The signs begin with the earth beneath our feet and climb: the mountains, ourselves, sleep, night and day, the seven strong heavens and the blazing lamp. Then the rain comes down, and the passage ends with what Allah brings out of the ground: grain, plants and gardens. The listener finds himself looking again at the place he started from. The ground was chosen with purpose. It is from the earth that the dead will be brought out, and the verse says nukhrija, "that We may bring out", where it could have said "that We may make grow": a hint of the very resurrection the questioners doubted.[4]

Gem 4

The world is pictured as one house.

A bed to rest on and pegs to hold the dwelling firm are only the first parts of a single picture. The passage goes on to seven strong heavens built above and a burning lamp within them. The heavens are described as a building, like domes raised over those who live beneath them, and the sun as the lamp that belongs with such a building. Floor, pegs, roof and light: the world is pictured as a home made ready for those who live in it.[5]

Gem 5

The bed we prepare for ourselves.

Allah prepared the earth as a resting place for us. Another verse speaks of a bed we prepare for ourselves: "And whoever does righteousness - they are for themselves preparing" (30:44). Some of the early Muslims said that this preparing is for the grave. There a person has no bedding, pillow or mattress from this world: his righteous deeds become his bed, and every doer lies on his own deeds, good or evil. The first resting place was made ready for us; the second we are making now.[6]

6. Common Misconceptions

Does calling the earth a bed mean that the earth is flat?

Some have taken this verse and its like (2:22, 71:19) to mean that the earth is flat and not round. That is a wrong conclusion from those verses. The verse calls the earth a resting place because people spread themselves out on it and live on it. That is true whether its whole shape is flat or round, because it is so vast and its sides so far apart. If people can settle even on a mountain, which is one of the earth's pegs, they settle far more easily on the broad earth. Put simply, the bed describes how we use the earth, not the shape of the whole.[1]

Are the mountains that pass like clouds moving now?

A modern writer understood 27:88, "And you see the mountains, thinking them rigid, while they will pass as the passing of clouds", to describe the mountains of this world, which seem still while they move. The classical commentators place the verse elsewhere. They take it as a scene of the Day of Resurrection and gather the Qurʾān's descriptions of the mountains on that Day into stages: crushed, then like carded wool, then like scattered dust, then scattered and borne by the winds so that they pass like clouds, and at last a mirage, as this sūrah says (78:20) (al-Shawkānī); some count the blowing away of the mountains from their places (20:105) as a stage of its own before they pass like clouds (al-Rāzī, al-Hararī). The commentators' view is defended against the modern one, though the present-world sense is allowed as a possibility (Faḍl ʿAbbās). "Pegs" describes the world as it is now, held firm for its people.[2]

The detailed discussion is in Q1: pegs now, passing clouds on the Last Day.

7. Points for Reflection

Have I mistaken the familiar for all that is possible?

The earth beneath us is familiar; resurrection lies ahead. Familiarity can make the first seem unremarkable and the second difficult to imagine. But the power by which Allah created this life does not stop at the events I have already witnessed. When I find resurrection difficult to picture, am I considering His power, or only the boundaries of my own experience?[1]

What response does this blessing deserve?

The earth is not only a sign to consider. It is a dwelling in which I am living now. The passage recalls blessings that call for gratitude through obedience. Recognizing the Giver without worshipping Him does not answer that call. What would change in the way I use this life if I gave that gratitude a place alongside my plans and ambitions? Have I allowed those plans to push an obligation aside? If so, what needs to change?[2]

Deeper Study

The Questions These Verses Raise

Two questions guide this study. The first asks what the images mean; the second asks why Allah places them before people who dispute resurrection. Dates marked AH use the Islamic Hijri calendar.

Question What the discussion explains
Q1. What do the prepared bed and pegs mean? Preparation for life, the mountains’ fixing function, and the distinction between these comparisons and particular explanations of the earth’s physical form.
Q2. How does creation answer denial of resurrection? The arguments from power, knowledge and wisdom; gratitude and guidance; tawḥīd; and the distinction between recognizing resurrection’s possibility and learning its promised occurrence through revelation.

Q1. What do the prepared bed and pegs mean?

Allah prepared the earth for its inhabitants and made the mountains its pegs. The first image concerns the place in which people live; the second concerns what makes that dwelling firm. To understand the pair, we must first explain their shared image, then the mountains’ causal role, and finally what the comparisons establish about physical mechanisms, the earth’s shape and the mountains’ later removal.

1. A prepared dwelling and its pegs

مِهَادًا (mihādan) is a prepared bed or spread. Applied to the earth, it includes ground on which people settle, walk, cultivate and build. Preparation is therefore wider than a sleeping place: it concerns a dwelling fitted to its inhabitants. The named fields, houses and roads show what that suitability means in daily life (al-Ṭabarī, al-Nasafī, al-Saʿdī).[1]

The reported form مَهْدًا (mahdan) makes the infant’s prepared resting place especially immediate: the earth receives its inhabitants as a cradle receives a child. This is where al-Bayḍāwī gives the cradle comparison; it is not a separate account of the earth’s shape. The form and its recitational status are discussed under Qirāʾāt.[2]

Suitability requires more than the existence of ground. If it were wholly hard, cultivation and movement would be frustrated; if wholly soft, it would give no firm footing. The dwelling and its occupants correspond: the earth meets the needs of living creatures, and their lives fit its conditions. This is the relationship the prepared-bed image asks the hearer to recognize (Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Quṭb).[3]

The mountains then complete that dwelling. A وَتِد (watid) is a peg driven into the ground to hold something firmly; tent ropes are fastened to it. The mountains likewise keep the earth steady for its inhabitants.[4] A report from Ibn ʿAbbās, with a very weak chain, says that Allah made the mountains firm pegs on the earth.[5] The comparison concerns their fixing function, which explains why they follow the prepared ground rather than beginning an unrelated subject.

The familiar tent also answers an apparent difficulty. Mountains rise above the surface, whereas a bed suggests level ground. But a dwelling has more than its resting surface: it has supports and pegs as well. Something raised above the ground can therefore belong to the image of a place prepared for people. Either the mountains’ peg-like form or their contribution to firmness explains the resemblance (Ibn ʿĀshūr).[6]

Al-Afwah al-Awdī’s poetry presents precisely that relation:

والبيت لا يبتنى إلا له عمد
ولا عماد إذا لم ترس أوتاد
“A tent cannot be built without its poles; nor can its supports stand unless its pegs are fixed.”[7]

The poles hold the tent up; the fixed pegs secure it. Both serve one dwelling. The poetry thus helps explain why the mountain image completes the earth image, without requiring the two objects to have the same shape.

A comparison still selects a resemblance rather than making two things identical. The jurists’ example, adopted by al-Jaṣṣāṣ, is an oath not to sleep on bedding: sleeping on bare earth does not break that oath merely because the Qurʾān calls the earth a bed. Ordinary unqualified usage remains distinct from a comparison. Calling mountains pegs likewise identifies their relevant function without making them wooden stakes.[8]

2. How does Allah’s power relate to the mountains?

The comparison identifies a fixing function. That raises a further question: do the mountains genuinely cause the earth’s steadiness, or only accompany what Allah does?

The commentators explain the mountains as what Allah set on the earth to keep it steady for those who live on it, as He says: "And He has cast into the earth firmly set mountains, lest it shift with you" (16:15) (al-Ṭabarī, Muqātil, Ibn Kathīr, al-Saʿdī, al-Marāghī).[9] Could Allah not hold the earth firm without them? He could; but He is the One who brings about causes, and working through them belongs to the perfection of His power (al-Burūsawī, al-Hararī).[10] So the mountains truly steady the earth, because Allah made them do so. The Qurʾān speaks of His works in this way throughout: "We sent down rain therein and brought forth thereby some of all the fruits" (7:57), and to deny that the causes Allah made are causes goes against the wording of the Qurʾān and against common sense and reason (Ibn Taymiyyah).[11] This passage speaks the same way of the rain: "that We may bring forth thereby grain and vegetation" (78:15). Al-Māturīdī takes the Ashʿarī position: Allah steadied the earth with the mountains as a kindness, but they are not a cause of it in reality, since when He removes them on the Last Day and leaves a level plain (20:105–107), the earth stays firm without them.[12] In reality, that shows only that Allah is not bound by the causes He made, for, as Ibn al-Qayyim says of causes, He may take away a thing's power to cause, as He took from the fire its power to burn Ibrāhīm; He may set up what stops a cause from working; or He may leave it to work.[13]

3. The fixing function and its physical explanations

A peg fixes a tent securely, and commentators have proposed several physical accounts of how mountains steady the earth: weight, resistance to movement, the earth’s interior, and embedded roots. The last of these is the one the word "pegs" itself describes.

Proposed mechanism How it is meant to steady the earth
Added weight Weight steadies the whole, as loading steadies a ship (al-Biqāʿī). Other weight-based accounts involve changing centres of weight or movement caused by surrounding water (reported by al-Ālūsī).[14]
Resistance to surrounding air Mountain projections break up the air current and moderate the earth’s movement through it, keeping that movement from becoming rapid (Ibn ʿĀshūr).[15]
Restraint of disturbance from within Mountains restrain disturbance arising inside the earth (Muḥammad ʿAbduh, quoted by al-Qāsimī; also developed by al-Marāghī).[16]
Balance in the earth’s crust Mountains contribute to the equilibrium of the solid outer layer (Muḥammad Fārūq al-Zayn).[17]
Balance during rotation Mountains preserve balance while the earth turns, so that rotation does not disturb its steadiness. The same account allows visible projection or stabilization as the resemblance to a peg (Islamic Research Academy).[18]
Deep roots Deep mountain roots resemble the hidden part of a peg. Saʿīd Ḥawwā (d. 1409 AH) relays the geologists’ finding that every mountain has a peg-like root within the earth, and counts the word "pegs" a scientific miracle. Ibn ʿUthaymīn attributes the firmly set roots to those who study the earth.[19]
More than one possibility Quṭb leaves the mechanism open among several explanations, including a reason not yet known.[20]

The accounts locate the proposed cause in different places: the added weight of the mountains, their effect on surrounding air, or their relation to the earth’s interior and rotation. The root explanation instead draws attention to the part of a mountain hidden beneath the surface, as a peg is partly driven into the ground. These are distinct explanations of the comparison, not different names for one physical mechanism.[21]

Of "And the mountains He set firmly" (79:32), Qatādah says that Allah fixed them so that the earth does not sway with its people. The same reason appears in "lest it should shift with you" (31:10) and "lest it should shift with them" (21:31). Later commentators asked how the pegs do this work: when the mountains were created on the earth, their weight bore down toward its centre, and they became like pegs that keep it from moving (al-Bayḍāwī, as al-Ṭībī quotes him).[22]

A peg does its work through the part of it driven into the ground, and geology later found such a part beneath the mountains. In 1855 the Astronomer Royal, George Airy, asked what supports a great table-land, such as the high land north of India, and answered: "I conceive that there can be no other support than that arising from the downward projection of a portion of the earth's light crust into the dense lava." By "lava" he meant the dense rock beneath the crust, which he supposed fluid and which geologists now call the mantle. He compared the crust to a raft of logs: "if we remark one log whose upper surface floats much higher than the upper surfaces of the others, we are certain that its lower surface lies deeper in the water than the lower surfaces of the others." Geologists call this Airy's model of isostasy: the crust "is thicker under elevated terrain", and "the depth of the underlying 'roots' is related to the height of the overlying topography" (Lee Boon-ying). Where mountains are built, "the thickened crust has pushed down into the mantle" (Earle).[23]

The verse's single word thus fits what the first commentators saw, the work of keeping the earth steady, and what geology found later, the mountain above the ground and the root beneath it. Modern commentators explain the pegs by the mountains' roots planted in the earth (al-Muqaddim, Ibn ʿUthaymīn). This is a scientific miracle of the Qurʾān: revealed more than twelve centuries before Airy's account, the verse calls the mountains pegs, and a peg keeps its place by the part hidden in the ground (Madinah International University, Saʿīd Ḥawwā). The mountains steady the earth because Allah made them do so, as the second sub-section explained. Geology describes the root; the verse names the mountains' work.[24]

The other accounts differ. أَوْتَادًا (awtādan) gives us the comparison, and an account of air currents or the earth’s interior adds its author’s explanation of how that comparison works.[25]

The difference between a function and a physical mechanism also leaves a question about the function itself: could “pegs” describe the benefits which make human life orderly? Al-Ālūsī records that explanation: without those benefits, people could not inhabit the earth as they do. He objects that it departs from the apparent meaning and is unnecessary unless a decisive proof rules that meaning out. What is offered in its favour he relays as others' words: it has been said that it brings the point nearer to acknowledgment, and it might be said that it suits "We made" not being repeated before "the mountains". Those who do not hold it explain the unrepeated verb by the close bond between the earth and its mountains. His own verdict is that the apparent meaning is kept unless a decisive proof rules it out.[26]

Those benefits are substantial even without making them the sole meaning of “pegs.” Ibn ʿĀshūr names watercourses, water collecting around mountain bases, pasture, places of refuge and lookouts protecting routes. Al-Ṣābūnī, quoted by al-Durra, develops the water sequence: rain and snow collect on mountains, feeding springs and rivers and supporting cultivation. [27]

4. A prepared surface and a spherical earth

The same limit on comparison answers the question about the globe’s shape. A bed is a place prepared for use; the verse does not say that the whole earth has every geometrical property of household bedding. A person can stand, walk and build on a small part of a very large sphere without perceiving the curvature at every step. Its local suitability and its overall spherical form are compatible (al-Ālūsī; al-Durra, quoting al-Ālūsī).[28]

The relevant distinction is between revelation and an interpretation attributed to it. A fact contradicting an explicit Qurʾānic statement would have to be rejected; a fact that contradicts only a mistaken interpretation is no reason to deny the fact. Here, a surface made accessible to its inhabitants can belong to a sphere. Neither “bed” nor “pegs” requires a flat globe (al-Shinqīṭī).[29]

5. Pegs now, passing clouds on the Last Day
﴿وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ ٨٨﴾
“And you see the mountains, thinking them rigid, while they will pass as the passing of clouds.” (27:88)

How can the mountains be pegs now, when 27:88 says they pass like clouds? A modern writer, Muṣṭafā Maḥmūd, took that verse to describe the mountains of this world, which seem still while they move. The classical commentators place it on the Day of Resurrection and read it with this sūrah's "And the mountains are removed and will be [but] a mirage" (78:20) (al-Rāzī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Shawkānī, al-Hararī). Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī, quoted by Faḍl ʿAbbās, weighs both sides of its context: the preceding blowing of the Trumpet (27:87) favours the events of that Day, while the following reference to Allah’s perfect workmanship strengthens the possibility that it concerns this world. Faḍl ʿAbbās defends the commentators' explanation against the modern writer, though he allows the present-world sense as a possibility. The two verses describe two times: "pegs" describes the earth as it is now, held firm for its people, and the passing clouds describe the mountains on that Day, when Allah removes what He had set firm.[30]

The Common Misconceptions discussion presents the related descriptions of the mountains on that Day.

Why is the dwelling later dismantled?

The mountains that are called pegs here will later be set in motion in the sūrah’s account of judgment. Ibn ʿAqīl considers the wider question raised by such passages: why overturn the heavens and earth when people could simply be raised for judgment?

His answer begins with the purpose of a dwelling. The world was prepared for people to inhabit, enjoy and contemplate as a sign of its Maker. When their allotted residence ends, its demolition shows that this arrangement was neither independent nor everlasting. The destruction of the celestial bodies also exposes the helplessness of things people worshipped: the sun and stars are governed creatures, not gods. The One who prepared the dwelling has the power to bring its present order to an end.[31]

Mihād is the earth as a prepared dwelling; the mountains are real causes of its steadiness by Allah’s making. These images name their benefit and fixing function, and neither requires a flat globe.[32]

Q2. How do these signs answer the preceding challenge?

The Creator of the life they acknowledge can raise the dead they deny. The questioners live on the earth Allah prepared, beneath the heavens He made, receiving the provisions He gives. They are being asked to reason from these acknowledged works to the resurrection. Four connected arguments develop the answer: power and knowledge establish His ability to restore; wisdom explains why life has a final reckoning; gifts call for gratitude and guidance; and their joined provision points to one Governor.

Ḥawwā takes “the great news” as the Qurʾān and the signs as answering opposition to it, whereas al-Shawkānī takes their proof of resurrection to show that the question concerned resurrection alone.[1]

1. Power and knowledge: the Maker can restore what He made

The question ⁧أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا⁩, “Have We not made the earth a resting place?”, starts with the earth the hearers continually encounter. Their own recognition of its Creator gives the argument its first premise. The earth is also the place from which the dead will be raised. The objection therefore turns back upon the denier: if Allah created the greater heavens and earth, why should restoring human bodies defeat Him? First creation establishes the power to create again; the greater creation makes the denial of the lesser still harder to maintain.[2]

Qatādah identifies the distinction in what they accepted: they all acknowledged death because they had witnessed it; they differed over being raised after death.[3] The unseen return is therefore answered through works of the Creator which they already know.

Some rejected any return after death; others allowed the return of souls but denied that bodies consumed by the earth could be restored. The creation argument answers that bodily objection: the One who made bodies can restore them after decay.[4]

The Qurʾān states the comparison between the greater creation and the lesser explicitly:

﴿⁧لَخَلْقُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ أَكْبَرُ مِنْ خَلْقِ النَّاسِ وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ⁩﴾
“The creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of people, but most people do not know.” (40:57; close rendering)[5]

Familiarity can conceal that reasoning. A person grows used to the present order, then takes what he has witnessed to be all that can happen. But it is his experience that stops there, not Allah’s power. The present stage of trial and the future stage of recompense both fall within that power; His will determines their time (al-Nakhjuwānī).

Nor does incomplete understanding establish impossibility. Water revives living things and food meets human needs even when people cannot fully explain how these effects occur. To move from “we cannot explain this” to “the Creator cannot restore the dead” would confuse human limits with divine power. Al-Māturīdī uses these familiar benefits to answer that objection.[6]

Recognizing the first creation also lets us separate two kinds of evidence. That things exist points to the power which made them; their precise arrangement points to knowledge. Neither a dispersed body nor a changed world lies beyond the understanding of the One who originally made it. The further question is why those things exist in their particular form rather than another: they are contingent (mumkin), and contingent things point to an agent who chooses and knows (al-Rāzī).

Those things need not have existed in exactly the form they have. This is what his term “contingent” means: their existence and determination call for an agent who chooses. Precision then shows that this choosing agent knows what He makes. If precision points to a knowing maker, we must also ask whether His knowledge and power depend on a further maker. For the eternal Creator, they cannot be gifts from another. Otherwise each supposed explanation would depend on a further giver, with the same question repeated indefinitely. Al-Rāzī rejects that endless dependence as an explanation of their existence.

He next asks what could restrict those attributes to only some possible or knowable things. Such a restriction would require a ⁧مُخَصِّص⁩ (mukhaṣṣiṣ), a cause determining that restriction. His conclusion is that the Creator’s power extends to every possible thing and His knowledge to everything knowable. The present world cannot set a boundary to the attributes by which it was made.

That power reaches the heavens too, however lasting they appear, for bodies share the capacity to receive ⁧الصِّفَاتِ وَالْأَعْرَاضِ⁩ (al-ṣifāt wa-l-aʿrāḍ), properties and variable conditions. Splitting, becoming dark and other transformations are therefore not impossible in heavenly bodies merely because those bodies are greater or appear more enduring. On these premises, the present heavens and earth can be transformed, and bodies can be restored (al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿĀdil).[7]

The surrounding passage then gives recognizable examples of restoration. Waking makes renewed activity familiar; grain and plants emerge from apparently lifeless ground. Those examples help the listener understand renewed life.

The passage gathers all four of the proofs of resurrection: the creation of the earth and the heavens (78:6–7 and 78:12–13), the first making of human beings (78:8), the dead brought back to life in this world, found here in sleep (78:9), and the earth revived with plants (78:14–16). The earth and the mountains belong to the first, the creation greater than that of human beings (40:57) (ʿAṭiyyah Sālim). From it the passage turns to human beings themselves (78:8).[8]

The Prophet ﷺ describes the resurrection through the same growth image, in the hadith of Abū Hurayrah ⁧رضي الله عنه⁩:

⁧ثُمَّ يُنْزِلُ اللهُ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً، فَيَنْبُتُونَ كَمَا يَنْبُتُ الْبَقْلُ، لَيْسَ مِنَ الْإِنْسَانِ شَيْءٌ إِلَّا يَبْلَى، إِلَّا عَظْمًا وَاحِدًا وَهْوَ عَجْبُ الذَّنَبِ، وَمِنْهُ يُرَكَّبُ الْخَلْقُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ⁩
“Then Allah sends water down from the sky, and they grow as plants grow. Everything of the human being decays except one bone, the tailbone; from it creation is reassembled on the Day of Resurrection.”[9]

This announces the restoration itself, beyond what people already observe when plants emerge from the earth.

Yet ability to do something and an announcement that it will happen are distinct. The argument establishes resurrection’s rational possibility; the truthful Messenger’s announcement establishes its occurrence. That the return has been appointed, and what will happen on that Day, are known through revelation, not calculated from the earth’s present structure (al-Rāzī, al-Nīsābūrī).[10]

2. Wisdom: human life is not prepared for a pointless end

The prepared dwelling is not only something Allah had the power to make. Its benefits fit human needs and allow people to act. Wisdom therefore raises a further question: would the entire arrangement end without any lasting outcome? To make it a preparation for no final reckoning would make its purpose vanish. The argument from wise ends thus goes beyond bare capacity: it directs attention to what human life is for (al-Zamakhsharī, Abū al-Suʿūd).[11]

The creation of a living person includes the conditions that make that life possible. Making life together with its necessities therefore shows power, blessing and wisdom together. This is the movement of 2:28: Allah gives life, causes death, gives life again, and to Him people return. The dwelling and the lives it sustains belong to one argument about their Creator and their return to Him (Ibn Taymiyyah).[12]

There is a necessary distinction here. Aḥmad Ibn al-Munayyir accepts the argument from power but objects to grounding recompense in an obligation imposed on Allah by human reason: the doctrine that He must do what people judge best for His creatures, and must reward or punish on that basis. His objection concerns that premise, not resurrection itself.[13]

Rejecting an imposed obligation does not make divine action purposeless. An act may have wisdom without being demanded by an authority over Allah. Al-Zarkashī illustrates this through the angels’ question about the creation of humanity and Allah’s answer in 2:30: He knows what they do not know. Their ignorance of a wise end does not establish its absence.[14]

The Qurʾān itself establishes the wise end, so the conclusion need not rest on the premise Ibn al-Munayyir rejects:

﴿⁧أَفَحَسِبْتُمْ أَنَّمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ عَبَثًا وَأَنَّكُمْ إِلَيْنَا لَا تُرْجَعُونَ⁩﴾
“Did you then think that We created you without purpose and that you would not be returned to Us?” (23:115; close rendering)

The same conclusion appears in the account of the heavens and earth:

﴿⁧وَمَا خَلَقْنَا السَّمَاءَ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا بَاطِلًا ذَلِكَ ظَنُّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا فَوَيْلٌ لِلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِنَ النَّارِ⁩﴾
“We did not create the heaven, the earth and what is between them without purpose. That is the assumption of those who disbelieve; so woe to those who disbelieve from the Fire.” (38:27; close rendering)

Al-Shinqīṭī explains both passages as denying creation without resurrection and recompense. The conclusion rests on what Allah says of His works: this life has a reckoning, and His promise is true.[15]

3. Gratitude and guidance: the recipient must answer to the Giver

That purposeful life includes a relationship between the Giver and His recipients. Food, ground and the means of living are gifts; receiving them calls for thanks. But people also need to know how to respond, what Allah promises and warns against, and what follows from gratitude or rejection. Blessing thus leads to guidance through a messenger. The Benefactor who provided for humanity does not leave it without a call to tawḥīd and the straight path (al-Māturīdī, Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Ḥawwā). Muḥammad ʿAbduh also answers the rejection of the messenger’s warning: the Giver of these benefits has power to fulfil what His messenger announces about the Last Day. Gratitude therefore includes following the call to worship Him; using His gifts to disobey Him contradicts the response they require (al-Maẓharī, al-Saʿdī).[16]

The present gifts also reveal why worldly provision cannot be the final measure of a person’s standing. Allah’s friends and His enemies both receive them. Al-Māturīdī qualifies this likeness: their outward circumstances may resemble one another, although Allah’s enabling guidance and its withdrawal already distinguish their spiritual condition. The grateful and ungrateful do not therefore become equal in their ultimate outcome: resurrection makes their different standings manifest. The promised meeting gives the obedient reason to long for it and the disobedient reason to turn back before it comes (al-Biqāʿī).

The prepared dwelling makes the responsibility concrete. Its inhabitants receive the benefits of roof and floor, yet wrong one another, consume the Creator’s gifts and worship others. Al-Biqāʿī therefore connects that dwelling with judgment, not merely comfort.

Human capacities sharpen the question. Reason, moral discernment, choice and authority can be used or abused. If the just person and the tyrant alike disappeared without recompense, their responsibility would never receive its final account. The judgment restores the right of the oppressed against the wrongdoer and distinguishes good from evil. Shared provision during the trial is followed by a judgment on how that provision was used (al-Māturīdī, Mawdūdī, Quṭb, al-Biqāʿī).[17]

The judgment also makes truth plain: Allah settles the claims about which people differed in this life. Restoration therefore concerns truth as well as recompense (Muḥammad Fārūq al-Zayn).[18]

4. Tawḥīd: joined provisions point to one Governor

The evidence of power, wise purpose and provision leads to acknowledgment of Allah alone. The One who alone creates is alone divine; His creation also establishes His power to restore. Tawḥīd and resurrection are related conclusions, with resurrection answering the immediate denial. They are not presented identically in every account: Ibn Juzayy gives them as alternative explanations of the proof’s purpose, whereas Ibn ʿĀshūr combines them.[19]

Al-Shawkānī states the purpose himself: Allah names His works so that they know His oneness and believe what His Messenger ﷺ brought. He holds that the questioning was about resurrection alone, not about the Qurʾān or the Prophet's ﷺ mission, since such a proof serves only to prove resurrection. On the view this book follows, the great news is the resurrection, which the Qurʾān announces, so the two are not set against each other.[20]

The connection between the provisions makes the unity argument concrete. The earth provides a dwelling and food, but its produce depends on rain from the sky. Earth and sky serve the same creatures. If their governance were separate and unconnected, the provisions would cease to meet in that shared life. Their working together points to one Governor (al-Māturīdī).

This reasoning concerns the relation among the signs, not merely their accumulation. Human life, night and day, the heavens, the sun and rain belong to a coordinated provision. Complete power and wisdom are incompatible with rival divine governance frustrating that order (Quṭb, al-Biqāʿī). Al-Biqāʿī states the reason: ⁧لأنه لو كان التعدد لم تكن الحكمة ولم تتم القدرة⁩, “because, if there were a plurality [of gods], wisdom would not exist and power would not be complete.”[21]

The earth and mountains give the deniers reasons to acknowledge Allah’s power to raise them and their duty to worship Him alone.[22] And Allah knows best.

Iʿrāb: Grammatical Analysis

The two verses form one connected question. Its structure pairs the earth with its preparation as a resting place, then the mountains with their function as pegs. The verb in verse 6 governs both pairs.[1]

Word / Grammar / What it does

Word Grammar What it does
أَ (a-) in أَلَمْ (alam) هَمْزَةُ الِاسْتِفْهَامِ التَّقْرِيرِيّ (hamzat al-istifhām al-taqrīrī), the interrogative hamzah seeking acknowledgment. Asks the listeners to acknowledge something already evident to them.
لَمْ (lam) حَرْفُ نَفْيٍ وَجَزْمٍ وَقَلْبٍ (ḥarf nafy wa-jazm wa-qalb): a particle of negation which puts the following imperfect verb in جَزْم (jazm), here normally marked by a final sukūn, and gives it past reference. Gives the “not” in “Have We not made…?” The question challenges that negation.
نَجْعَلِ (najʿali) فِعْلٌ مُضَارِعٌ مَجْزُومٌ بِـ«لَمْ» (fiʿl muḍāriʿ majzūm bi-lam), an imperfect verb placed in جَزْم (jazm) by lam. Its subject is the necessarily understood pronoun نَحْنُ (naḥnu), “We.” Names Allah as the One who made the earth as described. The kasrah for الْتِقَاءِ السَّاكِنَيْنِ (iltiqāʾ al-sākinayn), the meeting of two sukūns, does not change the verb’s state of jazm.
الْأَرْضَ (al-arḍa), “the earth” مَفْعُولٌ بِهِ أَوَّلٌ مَنْصُوبٌ (mafʿūl bihi awwal manṣūb), the first object, accusative with fatḥah. Identifies what Allah made a resting place.
مِهَادًا (mihādan), “a resting place” مَفْعُولٌ بِهِ ثَانٍ مَنْصُوبٌ (mafʿūl bihi thānin manṣūb), the second object, accusative with fatḥah. The alternative analysis as a حَال (ḥāl), a description of the object’s condition, is explained below. Completes the first object’s description: He made the earth a resting place.
وَ (wa-) in وَالْجِبَالَ (wa-l-jibāla) حَرْفُ عَطْفٍ (ḥarf ʿaṭf), a coordinating conjunction. Adds the second pair to the same question.
الْجِبَالَ (al-jibāla), “the mountains” مَعْطُوفٌ عَلَى «الْأَرْضَ» (maʿṭūf ʿalā al-arḍ), coordinated with “the earth,” and therefore مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), accusative with fatḥah. Adds the mountains as the next object of Allah’s making.
أَوْتَادًا (awtādan), “pegs” مَعْطُوفٌ عَلَى «مِهَادًا» (maʿṭūf ʿalā mihādan), coordinated with “a resting place,” and therefore مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), accusative with fatḥah. Gives the corresponding description of the mountains: pegs.

This is the principal analysis in Dār al-Ṣaḥābah’s Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm. Makkī, Maḥmūd Ṣāfī and Aḥmad al-Kharrāṭ likewise explain the two objects or their coordination.[2]

Clause / Position

Clause Position
أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا, “Have We not made the earth a resting place?” جُمْلَةٌ اسْتِئْنَافِيَّةٌ لَا مَحَلَّ لَهَا مِنَ الْإِعْرَابِ (jumlah istiʾnāfiyyah lā maḥalla lahā min al-iʿrāb): a fresh sentence, not occupying the grammatical position of a noun, adjective or other part of the preceding sentence. It opens the appeal to the signs after the warning.
وَالْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا, “and the mountains as pegs?” عَطْف (ʿaṭf), coordination: الْجِبَالَ is مَعْطُوف (maʿṭūf) on الْأَرْضَ, and أَوْتَادًا on مِهَادًا. “The mountains” corresponds to “the earth”; “pegs” corresponds to “a resting place.” These are not a new subject and predicate independent of نَجْعَلِ.

The verse division does not end the grammatical connection. English can express it without repeating the verb: “Have We not made the earth a resting place, and the mountains as pegs?”[3]

Where the grammar changes the meaning

1. Why does a negative question affirm what Allah has done?

Taken alone, لَمْ نَجْعَلْ (lam najʿal) would mean “We did not make.” But the opening أَ (a-) puts that denial into question: can they deny that Allah has made the earth a resting place? They cannot. The acknowledgment sought is therefore affirmative: He has made it so. This is اِسْتِفْهَامٌ تَقْرِيرِيّ (istifhām taqrīrī), a question calling for acknowledgment, rather than a request for missing information.[4]

The distinction also explains the English tense. نَجْعَلْ is an imperfect form, but لَمْ directs it to what has already happened. “Have We not made…?” preserves both the question and the past act. “Do We not make…?” would lose that particular force of لَمْ.[5]

2. “Made the earth a resting place” or “created it to be a resting place”?

The alternative analyses concern how the verb and its following nouns fit together. The two-object construction is the principal grammatical analysis. Creation, with one object and a prospective condition, is an allowed alternative; Ibn ʿĀshūr adopts that meaning. Both express preparation for life through different meanings of جَعَلَ (jaʿala).[6]

A حَال (ḥāl) describes the condition of a person or thing in relation to an action. The alternative analysis below applies that term to the condition in which Allah created the earth.

Analysis How the construction works Meaning and English consequence
تَصْيِير (taṣyīr): making something a certain way نَجْعَلِ takes two objects: “the earth” and “a resting place.” Allah made the earth suitable as a dwelling. “Made the earth a resting place” expresses the construction directly.
خَلْق (khalq): creating “The earth” is the object; مِهَادًا describes its intended condition as a حَال مُقَدَّرَة (ḥāl muqaddarah), a prospective condition. Allah created it to serve as a resting place. “Created it to be a resting place” makes this emphasis explicit.

Calling the ḥāl here muqaddarah directs attention to the condition intended to result: the earth is created to be a prepared dwelling. This does not require the English translation to describe two separate acts, first creation and then a later conversion. The ordinary “made…a resting place” can express the shared meaning; “created…to be a resting place” makes the alternative grammatical emphasis explicit.[7]

The same distinction reaches أَوْتَادًا (awtādan), “pegs.” Under the two-object analysis, it states what Allah made the mountains. Under the ḥāl analysis, the concrete noun is understood through its descriptive force. Al-Samīn gives مُثَبَّتاتٍ (muthabbatātin), “things fixed firmly.” This describes the mountains as firmly fixed. The further explanation that they make the earth firm belongs to the meaning of the peg comparison, developed in Q1; it is not the same as this passive description.[8]

3. Why is there no second verb in verse 7?

Both parts of verse 7 correspond to parts of verse 6:

What Allah made What He made it
الْأَرْضَ, the earth مِهَادًا, a resting place
الْجِبَالَ, the mountains أَوْتَادًا, pegs

The shared verb joins the dwelling and its pegs in one acknowledgment. Repeating “We made” in an explanation can make the sense explicit, but the Arabic does not need to repeat it. Nor should “the mountains are pegs” be read as an unrelated observation: it remains an acknowledgment of Allah’s making.[9]

Ṣarf: Roots and Morphology

The six word occurrences contain five root-bearing words. أَلَمْ (alam) combines two particles, أَ and لَمْ; neither has a noun or verb root. The attached وَ (wa-, “and”) and the definite article الْ (al-, “the”) also stand outside the roots of the words to which they are joined.

The forms in these verses

The patterns below describe the word before its case ending. Fatḥah is the short a ending; the indefinite ending in نَصْب (naṣb), the accusative state, with tanwīn is represented here as -an, as in mihādan. Its pronunciation when joined to the next word follows the rules of recitation. The grammatical roles explain why the four nouns are مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), in that state.[1]

Occurrence and word Root and pattern Form and inflection Contribution here
78:6:1 أَلَمْ (alam) Two particles; no root or word pattern. Interrogative أَ plus negative لَمْ, which governs jazm. Calls for acknowledgment of an act already accomplished.
78:6:2 نَجْعَلِ (najʿali) ج ع ل; نَفْعَل (nafʿal). The basic verb is جَعَلَ يَجْعَلُ (jaʿala yajʿalu). Active, first-person plural imperfect of the basic three-letter verb. In jazm after لَمْ. Its underlying final sukūn is replaced in connected pronunciation by a helping kasrah before الْأَرْضَ. “We make,” directed by لَمْ to “We made.” The prefixed نَـ marks the speaker’s “We”; it is not part of the root.
78:6:3 الْأَرْضَ (al-arḍa) أ ر ض; فَعْل (faʿl). A normally feminine noun, singular in form and used as a generic name. Definite through الْ; مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), accusative with fatḥah. The earth familiar to the listeners, on which people live. The initial hamzah in أَرْض is part of the root.
78:6:4 مِهَادًا (mihādan) م ه د; فِعَال (fiʿāl). Indefinite and مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), accusative with fatḥah and tanwīn. Its analysis as a singular noun, plural or مَصْدَر (maṣdar), a verbal noun, is discussed below. A place prepared and made suitable for resting and living. The م is a root letter, not an added prefix.
78:7:1 وَالْجِبَالَ (wa-l-jibāla) ج ب ل; فِعَال (fiʿāl), the broken plural of جَبَل (jabal), فَعَل (faʿal). Prefixed وَ plus definite الْجِبَال; مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), accusative with fatḥah. The plural changes the internal form rather than adding a regular plural ending. The mountains, taken together, follow “the earth” under the same verb.
78:7:2 أَوْتَادًا (awtādan) و ت د; أَفْعَال (afʿāl), a broken plural of وَتِد (watid), فَعِل (faʿil). Indefinite and مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), accusative with fatḥah and tanwīn. The opening أَ is part of the plural pattern; the و is a root letter. “Pegs”: plural objects whose fixing function explains the comparison.
1. جَعَلَ: the construction determines the meaning

“Made” is a useful English translation because جَعَلَ (jaʿala) has more than one use. Al-Rāghib distinguishes beginning an action, bringing something into existence, forming something from something else, giving it a particular condition, and judging it to be something. Their Arabic constructions help distinguish them. He illustrates creation with جَعَلَ الظُّلُمَاتِ وَالنُّورَ, “made the darkness and the light” (6:1), whereas making something a certain way appears in جَعَلَ لَكُمُ الْأَرْضَ فِرَاشًا, “made the earth a bed for you” (2:22). The latter closely parallels the two-object analysis of 78:6. Al-Zamakhsharī and al-Samīn likewise distinguish the verb’s uses through their constructions; making the sun a lamp is among al-Zamakhsharī’s examples of making something so.[2]

The same sūrah illustrates the difference. In “We made a lamp” (78:13), Makkī takes “made” as “created,” with one object; he contrasts it with the preceding clauses in which something is made a particular way. Al-Zarkashī connects khalq, creating, with determining or measuring a thing, and jaʿl with giving it a state, forming it from something else, or moving it to a place. On his account, the creation-sense of jaʿl usually concerns something formed from, caused by or arising within an existing thing. “Usually” matters: this describes frequent Qurʾānic usage, not a rule without exceptions. The construction and context therefore help decide the meaning in each passage.[3]

It would therefore be misleading to take one English meaning of this root and impose it everywhere. Ibn Fāris, quoting al-Khalīl, notes that جَعَلَ يَقُولُ (jaʿala yaqūlu) can mean “he began to say,” whereas صَنَعَ يَقُولُ (ṣanaʿa yaqūlu) cannot replace it. Although both جَعَلَ and صَنَعَ can concern making, their uses are not interchangeable. Ibn Fāris also declines to derive every word in the ج ع ل family from one common sense.[4]

Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal proposes a closer connection: a thing assumes a particular condition or form, as a shoot becomes a palm, wood is made into a door or clay into pottery. He includes creation and the formation of a judgment within that account. This is his explanation of the root’s development; Ibn Fāris’s account is less unified. For the present verse, the decisive evidence remains the actual construction: the earth is made a resting place, or created to serve as one.[5]

2. الْأَرْض: the ground on which people live

أَرْض (arḍ) names the earth beneath people, in contrast to the sky above them. Its singular form can name the ground as a whole; it need not refer to one small plot. Ibn Manẓūr calls it an اِسْمُ جِنْس (ism jins), a generic name, and notes its feminine gender. Here its meaning is specified by مِهَادًا: the earth as a prepared dwelling. The form فَعْل tells us how the word is built, not what geometrical shape the earth must have.[6]

3. مِهَادًا: preparation, breadth and number

The central idea is preparation for use. مَهَّدَ (mahhada) means to prepare or make something easy; a مَهْد (mahd) is a prepared place for an infant, and مِهَاد (mihād) can mean bedding or a prepared resting place. Ibn Fāris connects the root with تَوْطِئَة وَتَسْهِيل (tawṭiʾah wa-tashīl), preparation and making easy. Al-Rāghib and al-Samīn explain مَهْد and مِهَاد through the prepared place. Al-Samīn compares their forms and meanings with فَرْش (farsh) and فِرَاش (firāsh), spreading or bedding.[7]

There is also a difference of emphasis. Al-Azharī, quoted in Lisān al-ʿArab, calls مِهَاد broader than مَهْد and gives the earth prepared for its inhabitants as his example. The infant’s bed helps us understand the image, but the verse’s dwelling accommodates human life more widely. Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal brings this out through residence, cultivation and digging: preparation includes the uses for which the earth has been made accessible.[8]

The form itself permits more than one analysis:

Analysis of مِهَاد Reason given Effect on the explanation
A singular noun on فِعَال (fiʿāl) Al-Muntajab al-Hamadhānī compares its form with سِرَاج (sirāj, “lamp”) and مِثَال (mithāl, “example”). The earth is spoken of as one prepared resting place.
A plural of مَهْد (mahd) Al-Muntajab compares كَعْب / كِعَاب (kaʿb / kiʿāb). He explains the plurality through different localities, and reports another explanation through different uses such as cultivation, building and digging. Al-Burūsawī and al-Hararī also record this explanation; Abū Ḥayyān discusses both singular and plural forms. The earth provides many prepared places or kinds of use. “A resting place” remains natural collective English; “places prepared for you” makes this interpretation explicit.
A مَصْدَر (maṣdar), a verbal noun, describing what has been prepared Al-Burūsawī quotes Ibn al-Shaykh: مِهَاد comes from مَاهَدْتُ (māhadtu) in the sense of مَهَدْتُ (mahadtu), just as سَافَرْتُ and سَفَرْتُ are compared. The name of the preparation is applied to the prepared earth. Attention falls on the earth’s prepared condition. “A prepared resting place” expresses the result rather than the act of preparation alone.

The verbal-noun analysis is adopted here: مِهَاد (mihād) names preparation and is applied to the fully prepared earth (al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿĀshūr). The plural remains a reported alternative.[9]

4. الْجِبَال: the plural form and the mountain’s solidity

جَبَل (jabal), “mountain,” becomes جِبَال (jibāl): the first vowel changes and a long ā enters the word. Al-Samīn distinguishes this plural from أَجْبُل (ajbul) and أَجْبَال (ajbāl), forms associated with a small number. The verse uses جِبَال for the mountains collectively.[10]

The linguistic explanations emphasize related features. Ibn Fāris connects the root with a mass gathered in elevation; al-Rāghib emphasizes the mountain’s firmness. Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal brings mass, solid structure and bulk together. These features make the following word, “pegs,” intelligible: the great, solid mountains are described through a familiar means of fixing something firmly.[11]

The lexicon also calls a mountain a great peg of the earth when it rises high and massive, distinguishing it from smaller isolated hills. The relation to “pegs” appears within the language’s description of mountains (Ibn Manẓūr).[12]

5. أَوْتَاد: why the plural preserves its consonants

أَوْتَاد (awtād) is built differently from جِبَال (jibāl). It adds an initial hamzah and places a long ā between the root’s second and third letters: و ت د becomes أَوْتَاد. The singular has several attested forms, including the well-known وَتِد (watid), also وَتَد (watad), وَتْد (watd) and the assimilated وَدّ (wadd). Al-Naḥḥās explains why that last shortening does not extend to أَوْتَاد: the long ā separates the ت and د, so they cannot merge as adjacent sounds do.[13]

A peg is something driven in and fixed. This is why the comparison is more than a resemblance in shape. Al-Zamakhsharī gives the expression “Allah pegged the earth with the mountains,” and Ibn Manẓūr explains أَوْتَادُ الْأَرْض (awtād al-arḍ), “the earth’s pegs,” as the mountains because they make it firm. The word names the familiar object; the verse applies its fixing function to the mountains.[14]

The lexicographers relate the fixing function to وَالْجِبَالَ أَرْسَاهَا, “And the mountains He anchored” (79:32; close rendering). The verb makes explicit the firm establishment pictured through “pegs.”[15]

The related forms express the same firmness in ordinary description. Abū Muḥammad al-Faqʿasī says:

لاقَتْ عَلَى الماءِ جُذَيلًا واتِدا، ... وَلَمْ يَكُنْ يُخْلِفُها المَواعِدَا
“At the water [the camels] met a little trunk standing firm; he did not fail to meet their appointed times.”[16]

Ibn Manẓūr explains that the camels are the understood subject and that the man is compared with a firm trunk because of his steadiness. He also records the possibility that Judhayl is the man’s name. The witness establishes واتد (wātid) as “standing firm.”

Abū Duʾād uses the same description for an upright horn:

باتت له أذنٌ توجّس حرّة وأحمّ واتد
“He spent the night with a keen ear listening and a dark horn standing upright.”[17]

The word واتد names the horn’s upright position. A related form describes strong fastening in Sāʿida ibn Juʾayyah’s image of a lion:

يُقَصِّمُ أَعْناقَ المَخاضِ، كأَنَّما ... بِمَفْرَجِ لَحْيَيْهِ الرِّتاجُ المُوَتَّدُ
“He crushes the necks of pregnant she-camels, as though a firmly fastened door stood between his jaws.”[18]

The door image gives الموتّد (al-muwattad) its fixing sense. These uses clarify firmness within the root; the Qurʾānic plural applies that familiar fixing image to mountains.

Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

The argument begins with something the listeners already know. Yet the earth is not presented simply as an object they can see. It is a dwelling prepared for them; its mountains belong to that dwelling. The question, the images and their arrangement make familiar surroundings a reason to reconsider the resurrection they deny.

1. A question that calls for acknowledgment: الاستفهام التقريري (al-istifhām al-taqrīrī)

Where it is. أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا, “Have We not made the earth a resting place?” (78:6).

The plain way. A statement could tell them, “We made the earth a resting place.” That would announce the fact without asking them to acknowledge it.

What it does. The question puts the denial before the listeners: can they say that Allah has not done this? They must acknowledge that He has made the earth a resting place. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains that the negative form strengthens the demand for acknowledgment; it does not deny the making. Their own recognition of Allah as Creator becomes the starting point of the argument. Al-Biqāʿī also brings out its rebuke: why continue questioning the promised resurrection while refusing to consider these evident signs of power and wisdom?[1]

For the force of the imperfect after lam and its contrast with “We created you,” see 78:8, Balāghah.[2]

The effect. The listeners cannot keep the discussion at the level of a distant event they have never seen. They are asked about the ground they occupy. Abū Ḥayyān and al-Biqāʿī explain the choice of the earth first through this constant contact with it. Ibn ʿĀshūr adds a second connection: resurrection means that the dead will be brought out of this very earth. What is familiar now is therefore directly relevant to what they dispute about the future.[3]

2. From speaking about them to addressing them: الالتفات (al-iltifāt)

The change from speaking about the deniers to addressing them, including the alternative explanation with an understood command to the Prophet ﷺ, is explained in 78:8, Balāghah.[4]

3. A bed and its pegs: التشبيه البليغ (al-tashbīh al-balīgh)

Where it is. الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا, “the earth a resting place,” and الْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا, “the mountains as pegs.”

The plain way. An expanded comparison would say that the earth is like a prepared bed in its suitability for habitation, and the mountains are like pegs in their fixing function.

What it does. The Arabic directly calls the earth a bed and the mountains pegs. It leaves out both the comparison word, “like,” and a statement of the particular resemblance. The listener therefore moves directly from the earth and mountains to familiar objects: a prepared resting place and the pegs that secure a dwelling. This is the construction explained by al-Ṣābūnī, whose words al-Hararī and al-Durra quote.

The direct comparison is treated here as التشبيه البليغ (al-tashbīh al-balīgh), an emphatic comparison. Al-Zuḥaylī and al-Ṣābūnī use this classification, and Ibn ʿĀshūr identifies the comparison. For the earth expression, al-Ālūsī gives this classification when مِهَاد (mihād) and مَهْد (mahd) name the same prepared resting place. He identifies the mountain comparison without that condition.

A second classification calls the expressions استعارتان (istiʿāratān), “two metaphors” (al-Sharīf al-Raḍī; al-Durra includes metaphor as an alternative). The two classifications describe the wording differently, but preserve the resemblance being explained: mountains secure the earth as pegs secure a tent. Neither turns the mountains into wooden stakes.[5]

The two images also belong together. A bed suggests the dwelling in which it lies; pegs suggest the tent secured around it. Ibn ʿĀshūr calls the underlying dwelling image استعارة مكنية (istiʿārah makniyyah), an implied metaphor: the earth is pictured as a home without being called one. Its bed and pegs make that home imaginable. The familiar relation between tent, supports and pegs is also the point of al-Afwah al-Awdī’s poetic witness, quoted and explained in Q1, “A prepared dwelling and its pegs”[6]

The dwelling image continues beyond bed and pegs: the heavens are built above its inhabitants, and the sun is its lamp. These are related provisions within one prepared home (al-Ālūsī, al-Biqāʿī).[7]

The effect. Bed and pegs let the listener see the prepared dwelling as one arrangement. The raised mountains belong to the same home as the ground beneath its inhabitants. The full objection and its answer are developed in Q1.[8]

There is a further question within the bed image: how does the noun مِهَاد (mihād) describe the earth? Al-Rāzī preserves three analyses, one of which makes the expression especially forceful.[9]

Analysis How the expression works What it emphasizes
The name of the action describes its result مِهَاد, understood as a مَصْدَر (maṣdar), a verbal noun, names الممهود (al-mamhūd), what has been prepared. The earth’s prepared condition.
The earth is described by the quality itself Al-Rāzī compares saying that a person is “generosity”: the quality is so complete that the person is spoken of as though he were the quality itself. The fullness of the earth’s preparation as a dwelling.
The expression includes an understood noun ذات مهاد (dhāt mihād), “possessing a prepared resting place.” The earth as furnished with such a place.

These are alternative explanations of the expression, not three successive acts. The middle explanation brings out intensification through direct description; the others explain how preparation or a prepared place is attributed to the earth.

4. A benefit that is also a reason: التعليل (al-taʿlīl) and الامتنان (al-imtinān)

Where it is. Allah does not mention only the earth and mountains. He describes what He has made them: a resting place and pegs.

The plain way. “We created the earth and the mountains” would identify the created things. The present wording also directs attention to their use.

What it does. Al-Zarkashī and al-Suyūṭī discuss these verses under taʿlīl, giving a reason, specifically through mentioning the purpose of creation. The listener is shown not only that something exists but that it has been fitted to an end. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains the choice of نَجْعَلِ (najʿali), “make,” through this attention to the earth’s condition: it has been made suitable for those who inhabit it.[10]

The effect. Evidence and gratitude meet. Ibn ʿĀshūr calls it an argument containing imtinān, a reminder of Allah’s favour. The preparation that demonstrates His wisdom is also a benefit the deniers receive. Remembering that favour is meant to draw them away from obstinate denial and towards considering the Messenger’s call. Q2 develops the further reasoning about power, wisdom and judgment; here the rhetorical point is how a useful dwelling becomes both evidence to consider and a gift to acknowledge.[11]

5. Two descriptions, one connected acknowledgment: الإيجاز (al-ījāz)

Where it is. Verse 7 says only وَالْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا, “and the mountains as pegs.” It does not repeat أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ, “Have We not made…?”

The plain way. The question could be expanded in explanation: “Have We not made the earth a resting place, and have We not made the mountains as pegs?”

What it does. The existing verb governs both pairs. Ibn Kamāl explains the absence of a repeated verb through the relation of the meanings: the mountains make the prepared dwelling firm, so verse 7 completes verse 6. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains their grammatical coordination and describes the mountain clause as a related contribution inserted between the earth’s preparation and the creation of its inhabitants in verse 8. The movement is from their dwelling, with its pegs, to the people who live there. Al-Biqāʿī expresses that progression as moving from the surrounding place to its occupants. Ibn ʿĀshūr also identifies ījāz, concision, in “made the earth a resting place”: the making already includes the earth’s creation, so creation need not be separately stated.[12]

The effect. The brief second verse completes the first image without starting the argument over. Brevity does not remove the relation between the two gifts; it makes their relation easier to hear. The verse endings also correspond: مِهَادًا (mihādan) and أَوْتَادًا (awtādan) share the -ād- pattern. This begins the broader pattern of matching endings that al-Zuḥaylī discusses in the following sequence. The paired sound accompanies the paired meanings: the dwelling, then its pegs.[13]

Qirāʾāt

مِهَادًا (mihādan) and the reported مَهْدًا (mahdan)

The form in the Ten canonical recitation traditions (qirāʾāt) here is مِهَادًا (mihādan), with a kasrah beneath the mīm and an alif after the hāʾ. Al-Bannāʾ explicitly states their agreement on that alif in this verse. Ibn al-Jazarī states agreement on this form in al-Nabaʾ, explaining that it follows the pattern of the verse endings that come after it.[1]

Commentators also report مَهْدًا (mahdan), with a fatḥah on the mīm, a still hāʾ, and no alif between the hāʾ and dāl. That is a difference in the word’s form, not simply a way of stopping at the verse ending. The reports and their attribution need to be distinguished from the agreement just described.

Form What changes in pronunciation Standing here
مِهَادًا (mihādan) Kasrah beneath the mīm; an alif after the hāʾ. The agreed form of the Ten in 78:6. The commentators’ descriptions “most” or “general” do not establish a second reading among the Ten.
مَهْدًا (mahdan) Fatḥah on the mīm, a still hāʾ, and no alif between the hāʾ and dāl. A historically reported form, attributed to Mujāhid and ʿĪsā, with “some Kufans” also mentioned. It is not a second reading among the Ten at this verse.

The distinction is between a form being reported and a form belonging to the agreed recitation here. Al-Khafājī calls مَهْدًا (mahdan) شاذة (shādhdhah), non-canonical, as others had stated before him. This explains how al-Bayḍāwī can mention the form while also stating agreement: the historical report does not give it the standing of مِهَادًا among the recognized readers here.

The place of an attribution matters too. Al-Samīn and Ibn ʿĀdil restrict their comparison with Kufan recitation to Ṭā Hā and al-Zukhruf. That cross-reference cannot be turned into a Kufan variant of 78:6. The separate question of whom the name “ʿĪsā” identifies follows below.[2]

Who is the reported ʿĪsā?

Abū Ḥayyān draws attention to the name rather than silently treating every “ʿĪsā” as the same reader. He notes that Ibn ʿAṭiyyah does not identify him more fully in this report. He then quotes Ibn Khālawayh’s attribution to Mujāhid and ʿĪsā al-Hamdānī. Abū Ḥayyān suggests that Ibn ʿAṭiyyah’s “some Kufans” may refer to this ʿĪsā. By contrast, he explains, an unqualified “ʿĪsā,” or “ʿĪsā of Basra,” ordinarily means ʿĪsā ibn ʿUmar al-Thaqafī. The suggestion about “some Kufans” remains Abū Ḥayyān’s proposed identification.[3]

Does the reported form change the meaning?

Al-Zajjāj says the two forms share their meaning here: Allah made the earth accessible so that people could dwell and travel upon it. Al-Rāzī develops مَهْدًا through the infant’s bed: as the child has a place prepared for it, people have the earth prepared for them. The difference makes that familiar image especially immediate; it does not turn the verse into a different claim about creation.[4]

Ṣarf explains the adopted مَصْدَر (maṣdar), verbal-noun analysis of مِهَاد and the reported alternatives within that agreed form. Those are morphological explanations, distinct from the historically attributed recitation مَهْدًا.

Notes

The Verses

  1. The Qurʾān, 78:6–7, Saheeh International translation; Quran.com Arabic text. ↩

Summary

  1. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, 24/8–9; al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906; Ibn ʿĀshūr (d. 1393 AH), al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14–15. ↩

  2. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24/8–9; al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8–10; Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm, 9/86–88. ↩

Word-by-Word Analysis

  1. Quran.com, English word-by-word meanings and transliterations for 78:6–7. There are six word occurrences; the verse-end numerals are not words. The word-by-word rendering uses “pegs, ” while Saheeh International’s connected translation uses “stakes.” ↩

Understanding the Verses

  1. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13–14; al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-qadīr, 5/439. ↩

  2. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24/8; al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl, 3/590; al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906. ↩

  3. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ed. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, 24/8, from Qatādah; its isnād is graded ḥasan by Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn, al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-masbūr min al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr, 4/581. Al-Ḥasan’s explanation through Maʿmar is in ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, Beirut, first printing, 1419 AH, no. 3471, 3/386, and Mawsūʿat al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr, no. 80826, 22/597. Ibn Ḥajar describes ʿAbd al-Razzāq as a trustworthy ḥāfiẓ, noting that his memory changed after he became blind; Maʿmar as trustworthy and reliable, with reservations about specified teachers and what he narrated in Basra; and al-Ḥasan as a trustworthy jurist who frequently used irsāl and tadlīs (Taqrīb al-tahdhīb, ed. Muḥammad ʿAwwāmah, Dār al-Rashīd, first printing, 1406 AH/1986, nos. 4064, 6809 and 1227, pp. 354, 541 and 160). Here the saying ends with al-Ḥasan himself. These are Ibn Ḥajar’s assessments of the men; no specific grade for this athar is given by the cited collection. ↩

  4. Ibn ʿUthaymīn (d. 1421 AH), Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 26; Sayyid Quṭb (b. 1906), In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/10–11. Quṭb’s birth year: Faḍl Ḥasan ʿAbbās, al-Tafsīr wa-l-mufassirūn fī al-ʿaṣr al-ḥadīth, 2/360. ↩

  5. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24/9; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, ed. Sāmī ibn Muḥammad Salāmah, Dār Ṭaybah printing, 8/302; Ibn Juzayy, al-Tashīl li-ʿulūm al-tanzīl, Ṭaybah al-Khaḍrāʾ printing, 4/583–584; Ibn Kamāl Pasha, Tafsīr Ibn Kamāl Pasha, 9/39. ↩

  6. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/15; al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1/32–33, under 2:22. ↩

  7. Al-Burūsawī, Rūḥ al-bayān, 10/294; Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, King Fahd Complex printing, 8/175, 485–486; Ibn al-Qayyim, Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl, ʿAṭāʾāt al-ʿIlm printing, 2/108, 111–112. ↩

  8. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8–10; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24/8–9; Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī (d. 1436 AH), al-Tafsīr al-munīr, 30/8–14. ↩

  9. Al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, 8/390, attributes this saying to Qatādah through the collections of ʿAbd b. Ḥumayd and Ibn al-Mundhir; Mawsūʿat al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr, 22/597. It concerns verses 6–11. Al-Suyūṭī gives neither the chain nor a grading at this location; it is Qatādah’s attributed explanation, not a saying of the Prophet ﷺ. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/12; al-Nīsābūrī, Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān wa-raghāʾib al-furqān, 6/431; Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm, 9/88. ↩

  10. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13–14; Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm, 9/86–88. The appointed Day of Resurrection is called yawm al-faṣl, the Day of Decision, in 78:17. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ed. al-Turkī, 24/8; Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, 4/558–560, on magnifying the Lord through the signs, blessings and sovereignty. ↩

Thematic Connections

  1. Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shinqīṭī (d. 1393 AH), Aḍwāʾ al-bayān, Dār al-Fikr printing, 4/20–22, under 20:53, quoting 43:9–10, 78:6–7 and 51:48. This is al-Shinqīṭī’s comparative explanation, distinct from ʿAṭiyyah Sālim (d. 1420 AH)’s continuation at al-Nabaʾ. Qurʾānic translations: Saheeh International, verified against Quran.com, resource 20. ↩

  2. Al-Shinqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-bayān, Dār al-Fikr printing, 2/360–362, under 16:15–16. He explains the movement as tilting and disturbance and places mountains among the four blessings named there. Qurʾānic translations: Saheeh International, Quran.com, resource 20. ↩

  3. Al-Suyūṭī, Tanāsuq al-durar, as quoted by al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/201: «وفي تناسق الدرر وجه اتصالها بما قبل تناسبها معها في الجمل». The earth question follows the questions about earlier peoples and human creation in al-Mursalāt. Qurʾānic translations: Saheeh International, Quran.com, resource 20. ↩

Gems and Subtleties

  1. Al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906, on the earth’s preparation for cultivation, homes and routes. ↩

  2. Sayyid Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/10, on the correspondence between the earth’s conditions and the needs of life; al-Thaʿālibī, al-Jawāhir al-ḥisān, 5/541–542, on the duty of gratitude for the blessings enumerated here. ↩

  3. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/16: «فالإتيان بالمضارع ... يفيد استدعاء إعمال النظر في خلق الأرض والجبال إذ هي مرئيات لهم. والأكثر أن يغفل الناظرون عن التأمل في دقائقها لتعودهم بمشاهدتها من قبل سن التفكر», and «وجيء بفعل المضي في قوله: خلقناكم أزواجا وما بعده لأن مفاعيل فعل (خلقنا) وما عطف عليه ليست مشاهدة لهم». ↩

  4. Ibn ʿĀshūr, 30/26: «وجيء بفعل لنخرج دون نحو: لننبت، لأن المقصود الإيماء إلى تصوير كيفية بعث الناس من الأرض»; 30/28: «فإذا هم ينظرون من حيث صدروا وذلك من رد العجز على الصدر»; 30/14 on the dead brought out of this earth. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/26, 28. ↩

  5. al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/207: «والتعبير عن خلقها بالبناء للإشارة إلى تشبيهها بالقباب المبنية على سكنتها»; 15/208: «والتعبير عنها بالسراج من روادف التعبير عن خلق السماوات بالبناء»; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/197: «ولما ذكر المهاد وما فيه، أتبعه السقف». ↩

  6. وَمَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلِأَنفُسِهِمْ يَمْهَدُونَ (30:44). Ibn Rajab, Tafsīr, 2/76: «قال بعض السلف: في القبر», and his explanation, «يعني: أن العمل الصالح يكون مهادا لصاحبه في القبر، حيث لا يكون للعبد من متاع الدنيا فراش ولا وساد ولا مهاد، بل كل عامل يفترش عمله ويتوسده من خير أو شر». Translation of 30:44: Saheeh International. ↩

Common Misconceptions

  1. Ibn Juzayy on 71:19, «وأخذ بعضهم من لفظ البساط أن الأرض بسيطة غير كرية ... وفي ذلك نظر» (al-Tashīl, Ṭaybah al-Khaḍrāʾ printing, 4/501), quoted by al-Durra (10/397). The answer: al-Zamakhsharī on 2:22, as printed in al-Ṭībī, Futūḥ al-ghayb, 2/303: «ليس فيه إلا أن الناس يفترشونها ... سواء كانت على شكل السطح أو شكل الكرة ... لعظم حجمها واتساع جرمها وتباعد أطرافها. وإذا كان متسهلا في الجبل وهو وتد من أوتاد الأرض، فهو في الأرض ذات الطول والعرض أسهل»; al-Ālūsī at this verse, «فلا دلالة في الآية على ما ينافي كريتها» (15/205). Ibn Juzayy, al-Tashīl li-ʿulūm al-tanzīl, Ṭaybah al-Khaḍrāʾ printing, 4/501, under 71:19, as quoted by Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṭāhā al-Durra (d. 1428 AH), Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-iʿrābuhu wa-bayānuhu, 10/397. The error is also the subject of Islamweb fatwa 313201, 10November 2015, concerning al-Qaḥṭānī’s Nūniyyah. Al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906; al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1/32–33; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205; Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṭāhā al-Durra, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-iʿrābuhu wa-bayānuhu, 10/397, quoting al-Ālūsī on a great sphere’s locally level appearance. Question 1 gives the full explanations of the comparison and the local surface. ↩

  2. Muṣṭafā Maḥmūd, as reported and answered by Faḍl Ḥasan ʿAbbās (d. 1432 AH), al-Tafsīr wa-l-mufassirūn fī al-ʿaṣr al-ḥadīth, 1/695–696. The answer: al-Rāzī, «ويمكن الجمع بينها على الوجه الذي نقوله» (31/13–14); al-Shawkānī, «ورابع أحوالها: أن تنسف وتحملها الرياح كما في قوله: وترى الجبال تحسبها جامدة وهي تمر مر السحاب وخامس أحوالها أن تصير سرابا» (5/441); Ibn Kathīr (al-Salāmah printing, 8/305); al-Hararī (d. 1441 AH), «وهو المراد بقوله تعالى: وترى الجبال تحسبها جامدة وهي تمر مر السحاب» (31/27); ʿAbbās, «ولو أن المؤلف اكتفى باحتمال الوجه الذي ذهب إليه ... لكان ما ذهب إليه مقبولا» (1/696). ↩

Points for Reflection

  1. Al-Nakhjuwānī, al-Fawātiḥ al-ilāhiyyah wa-l-mafātiḥ al-ghaybiyyah, 2/478, on not restricting Allah’s power to what is familiar; al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8, on the inference from original creation to the possibility of resurrection. ↩

  2. Al-Thaʿālibī, al-Jawāhir al-ḥisān, 5/541–542. His own addition identifies the passage as a reminder of blessings for which gratitude is due. Al-Nīsābūrī, Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān, 6/430; al-Shinqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-bayān, Dār al-Fikr printing, 4/20–22; Ṣāliḥ al-Maghāmisī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, lecture 71, transcript§4. ↩

Q1. What do the prepared bed and pegs mean?

  1. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, 24/8–9; al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl, 3/590; al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ed. al-Turkī, 24/8–9, reports Qatādah’s explanation through Ibn Ḥumayd, Mihrān and Saʿīd. Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn, al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-masbūr min al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr, 4/581, grades this chain ḥasan. See also Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr, 4/388; al-Maẓharī, al-Tafsīr al-Maẓharī, 10/172; Tanwīr al-miqbās, 498; Maʾmūn Ḥammūsh, al-Tafsīr al-maʾmūn, 8/312, quoting Qatādah. Mawsūʿat al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr, 22/597–598, records the al-Ḥasan and Qatādah explanations; Muqātil, Tafsīr, 4/558, gives his own explanation. The attribution is to al-Suyūṭī’s al-Durr al-manthūr through the collections of ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd and Ibn al-Mundhir. Mawsūʿat al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr, 22/598, cites that same work at 15/191 with the name “Sufyān,” whom it does not identify further; the 8/390 printing names Qatādah. These are attribution variants within one collected source, without a preserved isnād here. Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-tanzīl, 5/199; al-Wāḥidī, al-Tafsīr al-basīṭ, 23/115, al-Wasīṭ, 4/412, and al-Wajīz, 1165; al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-taʾwīl, 4/386; Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz, 5/424; al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, 3/675–676; Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-munīr, 30/10; Abū Bakr al-Jazāʾirī, Aysar al-tafāsīr, 5/500–501; Makkī b. Abī Ṭālib, al-Hidāyah ilā bulūgh al-nihāyah, 12/7986. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, ed. Sāmī ibn Muḥammad Salāmah, Dār Ṭaybah printing, 8/302; Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 26. Ibn Qutaybah, Gharīb al-Qurʾān, ed. Saʿīd al-Laḥḥām, 434; Ibn Fūrak, Tafsīr Ibn Fūrak, 3/126; al-Maḥallī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, 787; al-Sakhāwī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, 2/559; Muḥammad al-Khudayrī, al-Sirāj fī bayān gharīb al-Qurʾān, 383; Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 22; Kāmilah al-Kuwārī, Tafsīr gharīb al-Qurʾān, digital verse entries 78:6–7. Ibn Fūrak explains a peg as something by which another object is held, without developing a physical mountain theory. Ibn ʿAjībah, al-Baḥr al-madīd, 7/216; Nawawī al-Jāwī, Marāḥ labīd, 2/595; Mullā Ḥuwaysh, Bayān al-maʿānī, 4/413; ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Khaṭīb, al-Tafsīr al-Qurʾānī li-l-Qurʾān, 16/1414; Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Khaṭīb, Awḍaḥ al-tafāsīr, 1/728; Ibn al-Aḥnaf al-Yamanī, al-Bustān fī iʿrāb mushkilāt al-Qurʾān, 4/246. Muḥammad Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī, al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ, 15/249–250; Muḥammad Maḥmūd Ḥijāzī, al-Tafsīr al-wāḍiḥ, 3/810, 812; Ibrāhīm al-Qaṭṭān, Taysīr al-tafsīr, 3/397–398; Muḥammad al-Hilāl, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-tharī al-jāmiʿ, 12/246–247; Asʿad Ḥūmad, Aysar al-tafāsīr, entries 78:6–7, automatic digital pagination 5555–5556; these numbers are not printed pages; al-Mukhtaṣar fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 582; al-Tafsīr al-muyassar, 582; al-Muntakhab fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 878. Al-Baghawī gives only «فراشا»; the practical examples of cultivation, homes and roads are al-Saʿdī’s. ↩

  2. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 19/171; Ibn ʿĀdil, al-Lubāb fī ʿulūm al-Kitāb, 20/95; Ibn Kamāl Pasha, Tafsīr Ibn Kamāl Pasha, 9/39. The reading attributions and their status belong to the separate Qirāʾāt discussion. Al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl, 5/278; Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ, 3/2806; Ṣāliḥ al-Maghāmisī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, lecture 71, transcript§4. Al-Maghāmisī calls the cradle comparison التشبيه البليغ (al-tashbīh al-balīgh): neither the comparison particle nor the point of resemblance is stated. The earth receives people as the cradle receives the child. The same rhetorical construction is explained below in Balāghah, §3. ↩

  3. Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 26; Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans., In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/10–11; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14–15. ↩

  4. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/15; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24/9; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, ed. Sāmī ibn Muḥammad Salāmah, Dār Ṭaybah printing, 8/302; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 19/171; al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl, 3/590; al-Maẓharī, al-Tafsīr al-Maẓharī, 10/172; al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906. Al-Nasafī, al-Taysīr fī al-tafsīr, 15/180; al-Samarqandī, Baḥr al-ʿulūm, 3/537; Ibn Abī Zamanīn, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿazīz, 5/82; Abū Bakr al-Ḥaddād, Tafsīr al-Ḥaddād, 6/422; al-Ījī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 4/431; al-Nakhjuwānī, al-Fawātiḥ al-ilāhiyyah wa-l-mafātiḥ al-ghaybiyyah, 2/477; al-ʿUlaymī, Fatḥ al-Raḥmān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 7/259; al-Thaʿālibī, al-Jawāhir al-ḥisān, 5/541. Al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, 4/685; Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm, 9/86; al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-qadīr, 5/439. Ibn Juzayy, al-Tashīl li-ʿulūm al-tanzīl, Ṭaybah al-Khaḍrāʾ printing, 4/583–584; Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī (d. 1442 AH), Ṣafwat al-tafāsīr, 3/483; Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 10/384; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195–196; Muḥammad Ismāʿīl al-Muqaddim, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm, lecture 187, explanation of 78:6–9. Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-tanzīl, 5/199; al-Wāḥidī, al-Tafsīr al-basīṭ, 23/115, and al-Wasīṭ, 4/412; al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-taʾwīl, 4/386; Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr, 4/388; Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz, 5/424; Makkī b. Abī Ṭālib, al-Hidāyah ilā bulūgh al-nihāyah, 12/7986; Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-munīr, 30/10, and al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ, 3/2806; al-Jazāʾirī, Aysar al-tafāsīr, 5/500–501; Tanwīr al-miqbās, 498; Maʾmūn Ḥammūsh, al-Tafsīr al-maʾmūn, 8/312, quoting Qatādah and al-Qurṭubī.

    Al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, no. 3369, 5/383–384, from Anas ibn Mālik رضي الله عنه; he calls it gharīb and says he knows it as marfūʿ only through this isnād. Al-Albānī grades the hadith ḍaʿīf in Ḍaʿīf Sunan al-Tirmidhī, supervised by Zuhayr al-Shāwīsh, al-Maktab al-Islāmī, Beirut, first printing, 1411 AH/1991, entry 668, corresponding to no. 3608 in that abridgment, 440. These numbers belong to his abridgment, whereas 3369 belongs to the Bashshār printing. Sulaymān ibn Abī Sulaymān is called majhūl by al-Dhahabī (al-Kāshif, ed. Muḥammad ʿAwwāmah and Aḥmad Muḥammad Nimr al-Khaṭīb, Dār al-Qiblah and Muʾassasat ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, first printing, 1413 AH/1992, entry 2095, 1/459). Ibn Maʿīn said, “I do not know him, ” as recorded by Ibn Ḥajar (Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, al-Risālah printing, 2/96); that biography also records Ibn Ḥibbān’s inclusion of him in al-Thiqāt. Ibn Ḥajar lists him as maqbūl in Taqrīb al-tahdhīb, ed. Muḥammad ʿAwwāmah, Dār al-Rashīd, Syria, first printing, 1406 AH/1986, entry 2567, 251. Al-Ālūsī quotes it in Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205.

    A weak hadith narrated by Anas ibn Mālik رضي الله عنه describes the initial swaying:

    لَمَّا خَلَقَ اللهُ الْأَرْضَ جَعَلَتْ تَمِيدُ، فَخَلَقَ الْجِبَالَ، فَقَالَ: بِهَا عَلَيْهَا، فَاسْتَقَرَّتْ

    “When Allah created the earth, it began to sway. He created the mountains and placed them upon it, and it became steady.”

    The Qurʾānic explanation of the mountains’ fixing function rests on the verses themselves; this further account retains its weak grading.

    Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, Dār Ṣādir printing, 11/99, gives this complete bayt without naming its poet, under mountain-like strength and honour.

    Mountains also serve as a comparison for firmness and greatness in an unnamed poetic witness cited by Ibn Manẓūr:

    أَلِلبأْسِ أَم للجُودِ أَم لِمَقَاوِمٍ، ... مِنَ العِزِّ، يَزْحَمْنَ الجِبالَ الرَّوَاسِيا؟

    “Is it for valour, for generosity, or for ranks of honour that rival the firmly established mountains?”

    The ranks of honour are pictured against firmly established mountains. The witness clarifies the language of firm standing; it does not identify a physical mechanism. ↩

  5. A version of the report is recorded by al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak (al-Risālah), no. 3933 (4/657–658), from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما; he graded its chain ṣaḥīḥ. His text says the earth «تمتد», "kept stretching"; al-Wāḥidī, who records it through al-Ḥākim, has «تميد», "kept swaying" (al-Wasīṭ, 4/412). Al-Dhahabī answered: «طلحة بن عمرو ضعفوه» (Talkhīṣ, printed with the Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya Mustadrak, 2/556), and the edition's note grades the chain very weak because Ṭalḥa b. ʿAmr al-Ḥaḍramī was abandoned. The comparison with a peg fixed in a wall is found only in al-Samʿānī's account, without a chain (6/136). ↩

  6. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14–15; al-Kirmānī, Gharāʾib al-tafsīr wa-ʿajāʾib al-taʾwīl, 2/1295, calls the form-only explanation gharīb. ↩

  7. Al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195–196; Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 10/384; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205. The complete bayt is reproduced in al-Biqāʿī’s wording. Abū Ḥayyān has لَا يَنْبَنِي, “is not built, ” where al-Biqāʿī and al-Ālūsī have لَا يُبْتَنَى. Both express the dependence of the tent’s supports on its fixed pegs. Al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 4/279–280, attributes a kingship version to Jirān al-ʿAwd: «والملك لا يبنى إلا على عمدٍ ... ولا عماد إذا لم ترس أوتاد», “Kingship is built only on supports; no supports stand unless pegs are fixed.” His 2/92 has al-Afwah’s first half as «إلا على عمد». Al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, 354, has the isolated second-half wording «ولا جبال إذا لم ترس أوتاد». ↩

  8. Al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1/32–33, under 2:22. His argument distinguishes a qualified comparison from a word’s customary unqualified use; he also illustrates it with the sun being called a lamp. ↩

  9. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/15; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24/9; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, ed. Sāmī ibn Muḥammad Salāmah, Dār Ṭaybah printing, 8/302; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 19/171; al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl, 3/590; al-Maẓharī, al-Tafsīr al-Maẓharī, 10/172; al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906. ↩

  10. Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī al-Burūsawī, Rūḥ al-bayān, 10/294; Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Hararī, Ḥadāʾiq al-rūḥ wa-l-rayḥān, 31/17, relaying al-Burūsawī: «أجيب بانه نعم الا انه مسبب الأسباب وذلك من كمال القدرة». ↩

  11. Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, King Fahd Complex printing, 8/175, 485–486. After 7:57: «فَمَنْ قَالَ يُفْعَلُ عِنْدَهَا لَا بِهَا فَقَدْ خَالَفَ لَفْظَ الْقُرْآنِ مَعَ أَنَّ الْحِسَّ وَالْعَقْلَ يَشْهَدُ أَنَّهَا أَسْبَابٌ»; he also states that the Qurʾān repeatedly describes creation through causes. ↩

  12. Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunnah, 10/391. His exact denial is لَا أَنْ جَعَلَهَا سَبَبًا لِلْإِرْسَاءِ, followed by فَثَبَتَ أَنَّهَا لَيْسَتْ بِسَبَبٍ لِلْإِرْسَاءِ فِي التَّحْقِيقِ: “not that He made them a cause of stabilization”; “it is thus established that they are not a cause of stabilization in truth.” His concluding practical lesson is تَعْرِيفُ الْخَلْقِ وُجُوهَ الْحِيَلِ فِي الْأُمُورِ إِذَا تَعَذَّرَ عَلَيْهِمُ الْوُصُولُ إِلَيْهَا, teaching people expedients when reaching their objective is difficult. Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/210, contrasts the apparent meaning of «به» with the Ashʿarī explanation «عنده». ↩

  13. Ibn al-Qayyim, Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl, ʿAṭāʾāt al-ʿIlm printing, 2/108, 111–112: «إن شاء أن يبطل سببية الشيء أبطلها، كما أبطل إحراق النار على خليله إبراهيم ... وإن شاء أقام لتلك الأسباب موانع تمنع تأثيرها مع بقاء قواها، وإن شاء خلّى بينها وبين اقتضائها لآثارها». He also writes: «فإنكار الأسباب والقوى والطبائع جحد للضروريات». Al-Durra, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-iʿrābuhu wa-bayānuhu, 8/417, under 41:10, gives the objection and answer concerning mountains above the earth: both the earth and the mountains’ weight require Allah to maintain them. ↩

  14. Al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195–196; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205. Al-Bayḍāwī, as quoted by al-Ṭībī, Futūḥ al-ghayb, 9/94, gives the weight-toward-the-centre explanation. Al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 4/279, gives the earth-on-water/ship account. ↩

  15. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/15. ↩

  16. Al-Qāsimī (d. 1332 AH), Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, 9/389, quoting Muḥammad ʿAbduh; al-Marāghī (d. 1371 AH), Tafsīr al-Marāghī, 30/7–8. ↩

  17. Muḥammad Fārūq al-Zayn, Bayān al-naẓm fī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 4/273. Muḥammad Fārūq Fāris al-Zayn’s Bayān al-naẓm fī al-Qurʾān al-karīm was published by Dār al-Fikr, Damascus, first printing, 1425 AH/2004. ↩

  18. Islamic Research Academy, al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ, 10/1746. Its explanation is أو يختل توازنها في دورانها, “or its balance in its rotation would be disturbed.” ↩

  19. Saʿīd Ḥawwā (d. 1409 AH), al-Asās fī al-tafsīr, 11/6345: «إن في هذه الآية معجزة علمية فمما تحدث عنه الجيولوجيون في عصرنا أن لكل جبل في الأرض جذرا وتديا في باطن الأرض ...»; Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 26. ↩

  20. Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/10–11. ↩

  21. Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/10–11; Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 26.

    Quṭb considers a balance between mountain heights and ocean depths, a balance involving movement inside and outside the earth, additional weight preventing violent shaking, or a reason not yet known. ↩

  22. Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, Tafsīr, 4/558: «وَالْجِبالَ أَوْتاداً على الأرض لئلا تزول بأهلها، فاستقرت»; Qatādah, reported by al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 24/96, under 79:32: «أي: أَثْبَتَها لا تَمِيدُ بأهلِها», its chain graded ḥasan by Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn, al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-masbūr min al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr, 4/589; al-Bayḍāwī, quoted by al-Ṭībī, Futūḥ al-ghayb, 9/94, under 16:15: «إن الأرض قبل أن تخلق فيها الجبال كانت كالكرة بسيطة الطبع ... فلما خلق عليها الجبال تفاوتت جوانبها، وتوجهت الجبال بثقلها نحو المركز، فصارت كالأوتاد التي تمنعها من الحركة». The report from Ibn ʿAbbās is given in the first sub-section, with its very weak chain. ↩

  23. George Biddell Airy, "On the Computation of the Effect of the Attraction of Mountain-Masses, as Disturbing the Apparent Astronomical Latitude of Stations in Geodetic Surveys", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 145 (1855): 101–104: the table-land and the fluid interior at 102, both quotations at 103, "high tracts of very great horizontal extent, such as those to the north of India" at 104. Lee Boon-ying, "What is isostasy?", Hong Kong Observatory, Educational Resources, https://www.hko.gov.hk/en/education/earth-science/general/00343-what-is-isostasy.html (undated; read 6 October 2026). Steven Earle, Physical Geology, 2nd edition (Victoria, B.C.: BCcampus, 2019), 9.4, "Isostasy", https://opentextbc.ca/physicalgeology2ed/chapter/9-4-isostasy/. ↩

  24. Muḥammad Ismāʿīl al-Muqaddim, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm, lecture 187, explanation of 78:6–9: «فإنما كانت الجبال أوتاداً؛ لأن جذورها في الأرض مغروسة»; Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 26: «قال علماء الأرض: إن هذه الجبال لها جذور راسخة في الأرض كما يرسخ جذر الوتد بالجدار، أو وتد الخيمة في الأرض». Madinah International University, al-Iʿjāz al-ʿilmī fī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 244: «وهي لفظة واحدة تصف كلا من الشكل الخارجي للجبل وامتداده الداخلي ووظيفته؛ لأن الوتد أغلبه يدفن في الأرض وأقله يظهر على السطح، ووظيفته التثبيت»; Saʿīd Ḥawwā, al-Asās fī al-tafsīr, 11/6345: «فالتعبير بكلمة (أوتادا) عن الجبال فيه معجزة في حد ذاته، لأنه إخبار عن معنى ما عرف العالم دقائقه بما يتفق مع اللفظ القرآني إلا قريبا». ↩

  25. Ibrāhīm al-Qaṭṭān, Taysīr al-tafsīr, 3/397–398, explains stability through crustal folds, raised mountains, lower sea basins and pressures balancing the crust. Muḥammad al-Hilāl, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-tharī al-jāmiʿ, 12/246–247, describes weathering, soils, routes and minerals, then plate collision and volcanic material, with proposed deep roots ten to fifteen times the visible height and compensating mountain masses. These are their physical explanations; the numerical estimates are theirs. ↩

  26. Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205–206. He also reports physical explanations involving changing centres of weight and the restraint of movement by surrounding water through added mountain weight. In discussing the wearing away of mountains, he cites this complete anonymous verse: إن الجديدين إذا ما استوليا على جديد أسلماه للبلى, “When the two ever-renewing ones [night and day] gain mastery over something new, they hand it over to decay.” The verse illustrates his point that mountains themselves can wear away over time. ↩

  27. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/15; al-Durra, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-iʿrābuhu wa-bayānuhu, 10/383–384, quoting al-Ṣābūnī on rain and snow feeding watercourses. Al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-tafāsīr, 3/478, at 77:27, explains water from clouds, springs and rivers for drinking and cultivation. ↩

  28. Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205; al-Durra, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-iʿrābuhu wa-bayānuhu, 10/397. Al-Zamakhsharī, quoted by al-Ṭībī, Futūḥ al-ghayb, 2/303, explains that people spread themselves upon the earth whether flat or spherical because of its great size; even a mountain surface can serve that use. ↩

  29. Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shinqīṭī, al-ʿAdhb al-namīr min majālis al-Shinqīṭī fī al-tafsīr, 3/388–390, in his discussion under 7:54. ↩

  30. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/13–14; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, ed. Sāmī ibn Muḥammad Salāmah, Dār Ṭaybah printing, 8/305; al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-qadīr, 5/441; al-Hararī, Ḥadāʾiq al-rūḥ wa-l-rayḥān, 31/27; Faḍl Ḥasan ʿAbbās, al-Tafsīr wa-l-mufassirūn fī al-ʿaṣr al-ḥadīth, 1/684, 696. Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī’s contextual reason is quoted by Faḍl Ḥasan ʿAbbās at1/696: «فبالنظر لما قبلها وهو نفخ الصور، يرجح أنها من حوادث يوم القيامة». Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī (1870–1940): ʿAbbās, 2/301–302, quoting al-Ziriklī and the Dār al-ʿUlūm biographical account. ↩

  31. Abū al-Wafāʾ Ibn ʿAqīl, quoted in al-Tafsīr al-qayyim, 561–562, under 81:1–3. Ibn ʿAqīl answers an unnamed questioner; the compilation records their exchange. His answer also challenges the claim that the world is eternal: a world subject to such transformation is created and governed. In al-Nabaʾ, the mountains’ removal appears in 78:20. ↩

  32. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 19/171. ↩

Q2. How do these signs answer the preceding challenge?

  1. Saʿīd Ḥawwā, al-Asās fī al-tafsīr, 11/6336–6338; al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-qadīr, 5/439; al-Burūsawī, Rūḥ al-bayān, 10/293; al-Khafājī, ʿInāyat al-Qāḍī wa-kifāyat al-Rāḍī, 8/300; ʿAṭiyyah Sālim, continuation of Aḍwāʾ al-bayān, Dār al-Fikr printing, 8/407.

    Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm, 9/86–88; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/204–205. Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī, Rūḥ al-bayān, 10/293–299, reproduces Abū al-Suʿūd’s contextual argument.

    Al-Burūsawī, al-Khafājī and ʿAṭiyyah Sālim also infer from these proofs that resurrection was being questioned. ↩

  2. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/12–14; Muḥammad ʿIzzat Darwazah, al-Tafsīr al-ḥadīth, 5/405. The English rendering of 78:6 is Saheeh International. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13–14. His explanation of the negative question is ⁧وَإِنَّمَا الْمَقْصُودُ التَّقْرِيرُ بِوُقُوعِ جَعْلِ الْأَرْضِ مِهَادًا لَا بِنَفْيِهِ⁩: the intended acknowledgment concerns the preparation of the earth, not its negation. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13; al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, 3/675–676; Darwazah, al-Tafsīr al-ḥadīth, 5/405. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14. Al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, 4/685; al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl, 3/590; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 19/171; al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl, 5/278; al-Ījī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 4/431; al-ʿUlaymī, Fatḥ al-Raḥmān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 7/259–261; Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī, Fatḥ al-Raḥmān bi-kashf mā yaltabisu fī al-Qurʾān, 1/595. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, ed. Sāmī ibn Muḥammad Salāmah, Dār Ṭaybah printing, 8/302; al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-taʾwīl, 4/386; Mufti Muḥammad Shafī, Maʿāriful Qurʾān, English trans. Aḥmad Khalīl ʿAzīz, rev. Muḥammad Taqī ʿUsmānī, 8/683; Mullā Ḥuwaysh, Bayān al-maʿānī, 4/413. al-Sakhāwī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, 2/558; Zayn al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr al-Rāzī, Unmūdhaj jalīl fī asʾilah wa-ajwibah ʿan gharāʾib āy al-tanzīl, 554. The last author is distinct from Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, author of Mafātīḥ al-ghayb. Al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, 3/675–676; Maʾmūn Ḥammūsh, al-Tafsīr al-maʾmūn, 8/311; ʿĀdil Muḥammad Khalīl, Awwal marrah atadabbar al-Qurʾān, 272–273. Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 10/384; al-Wāḥidī, al-Wajīz, 1165; al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-iʿrābuhu, 5/272; ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Khaṭīb, al-Tafsīr al-Qurʾānī li-l-Qurʾān, 16/1414; Ibn al-Aḥnaf al-Yamanī, al-Bustān fī iʿrāb mushkilāt al-Qurʾān, 4/246; Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ, 3/2806; Muḥammad Ismāʿīl al-Muqaddim, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm, lecture 187, explanation of 78:6–9.

    Ibn Kamāl, Tafsīr Ibn Kamāl, 9/38–39; Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz, 5/424; Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, al-Tafsīr, 4/558. Muqātil also answers denial of resurrection through creation, although he identifies “the great news” with the Qurʾān. ↩

  3. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ed. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, 24/7, through Bishr, Yazīd and Saʿīd from Qatādah. Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn, al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-masbūr min al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr, 4/581, grades this isnād ḥasan. Al-Ṭabarī also records a separate wording through Ibn Ḥumayd, Mihrān and Saʿīd; that is not the isnād to which Yāsīn attaches this assessment. ↩

  4. Al-Marāghī, Tafsīr, 30/5; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 15/203. Al-Marāghī describes outright denial and denial of bodies alone; al-Ālūsī relies on denial or doubt and also records the bodily distinction. ↩

  5. The Qurʾān, 40:57; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13; al-Sakhāwī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, 2/558. The English here is a close rendering. ↩

  6. Al-Nakhjuwānī, al-Fawātiḥ al-ilāhiyyah wa-l-mafātiḥ al-ghaybiyyah, 2/477–478. He distinguishes the present stage of trial from the stage of recompense and criticizes confinement to ⁧مَضِيقِ الْإِلْفِ⁩, the narrow bounds of familiarity. Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunna, 10/390, uses the benefits of water and food to distinguish human limits of understanding from the Creator’s power. ↩

  7. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8, 12; Ibn ʿĀdil, al-Lubāb fī ʿulūm al-Kitāb, 20/95, 100. Al-Rāzī distinguishes coming into existence from ordered construction, and reasons through bodily receptivity to properties and the determining cause required by a proposed restriction of knowledge or power. ↩

  8. ʿAṭiyyah Sālim, Aḍwāʾ al-bayān, Dār al-Fikr printing, continuation, 8/407–408: «أما براهين البعث فهي معلومة أربعة ... وكلها موجودة هنا», with his citation of 40:57. ↩

  9. Al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ, Sultāniyyah printing, no. 4935, 6/165, from Abū Hurayrah ⁧رضي الله عنه⁩, Book of Tafsīr, chapter on 78:18; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, ed. Sāmī ibn Muḥammad Salāmah, Dār Ṭaybah, 8/305. ↩

  10. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/12; al-Nīsābūrī, Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān wa-raghāʾib al-furqān, 6/431. Al-Nīsābūrī states: ⁧وَقَدْ أَخْبَرَ الصَّادِقُ عَنْ وُقُوعِ هَذَا الْمُمْكِنِ فَوَجَبَ الْجَزْمُ بِهِ⁩, “The truthful one has announced the occurrence of this possible event, so certainty of it is required.”

    Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-munīr, 30/10–14, cites al-Nīsābūrī’s proof of possibility. ↩

  11. Al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, 4/685; al-Nasafī, Madārik al-tanzīl, 3/590; Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm, 9/88; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/211; Ibn ʿAjībah, al-Baḥr al-madīd, 7/217, 219, quoting Abū al-Suʿūd; al-Kūrānī, Ghāyat al-amānī, 314, ed. محمد مصطفى كوكصو, Sakarya University thesis; al-Maẓharī, al-Tafsīr al-Maẓharī, 10/172–173.

    Al-Ṭībī, Futūḥ al-ghayb, 16/243, quotes al-Zamakhsharī’s argument. 

    Abū al-Suʿūd, 9/88, develops wisdom as the second of three arguments, between the proof from creative power and the experienced analogies of waking and renewed vegetation. ↩

  12. Ibn Taymiyyah, Daqāʾiq al-tafsīr, 3/162, concluding his discussion of al-Tīn. His comparison includes life together with its prerequisites and accompanying conditions, and cites 2:28 and 2:258. ↩

  13. Aḥmad Ibn al-Munayyir, al-Intiṣāf, accompanying al-Zamakhsharī’s al-Kashshāf, 4/685. He accepts the first proof and objects to the imposed obligation to secure the best interests of creatures and to reward or punish by reason. His response is introduced by “Aḥmad said”; “Maḥmūd said” introduces al-Zamakhsharī’s words. ↩

  14. Al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, 3/92–93, 101. He distinguishes a wise purpose from an externally imposed obligation, and an intended end from an unforeseen consequence, which cannot explain Allah’s acts as though their outcomes were unknown to Him. ↩

  15. Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shinqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-bayān, Dār al-Fikr printing, 7/436, under 51:5–6, quoting 23:115–116 and 38:27. The English here is a close rendering of the Arabic, not identified as Saheeh International. ↩

  16. Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunnah, 10/390. He explains that the signs answer differently according to whether the initial questioning concerns the messenger, resurrection, tawḥīd or the Qurʾān; he forbids restricting the question to only one of them: «لا يجوز لأحد تحصيل السؤال على جهة واحدة». Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 3–5; Saʿīd Ḥawwā, al-Asās fī al-tafsīr, 11/6336–6338. Ḥawwā introduces his own extension with ⁧أَقُولُ⁩, “I say, ” after the quotation from al-Nasafī. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ed. al-Turkī, 24/8; al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, 906; Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, 25–26; al-Maẓharī, al-Tafsīr al-Maẓharī, 10/172. Ḥawwā, al-Asās fī al-tafsīr, 11/6337–6338.

    Al-Samʿānī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 6/135–136; al-Nasafī, al-Taysīr fī al-tafsīr, 15/180–183; al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, 8/390, attributing the gratitude explanation to Qatādah. Al-Ṭabarī connects the benefits with ingratitude and the warning of punishment; al-Maẓharī connects gratitude with following the caller to worship. Al-Saʿdī’s conclusion at pp. 906–907 connects the gifts with obedience and belief in resurrection. ʿAbduh, p. 3, answers rejection of the messenger’s warning from the Giver’s power to fulfil it; this is distinct from al-Māturīdī’s argument for guidance concerning gratitude. ↩

  17. Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunnah, 10/390, 394. The resurrection manifests the final standing of the grateful and ungrateful; he does not deny the distinction between guidance and rejection in this life. Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī (d. 1399 AH), Tafhīm al-Qurʾān, English trans. Ẓafar Isḥāq Anṣārī, commentary on 78:6–16, note 11; Sayyid Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/10, 13; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/199–200. Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunnah, 10/390. Mawdūdī, Tafhīm al-Qurʾān, commentary on 78:6–16, note 11; Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/13. Al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/199–200; Abū Bakr al-Jazāʾirī, Aysar al-tafāsīr, 5/501–502; Muḥammad Maḥmūd Ḥijāzī, al-Tafsīr al-wāḍiḥ, 3/812–813; Muḥammad Fārūq al-Zayn, Bayān al-naẓm fī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 4/273.

    Al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/189, also connects the coming meeting with the obedient person’s longing and the disobedient person’s reason to return. Al-Māturīdī, 10/394, qualifies the outward likeness by distinguishing tawfīq and khidhlān, enabling guidance and its withdrawal. Al-Biqāʿī, Maṣāʿid al-Naẓar li-l-Ishrāf ʿalā Maqāṣid al-Suwar, 3/151, connects the prepared dwelling with its inhabitants’ wrongdoing and worship of others. ↩

  18. Muḥammad Fārūq al-Zayn, Bayān al-naẓm fī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 4/273, “Miḥwar al-sūrah” (the sūrah’s governing theme), with his cross-reference to 16:39.

    Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, pp. 26–29, likewise connects blessings requiring gratitude with the Day separating truth from falsehood, faith from disbelief and justice from aggression. Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Tafsīr Juzʾ ʿAmma, pp. 3–5, emphasizes the Giver’s power and mercy; al-Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, 9/389–390, quotes his explanation. ↩

  19. Ibn Juzayy, al-Tashīl li-ʿulūm al-tanzīl, Ṭaybah al-Khaḍrāʾ printing, 4/583–584; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/12–14; al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-qadīr, 5/439. Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-tanzīl, 5/199; al-Wāḥidī, al-Tafsīr al-basīṭ, 23/115, and al-Wasīṭ, 4/412; Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr, 4/388; Abū Bakr al-Ḥaddād, Tafsīr al-Ḥaddād, 6/422; al-Samarqandī, Baḥr al-ʿulūm, 3/536–537; al-Samʿānī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 6/135–136. Ibn Juzayy, al-Tashīl, Ṭaybah al-Khaḍrāʾ printing, 4/583–584; Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz, 5/423–424; Ṣāliḥ al-Maghāmisī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, lecture 71, transcript§§3–4.

    Al-Wāḥidī, al-Wasīṭ, 4/411–412; al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-taʾwīl, 4/386–387. Al-Baghawī and al-Wāḥidī foreground tawḥīd; al-Samarqandī and Ibn al-Jawzī return to resurrection after the signs; al-Khāzin joins tawḥīd with power to originate, end and restore creation. Ibn Juzayy gives the two purposes as alternatives, whereas Ibn ʿĀshūr combines them. ↩

  20. Al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-qadīr, 5/439. ↩

  21. Al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunnah, 10/390: ⁧فَلَوْ لَمْ يَكُنْ مُدَبِّرُهُمَا وَاحِدًا لَانْقَطَعَ الِاتِّصَالُ⁩, “If their Governor were not one, the connection would be broken.” Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, 18/12–13; Ḥawwā, al-Asās fī al-tafsīr, 11/6339; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/199–200.

    Al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195–200, for the quoted argument against plurality. ↩

  22. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8, 12; al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, 4/685; al-Māturīdī, Taʾwīlāt Ahl al-Sunnah, 10/390. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13–14; Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿaql al-salīm, 9/88. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/12; al-Nīsābūrī, Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān, 6/431; Darj al-durar fī tafsīr al-āy wa-l-suwar, attributed to ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, Dār al-Fikr edition, 2/684; Dār al-Ḥikmah edition, 4/1691. Both editions contain the same observation about the intervening discourse. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr,30/13–14. For the connection between “they will know” and the appointed Day, see 78:14–16, Question 4.

    Al-Jazāʾirī, Aysar al-tafāsīr, 5:501–503; al-Marāghī, Tafsīr al-Marāghī, 30:7–10; Islamic Research Academy, Al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ, 10:1745–1748; Muḥammad Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī, Al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ, 15:249–253; Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṭāhā al-Durra, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm wa-iʿrābuhu wa-bayānuhu, 10:396–397; Muḥammad al-Hilāl, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-tharī al-jāmiʿ, 12:246–247.

    Al-Jazāʾirī reasons from power, knowledge, wisdom and mercy to their unique divine source, then to tawḥīd, the Messenger’s truth and resurrection. Al-Marāghī, the Academy’s al-Wasīṭ, Ṭanṭāwī, al-Durra and Muḥammad al-Hilāl develop the signs’ related purposes. Ṭanṭāwī quotes al-Zamakhsharī’s power argument; the other explanations emphasize mercy, provision and acknowledgment. ↩

Iʿrāb: Grammatical Analysis

  1. Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, 4/2611–2612; Muḥyī al-Dīn Darwīsh (d. 1403 AH), Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-bayānuhu, 10/351. ↩

  2. Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, 4/2611–2612; Makkī b. Abī Ṭālib, Mushkil iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 2/794; Maḥmūd Ṣāfī, al-Jadwal fī iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 15/215; Aḥmad al-Kharrāṭ, al-Mujtabā min mushkil iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 4/1407. Aḥmad ʿUbayd al-Daʿʿās and colleagues, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 3/414, give the objects and coordination; Ibrāhīm al-Ibyārī, al-Mawsūʿah al-Qurʾāniyyah, 4/492, gives the same two-object explanation. ↩

  3. Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, 4/2612; Ṣāfī, al-Jadwal, 15/215; Darwīsh, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-bayānuhu, 10/351. The combined English sentence explains the grammatical connection; the opening retains the identified verse-by-verse translation. ↩

  4. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13–14; Darwīsh, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-bayānuhu, 10/351. ↩

  5. Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, 4/2611–2612; Darwīsh, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-bayānuhu, 10/351, on لَمْ as a particle of negation, jussive government and past reference. ↩

  6. Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, 4/2612; al-Muntajab al-Hamadhānī, al-Kitāb al-farīd fī iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-majīd, 6/321; al-Samīn al-Ḥalabī, al-Durr al-maṣūn, 10/649; Makkī, Mushkil iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 2/794; Darwīsh, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-bayānuhu, 10/351; al-Burūsawī, Rūḥ al-bayān, 10/293; al-Hararī, Ḥadāʾiq al-rūḥ wa-l-rayḥān, 31/47. Makkī, al-Muntajab, al-Samīn and Darwīsh explain the two-object construction. Dār al-Ṣaḥābah also allows creation with a ḥāl; al-Burūsawī and al-Hararī include that alternative. Al-Samīn and Darwīsh specify a prospective condition. Ibn ʿĀshūr adopts creation, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13. ↩

  7. Al-Samīn, al-Durr al-maṣūn, 10/649; Darwīsh, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-bayānuhu, 10/351; al-Burūsawī, Rūḥ al-bayān, 10/293. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13, adopts the creation meaning. ↩

  8. Al-Samīn, al-Durr al-maṣūn, 10/649. The description is passive as vocalized here. For the mountains’ fixing function, see al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-balāghah, 2/318, and Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 3/445. ↩

  9. Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, 4/2612; al-Kharrāṭ, al-Mujtabā, 4/1407; Ṣāfī, al-Jadwal, 15/215. ↩

Ṣarf: Roots and Morphology

  1. The word forms follow the Qurʾānic text of 78:6–7. Grammatical roles: Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, 4/2611–2612. Noun forms: Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 7/111, under أَرْض; al-Muntajab, al-Kitāb al-farīd, 6/321, on مِهَاد; al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 1/302–303, on جِبَال; al-Hararī, Ḥadāʾiq al-rūḥ wa-l-rayḥān, 31/53, on أَوْتَاد. The table explains the patterns and inflection of these occurrences. ↩

  2. Al-Rāghib al-Aṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt fī gharīb al-Qurʾān, 196–197, under جَعَل; al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-balāghah, 1/141; al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 1/328. The short English clauses explain the cited constructions. ↩

  3. Makkī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Mushkil iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 2/794–795; al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, 4/129. ↩

  4. Ibn Fāris, Muʿjam maqāyīs al-lughah, 1/460–461, under جَعَل, quoting al-Khalīl on the difference from صَنَعَ. His description is كَلِمَاتٌ غَيْرُ مُنْقَاسَةٍ، لَا يُشْبِهُ بَعْضُهَا بَعْضًا, “words not governed by a common measure, which do not resemble one another.” ↩

  5. Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal (d. 1436 AH), al-Muʿjam al-ishtiqāqī al-muʾaṣṣal, 1/316–317, under جَعَل; compare Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lughah, 1/460–461. ↩

  6. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 7/111–112, under أَرْض; al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, 73; Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lughah, 1/79–81. For the verse’s image and the question of the earth’s shape, see Q 1 above. ↩

  7. Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lughah, 5/280–281; al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, 780; al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 4/119–120, under مَهَد. ↩

  8. Al-Azharī, quoted in Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 3/410–411; Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal, al-Muʿjam al-ishtiqāqī al-muʾaṣṣal, 4/2131–2132. ↩

  9. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14. Al-Muntajab, al-Kitāb al-farīd, 6/321; al-Burūsawī, Rūḥ al-bayān, 10/293, quoting Ibn al-Shaykh for the verbal-noun analysis; al-Hararī, Ḥadāʾiq al-rūḥ wa-l-rayḥān, 31/53; Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 2/317, to which his discussion at 10/384 refers. Al-Naḥḥās, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 5/79, also permits singular and plural but gives the latter as جمع مهده, rather than the مَهْد comparison developed by al-Muntajab. ↩

  10. Al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 1/302–303, under جَبَل. ↩

  11. Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lughah, 1/502–503; al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, 185–186; Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal, al-Muʿjam al-ishtiqāqī al-muʾaṣṣal, 1/273–274, under جَبَل. ↩

  12. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 11/96, underجبل. ↩

  13. Al-Naḥḥās, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 5/79; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 3/444–445, under وَتَد. The assimilation concerns the lexical singular; the plural in 78:7 retains its separated consonants. Al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 4/279, calls watid the well-known form and records watad; al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, 853. ↩

  14. Al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-balāghah, 2/318; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 3/445, under وَتَد. ↩

  15. Al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, 354; al-Samīn, ʿUmdat al-ḥuffāẓ, 2/92, interpret 78:7 through the firm establishment expressed in 79:32. ↩

  16. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, Dār Ṣādir printing, 3/444, names Abū Muḥammad al-Faqʿasī; al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-balāghah, 2/318, has «وكان لا يخلفها المواعدا» in the second half. The wording here follows al-Lisān. ↩

  17. Al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-balāghah, 2/318, cites Abū Duʾād immediately after defining «قرن واتد» as an upright horn. The printing divides «توجّس» between the hemistichs; the complete word is joined here. ↩

  18. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, Dār Ṣādir printing, 3/444, names Sāʿida ibn Juʾayyah and identifies the lion. ↩

Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

  1. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195. ↩

  2. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/16; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah printing, 15/208, reports a preference for coordinating the following clauses with the verb negated by lam. ↩

  3. Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 10/384; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14. ↩

  4. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/204–205, for the alternative with an understood قُلْ (qul), “say.” ↩

  5. Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-munīr, 30/7–8; al-Hararī, Ḥadāʾiq al-rūḥ wa-l-rayḥān, 31/58; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/13–15; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205. Al-Sharīf al-Raḍī, Talkhīṣ al-bayān fī majāzāt al-Qurʾān, selected in Jaʿfar Sharaf al-Dīn’s al-Mawsūʿah al-Qurʾāniyyah: Khaṣāʾiṣ al-suwar, 11/43; Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṭāhā al-Durra, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-iʿrābuhu wa-bayānuhu, 10/398. Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-tafāsīr, 3/486, whose explanation is quoted by al-Durra and al-Hararī; Maḥmūd Ṣāfī, al-Jadwal, 15/217, calls these comparisons without adding balīgh here. ↩

  6. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/15. Al-Afwah’s witness is cited by Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 10/384; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195; and al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205. Its complete wording and translation appear in Q 1. ↩

  7. Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah printing, 15/207–208; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/197. ↩

  8. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/15, on resemblance in form or securing function. ↩

  9. Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8. His intensifying example is زيد جود وكرم وفضل, “Zayd is generosity, nobility and excellence.” Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205, also records description by the مَصْدَر (maṣdar), a verbal noun, and the understood ذات مهاد. ↩

  10. Al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, 3/100–101; al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, 3/255, and Muʿtarak al-aqrān, 1/282; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14. Al-Suyūṭī describes the device as ذكر الغاية من الخلق, “mentioning the purpose of creation.” His two works present the same explanation. ↩

  11. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14. For the distinction between divine wisdom and an obligation imposed on Allah from outside, see Q 2 and its discussion of al-Zarkashī. ↩

  12. Ibn Kamāl Pasha, Tafsīr Ibn Kamāl Pasha, 9/39; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīr, 30/14–15; al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-durar, 21/195–196. Ibn ʿĀshūr describes the mountain clause as إدماجًا معترضًا, an incorporated contribution between the earth’s preparation and the creation of its inhabitants. The printing has «إذماجا»; «إدماجًا» gives the intended rhetorical term. ↩

  13. Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-munīr, 30/8. He calls the broader sequence of endings سجع مرصع (sajʿ muraṣṣaʿ), ornamented rhyming correspondence, and lists the endings from أَوْتَادًا through أَلْفَافًا. The comparison of مِهَادًا and أَوْتَادًا here describes the two adjacent verse endings. ↩

Qirāʾāt

  1. Aḥmad al-Bannāʾ, Itḥāf fuḍalāʾ al-bashar, 569; Ibn al-Jazarī, al-Nashr fī al-qirāʾāt al-ʿashr, 2/320: «واتفقوا على الحرف الذي في النبأ أنه كذلك اتباعا لرءوس الآي بعده», agreement on the form in al-Nabaʾ in keeping with the following verse endings; see also 2/397. ↩

  2. Al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-iʿrābuh, 5/271; al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8; Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 10/384; al-Samīn, al-Durr al-maṣūn, 10/649–650; Ibn ʿĀdil, al-Lubāb fī ʿulūm al-kitāb, 20/95; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205. Al-Samīn and Ibn ʿĀdil specify Ṭā Hā and al-Zukhruf when limiting the Kufan attribution. Al-Khafājī, ʿInāyat al-Qāḍī wa-kifāyat al-Rāḍī, 8/301, relays the classification of the alternative as شاذة and explains why it does not contradict agreement on مِهَادًا here. Al-Zajjāj describes mihādan as the form used by most readers; Abū Ḥayyān, al-Samīn and Ibn ʿĀdil call it the general reading. The latter three report mahdan from Mujāhid and ʿĪsā and also mention “some Kufans”; al-Ālūsī names ʿĪsā al-Hamdānī. Al-Zajjāj reports the alternative without naming its reader in this passage. ↩

  3. Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ, 10/384. The attribution to Ibn Khālawayh and the designation الحوفي are quoted by Abū Ḥayyān; his suggestion concerning Ibn ʿAṭiyyah’s “some Kufans” is expressed as a possibility. The printing has «الحوفي»; the subsequent inference about “some Kufans” suggests that «الكوفي» was intended. ↩

  4. Al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-iʿrābuh, 5/271; al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 31/8. See also al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī, 15/205, on the shared meaning and the comparison. ↩

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