Surah Al-Mulk 67:15-30 - Quran Translation Commentary

(67:19) Have they not regarded the birds above them, outspreading the wings and folding (them) in? None holds them (aloft) except the All-merciful; surely He is the Watcher of all things.

(67:20) Or, who is it that is your force that can help you, apart from the All-merciful? The unbelievers are only in a delusion.

(67:21) Or, who is it that could provide for you if He held back His provision? Nay, but they persist in insolence and aversion.

(67:22) Is he then who trudges fallen on his face,¹⁶ better guided or he who walks upright on a straight path?¹⁷

(67:23) Say, ‘He it is who produced you and made for you hearing, sights and consciousness; little it is that you give thanks.’

(67:24) Say, ‘He it is who scattered you in the earth and to Him you will be mustered.’

(67:25) They ask, ‘When will this promise come to pass, if you should you be truthful?’¹⁸

(67:26) Say, ‘The knowledge is with Allah alone, and I am merely a plain warner.’

(67:27) But when they see it close at hand, grief-stricken will become the faces of those who disbelieved and it will be said, ‘This is that which you were seeking.’¹⁹

(67:28) Say, 'Have you considered, if Allah were to destroy me and those with me, or showed us mercy, who can protect the unbelievers from a painful chastisement?²⁰

(67:29) Say, 'He is the All-merciful in whom we have believed and upon Whom we have placed our trust;²¹ assuredly you will soon know who is in a manifest error.'

(67:30) Say, 'Have you considered, if your water were to go deep down, who will then bring you flowing water?'²²

Commentary

14. Although the allusion by “He in the heaven” apparently appears to be to Allah, Zamakhshari, Razi, and Qurtubi do not rule out that the allusion could be to Jibril who brings down chastisements when commissioned by Allah.

As for Allah, He was there before anything was there. It is He who created time and space and hence is above and beyond time and space. (As to where is He located now, the question is absurd). Qurtubi writes:

He created space, without needing it. He was ever there, before the creation of time and space so that He is not bound to time and space. And now He is as He was (before anything was created).

15. “The security that is denied to man by these verses, is different from the peace that a believer enjoys. The security denied here is the insecurity which grows in man because of his heedlessness of Allah, His Powers and His forces. It is not that ‘peace of heart’ or ‘tranquility’ that arises from belief in Allah, doing His bidding, and dependence on His mercy, which is alluded to here. This, other sense of peace, does not lead man to heedlessness, or to try and make the best of this material life, but rather leads to a conscious effort to avoid provoking Allah’s anger, and taking up measures to safeguard oneself against what will displease Him. Imam Ahmad has recorded `A’isha as having said, ‘I never saw the Prophet laugh out boisterously; the kind of laugh that would reveal all his teeth. He would only smile.’ She also said that when it was windy or cloudy, the effects could be seen on his face. Once she asked him, ‘Messenger of Allah. When people see the clouds they rejoice for the hope that they carry rains within them. But when I look at your face, I get to feel that you do not sort of like it?’ He answered, ‘O `A’isha, what will give me the assurance that punishment is not concealed in them. A past nation was punished by the winds. Another people saw the clouds and said, “This is a cloud that will bring us rains.”’

“The above portrays the sense and sensitivity, wakefulness and ever-watchfulness of Allah and His powers. It does not deny the peace the heart enjoys from its belief in Allah’s mercy and bounty.

“Moreover, all external causes lead to a single primary Cause, and the affairs return to the hands of Him in whose hands is the dominion, and who has power over all things. So, the sinking of the earth, or sand storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes and all the forces of nature: human hands have no power over any of them. It is Allah who controls them. All that the humans can do is to conjecture, theorize and explain their occurrence, but they have no say in their happening, nor can save themselves from them and their effects. All that they build on the earth is wiped out by the calamities in one stroke, as if they were pawns on a paper turned over. Therefore, it is best for humans that they should turn their attention from them to their Creator and Regulator, of the laws that govern and control them. They should face up to the heaven and remind themselves of Him who has true dominion and who has power over all things.

“Man is powerful, but within the limits granted to him. He knows a lot, but to the extent knowledge is extended to him. But the universe he lives in is frighteningly too large, too vast and too complicated for him. Its control is in the hands of its Creator. The laws employed have been brought to existence by Him. The forces of nature are in accordance with what is designed by Him. These forces act according to the laws put in place by Him. What man has received of the powers are a measured quantity, and what man learns of them is a quantity pre-determined. On the other hand, the events that occur day and night, place man before them hand-shackled, hopelessly armed to face them. What is it he can do except to be reminded of his Lord and His powers?

“But when man forgets this reality, is deceived and becomes a victim of vanity because of what little knowledge and powers that Allah has given him, he becomes a distorted being, cut off from true knowledge that could have raised his soul up to the heavens. He remains earth-bound, disconnected from the true spirit of life and existence; while the knowledgeable believer plunges into the beautiful spectacle of life and existence, reaching out to the Originator of life: a joy that no one understands but he who experiences it” (Sayyid).

16. That is, someone who moves forward, face down, without looking right or left, or in front of him (Qurtubi).

Literally, “walks” as the word in the text is “yamshi”. If applied to the Hereafter, the following hadith may be quoted, as in Ibn Jarir, for explanation. (We find it in Tirmidhi: Au.):

The Prophet said, “People will be raised on the Day of Standing as three kinds: a kind that will be on foot, a second kind that will be mounted and a third that will be on their faces.” He was asked, “Messenger of Allah, how will they walk on their faces?” He answered, “He who made them walk on their feet, has the power to make them walk on their faces. Indeed, they will be maneuvering every mound and clearing every thorn with their faces.”

Tirmidhi classified the above as a kind of weak hadith, but Dhahabi declared it Sahih in his critical re-examination of Hakim’s Mustadrak.

17. “… (This is) a metaphor of the spiritual obtuseness which prevents a person from caring for anything beyond his immediate, worldly concern, and thus makes him resemble an earthworm that ‘goes along prone upon its face’” (Asad).

18. “In the first preaching of Islam,” (writes Majid), ‘the announcement of the Day of Judgment is much more prominent than the Unity of God; and it was against His revelations concerning Doomsday that the opponents directed their satire during the first twelve years. It was not love of their half-dead gods but anger at (someone) who was never tired of telling them, in the other world they would be outcasts, which opened the floodgates of irony and scorn against Muhammad’ (Hurgronje, Mohammedanism, p. 34).”

19. The reference here is to the pagans’ audacious demands worded by the Qur’an elsewhere as (8: 32):

“When they said, ‘O God, if this happens to be the Truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from the heaven or bring upon us a painful chastisement” (Ibn Jarir, Qurtubi).

20. That is, your punishment is dead certain. It little matters to you what happens to us Muslims. Instead of waiting for a catastrophe falling on us, you better worry about your own destiny (Au., with a point from Qurtubi).

21. That is, it is the All-merciful in whom we have believed and in whom we place our trust. It does not seem very likely that He will destroy us (Au.).

22. Asad comments: “Apart from a further reminder of God’s providential power (thus continuing with the argument touched upon in verses 19-21), the above verse has a parabolic significance as well. Just as water is an indispensible element of all organic life, so is a constant flow of moral consciousness an indispensible prerequisite of all spiritual life and stability: and who but God could enable man to regain that consciousness after the older ethical values have dried up and ‘vanished underground.’”

Groundwater

The liquid water in the form of lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, springs and puddles is merely 1.5 percent of earth’s fresh (drinkable) water. The other 98.5% resides in porous regions beneath the earth’s surface. The ground beneath our feet normally consists of what the geologists call as the unsaturated zone, anything between 0 to perhaps a few hundred feet deep, followed by a saturated layer where water collects and stays. To get water, humans have to dig beyond the unsaturated zone to strike at the water table under it. The point at which water is struck in such quantities as which can be drawn up, is known as the water table. A water table itself can be, depending on the soil, several hundred feet deep from the point of start. The depth of the water level from the surface, (through the unsaturated zone) varies. In times of drought it goes down, to rise up when there have been good rains. But water is always there. The water level of most ponds and lakes is the water level below the ground surface adjacent to it. In short, the ground around a lake, for example, has water underneath the surface, to the same level as the level of water in the lake. In other words, the land around is sitting on a water table – a kind of an island.

Where large tracts of water are found under the ground, the area is called aquifer. Half of the United States is said to have aquifer below the land. One such aquifer is said to stretch from South Dakota to Texas and from Colorado to Arkansas (roughly the size of Arabia). This is Allah’s gift. If the water level in the aquifers was to go down, or the aquifers disappear, helpless humans above will have to move out or perish.

An amazing thing about the water table below is that the water level seems to follow the land level above, rising, where the land rises to form mounds, hills and mountains, and falling where the land falls forming depressions, valleys, through and through the downward gradient. Thus, digging, say to a depth of 400 feet can yield water at any place over a stretch of land consisting of hills as well as valleys. In other words, if one can dig say 400 feet deep to obtain water in a valley, then, water can also be reached by digging roughly to the same 400 feet depth on say a 1000 feet high hill in the same vicinity. Had water settled to its natural way of leveling off, then, those at the top of the hill would not have been able to obtain any water unless they dug 1400 feet. This is by Allah’s grace, mentioned in the verse.

Then there are huge clay pots, or basins below the surface of the earth, which catch water coming down from the top, but, which retain it in their hollow, not allowing it to move down further. These hollow pots too, explain the water wells on top of mountains. E.g., on top of a mountain hill say 3000 feet high, wells, not very deep, yield drinking water serving the needs of the settlers on top. This is because of the clay bowl or pots that retain water. Without these clay bowls or pots, arranged by Allah Most High, there would be no water, springs, beautiful trees covering the mountains, and no human habitation over them (Au.).