An-Nazi'at 79:27 - Linguistic Miracle

أَ

Are you a more difficult creation or the heaven? He constructed it

Commentary covering verses 27–31

Remember how disbelievers mocked the idea of resurrection after having become hollow, decayed bones? Allah counters that He created the heavens, which are a far greater creation than you. If he can create all that, what are you? The first thing you need to remember is that the Qurʾān is not a scientific book. It is a book with remarkable linguistic imagery. For example, we say in our daily lives the sun sank into the ocean. Did it really sink? No, it is just language to express how it seems to us when we look at the sunset. This is common to all languages without exception. Figurative language to convey scenes as they appear to our eyes, as well as to depict scenes and induce emotions. This is as old as language itself. Every single language has it and we see it most commonly in poetry.

Notice how Allah says, He darkened its night and brought out its brightness. He then uses the same language with the earth and says, He brought out its water and

pasture to link the two. Water and pasture sustain life, remove them and life ceases. Allah called the day life itself in the previous surah. Now He connects it with the water and pasture produced out of the earth. Without these two, water and vegetation, all life would cease. Hence, Allah is saying that He made the earth something that gives and sustains life itself. Earth consists of life itself. Earlier, we saw how it will only take one Zajrah for us to be resurrected into the Sāhirah. Just as the earth conceals life inside it in the form of seeds, so will it conceal human beings inside it. Just as the seed only needs water to bring it to life, so will human beings need a command of Allah, one Zajrah, sent from the sky like the rain, to bring us to life.