Tafseer of The Thunder · Ar-Ra'd · 13:5
And if you are astonished, [O Muhammad] - then astonishing is their saying, "When we are dust, will we indeed be [brought] into a new creation?" Those are the ones who have disbelieved in their Lord, and those will have shackles upon their necks, and those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein eternally.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose mention is lofty, says: (And if you wonder) O Muḥammad, at these polytheists (mushrikūn) who have taken as gods that which neither harms nor benefits, which they worship besides Me — then their saying is a [truly] wondrous thing: (when we have become dust) and have decayed, so that we no longer exist, (shall we then indeed be in a new creation?), [that is:] shall we really be brought into being anew and re-created into a new creation, as we were before our death?! — out of their denial of the power of Allah, and out of their rejection of the recompense, the punishment, and the resurrection after death, as in:
20128 — Bishr related to us, he said: Yazīd related to us, he said: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying: (And if you wonder, then this is a wonder) — if you wonder, O Muḥammad, (then their saying is a wonder: when we have become dust, shall we then indeed be in a new creation?) — the Most Merciful, blessed and exalted is He, wonders at their denial of the resurrection after death.
20129 — Yūnus related to me, he said: Ibn Wahb informed us, he said: Ibn Zayd said concerning His saying: (And if you wonder, then their saying is a wonder), he said: if you wonder at their denial, while they have indeed seen something of the power of Allah and His decree, and the parables that He has set forth for them, so that He has shown them the bringing to life of the dead in the dead earth — if you wonder at this, then wonder at their saying: (when we have become dust, shall we then indeed be in a new creation?). Do they not see that We created them from a drop? Is then the creation from a drop stronger [more difficult], or the creation from dust and bones?
Concerning the manner of the repetition of the question in His saying: (shall we then indeed be in a new creation?), after the first question in His saying: (when we have become dust) — the linguists differed about this.
Some grammarians of Basra said: the first is an adverbial qualifier [of time], and the second is that upon which the question falls, as you say: "Is it on Friday that Zayd departs?" He said: and whoever lets a second question fall upon his saying: (when we have become dust), makes it an adverbial qualifier of something mentioned before it, as though it had been said to them: "you will be resurrected," to which they said: (when we have become dust)? Then he makes this into another question. He said: and this is far-fetched. He said: and if you wish, you make no question in your saying: (when), and you place the question in the wording upon (shall we), as though you said: "Is it on Friday that ʿAbd Allāh departs?", and you leave the negation of it implicit. This, then, is the place where you began with (when), and that is not frequent in speech; even were you to say: "Today, indeed ʿAbd Allāh departs," that would not be elegant, although it is permissible. And the Arabs said: "I did not know, indeed he is truly virtuous," by which they mean: indeed he is virtuous, as far as I know.
And another said: (when) is a conditional particle (jazāʾ) and not a time-marker, and what follows it is the answer to it, if there is no question in the second, and the meaning lies therein, because that is what is intended. He said: do you not see that you say: "If you arise, Zayd arises — or: does he arise?" Whoever puts [the verb] in the jussive does so because it occupies the place of the answer to the condition; and whoever puts it in the nominative does so because the question attaches to it. And he adduced as proof the saying of the poet:
I swore to him: if you journey through the night, there shall ever travel before you a tent from my tents.
He thus put the answer to the oath in the jussive, because it occupied the place of the answer to the condition, while the [proper] manner is the nominative. He said: and so it is with this verse. He said: and whoever lets the question enter a second time does so because that is the [actual] mainstay, and he omits the first part.
And His saying: (they are those who disbelieve in their Lord) — the Exalted, whose mention is lofty, says: these who denied the resurrection and rejected the recompense and the punishment, and who said: (when we have become dust, shall we then indeed be in a new creation?), they are those who denied the power of their Lord and called His Messenger a liar, and they are those around whose necks are the chains on the Day of Resurrection in the fire of hell (jahannam); they are therefore (the inhabitants of the Fire), He says: they are the inhabitants of the Fire on the Day of Resurrection — (they will abide therein eternally), He says: they will remain therein forever, they will not die therein and will not come out of it.
------------------- (57) The narration 20129 — Only in the printed edition does "Ibrāhīm" appear in place of "Ibn Wahb"; I do not know from where he derived this; it is an isnād that [usually] circulates in the tafsīr.
(58) "The linguists" (ahl al-ʿarabiyya) is the subject of his just-mentioned saying: "And they differed …".
(59) In the printed edition and the manuscript it reads: "when we have died and become dust," but I have adopted the text of the verse as it occurs in this surah.
(60) In the printed edition and the manuscript it reads: "and he leaves the negation of it implicit," but the best is what I have adopted. By his saying "negation of it" he means: the deletion and omission of it.
(61) In the printed edition it reads: "already you have begun in it [with] when," and in the manuscript it reads: "already you have begun in it with when," but he confused the spelling of "with when," and I think the correct reading is that in place of "already" (qad) there stands "what" (mā). And in the manuscript and the printed edition there follows after this "frequent in speech," and this is the best.
(62) Only in the printed edition does it read: "Today, is it the case that" with the interrogative hamza, which adds something not found in the manuscript, and that is an exceedingly poor intervention.
(63) Abū Jaʿfar pointed out in what preceded at 7:260 that he would later come, in the proper manner, to the discussion of the non-repetition of the question a second time, and that the question at the beginning of the sentence indicates its place and position. And this is the place to which he referred, to the best of my judgment; so see what preceded at 7:259, 260.
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Important remark: Abū Jaʿfar's exposition in this place requires clarification, for he has obscured the discussion of it in a vexing manner, until it compelled the editor of the first edition to correct what he corrected and alter what he altered, owing to the obscurity of what Abū Jaʿfar wrote here. For this reason I have departed from what I had earlier imposed upon myself, namely not annotating the chapters on grammar in the tafsīr. And I fear that something has dropped out of the text.
And by his exposition in this passage Abū Jaʿfar intended the explanation of the repetition of the question, as he mentioned it in the context of the disagreement of the linguists, but he left the discussion implicit in a manner that I now set forth and clarify.
1 — His saying: "Some grammarians of Basra said: the first is an adverbial qualifier, and the second is that upon which the question fell, as you say: Is it on Friday that Zayd departs?"
He means that "when" (idhā) is an adverbial qualifier, connected to something omitted that comes after it, to which His saying "shall we really be in a new creation" points, namely "the resurrection," as though He said: "when we have become dust, shall we then be resurrected?" The adverbial qualifier "when" is thus connected to something omitted, namely "we are resurrected," and the meaning is: shall we be resurrected when we have become dust? This is like your saying: Is it on Friday that Zayd departs? — and its meaning is: does Zayd depart on Friday? The question thus falls in the first case upon "we are resurrected," and in the other example upon "Zayd departs," and this is the explanation of the grammarians of Basra, as it occurs in the books of tafsīr.
2 — Then he said after it: "And whoever lets another question fall upon his saying: when we have become dust, makes it an adverbial qualifier of something mentioned before it, as though it had been said to them: you will be resurrected? to which they said: when we have become dust, and then he makes this into another question. He said: and this is far-fetched."
He means that "when," the adverbial qualifier, is connected to something omitted that precedes it, namely that which was said to them: "you will be resurrected," to which they said: when we have become dust? The question thus falls here upon "when," that is, upon the adverbial qualifier. And this is far-fetched, because he adduces something omitted before the adverbial qualifier for which there is no indication in the speech.
3 — Then he said: "He said: and if you wish, you make no question in when, and you place the question in the wording upon shall we, as though you said: Is it on Friday that ʿAbd Allāh departs? and you leave the negation of it implicit. This, then, is the place where you began with when, and that is not frequent in speech."
He means that the first question is superfluous and added in "when," and that you leave the negation of it implicit, so that you repeat the question, as you repeated it in your saying: Is it on Friday that ʿAbd Allāh departs? And this repetition is not frequent in speech.
4 — Then he said: "Even were you to say: Today, indeed ʿAbd Allāh departs, that would not be elegant, although it is permissible. And the Arabs said: I did not know, indeed he is truly virtuous, by which they mean: indeed he is virtuous, as far as I know."
He means that this fourth manner is not elegant, even though it is permissible, and that is because it requires that "when" then be an adverbial qualifier connected to His saying: "in a new creation," that is, to the predicate of "indeed" (inna), and the predicate of "inna" does not precede it; all the more is it [unfitting] that the object of its predicate should precede it. Therefore your saying: "Today, indeed ʿAbd Allāh departs" is not elegant, because "today" is the object of "departs," which is the predicate of "inna," so that making it precede "inna" is not elegant, even though it is permissible. For "inna" does not allow what comes after it to operate upon what comes before it. And he adduced as proof for its permissibility the saying of the Arabs: "I did not know, indeed he is truly virtuous," where "mā" here is adverbial, that is "in my knowing, or: at the time of my knowing," so that the Arabs made "I did not know" precede "inna," while they mean "indeed he is virtuous, as far as I know." And this exposition in which I have been extensive, in clarification of the position of Abū Jaʿfar — I have found no one among the writers of the books of tafsīr, nor among the writers of the books on the grammatical analysis of the Qurʾān, who has treated this as Abū Jaʿfar treated it in his exposition. They all passed over this and rendered it concisely, and did not clarify it as Abū Jaʿfar clarified it. And Abū Ḥayyān — and he is who he is in scrutinizing the statements of the grammarians and in exhaustively treating the position of al-Ṭabarī in his tafsīr — he too neglected the exposition of it and passed over it. And that is owing to the obscurity of Abū Jaʿfar's formulation in this place. I hope, then, that I have reached a satisfactory level in the exposition of it, if Allah wills.
(64) "Al-jazāʾ" is "the condition" (al-sharṭ), and "al-waqt" is "the adverbial qualifier of time".
(65) In the printed edition and the manuscript it reads: "if you arise, he arises …," but the correct reading is the inclusion of the interrogative hamza, as the wording [of the context] indicates.
(66) The verse is by al-Rāʿī.
(67) The verse, its attribution, and its clarification have already passed in what preceded at 7:259, note 2.
(68) He means that when the question falls upon a condition, the question is for the answer and not for the condition. And he said in what just preceded at 7:259: "Every question that falls upon a conditional particle means that it is in the answer to it, because the answer is an independent statement, and the conditional particle is a condition for that statement." And so it is also with the oath: when the condition precedes, the answer is for it [the oath] and not for the condition. He says, then, that the question in "when" — and "when" is a condition — falls upon its answer, namely "we shall really be in a new creation," this if the verse were free of the question, but it is not free of it. Therefore he said afterward: he only let the question enter a second time upon the answer, after having let it enter upon the condition, because the question is for the answer, so that letting it enter upon the answer is the actual point of departure. And when he let it enter upon that, it was as though he annulled the first question, which entered upon the condition.
(69) See the explanation of "the chains" (al-aghlāl) in what preceded at 13:168; he has clarified them sufficiently neither here nor there, as is his custom.
