Tafseer of Crouching · Al-Jaathiya · 45:4
And in the creation of yourselves and what He disperses of moving creatures are signs for people who are certain [in faith].
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.
The discourse on the explanation of His statement, the Exalted: وَفِي خَلْقِكُمْ وَمَا يَبُثُّ مِنْ دَابَّةٍ آيَاتٌ لِقَوْمٍ يُوقِنُونَ (And in your creation, and in the living creatures He scatters abroad, there are signs for a people who are certain) (4).
He, exalted is His mention, says: And in Allah's creation of you, O people, and in His creation of what He has scattered abroad over the earth of animals that crawl about upon it, other than your own kind, آيَاتٌ لِقَوْمٍ يُوقِنُونَ — that is to say: proofs and indications for a people who are certain of the realities of things, who therefore acknowledge them and know their correctness.
The reciters differed over the recitation of His statement آيَاتٌ لِقَوْمٍ يُوقِنُونَ and what follows upon it. Most of the reciters of Medina and Basra and some of the reciters of Kufa recited it as (آياتٌ) in the nominative (rafʿ) as a new commencement (ibtidāʾ), and they refrained from connecting it back to His statement لآيَاتٍ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ. And most of the reciters of Kufa recited it as (آياتٍ) in the genitive (khafḍ), with the meaning of the accusative (naṣb), as a connection to His statement لآيَاتٍ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ.
Those among the later scholars who recited it thus claimed that they had chosen to recite it in this way, because in the recitation of Ubayy in the three verses it is (لآياتٍ), with the lām. Thus they made the entering of the lām into it in his recitation an indication for them of the correctness of reciting the whole in the genitive. But that upon which they relied as an argument in this matter is not a valid argument, for there exists no authentic report from Ubayy concerning this. And even if there did exist an authentic report from him about it, and then it was not known how his recitation was — in the genitive or in the nominative — then the judgment about him that he recited it in the genitive would not be more justified than the judgment about him that he recited it in the nominative, since the Arabs sometimes introduce the lām into the predicate of that which is connected to a complete sentence whose beginning is governed by "inna," while they also construe it as a new commencement, as Ḥumayd ibn Thawr al-Hilālī said:
"Verily the caliphate after them is truly blameworthy (la-dhamīmatun), and successors, newcomers, are truly among what I hold in low esteem." (1)
Thus he introduced the lām into the predicate of a subject after a sentence of a predicate in which "inna" had been operative, because the utterance — even though one recommenced it anew — implicitly carried "inna" within it.
The correct statement on this matter is, if the case is as we have described, that one says: the genitive in these words and the nominative are two recitations that are widespread in the recitation of the cities, with which scholars among the reciters have recited, and both are correct in meaning; with whichever of the two the reciter recites, he is correct.
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Footnotes:
(1) I have not found the verse in the dīwān of Ḥumayd ibn Thawr al-Hilālī, the Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya edition. By "al-khulafāʾ al-ṭuruf" are meant those who have succeeded their forefathers, the ancients. He says: the caliphate after the first caliphs has become blameworthy, and the new caliphs are held in low esteem by me, because they do not follow the way of their forefathers. The point of evidence in the verse is that the poet, by means of the wāw, recommences a sentence of a subject and predicate, both in the nominative, after the first sentence whose subject stood in the accusative by means of "anna," and that is as in the verse: "Verily in the heavens and the earth there are truly signs for the believers, and in your creation and in what He scatters abroad of living creatures there are signs for a people who are certain." Thus far. And al-Farrāʾ said in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 299): His statement "and in your creation and in what He scatters abroad of living creatures there are signs": al-āyāt is read in the genitive, with the meaning of the accusative, connected back to His statement "Verily in the heavens and the earth there are truly signs." What strengthens the genitive in it is that in the recitation of ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd it is "la-āyāt," and in the recitation of Ubayy "la-āyāt." And the nominative is the recitation of the people, as a new commencement after "anna." The Arabs say: "Verily I have a debt upon you, and upon your brother is much money" (inna lī ʿalayka mālan, wa-ʿalā akhīka mālun kathīrun), placing the second both in the accusative and in the nominative. And in the recitation of ʿAbdallāh: "and in the alternation of night and day" — this strengthens the genitive of al-ikhtilāf. And if someone were to use the nominative and say: "and the alternation of night and day are signs," making al-ikhtilāf into signs, then we have not heard this from any reciter. He said: and if someone were to put al-āyāt in the nominative while the lām is in it, then that would be correct. He said: al-Kisāʾī recited to me the verse "Verily the caliphate...".
