Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:73
And it is He who created the heavens and earth in truth. And the day He says, "Be," and it is, His word is the truth. And His is the dominion [on] the Day the Horn is blown. [He is] Knower of the unseen and the witnessed; and He is the Wise, the Acquainted.
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 statement concerning the explanation of His saying: وَهُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ بِالْحَقِّ وَيَوْمَ يَقُولُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ قَوْلُهُ الْحَقُّ وَلَهُ الْمُلْكُ يَوْمَ يُنْفَخُ فِي الصُّورِ عَالِمُ الْغَيْبِ وَالشَّهَادَةِ وَهُوَ الْحَكِيمُ الْخَبِيرُ (6:73) (And He it is who created the heavens and the earth in truth. And on the Day when He says: "Be!", then it is. His word is the truth. And to Him belongs the dominion on the Day when the trumpet is blown. Knower of the unseen and the seen. And He is the All-Wise, the All-Aware.)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted, says to His prophet Muḥammad ﷺ: Say, O Muḥammad, to those who set up partners equal to their Lord, who call you to the worship of the idols: "We have been commanded to surrender ourselves to the Lord of the worlds, who created the heavens and the earth in truth — not to that which brings neither benefit nor harm, which neither hears nor sees."
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The people of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) differed concerning the explanation of His saying: "in truth" (bi-l-ḥaqq).
Some of them said: The meaning of that is: and He it is who created the heavens and the earth truly and rightly, not vainly and wrongly, just as the Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted, says: وَمَا خَلَقْنَا السَّمَاءَ وَالأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا بَاطِلا [Surah Ṣād: 27] (And We did not create the heaven and the earth, and what is between them, in vanity.) They said: And the "bāʾ" and the "alif-lām" (the definite article) were inserted into it, as the Arabs do in similar cases; they say: "so-and-so speaks with the truth (bi-l-ḥaqq)," meaning: that he speaks the truth. They said: And there is nothing in "His speaking with the truth" other than that he hits upon what is right therein — not that "the truth" is a meaning separate from "the speaking," but rather it is an attribute of the speaking; when the speaking is accompanied by it, the speaker is characterized as speaking with the truth and as speaking the truth. They said: Likewise, the creation of the heavens and the earth is one of the wisdoms of Allah; Allah is characterized by wisdom in the creation of both of them and in the creation of all else among His creatures — not that this is a truth outside their creation with which He created them.
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Others said: The meaning of that is: He created the heavens and the earth by His word and His saying to them both: اِئْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا [Surah Fuṣṣilat: 11] (Come both of you, willingly or unwillingly.) They said: "The truth" in this place is intended as: His word. And they argued for their statement by His word: "And on the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is. His word is the truth" — "the truth" is His word and His speech. They said: And Allah created the things by His speech and His saying; and that with which He created the things is something other than the created things. They said: Since that is so, it is necessary that the word of Allah with which He created the creation is uncreated.
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As for His saying: "And on the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is" — the grammarians differed concerning what grammatically governs in "the Day when He says" and concerning the meaning of that.
Some of the grammarians of Basra said: "the Day" is annexed (in an iḍāfa construction) to "He says: 'Be!', then it is." He said: And it is in the accusative (naṣb), and it has no manifest predicate — and Allah knows best — and it is as I have explained to you; as if he means by it that it is in the accusative on the basis of: "and remember the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is." He said: And likewise: "the Day when the trumpet is blown." He said: And some of them said: the Day when the trumpet is blown, [is] the Knower of the unseen and the seen.
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And some of them said: "He says: 'Be!', then it is" applies specifically to the trumpet. The meaning of the statement according to their interpretation is thus: the Day when He says to the trumpet: "Be!", then it is; His word is the truth on the Day when it is blown, [He,] the Knower of the unseen and the seen. Thus "the word" (al-qawl) is then put in the nominative by "the truth" (al-ḥaqq), and "the truth" by "the word," and His saying "the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is" and "the Day when the trumpet is blown" are a qualifying clause (ṣila) of "the truth."
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Others said: No, rather, by His saying "Be!, then it is" is intended all that which Allah will restore in the hereafter after having caused it to perish, and will bring forth after having caused it to vanish. The statement, according to the school of these [scholars], comes to an end at His saying "Be!, then it is," and His saying "His word is the truth" is a predicate of a subject. Its interpretation is: and He it is who created the heavens and the earth in truth, and on the Day when He says to the things: "Be!", then it is — He created both of them in truth after their perishing. Then He began the report concerning His word and His promise to His creation that He will restore both of them after their perishing — [a report] that this is truth — and said: this word of His is the truth concerning which there is no doubt. And He reported that to Him belongs the dominion on the Day when the trumpet is blown; thus "the Day when the trumpet is blown" according to this interpretation is a qualifying clause (ṣila) of "the dominion."
And it is permissible according to this interpretation that His saying "the Day when the trumpet is blown" is a qualifying clause of "the truth."
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Others said: No, rather, the meaning of the statement is: and on the Day when He says to that which has perished: "Be!", then His word is the truth. He then put "the word" in the nominative by His saying "and on the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is," and made His saying "Be!, then it is" a locus (maḥall) for the word, and His saying "the Day when the trumpet is blown" a qualifying clause of "the truth" — as if he directed its interpretation to: and on that Day His word is the truth, on the Day when the trumpet is blown. And if, according to this interpretation, one makes "the Day when the trumpet is blown" a clarification of the first Day, then that is a valid view. And if one puts His saying "His word is the truth" in the nominative by His saying "the Day when the trumpet is blown," and makes His saying "the Day when the trumpet is blown" a locus, and His saying "and on the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is" a qualifying clause thereof, then that is permissible.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And the correct view of the statement concerning that, in my opinion, is to say: Allah, the Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted, reported that He stands alone in the creation of the heavens and the earth, to the exclusion of all else besides Him, while He acquaints those of His creatures who ascribe partners to Him with their ignorance in the worship of the idols and the idol-figures, and the wrongness of that in which they persist, namely the worship of that which brings neither harm nor benefit, and is unable to draw any advantage to itself, nor to ward off any harm from itself — and while He adduces against them a proof against their denial of the resurrection after death and of the reward and the punishment, [namely] by His power to create that in the beginning, and [by the fact] that it is not impossible for Him who created that in the beginning to cause it to perish and then to restore it after having caused it to perish. So He said: "And He it is who created" — O you who set up equal to your Lord that which brings neither benefit nor harm and is capable of nothing — "the heavens and the earth in truth," as a proof against His creatures, so that thereby they would know their Creator, and so that they would infer from it the greatness of His power and His dominion, and so devote worship exclusively to Him. "And on the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is" — He says: and on the Day when, when the earth is replaced by another earth, and likewise the heavens, He says: "Be!", then it is, as the Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted, wills, so that the earth becomes another earth. And [the statement] comes to an end at His saying "Be!, then it is."
And since its meaning is so, it is necessary that there is something omitted in the statement to which the manifest [wording] points, and the meaning of the statement is: and on the Day when He thus says: "Be!, then it is," [the heavens and the earth] are replaced by other heavens and another earth. And to that points His saying: "And He it is who created the heavens and the earth in truth." Then He began the report concerning the word and said: "His word is the truth," meaning: this promise of His which the Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted, has promised, [namely] of His replacing the heavens and the earth with another earth and other heavens, is the truth concerning which there is no doubt. "And to Him belongs the dominion on the Day when the trumpet is blown" — thus His saying "the Day when the trumpet is blown" is a qualifying clause of "the dominion," and the meaning of the statement is: and to Allah belongs the dominion on that Day, because the second blast on the trumpet takes place at the moment when Allah replaces the heavens and the earth with others.
And it is permissible that "the word" — I mean: "His word is the truth" — is put in the nominative by His saying "and on the Day when He says: 'Be!', then it is," and that His saying "Be!, then it is" is a locus (maḥall) for the word that is put in the nominative; thus the interpretation of the statement becomes: and He it is who created the heavens and the earth in truth, and on the Day when He replaces them with other heavens and another earth, and says to that: "Be!, then it is," [is] "His word the truth."
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As for His saying: "And to Him belongs the dominion on the Day when the trumpet is blown" — He assigned the report concerning His dominion specifically to that Day, even though the dominion belongs to Him alone at every moment, in this life and in the hereafter, because the Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted, intended that on that Day no one disputes with Him concerning it and no one lays claim to it, and that He stands alone with it, to the exclusion of everyone who contended with Him over it in this life among the tyrants; then they all submit to Him therein on that Day, and know that in this life they were, with their claim, in falsehood.
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There was disagreement concerning the meaning of "the trumpet" (al-ṣūr) in this place.
Some of them said: it is a horn which is blown twice: the one for the perishing of everyone who lives upon the earth, and the second for the resurrection of every dead one. And they argued as the ground for that statement by His word: وَنُفِخَ فِي الصُّورِ فَصَعِقَ مَنْ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَنْ فِي الأَرْضِ إِلا مَنْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ ثُمَّ نُفِخَ فِيهِ أُخْرَى فَإِذَا هُمْ قِيَامٌ يَنْظُرُونَ [Surah al-Zumar: 68] (And the trumpet is blown, whereupon whoever is in the heavens and whoever is on the earth falls down senseless, except whom Allah wills. Then it is blown a second time, and behold, they stand up looking on.) — and by the report which is related from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, that he, when he was asked about the trumpet, said: it is a horn into which one blows.
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And others said: "the trumpet" (al-ṣūr) in this place is a plural of "ṣūra" (form, image); the spirit of it is blown into it, whereupon it comes to life, just as they say: "sūr" for the walls of the city, which is a plural of "sūra," as Jarīr said:
"The walls of the city and the humbly bowed-down mountains"
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And the Arabs say: "the trumpet was blown into" (nufikha fī al-ṣūr) and "the trumpet was blown" (nufikha al-ṣūr); and among their saying "the trumpet was blown" is the word of the poet:
"Were it not for the son of Jaʿda, your Qohandiz would not have been opened for you, nor Khurāsān, until the trumpet is blown."
Abū Jaʿfar said: And the correct view of the statement concerning that, in our opinion, is that concerning which the reports of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ have come down mutually corroborating, that he said: "Indeed, Isrāfīl has taken the trumpet in his mouth and bowed his forehead, waiting until he is commanded, whereupon he will blow," and that he said: "The trumpet is a horn into which one blows."
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And it is reported of Ibn ʿAbbās that he used to say concerning His saying "the Day when the trumpet is blown, [He,] the Knower of the unseen and the seen": he means that the Knower of the unseen and the seen is the one who blows the trumpet.
13432 - Al-Muthannā related that to me, he said: ʿAbdallāh ibn Ṣāliḥ related to us, he said: Muʿāwiya related to us, on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥa, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His saying "the Knower of the unseen and the seen": he means that the Knower of the unseen and the seen is the one who blows the trumpet.
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It is as though Ibn ʿAbbās explained therein that His saying "the Knower of the unseen and the seen" is the noun of the agent (ism al-fāʿil) which is not named in His saying "the Day when the trumpet is blown," and that the meaning of the statement is: the Day when Allah blows the trumpet, [He,] the Knower of the unseen and the seen. Just as the Arabs say: "your food was eaten, ʿAbdallāh," whereby they make the name of the eater appear after the report has already been given without the eater being named. And although that is a view which is not to be rejected, it is nonetheless better than that His saying "the Knower of the unseen and the seen" be put in the nominative as an adjectival qualifier (naʿt) of "He who" (al-ladhī) in His saying: "And He it is who created the heavens and the earth in truth."
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And it is also related from him that he used to say: "the trumpet" in this place is the first blast.
13433 - Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me, he said: my father related to me, he said: my uncle related to me, he said: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, [concerning] his saying: "the Day when the trumpet is blown, [He,] the Knower of the unseen and the seen": he means by the trumpet: the first blast. Have you not heard that He says: وَنُفِخَ فِي الصُّورِ فَصَعِقَ مَنْ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَنْ فِي الأَرْضِ إِلا مَنْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ ثُمَّ نُفِخَ فِيهِ أُخْرَى (And the trumpet is blown, whereupon whoever is in the heavens and whoever is on the earth falls down senseless, except whom Allah wills. Then it is blown a second time) — he means the second — فَإِذَا هُمْ قِيَامٌ يَنْظُرُونَ (and behold, they stand up looking on.) [Surah al-Zumar: 68].
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And He means by His saying "the Knower of the unseen and the seen": the Knower of that which you behold, O people, so that you perceive it, and of that which withdraws from your senses and your sights, so that you neither feel it nor see it. "And He is the All-Wise" — in His ordering and His management of His creatures, from the state of existence to non-existence, then from the state of non-existence and perishing to existence, then in His requital to them with that with which He requites them, of reward or punishment. "The All-Aware" — of all that they do and earn, of good and evil, preserving that for them, so that He may requite them for all of that. The Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted, says: so guard yourselves, O you who set up partners equal to your Lord, against His punishment, for He is all-aware of all that you do and omit, and He stands behind you [ready] with the requital for what you do.