Tafseer of The Heights · Al-A'raaf · 7:10
And We have certainly established you upon the earth and made for you therein ways of livelihood. Little are you grateful.
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 explanation of His word: وَلَقَدْ مَكَّنَّاكُمْ فِي الأَرْضِ وَجَعَلْنَا لَكُمْ فِيهَا مَعَايِشَ قَلِيلا مَا تَشْكُرُونَ (And We have indeed established you upon the earth and have made for you therein means of livelihood; little is it that you are grateful) (7:10).
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose mention is exalted, says: And We have indeed prepared for you, O people, a dwelling place upon the earth, and We have made it for you a fixed abode in which you settle, and a resting-place which you take as a bed, and a spread which you spread out. (And have made for you therein means of livelihood — maʿāyish): from which you live during the days of your life, of foods and drinks, as a favor from Me to you and a benefaction from Me toward you. (Little is it that you are grateful), He says: and your gratitude for these favors with which I have graced you is little, because you worship another than Me and take a god besides Me.
And "al-maʿāyish" is the plural of "maʿīsha" (livelihood).
The Qurʾān reciters differed in their reading of it.
The general reciters of the regions read it as (maʿāyisha) without hamza.
And ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Aʿraj read it: "maʿāʾisha" with hamza.
Abū Jaʿfar said: And the correct reading of it according to us is: (maʿāyisha) without hamza, because it is of the form "mafāʿil" from the word "ʿishta taʿīshu" (you lived, you live). The mīm in it is thus added, and the yāʾ is, by the rule, mobile (vowelled), for its singular is "mafʿila," namely "maʿyisha," with a mobile yāʾ, the vowel of whose yāʾ in the singular has been transferred to the "ʿayn." Then, when it was made plural, its vowel was restored to it, on account of the quiescence of what precedes it and its own mobility. Thus do the Arabs do with the yāʾ and the wāw when what precedes them is quiescent and they are mobile, in cases similar to what we have described of the plural that comes upon the form "mafāʿil." And that differs from what comes as a plural upon the form "faʿāʾil," in which the yāʾ is added and is not an original letter. For what comes as a plural upon this form, the Arabs pronounce with hamza, like their saying: "these madāʾin" (cities) and "ṣaḥāʾif" (sheets) and their like, because "madāʾin" is the plural of "madīna," and "al-madīna" is "faʿīla" from their expression "madantu al-madīna," and likewise "ṣaḥāʾif" is the plural of "ṣaḥīfa," and "al-ṣaḥīfa" is "faʿīla" from your expression "ṣaḥaftu al-ṣaḥīfa." The yāʾ in its singular is thus added and quiescent, and when it is made plural, it is pronounced with hamza, on account of its difference in the plural from the yāʾ that was in the singular — namely that in the singular it was quiescent and in the plural it is mobile. And if one were to make "madīna" of the form "mafʿila" from "dāna yadīnu," and were to make its plural "mafāʿil," then the eloquent course would be to omit the hamza in it and to make the yāʾ mobile. Sometimes the Arabs pronounce the plural of "mafʿila" in words with yāʾ and wāw with hamza — even though the eloquent of their language is the omission of the hamza therein when it comes upon "mafāʿil" — comparing, on their part, its plural to the plural of "faʿīla," just as they compare "mafʿal" to "faʿīl." Thus they say "masīl al-māʾ" (the watercourse), from "sāla yasīlu," and then they make it plural like the plural of "faʿīl," and say: "they are amsila" in the plural, comparing it, on their part, to the plural of "baʿīr" (camel), which is "faʿīl," since they make its plural "abʿira." And likewise "al-maṣīr" (the intestine), which is "mafʿal," is made plural "muṣrān," comparing it to the plural of "baʿīr," which is "faʿīl," since they make its plural "buʿrān." And on this basis al-Aʿraj pronounced "maʿāyish" with hamza. But that is not the eloquent course in their language, and that by which the Book of Allah is most worthy of being read among the tongues is the most eloquent and best known of them, not the most rejected and rarest.
