Tafseer of The Ascending Stairways · Al-Ma'aarij · 70:41
To replace them with better than them; and We are not to be outdone.
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.
innā la-qādirūn * ʿalā an nubaddila khayran minhum (Verily, We are surely able * to replace them by better than them). He says: verily, We are surely able to destroy them and to bring, in place of them, better than them from among creation, those who obey Me and do not disobey Me. wa-mā naḥnu bi-masbūqīn (and We will not be outstripped). The Exalted in mention says: and none of them escapes Us in a matter that We desire of him, so that he could thwart Us by flight.
And in accordance with what we have said about this, the exegetes have spoken.
* Mention of who said that:
Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm related to me, saying: Ibn ʿUlayya related to us, saying: ʿUmāra ibn Abī Ḥafṣa informed us, on the authority of ʿIkrima, saying: Ibn ʿAbbās said: verily, the sun rises each year through three hundred and sixty windows; it rises each day through one window and does not return to that window until that same day of the coming year. And it rises only with reluctance; it says: Lord, do not make me rise over Your servants, for I see them disobeying You, I see them committing Your acts of disobedience. He said: have you not heard the words of Umayya ibn Abī al-Ṣalt:
until she is dragged along and scourged.
I said: O my master, and is the sun scourged? He said: may you bite on your father's teeth! The rhyme merely compelled him to [the word] "scourged".
Ibn al-Muthannā related to us, saying: Ibn ʿUmāra related to me, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning the word of Allah bi-rabbi al-mashāriqi wa-l-maghārib (by the Lord of the places of rising and the places of setting): he said: verily, the sun rises from three hundred and sixty rising-places; it rises each day from one rising-place to which it does not return until the following year. And it rises only with reluctance. ʿIkrima said: I said to him: but the poet has said:
until she is dragged along and scourged.
He said: then Ibn ʿAbbās said: may you bite on your father's teeth! The rhyme merely compelled him to that.
Khallād ibn Aslam related to us, saying: al-Naḍr informed us, saying: Shuʿba informed us, saying: ʿUmāra informed us, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: verily, the sun rises through three hundred and sixty windows; when it rises through one window, it does not rise through it again until the coming year, and it rises only with reluctance.
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me, saying: my father related to me, saying: my uncle related to me, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning fa-lā uqsimu bi-rabbi al-mashāriqi wa-l-maghārib (Nay, I swear by the Lord of the places of rising and the places of setting): he said: it is the rising-place of the sun and its setting-place, and the rising-place of the moon and its setting-place.
