67. Surah Al-Mulk
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
أَمَّنْ هَذَا الَّذِي يَرْزُقُكُمْ إِنْ أَمْسَكَ رِزْقَهُ ...
67:21. Or who is there that can provide you with Sustenance if He were to withhold His provision?
C5579. "Sustenance" here, as elsewhere, (e.g., in 16:73, n. 2105), refers to all that is necessary to sustain and develop life in all its phases. Allah Most Gracious is the Source of all our Sustenance, and if we persist in looking to Vanities for our Sustenance, we are pursuing a mirage, and, if we examine the matter, we are only following obstinate impulses of rebellion and impiety.
... بَل لَّجُّوا فِي عُتُوٍّ وَنُفُورٍ ﴿٢١﴾
Nay,
they obstinately persist in insolent impiety and flight (from the Truth).
أَفَمَن يَمْشِي مُكِبًّا عَلَى وَجْهِهِ أَهْدَى ...
67: 22. Is then one who walks headlong, with his face grovelling, better guided --
C5580. Cf. 27:90, and n. 3320.
The man of probity is the man who walks evenly on a Straight Way, his feet guided by Allah's Light and his heart sustained by Allah's Mercy. The man who chooses evil grovels, with his face down, in paths of Darkness, stumbling on the way, and in constant distrust and fear, the fear of Evil. The two kinds of men are poles apart, although they five on the same earth, see the same Sips, and are fed with the same Mercies from Allah.
... أَمَّن يَمْشِي سَوِيًّا عَلَى صِرَاطٍ مُّسْتَقِيمٍ ﴿٢٢﴾
or one who walks evenly on a Straight Way?
C5581. Like Abraham trying to guide his unbelieving father: Cf. 19:43.
67: 23. Say: "It is He Who ...
.
... أَنشَأَكُمْ ...
... has created you (and made you grow),
C5583. For anshaa see n. 923 to 6:98.
... وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَالْأَفْئِدَةَ ...
and made for you the faculties of
- hearing,
- seeing,
- feeling and
- understanding:
... قَلِيلًا مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ ﴿٢٣﴾
little thanks it is ye give."
قُلْ هُوَ الَّذِي ذَرَأَكُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ ...
24. Say:
"It is He Who has multiplied you through the earth,
C5584. Mankind, from one set of parents, has been multiplied and scattered through the earth. Men have not only multiplied in numbers but they have developed different languages and characteristics, inner and outer. But they will all be gathered together at the End of Things, when the mischief created by the wrong exercise of man's will be cancelled, and the Truth of Allah will reign universally.
... وَإِلَيْهِ تُحْشَرُونَ ﴿٢٤﴾
and to Him shall ye be gathered together."
Asad’s Version:
67:21 Or is there any that could provide you with sustenance if He should withhold His provision [from you]? Nay, but they [who are bent on denying the truth] stubbornly persist in their disdain [of God's messages] and in their headlong flight [from Him]!
(67:22) But then, is he that goes along with his face close to the ground 19 better guided than he that walks upright on a straight way?
67:23 SAY: "[God is] He who has brought you [all] into being, and has endowed you with hearing, and sight, and hearts: 20 [yet] how seldom are you grateful!"
67:24 Say: "It is He who has multiplied you on earth; and it is unto Him that you shall be gathered [on resurrection]."
[[Asad’s notes - 19 Lit., "prone upon his face" - i.e., seeing only what is immediately beneath his feet, and utterly unaware of the direction into which his path is taking him: a metaphor of the spiritual obtuseness which prevents a person from caring for anything beyond his immediate, worldly concerns, and thus makes him resemble an earthworm that "goes along prone upon its face".
20 I.e., with the faculty of feeling as well as of rational thinking.]]