16. Sura al-Nahl, Mecca 70
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
وَاللّهُ
خَلَقَكُمْ
ثُمَّ يَتَوَفَّاكُمْ...
16: 70. It is Allah who creates you and takes your souls at death;
... وَمِنكُم مَّن يُرَدُّ إِلَى أَرْذَلِ الْعُمُرِ لِكَيْ لاَ يَعْلَمَ بَعْدَ عِلْمٍ شَيْئًا...
and of you there are some who are sent back to a feeble age, so that they know nothing after having known (much):
C2100. Besides the mystery and beauty of the many processes going on in the working of Allah's Creation, there is the wonderful life of man himself on this earth;
- how he is created as a child;
- how he grows in intelligence and knowledge; and
- how his soul is taken back and his body suffers dissolution.
- In some cases he lives so long that he falls into a feeble old age like a second childhood; he forgets what he learnt and seems almost to go back in Time.
Is not all this wonderful, and evidence of the Knowledge and Power of Allah?
... إِنَّ اللّهَ عَلِيمٌ قَدِيرٌ ﴿٧٠﴾
for Allah is All-Knowing, All-Powerful.
C2101. Our attention having been called to the remarkable transformations in life and nature, by which the Knowledge and Power of Allah work out His beneficient Plan for His creatures, we are reminded that man at best is but a feeble creature, but for the grace of Allah, We then pass on in the next Section to the differences in the gifts which men themselves enjoy, distinguishing them into so many categories. How much greater is the difference between the created things and their Creator?
16: 70
Asad And God has created you, and in time will cause you to die; and many a one of you is reduced in old age to a most abject state, ceasing to know anything of what he once knew so well. Verily, God is all-knowing, infinite in His power!
Pickthall And Allah createth you, then causeth you to die, and among you is he who is brought back to the most abject stage of life, so that be knoweth nothing after (having had) knowledge. Lo ! Allah is Knower, Powerful.
Transliteration Walla_hu khalaqakum summa yatawaffa_kum wa minkum may yuraddu ila_ arzalil 'umuri likaila_ ya'lama ba'da 'ilmin syaia'a_(n), innalla_ha 'alimun qadir(un).