Verses 54–60
This is the fourth set of verses. It resembles the one before it and contains the conclusion of the Chapter.
Commentary
اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُمْ مِنْ ضَعْفٍ ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنْ بَعْدِ ضَعْفٍ قُوَّةً ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنْ بَعْدِ قُوَّةٍ ضَعْفًا وَشَيْبَةً ۚ يَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَاءُ ۖ وَهُوَ الْعَلِيمُ الْقَدِيرُ ٥٤
(30:54) It is Allah who created you from weakness, then He gave you power after weakness. Then, after power, He ordained weakness and old age. He creates whatever He wishes, and He is the All-knowing, the All-powerful.
“Weakness” (ḍaʿf) and “power” (quwwa) are opposites.
The particle “from” (min) in “from weakness” (min al-ḍaʿf) signifies a beginning. In other words, “Your creation began from weakness” or, “You began as weaklings.” The opposition of weakness and power in the verse suggests that this refers to infancy, even though this could also apply to one’s seed.
The meaning of “power after weakness” means reaching maturity, while “after power, weakness” means old age. “And old age” (shayba) is joined to weakness as an explanatory conjunction. “Weakness” and “power” are both left indefinite (nakira) to signify ambiguity (ibhām) and the lack of a specific level of weakness or power because all individuals are different.
He creates whatever He wishes: It means that just as He wills weakness and creates it, He then wills power and creates it, then wills weakness again and creates it. This intimates that the succession of states that the human goes through in his life is actually an act of creation and therefore it is something that God does. In other words, one cannot say (as the idol-worshipers do) that this is something that done by the deity particular to human beings.
Then He mentions knowledge and power in the coda: and He is the All-knowing, the All-powerful.
وَيَوْمَ تَقُومُ السَّاعَةُ يُقْسِمُ الْمُجْرِمُونَ مَا لَبِثُوا غَيْرَ سَاعَةٍ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ كَانُوا يُؤْفَكُونَ٥٥
(30:55) And on the day when the Hour sets in the guilty will swear that they had remained only for an hour. That is how they were used to lying.
This verse serve as an afterword to the above verses which enumerate the divine signs and arguments for God’s oneness and the Resurrection while simultaneously laying the ground for the verses which conclude the Chapter. Having gone through a number of signs and arguments and intimated that the audience are not people who should be expected or anticipated to believe, God then wishes to show that they are ignorant of the truth; they receive true speech as falsehood and clear signs as meaningless. Therefore, they lie, and they will have no excuse for themselves.
In fact, their deceit and turning from truth to falsehood will remain with them even on the Day of Resurrection, when they will think that merely an hour of the day had passed while they were between death and resurrection in their graves. The matter of the resurrection will be unclear to them just as every truth before it has been, so they will think it false!
And on the day when the Hour sets in the guilty will swear that they had remained only for an hour: This bespeaks their inability to distinguish between this world and the Day of Resurrection; they will think it an hour like any hour of this world.
That is how they were used to lying—how they would turn from truth to falsehood; even when they were called to the truth and given proofs and evidences for it, they would call it falsehood or superstition.
وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ وَالْإِيمَانَ لَقَدْ لَبِثْتُمْ فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ الْبَعْثِ ۖ فَهَٰذَا يَوْمُ الْبَعْثِ وَلَٰكِنَّكُمْ كُنْتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ٥٦
(30:56) But those who were given knowledge and faith will say: Certainly you remained in Allah’s Book until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not know.
This is the faithful’s response to the guilty’s claim that they had remained only for an hour. Because the guilty are so attached to this world and hope to live in it forever, they cannot see a difference between the Day of Resurrection and this world; they think the same rules apply. So they imagine that an hour is a short duration of time. It as if they are still in this world because that is the extent of their knowledge.
However, those with knowledge and faith respond by saying that the period of time between this world and the Day of Resurrection is the one that God describes in Sūrah al-Muʾminūn as: And ahead of them is a barrier until the day they will be resurrected (). From this they deduce that this day is the Day of Resurrection. But, because the guilty are in doubt about this and have no certainty about anything beyond this world, they think that merely an hour has passed. This is the meaning of the words: Certainly you remained in Allah’s Book until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not know.
Based on this, it is clear that the description given knowledge and faith refers to having certainty (yaqīn) and adhering to what it entails; knowledge here means having certainty about God and His signs, while faith means adhering to what that certainty entails regarding God’s gifts. Therefore, it appears that “God’s Book” (kitāb allāh) refers to the divine scriptures or just the Qur’an.
Claims that there is an unusual word order (taqdīm wa taʾkhīr) in the verse, to the effect that “Those who were given knowledge and faith in the Book of God will say: Certainly you remained…” should also be discounted.
فَيَوْمَئِذٍ لَا يَنْفَعُ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا مَعْذِرَتُهُمْ وَلَا هُمْ يُسْتَعْتَبُونَ ٥٧
(30:57) On that day the excuses of the wrongdoers will not benefit them, nor will they be asked to propitiate.
“Propitiation” (ʿutbā) is to acknowledge one’s wrongdoing in an effort to appease the one who is rebuking you. However, the verse is saying that no excuse will avail them of their wrongdoing, nor will they be expected to do anything to ward off rebuke.
وَلَقَدْ ضَرَبْنَا لِلنَّاسِ فِي هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنِ مِنْ كُلِّ مَثَلٍ ۚ وَلَئِنْ جِئْتَهُمْ بِآيَةٍ لَيَقُولَنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا إِنْ أَنْتُمْ إِلَّا مُبْطِلُونَ ٥٨ ٠
(30:58) Certainly we have drawn for mankind in this Qur’an every parable. Indeed if you bring them a sign, the faithless will surely say: You are nothing but fabricators!
This implies that they are so far from the truth that no parable will help to bring their hearts towards it because their hearts have been sealed.
Indeed if you bring them a sign, the faithless will surely say: You are nothing but fabricators! In other words, they will accuse you of bringing them a falsehood. They say this because they are so far from the truth that they see every truth as falsehood. The Qur’an uses the faithless (alladhīna kafarū) instead of the pronoun “they” to show the reason why they say this.
كَذَٰلِكَ يَطْبَعُ اللَّهُ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِ الَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ ٥٩
(30:59) Thus does Allah seal the hearts of those who do not know.
In other words, He seals the hearts of those who do not know Him or His signs, one of which is the Resurrection. And they wilfully persist in their ignorance and doubt.
فَاصْبِرْ إِنَّ وَعْدَ اللَّهِ حَقٌّ ۖ وَلَا يَسْتَخِفَّنَّكَ الَّذِينَ لَا يُوقِنُونَ٦
(30:60) So be patient! Allah’s promise is indeed true. And do not let yourself be upset by those who have no conviction.
In other words, be patient in what you face from them, such as their saying: You are nothing but fabricators!, and their derision and scorn. God’s promise to help the faithful is true, as He has said above: and it was a must for Us to help the faithful. Do not be troubled by those who have no conviction in God’s promise.
Some say: No conviction means “no conviction in the clear signs that you recite to them,” which they show by denying them and harassing you with falsehoods. However, this reading is baseless as the Chapter begins with a promise and concludes with a promise, and both promises are to help the faithful.
It is also possible that this could be referring to the Guarded Tablet (al-lawḥ al-maḥfūẓ), based on the verse This is Our book, which speaks truly against you (), according to the explanation given of this verse later on. (Auth.) ↩︎