To many, this world is a just a playground where players march in, play a lively game and go away amid crowd cheering and clapping. Had it been so, Allah would not have created man for living just a pleasurable life free of any accountability. For they think that once a life ceases to be, that is the end of it and that there is no waking up thereafter, what to talk of the accountability on the promised Day of Resurrection by Allah.
Allah gives an answer to such disbelievers that while He has the ability to bring man to life from nothing, He equally has the capacity to bring them to life after they are dead. And that there will be a day when all dead will be brought to life to answer for their deed or misdeeds in their worldly life:
يُخۡرِجُ الۡحَـىَّ مِنَ الۡمَيِّتِ وَيُخۡرِجُ الۡمَيِّتَ مِنَ الۡحَـىِّ وَيُحۡىِ الۡاَرۡضَ بَعۡدَ مَوۡتِهَا ؕ وَكَذٰلِكَ تُخۡرَجُوۡنَ
He brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living, and revives the earth after it is dead. Likewise will you be raised to life (after you die). [Surah Ar Rum 30:19]
That is, how can that God Who is doing all this perpetually in front of your eyes, be helpless in raising man to life after death? He is causing absolutely dead matter to be discharged from living man and animals. He is ever bringing into existence countless animals and human beings by breathing life into dead matter, whereas the substances themselves which make up the bodies of the living beings are absolutely without life. He is making you witness the phenomenon that wherever water becomes available, lands previously lying barren start blooming and blossoming with animal and vegetable life. In spite of witnessing all this if a person thinks that the God Who is sustaining the universe will be helpless to raise man back to life after death, he is fully devoid of the common sense. His heart does not see the clear realities gleaming from the manifestations which his eyes see.
Tafsir Ibn-Kathir:
(He brings out the living from the dead, and brings out the dead from the living.) This is what we see of His power to create things and their opposites. These Ayat which come one after the other are all of the same; in each of them Allah mentions the creation of things and their opposites, to indicate to His creation the perfection of His power. Thus He creates the plant from the seed and the seed from the plant; He creates the egg from the chicken and the chicken from the egg; He creates man from sperm and sperm from man; He creates the believer from the disbelievers and the disbeliever from the believers.
(And He revives the earth after its death.) This is like the Ayat: (And a sign for them is the dead land. We give it life, and We bring forth from it grains, so that they eat thereof.) until: (and We have caused springs of water to gush forth therein. ) (36:33-34)
(And you see the earth barren, but when We send down water on it, it is stirred, and it swells and puts forth every lovely kind.) until: (and certainly, Allah will resurrect those who are in the graves.) (22:5-7)
(And it is He Who sends the winds as heralds of glad tidings, going before His mercy. Till when they have carried a heavy-laden cloud) until: (so that you may remember or take heed.) (7:57)
Allah says here: ( وَكَذَلِكَ تُخْرَجُونَ And thus shall you be brought out.)
Yusuf Ali Explanation:
Cf. x. 31. From dead matter Allah's creative act produces life and living matter, and even science has not yet been able to explain the mystery of life. Life and living matter again seem to reach maturity and again die, as we see every day. No material thing seems to have perpetual life. But again we see the creative process of Allah constantly at work, and the cycle of life and death seems to go on.
Cf. ii. 164. The earth itself, seemingly so inert, produces vegetable life at once from a single shower of rain, and in various ways sustains animal life. Normally it seems to die in the winter in northern climates, and in a drought everywhere, and the spring revives it in all its glory. Metaphorically many movements, institutions, organizations, seem to die and then to live again, all under the wonderful dispensation of Allah. So will our personality be revived when we die on this earth, in order to reap the fruit of this our probationary life.
This verse, which mentions concrete events in nature, also implies that God sometimes brings up a believer born into an unbelieving family, or an unbeliever born into a believing family; and that He may finally cause a believer to apostatize because of his or her sins, or an unbeliever to enter the fold of Islam purely out of His grace or due to some of that person's good acts. While mentioning God's raising of the dead as analogous to reviving the dead earth, it also suggests that God's reviving a disbelieving "dead" person (6: 122) is analogous to His reviving the dead earth. [4]
May Allah help us understand Qur'ān and help us to act upon the commandments of Allah contained therein. Aameen.
For more Selected Verses, please refer to our reference page: Selected Verses from the Qur'an. You may also refer to our Reference Pages for knowing more about Islam and Qur'ān.
For more Selected Verses, please refer to our reference page: Selected Verses from the Qur'an. You may also refer to our Reference Pages for knowing more about Islam and Qur'ān.
An effort has been made to gather explanation / exegesis of the surahs of the Qur'ān from authentic sources and then present a least possible condensed explanation of the surah. In that:
- The plain translation has been taken from the Qur'ān officially published by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. [1]
- The exegesis of the chapters of the Quran is mainly based on the "Tafhim al-Qur'an - The Meaning of the Qur'an" by one of the most enlightened scholars of the Muslim World Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi. [2]
In order to augment and add more explanation as already provided by [2], additional input has been interjected from following sources:
- Towards Understanding the Quran
- Tafsir Ibn Khatir
- Muhammad Asad Translation
- Al-Quran, Yusuf Ali Translation
- Javed Ahmad Ghamidi / Al Mawrid
- Verse by Verse Qur'an Study Circle
In addition the references of other sources which have been explored have also been given above. Those desirous of detailed explanations and tafsir (exegesis), may refer to these sites.
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