Qaf · Makki · ayah 11 of 45

Qaf 50:11

رِّزْقًا لِّلْعِبَادِ ۖ وَأَحْيَيْنَا بِهِۦ بَلْدَةً مَّيْتًا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ ٱلْخُرُوجُ

“As provision for the servants, and We have given life thereby to a dead land. Thus is the emergence [i.e., resurrection].”

Saheeh International

Essence

The rain that feeds every servant also wakes a dead land, and the list of wonders ends plainly: so will the coming out be.

A reflection

Eight works signed, and one left plain

A seasoned engineer looks at a damaged machine and says flatly: it cannot be repaired. What he means is that he cannot repair it. His experience has quietly become, in his own mind, the boundary of what is possible.

That was the deniers' position. When we are dead and dust, they said, that is a far return (50:3). Their own inability had become their measure of Allah.

Now count the verbs in the reply. Banaynāhā, We built it. Zayyannāhā, We adorned it. Madadnāhā, We spread it. Alqaynā, We cast. Anbatnā, We grew. Nazzalnā, We sent down. Anbatnā again. And here, aḥyaynā, We gave life. Eight works across six ayat, each signed 'We'.

Then the last line has no 'We' at all. Kadhālika al-khurūj: like that is the coming out. One classical commentator notices the deliberate choice of words. The greening of the land is called giving life, which raises it. The raising of the dead is called simply coming out, which makes it light. The thing they called impossible is set down at the end of the list as the easiest item on it.

This is where the ego shrinks. Our pride treats our own limits as laws of the universe. We speak of death as final because nothing we own can undo it. The ayah answers without raising its voice. The One who did the eight harder things calls the ninth by an ordinary word.

Someone may ask why Allah speaks of Himself so often as 'We'. In Arabic, as in the speech of kings, 'We' can mark greatness rather than number. The same Quran insists that He is One (112:1). It suits a reply to people who had made themselves the judge of His power. He loses nothing if they disbelieve. The reminder is for them, while there is still time to look.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.