Qaf · Makki · ayah 15 of 45

Qaf 50:15

أَفَعَيِينَا بِٱلْخَلْقِ ٱلْأَوَّلِ ۚ بَلْ هُمْ فِى لَبْسٍ مِّنْ خَلْقٍ جَدِيدٍ

“Did We fail in the first creation? But they are in confusion over a new creation.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The first creation did not exhaust Him, nor will the second; the problem is not His power but the fog they wear.

A reflection

The Lord who argues His case

A first-year student raises her hand in a packed lecture hall. Her question is real, and a little awkward. The professor barely looks up. 'It's in my book,' he says, and moves on. Nobody asks anything else that term.

This ayah begins in a very different way. A-fa-ʿayīnā bi-l-khalqi l-awwal? Were We worn out by the first creation? The commentaries call this a question of denial. It expects the answer no. Yet notice that the Maker of the heavens chose to ask. He did not simply pronounce. He laid out an argument and left the listener to finish it.

The 'We' is the plural of majesty. The One speaking built the sky without a crack and spread out the earth (50:6-7). He owes no one an explanation. Still, He answers a crude objection, 'that is a far return' (50:3), with a reasoned question that any honest mind can follow.

A hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari shows how the denial looks from the other side. Allah says, as the Prophet ﷺ reported: the son of Adam called Me a liar, and he had no right to. His calling Me a liar is his saying: He will not remake me as He first made me. Yet the first making is not easier for Me than the remaking.

Called Me a liar: the same verb that runs through the list of nations just before this ayah. Every person who says 'that is a far return' joins that list.

Here the ego should shrink. Many of us cannot bear to be questioned. We answer with 'because I said so', or with a book we expect no one to read. We measure everything, even Allah, by our own fatigue. He, who could overwhelm, argues gently.

Does a God who calls disbelief a wrong sound needy? The hadith says the denier had no right to say it. The wrong is against truth and his own reason. Allah loses nothing. Whoever strives, strives only for himself; Allah is free of need of all the worlds (29:6). The argument is offered for the listener's sake.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.