Al-Qiyamah · Makki · ayah 40 of 40

Al-Qiyamah 75:40

أَلَيْسَ ذَٰلِكَ بِقَـٰدِرٍ عَلَىٰٓ أَن يُحْـِۧىَ ٱلْمَوْتَىٰ

“Is not that [Creator] Able to give life to the dead?”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah ends with a question, not a statement, about the One who made you from a drop, and leaves the last word to you.

A reflection

'That One'

We measure ability by our own. A crane lifts forty tonnes. A surgeon reattaches a finger. A river is bridged in a year. And then, quietly, we ask the same kind of question about God. Can He really do that?

The ayah turns that question round. A-laysa dhālika bi-qādirin: is not that One able? The word dhālika points into the distance, as if at something too great to point at closely. One commentator read it exactly so: that One, of great standing, who brought about this wondrous making. The drop, the clinging thing, the shaping, the pair. Is the One behind all that not able?

The word for 'able', qādir, has a picture of its own. The root means measure: the full amount and limit of a thing. A horse was called aqdar when its hind hooves landed exactly where its forefeet had stepped, as if every stride were measured. To be qādir is to be able to bring about precisely the measure one intends. The question is not whether He can manage something roughly. It is whether the One who measured you once, to the last detail, can do it again.

That is where the ego's yardstick breaks. We find things hard because we are small. Our sense of 'possible' is drawn from the size of our own hands. Another surah asks the same question and answers it directly. Allah created the heavens and the earth and was not wearied by creating them. Is He not able to give life to the dead? Yes, indeed (46:33).

Someone may ask why Allah questions us at all. Does He need us to say He is able? He needs nothing (35:15). The question is a gift, not a demand. It lets a small creature take part in a great truth by saying it with its own mouth.

So when you reach this ayah, put down the yardstick. You are not being asked whether you could do it. You are being asked about that One.

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.