اللَّهُ الَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ الْأَرْضَ قَرَارًا وَالسَّمَاءَ بِنَاءً وَصَوَّرَكُمْ فَأَحْسَنَ صُوَرَكُمْ وَرَزَقَكُم مِّنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ ۚ ذَٰلِكُمُ اللَّهُ رَبُّكُمْ ۖ فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ رَبُّ الْعَالَمِينَ
It is Allah who made for you the earth an abode and the sky a canopy. He formed you and perfected your forms, and provided you with all the good things. That is Allah, your Lord! Blessed is Allah, Lord of all the worlds
هُوَ الْحَيُّ لَا إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ فَادْعُوهُ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ ۗ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
He is the Living One, there is no god except Him. So supplicate Him, putting exclusive faith in Him. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of all the worlds
قُلْ إِنِّي نُهِيتُ أَنْ أَعْبُدَ الَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ لَمَّا جَاءَنِيَ الْبَيِّنَاتُ مِن رَّبِّي وَأُمِرْتُ أَنْ أُسْلِمَ لِرَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
Say, ‘I have been forbidden to worship those whom you invoke besides Allah, as manifest proofs have come to me from my Lord, and I have been commanded to submit to the Lord of all the worlds.’
هُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ عَلَقَةٍ ثُمَّ يُخْرِجُكُمْ طِفْلًا ثُمَّ لِتَبْلُغُوا أَشُدَّكُمْ ثُمَّ لِتَكُونُوا شُيُوخًا ۚ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُتَوَفَّىٰ مِن قَبْلُ ۖ وَلِتَبْلُغُوا أَجَلًا مُّسَمًّى وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
It is He who created you from dust, then from a drop of [seminal] fluid, then from a clinging mass, then He brings you forth as infants, then [He nurtures you] so that you may come of age, and then that you may become aged—though there are some of you who die earlier—and complete a specified term, and so that you may exercise your reason
هُوَ الَّذِي يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ ۖ فَإِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُن فَيَكُونُ
It is He who gives life and brings death. When He decides on a matter, He just says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is
أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِينَ يُجَادِلُونَ فِي آيَاتِ اللَّهِ أَنَّىٰ يُصْرَفُونَ
Have you not regarded those who dispute the signs of Allah, where they are being led away [from Allah’s way]
الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِالْكِتَابِ وَبِمَا أَرْسَلْنَا بِهِ رُسُلَنَا ۖ فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ
—Those who deny the Book and what we have sent with Our apostles. Soon they will know
إِذِ الْأَغْلَالُ فِي أَعْنَاقِهِمْ وَالسَّلَاسِلُ يُسْحَبُونَ
when they are dragged [with] iron collars and chains around their necks
فِي الْحَمِيمِ ثُمَّ فِي النَّارِ يُسْجَرُونَ
into scalding waters and then set aflame in the Fire
ثُمَّ قِيلَ لَهُمْ أَيْنَ مَا كُنتُمْ تُشْرِكُونَ
Then they will be told, ‘Where are they whom you used to worship as deities
مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ ۖ قَالُوا ضَلُّوا عَنَّا بَل لَّمْ نَكُن نَّدْعُو مِن قَبْلُ شَيْئًا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ يُضِلُّ اللَّهُ الْكَافِرِينَ
besides Allah?’ They will say, ‘They have forsaken us. No, we did not invoke anything before.’ That is how Allah leads the faithless astray
ذَٰلِكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَفْرَحُونَ فِي الْأَرْضِ بِغَيْرِ الْحَقِّ وَبِمَا كُنتُمْ تَمْرَحُونَ
‘That [punishment] is because you used to boast unduly on the earth and because you used to strut
ادْخُلُوا أَبْوَابَ جَهَنَّمَ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا ۖ فَبِئْسَ مَثْوَى الْمُتَكَبِّرِينَ
Enter the gates of hell, to remain in it [forever].’ Evil is the [final] abode of the arrogant
فَاصْبِرْ إِنَّ وَعْدَ اللَّهِ حَقٌّ ۚ فَإِمَّا نُرِيَنَّكَ بَعْضَ الَّذِي نَعِدُهُمْ أَوْ نَتَوَفَّيَنَّكَ فَإِلَيْنَا يُرْجَعُونَ
So be patient! Allah’s promise is indeed true. Whether We show you a part of what We promise them, or take you away [before that], [in any case] they will be brought back to Us
وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلًا مِّن قَبْلِكَ مِنْهُم مَّن قَصَصْنَا عَلَيْكَ وَمِنْهُم مَّن لَّمْ نَقْصُصْ عَلَيْكَ ۗ وَمَا كَانَ لِرَسُولٍ أَن يَأْتِيَ بِآيَةٍ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ۚ فَإِذَا جَاءَ أَمْرُ اللَّهِ قُضِيَ بِالْحَقِّ وَخَسِرَ هُنَالِكَ الْمُبْطِلُونَ
Certainly We have sent apostles before you. Of them are those We have recounted to you, and of them are those We have not recounted to you. An apostle may not bring any sign except by Allah’s permission. Hence, when Allah’s edict comes, judgment is made with justice, and it is thence that the falsifiers become losers
اللَّهُ الَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ الْأَنْعَامَ لِتَرْكَبُوا مِنْهَا وَمِنْهَا تَأْكُلُونَ
It is Allah who created the cattle for you that you may ride some of them, and some of them you eat
وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا مَنَافِعُ وَلِتَبْلُغُوا عَلَيْهَا حَاجَةً فِي صُدُورِكُمْ وَعَلَيْهَا وَعَلَى الْفُلْكِ تُحْمَلُونَ
and there are [numerous] uses in them for you, and that over them you may satisfy any need that is in your breasts, and you are carried on them and on ships
وَيُرِيكُمْ آيَاتِهِ فَأَيَّ آيَاتِ اللَّهِ تُنكِرُونَ
He shows you His signs. So which of the signs of Allah do you deny
أَفَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ فَيَنظُرُوا كَيْفَ كَانَ عَاقِبَةُ الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ ۚ كَانُوا أَكْثَرَ مِنْهُمْ وَأَشَدَّ قُوَّةً وَآثَارًا فِي الْأَرْضِ فَمَا أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُم مَّا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ
Have they not travelled over the land so that they may observe how was the fate of those who were before them? They were more numerous than them and were greater [than them] in power and with respect to the effects [they left] in the land. But what they used to earn did not avail them
فَلَمَّا جَاءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُهُم بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ فَرِحُوا بِمَا عِندَهُم مِّنَ الْعِلْمِ وَحَاقَ بِهِم مَّا كَانُوا بِهِ يَسْتَهْزِئُونَ
When their apostles brought them manifest proofs, they boasted about the knowledge they possessed, but they were besieged by what they used to deride
فَلَمَّا رَأَوْا بَأْسَنَا قَالُوا آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَحْدَهُ وَكَفَرْنَا بِمَا كُنَّا بِهِ مُشْرِكِينَ
Then, when they sighted Our punishment, they said, ‘We believe in Allah alone, and disavow what we used to take as His partners.’
فَلَمْ يَكُ يَنفَعُهُمْ إِيمَانُهُمْ لَمَّا رَأَوْا بَأْسَنَا ۖ سُنَّتَ اللَّهِ الَّتِي قَدْ خَلَتْ فِي عِبَادِهِ ۖ وَخَسِرَ هُنَالِكَ الْكَافِرُونَ
But their faith was of no benefit to them when they sighted Our punishment—Allah’s precedent, which has passed among His servants, and it is thence that the faithless will be losers
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulating five present Arabic witnesses — Ṭabarsī's Majmaʿ al-Bayān [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], al-Qummī [qummi], al-Ṭūsī's al-Tibyān [tusi_al_tibyan], al-Baḥrānī's al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan], and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī's al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] — alongside the published Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary].
Human-review flags: al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] is marked
needs_human_reviewbecause its coarse unit covering 61–68 overruns into vv. 61–63 and carries a baḥth riwāʾī (al-Durr al-Manthūr reports on the Jews and the Dajjāl) that actually bears on 40:56–57, before this passage; both were condensed faithfully (no content added), and the overrunning verses were summarised rather than rendered word-for-word.
What the passage says. It closes the sūra's tawḥīd-argument: God gives the earth as dwelling and sky as canopy, fashions the human form, and provides good things (64); He is al-Ḥayy, to be called upon with sincere religion (65–66); He stages human creation from dust through the appointed term (67), giving life and death by "Be" (68). It then turns to the disputers of God's signs and their end — shackles, chains, dragging into boiling water, kindling in the Fire, and the failure of their false "partners" (69–74) — the cause being unjust exultation (75–76); the Prophet is told to be patient (77–78); the cattle and ships are signs (79–81); and history closes with the sunnat Allāh that faith professed only at the sight of the punishment does not avail (82–85).
The classical philologists. Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and al-Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] run closely parallel, often verbatim, on 64–68: the human form is "the finest of the forms of living creatures" (Ṭabarsī citing Ibn ʿAbbās that man uniquely eats with his hand), and ṣawwarakum is fashioning. On 65 both transmit the Ibn ʿAbbās report (Ṭabarsī via Mujāhid; al-Ṭūsī adding Saʿīd b. Jubayr) that after "no god but God" one should say "praise belongs to God." On the shackles-verse (71) both preserve the qirāʾa of Ibn Masʿūd/Ibn ʿAbbās (wa-l-salāsila yusḥabūna), with Ṭabarsī supplying Ibn Jinnī's ḥujja and al-Ṭūsī noting the grammarians' weak genitive variant; both gloss yusjarūn via the oven "stoked with fuel" (Mujāhid: they become its fuel). On tafraḥūn / tamraḥūn (75) both note that "exult" is qualified ("without right") while "strut" is intrinsically blameworthy — a point al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] expressly quotes from al-Majmaʿ, adding al-Rāghib's distinction (faraḥ = expansion of the breast at immediate pleasure; maraḥ = excess). On 78 all three carry ʿAlī's report that "God sent a black prophet whose story He did not relate," with differing prophet-counts (Ṭabarsī: 124,000 or 8,000).
al-Mīzān's argument-structure. Al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] reads the whole as the sūra's recurring return to the disputers (al-mujādilūn fī āyāt Allāh), insisting against some exegetes that the repeated mention of "disputing" is not a different group or topic but one theme circled "time after time"; he infers from 66's parallel with al-Zumar that al-Ghāfir was revealed after it. His signature contribution is on "they exulted in what they had of knowledge" (83): he argues al-ʿilm here is the worldly expertise that occupied their hearts — citing 30:7 and 53:29–30 — and methodically rejects five rival readings (the "sarcastic" senses, the Greek-philosophers reading, the "ignorance-renamed-knowledge" reading, and the two readings making the pronoun the messengers'), the last two faulted for forcing a divergence of harmonised pronouns. On 85 he grounds the non-acceptance of faith on "the non-resting of faith, at that point, upon free choice."
Shīʿī taʾwīl, as-attributed. The distinctively Imāmī material is carried by al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]. On 65 both transmit ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn's counsel to follow the shahāda with the ḥamdala; al-Burhān adds the Ḥadīth Silsilat al-Dhahab (the "Golden Chain" at Nīsābūr, via Abū l-Ṣalt al-Harawī from al-Riḍā): "lā ilāha illā Allāh is My fortress; whoever enters it is safe from My punishment," with al-Riḍā glossing "sincerity of the testimony" as "obedience to God and His Messenger and the walāya of the people of His House" — a reading I verified against the standard wikishia/Wikipedia accounts of the hadith. On 70–74 al-Qummī and al-Burhān (via Abū l-Jārūd from al-Bāqir) gloss "those who associate" as taking an imām "besides the imām God appointed," and both carry the long Ḍurays al-Kunāsī tradition on the souls of suspended sinners in their graves until Resurrection (a barzakh report). On 81 both read "He shows you His signs" as the Imāms "in the Return (al-rajʿa)," and āthār as "deeds." On 84–85 al-Burhān carries two reports: al-Riḍā's answer that Pharaoh's faith was rejected because it came "at the sight of the might," and Imām al-Hādī's ruling to al-Mutawakkil (citing this very verse) that a convert-under-the-ḥadd "is flogged until he dies" — both rendered strictly as the source gives them, not asserted here.
The Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary] supplies the passed-through published English, including the Lisān al-ʿArab note on bināʾ, the three-types-of-knowledge schema on 83, and the same al-Hādī and al-Riḍā traditions on 85.
Sources present: tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, qummi, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, tabatabai_al_mizan, enlightening_commentary; silent: none.