yet the polytheists and atheists rejected the resurrection, relying on what they considered pure reason. They said, “When we have died and become dust and bones, shall we really be raised again—-and our earliest forefathers as well?” (Al-Wāqiʿah 56:47–48). Allah records their denial in several other places, for instance: “He says, ‘Who will revive the bones when they have crumbled?’” (Yā Sīn 36:78).

Allah, exalted is He, also presents rational proofs for the resurrection: “He is the One who originates creation, then brings it back, and that is even easier for Him” (Ar-Rūm 30:27). This is an illustrative analogy: the One who fashioned them from a contemptible drop of fluid—can He not just as easily recreate them from dust and restore them as they were? “Does man imagine he will be left unrestrained? Was he not a drop of semen emitted? Then he became a clinging clot, and He created and proportioned him, and from him made the two sexes, male and female. Is not that One able to give life to the dead?” (Al-Qiyāmah 75:36-40).

Another proof is the revival of a barren, arid, chalk-white land in which nothing grows; Allah sends down rain upon it and, within a few days, it stirs and bursts with vegetation. Is not the One who brings the earth back to life after its death able to recreate human beings? This argument is both rationally evident and empirically observable: “A sign for them is the dead earth; We bring it to life” (Yā Sīn 36:33)—it was lifeless, but He revived it with plants. “You see the earth lying lifeless; then, when We send down water upon it, it quivers and swells” (Al-Hajj 22:5).

Another evidence for the resurrection is that, had Allah not brought His servants back to life