If it is asked: How could he say, “And if I am returned to my Lord,” when he denied the Resurrection?

The answer is: Its meaning is: If I am returned to my Lord—as you claim—I will be given something better than it there. For He gave me this garden in this world only in order to give me, in the Hereafter, something superior to it.

“His companion said to him, as he conversed with him, ‘Do you disbelieve in Him who created you from dust, then from a drop of fluid, then fashioned you into a man? But as for me, He is Allah, my Lord, and I do not associate anyone with my Lord. If only, when you entered your garden, you had said, “What Allah wills; there is no power except through Allah.” Though you see me as having less wealth and children than you, perhaps my Lord will give me something better than your garden and send upon it a calamity from the sky, so that it becomes a barren, slippery plain.’” (37–40)

“His companion”—the Muslim—“said to him, as he conversed with him, ‘Do you disbelieve in Him who created you from dust,’” that is, who created your origin from dust; “then”—He—created you “from a drop of fluid, then fashioned you into a man,” that is, He proportioned you as a sound human male. ⦗219/A⦘

“But as for me, He is Allah, my Lord.” Ibn ‘Amir and Ya‘qub recited lakinna with the alif retained in connected recitation, while the rest recited it without an alif. They all agreed on retaining the alif when stopping. Its original form is lakinna ana; the hamzah was omitted for ease because of its frequent usage, and then one of the two nuns was assimilated into the other. Al-Kisa’i said that the wording involves inversion; its intended sense is: “But Allah is my Lord.” “And I do not associate anyone with my Lord.”

“If only, when you entered your garden,” that is, why did you not, when you entered your garden, “say, ‘What Allah wills’?” That is: the matter is as Allah wills. It was also said that its response is implied: Whatever Allah wills comes to pass. His words, “There is no power except through Allah,” mean: I have no ability to preserve my wealth or ward anything away from it except [by Allah’s permission]. (1)

It is narrated from Hisham ibn ‘Urwah, from his father, that whenever he saw something of his wealth that pleased him, or entered one of his garden enclosures, he would say: “What Allah wills; there is no power except through Allah.” (2)

Then he said: “Though you see me as having less wealth and children than you.” The word “I” is a separative pronoun, which is why the word “less” is in the accusative. (3) Its meaning is: If you see me as having less wealth and children than you, and so have acted arrogantly and proudly toward me, then “perhaps my Lord”—that is, perhaps my Lord—“will give me,” that is, give me in the Hereafter,