and to bring you into being in forms you do not know. (61) You have certainly known the first creation; so why will you not take heed? (62) Have you considered what you cultivate? (63) Is it you who cause it to grow, or are We the One who causes it to grow? (64) If We willed, We could reduce it to chaff, and you would remain in wonder, (65) saying, “Indeed, we are burdened with loss.” (66)

Thus is His saying, exalted is He: “to replace you with others like yourselves”—that is, to bring forth creatures like you in your place—“and to bring you into being,” that is, to create you, “in forms you do not know.” Mujāhid said: “In whatever form We will.” (1)

Al-Ḥasan said: That is, We may alter your forms, making you apes and swine, just as We did to those before you. (2) That is, if We willed to do so, it would not be beyond Us. Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib said: “In forms you do not know” means: in the crops of black birds in Barahūt, like swallows. Barahūt is a valley in Yemen. (3)

“You have certainly known the first creation”: your initial creation, when you were nothing. “So why will you not take heed?”—that I am able to bring you back to life just as I was able to bring you into existence in the first place.

“Have you considered what you cultivate?” That is, what you turn up from the earth and cast into it as seed. “Is it you who cause it to grow?” That is, who make it sprout, “or are We the One who causes it to grow?”—who makes it sprout. “If We willed, We could reduce it to chaff.” ʿAṭāʾ said: Straw containing no wheat. It was also said: dry debris from which no benefit can be derived for food or nourishment. “And you would remain”—its original form is “and you would remain,” with one of the two lām letters omitted for ease of pronunciation—“in wonder,” that is, astonished at what had befallen your crops. This was the view of ʿAṭāʾ, al-Kalbī, and Muqātil. It was also said: regretting the expenses you had incurred. (4) This was the view of Yamān, as in His saying: “Then he began to wring his hands over all that he had spent on it” (al-Kahf 42).

Al-Ḥasan said: You would regret the sins you had committed which brought about that punishment. ʿIkrimah said: You would blame one another. Ibn Kaysān said: You would grieve. Al-Kisāʾī said: It denotes grief over what has passed; it is a contronym. The Arabs say tafakkahat, meaning “she enjoyed herself,” and tafakkahat, meaning “she grieved.”

“Indeed, we are burdened with loss.” Abu Bakr, transmitting from ʿĀṣim, recited a-innā with two hamzahs, meaning, “Are we indeed burdened with loss?” The others recited it as a statement. The sense of the verse is: you would remain in wonder, saying, “Indeed, we are burdened with loss.” Mujāhid and ʿIkrimah said: We have been struck by affliction. Ibn ʿAbbās said: