would not be able to make use of them for grasping, extending, and delicate tasks such as writing, sewing, and the like. This is the view of most exegetes.

Al-Zajjāj and Ibn Qutaybah said: Its meaning is: the disbeliever thinks that We are unable to assemble his bones. Rather, We are able to restore the small bones in all their minuteness and join them together until We perfect the fingertips. Whoever is able to assemble the small bones is all the more able to assemble the larger ones. (2)

“But man desires to continue in sin. (5) He asks, ‘When will the Day of Resurrection be?’ (6) But when the sight is dazzled…” (7)

“But man desires to continue in sin”: that is, the son of Adam is not ignorant that his Lord is able to assemble his bones; rather, he desires to persist in disobedience to Allah for as long as he lives, headlong and unrestrained, neither desisting from it nor repenting. This is the view of Mujāhid, al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, and al-Suddī.

Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said: “To continue in sin before him” means that he proceeds to commit sin while delaying repentance, saying, “I shall repent later; I shall act later,” until death comes to him in the worst of his states and while he is engaged in his vilest deeds. (4)

Al-Ḍaḥḥāk said: It refers to wishful hope. He says, “I shall live and attain such-and-such of this world,” without remembering death. (5)

Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn Zayd said: He denies the resurrection and reckoning that lie before him. The root meaning of wickedness is deviation; thus, the sinful rebel and the disbeliever are called wicked because of their deviation from the truth.

“He asks, ‘When will the Day of Resurrection be?’”: that is, when will that occur?—denying it. Allah, exalted is He, says: “But when the sight is dazzled.” The people of Medina recited baraqa, with the rāʾ pronounced with a fatḥah, while the others recited it with a kasrah. Both are dialectal forms.

Qatādah and Muqātil said: The gaze will be fixed, without blinking, at the marvels it sees—things which he used to deny in this world. It was also said that this occurs at the time of death.

Al-Kalbī said: When they behold Hell, the eyes of the disbelievers will be dazzled.