(5) “If you are astonished, then truly astonishing is their saying, ‘When we have become dust, will we really be created anew?’ It is they who have disbelieved in their Lord; it is they who have shackles around their necks; and it is they who are the inhabitants of the Fire, abiding therein forever.”

His words, “If you are astonished,” may mean: if you are astonished by Allah the Exalted’s greatness and the abundance of the proofs of His oneness, then—despite all this—truly astonishing is the deniers’ rejection and denial of the resurrection, and their saying, “When we have become dust, will we really be created anew?” In their view, this is utterly remote and altogether impossible: that after they have become dust, Allah should restore them. In their ignorance, they measured the Creator’s power by that of the created.

When they saw that this was beyond the power of created beings, they assumed that it was also beyond the Creator’s power, forgetting that Allah created them the first time when they were nothing.

It may also mean: if you are astonished by their words and their denial of the resurrection, then this is indeed among the most astonishing things. For when the signs have been made clear to a person and he sees conclusive proofs of the resurrection that admit neither doubt nor uncertainty, yet still denies it, his words are truly astonishing.

Yet this is not surprising from “those who have disbelieved in their Lord” and denied His oneness, though it is the most manifest and clearest of all truths. “It is they who have shackles”—shackles that bar them from guidance—“around their necks.” They were called to faith but did not believe, and guidance was presented to them but they were not guided. Their hearts and minds were therefore turned away as punishment for their failure to believe in it the first time. “And it is they who are the inhabitants of the Fire, abiding therein forever”: they will never leave it.