“And they carry your heavy loads to lands that you could not otherwise reach except with great hardship. Surely your Lord is Most Kind, Most Merciful. And He created horses, mules, and donkeys for you to ride and as adornment, and He creates what you do not know. It is for Allah to show the straight way, while some ways are crooked. Had He willed, He would have guided you all.”
“And they carry your heavy loads”—and indeed they carry you yourselves—“to lands that you could not otherwise reach except with great hardship.” Yet Allah has subjected them to you. Some of them you ride, while upon others you carry whatever heavy loads you wish to distant lands and far-flung regions. “Surely your Lord is Most Kind, Most Merciful,” for He has subjected to you what you cannot do without and what you need. To Him belongs all praise, as befits the majesty of His Countenance, the greatness of His dominion, and the vastness of His generosity and beneficence.
“And horses, mules, and donkeys”—We have subjected them to you—“for you to ride and as adornment.” That is, at times you use them for the necessity of riding, and at other times for beauty and adornment. Eating them is not mentioned because it is forbidden to eat mules and donkeys, while horses are generally not used for food. Rather, slaughtering them for food is discouraged for fear that they might become depleted. Otherwise, it is authentically established in the two Sahih collections that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) permitted horse meat.
“And He creates what you do not know,” including things that would come into existence after the revelation of the Quran, which people ride on land, at sea, and in the air, and which they use for their benefit and welfare. He did not mention them individually because Allah Most High mentions in His Book only what His servants know or what has a counterpart familiar to them. Had He mentioned something that had no counterpart in their time, they would neither have recognized it nor understood what was meant. He therefore gives a comprehensive statement encompassing both what they know and what they do not know.
Similarly, when mentioning the bliss of Paradise, He named those things whose counterparts we know and observe, such as date palms, grapes, and pomegranates, while referring in general terms to what has no counterpart known to us when He said: “In both will be two kinds of every fruit.” Likewise here, He mentioned the means of transport familiar to us, such as horses, mules, donkeys, camels, and ships, and referred to all the rest in general terms when He said: “And He creates what you do not know.”
After Allah Most High mentioned physical roads and how He has provided His servants with camels and other means by which to traverse them, He mentioned the spiritual path that leads to Him, saying:
“It is for Allah to show the straight way.” That is, the straight path, which is the closest and shortest route leading to Allah.
As for every crooked path in matters of belief and action—namely, everything contrary to the straight path—it cuts one off from Allah and leads to the abode of misery. Thus, by their Lord’s permission, the rightly guided followed the straight path, while the wayward strayed from it and followed the crooked paths. “Had He willed, He would have guided you all.” However, He guided some out of generosity and grace, and did not guide others out of wisdom and justice.