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Sura 16
Aya 8
8
وَالخَيلَ وَالبِغالَ وَالحَميرَ لِتَركَبوها وَزينَةً ۚ وَيَخلُقُ ما لا تَعلَمونَ

Muhammad Asad

And [it is He who creates] horses and mules and asses for you to ride, as well as for [their] beauty: and He will yet create things of which [today] you have no knowledge.1
  • The use, in this context, of the aorist yakhluqu implies the future tense ("He will create") in contrast with the past tense khalaqa employed, in the preceding passages. Since this reference to God's continuing creation comes immediately after, a mention of primitive means of transport (i.e., of animals domesticated by man to this end), it-obviously relates to other - as yet unknown - things of the same category: that is to say, to new means of transport which God unceasingly creates through the instrumentality of the inventiveness with which He has endowed man's mind (cf. 36:42). Inasmuch as every successive stage of human development bears witness to new, previously undreamt-of inventions in the realm of transport, the Qur'anic statement that "He will yet create things of which [today] you have no knowledge" is valid for every period - past, present and future - of man's history.