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Sura 22
Aya 18
18
أَلَم تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَسجُدُ لَهُ مَن فِي السَّماواتِ وَمَن فِي الأَرضِ وَالشَّمسُ وَالقَمَرُ وَالنُّجومُ وَالجِبالُ وَالشَّجَرُ وَالدَّوابُّ وَكَثيرٌ مِنَ النّاسِ ۖ وَكَثيرٌ حَقَّ عَلَيهِ العَذابُ ۗ وَمَن يُهِنِ اللَّهُ فَما لَهُ مِن مُكرِمٍ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَفعَلُ ما يَشاءُ ۩

Muhammad Asad

ART THOU NOT aware that before God prostrate themselves all [things and beings] that are in the heavens and all that are on earth1 - the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the mountains, and the trees, and the beasts? And many human beings [submit to God consciously],2 whereas many [others, having defied Him,] will inevitably have to suffer [in the life to come];3 and he whom God shall scorn [on Resurrection Day] will have none who could bestow honour on him: for, verily, God does what He wills.
  • For the meaning of this "prostration", see 13:15 and 16:48~9, and the corresponding notes. My rendering of the relative pronoun man, in this context, as "all [things and beings] that..." is explained in note 33 on 13:15.
  • According to Zamakhshari and Razi, this interpolated phrase - with its stress on "consciously" - is an elliptically implied predicate (khabar) linked with the preceding nominal subject (mubtada'): the purport being that although everything in creation "prostrates itself" before God, willingly or unwillingly (cf. 13:15), not all human beings do so consciously.
  • Lit., "whereas upon many a one the suffering [in the life to come] has become unavoidably incumbent (haqqa 'alayhi)", i.e., as a necessary consequence and corollary of his attitude in this world, and not as an arbitrary "punishment" in the conventional sense of this term.