The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 168
CH. 21 AL-ANBIYA' PT. 17 أَوَلَمْ يَرَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَنَّ السَّمَوتِ R. 3. 31. Do not the disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth وَالْأَرْضَ كَانَتَا رَتْقًا فَفَتَقْنَهُمَا وَجَعَلْنَا were a closed-up mass, then We مِنَ الْمَاءِ كُلَّ شَيْ حَيَّ أَفَلَا يُؤْمِنُونَ opened them out? And We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?2371 closed up the breach that was between them; he reconciled them. The Arabs say: i. e. he is the reformer of the affair. The word e things. دواتی رتق here means رتق | whole false claims, those pretenders and mountebanks who falsely lay claim to prophethood are punished in this very world. They meet with death and destruction and their organizations come to nought in this very life (69:46-48). This difference in treatment of these two kinds of pretenders is due to the fact that the absurdity of a claim to the Godhead is self-evident because no sane person would ever accept a claimant to godhead as God and therefore such a claimant need not be punished here. But a false claimant to prophethood, if allowed to go scot-free, may succeed in deceiving many innocent people into accepting his false claim; therefore he ultimately meets with defeat, discomfiture and destruction in this very life and is not allowed to live long and his mission is not permitted to prosper. closed up, or better a closed-up mass, and refers to the splitting of the amorphous mass or to the throwing off of the planets of the solar system. Commentary: The verse, by pointing to a great scientific truth, draws attention to a spiritual phenomenon of equally great material stage of the universe and importance. It refers to the pre- purports to say that the heavens and the earth or the whole universe or particularly the solar system has developed out of an amorphous or nebular mass. God, in accordance with the laws which He had set in motion, split the mass of matter, and its scattered bits became the units of the solar system ("The Universe Surveyed" by Harold Richards, and "The Nature of the Universe" by Fred Hoyle). God then created all life out means, he repaired or closed up of water. The verse seems to imply the thing. is the contrary of The that like the material universe a expression means, he took out spiritual universe also develops out of the musk from the bladder of deer. an amorphous mass of confused ideas ☑means, he slit, rent or opened up and foolish beliefs. Just as God in His the cloth. They say fi. e. he | infallible wisdom and in pursuance of 2371. Important Words: (a closed-up mass) is inf. noun from (rataqa). They say i. e. he repaired or sewed up the cloth. 2082