Translation:
Which is harder to create: you or the sky?3 He built it,
Which is harder to create: you or the sky?3 He built it,
Translation:
What! Are you the more difficult to create or the heaven (above)? 5934 (Allah) have constructed it:
What! Are you the more difficult to create or the heaven (above)? 5934 (Allah) have constructed it:
Commentary:
5934 If man grows arrogant or forgets his accountability to Allah, in his ignorance or thoughtlessness, he is reminded that he is only an insignificant speck in Allah's spacious Creation (Cf. 36:81). All the excellence that man acquires is the gift of Allah, Who had bestowed on him a high Destiny if he fulfils the purpose of his creation: 2:30-39. Then follows a nature passage, pointing to the glory of the heavens and the earth, and how they are both made to subserve the life of man.
Translation:
[O MEN!] Are you more difficult to create than the heaven which He has built? 12
[O MEN!] Are you more difficult to create than the heaven which He has built? 12
Commentary:
12 Lit., "or the heaven. . . ", etc. The "heaven" is here, as in many other places in the Qur’an, a metonym for "cosmic system" (cf. note 20 on 2:29). The above verse is an echo of an earlier, more explicit passage - namely, 40:56-57, which should be read together with the corresponding notes 40 and 41. Both these passages refute the "man-centred" view of the universe by pointing out man's insignificance as compared with the vastness and complexity of the whole God-created universe.
12 Lit., "or the heaven. . . ", etc. The "heaven" is here, as in many other places in the Qur’an, a metonym for "cosmic system" (cf. note 20 on 2:29). The above verse is an echo of an earlier, more explicit passage - namely, 40:56-57, which should be read together with the corresponding notes 40 and 41. Both these passages refute the "man-centred" view of the universe by pointing out man's insignificance as compared with the vastness and complexity of the whole God-created universe.
3 This is from a human perspective. Otherwise, both the creation of the universe and the resurrection of humans are easy for Allah.