Tafsir of Al-Anbiya' 21:21

"Or have they taken gods..." is a narrative of another crime from among the crimes of those disbelievers, which is greater than the crime of their questioning Prophethood.

The Am (Or) is the disconnected (munqati'ah), interpreted as the bal of transition, combined with an interrogative hamzah of denial. It is a denial of the occurrence [of the act], not a denial of the reality [of the act].

His saying, "from the earth," relates to "have they taken," and "from" (min) is originative (ibtida'iyyah), meaning that their taking them as gods originated from parts of the earth, such as stones and types of minerals. It is also permissible for it to be partitive (tab'idiyyah).

Abu al-Baqa' and others said: It is permissible for it to be related to a deleted element serving as an adjective for "gods," meaning "gods existing from the genus of the earth." In any case, the intent is belittlement, not specification. Whoever permits this [only] must commit to restricting the denial to [only] the intense, and that is not sound.

His saying, "are they the ones who resurrect" means: do they resurrect the dead? This is an adjective for "gods," and it is the point upon which the denial, the attribution of ignorance, and the condemnation revolve, not the mere act of taking [them as gods], for that has certainly occurred. It means: Nay, have they taken gods from the earth who—despite their insignificance and inanimate nature—are the ones who resurrect the dead? By no means; what they have taken as gods are far removed from that. Even if they did not say this explicitly, since they claimed divinity for them, they have all claimed the power of resurrection for them, necessarily, as it is strictly one of the attributes of divinity.

The meaning of specification in fronting the pronoun is to provide the alert pointed to regarding the complete disparity between their state and [the act of] resurrection, which necessitates greater denial, just as the fronting of the prepositional phrase in His saying, "Is there doubt about Allah?" is to alert [the listener] to the complete disparity of His command from that which could be doubted.

It is also permissible to consider this among the consequences of their false claim, for divinity necessitates independence in origination and restoration. Since they claimed divinity for the idols, it is as if they claimed for them independence in resurrection, just as they thereby became claimants to the origin of resurrection; this was stated by the master Abu al-Sa'ud. Others said: Fronting the pronoun is for the sake of reinforcement (taqwiya). The view that it conveys the meaning of specification follows al-Zamakhshari. In al-Kashf, the motive for preferring it over reinforcement is that it supports what he posited initially—that divinity is not valid without the power of resurrection, and there is no basis for allowing it to be a separator (fasl).

It is also permitted that the sentence "are they the ones who resurrect" be a new, independent statement, with an interrogative of denial estimated before it to explain the cause for denying the act of "taking" [them as gods]. Perhaps the one who permits this does not concede that the meaning of the hamzah in the disconnected Am must necessarily be the denial of occurrence; it may also be the denial of the reality.

The interpretation of yunshirun (resurrect) as "they bring to life the dead" is what the majority are upon. Qutrub said: It means "they create."

Al-Hasan and Mujahid read yunshirun with a fathah on the ya', taken from nashara (to spread/revive), as nashara and anshara have the same meaning. Sometimes nashara comes as an intransitive verb; it is said, "Allah the Exalted resurrected (anshara) the dead, so they were resurrected (nasharu)."