Tafsir of An-Naml 27:61

(Is He [not] the one who made the earth a settled place?) That is, He made it such that humans and beasts may settle upon it by manifesting parts of it from the water, firming it, and leveling it according to what their benefits revolve around. Thus, qararan (a settled place) is in the meaning of mustaqarran (a place of settlement), not in the meaning of qarrat (stationary/stable) and not trembling, as al-Tabrisi claimed; for the benefit in the former is more complete. If "made" (ja'ala) here signifies "to render" (tas-yir), then the two accusative nouns are two direct objects; otherwise, the second is a potential state (hal muqaddarah).

The sentence of His saying—the Exalted—(Is He [not] the one who made...) is, according to what has been said, an apposition (badal) to His saying—Glorified be He—(Is He [not] the one who created the heavens) and the rest of the three sentences following it, and the ruling for all of them is the same. Some prominent scholars have said: The most apparent view is that each one of them is an idrab (turning away) and a transition from shaming [them] by means of the preceding [evidence] to shaming [them] by means of another aspect that is included in the obligation [to acknowledge the truth] from various angles. The author of al-Kashshaf has inclined toward the substitution (ibdal), and we shall, God willing, transmit from the author of al-Kashf that which reveals its aspect.

(And made between them)—that is, in its midst; khilal is the plural of khilal, originally meaning the gap between two things. It acts as an adverb that has taken the place of the state (hal) from His saying—the Exalted—(rivers). This is permissible despite it being an indefinite noun because the state or the second object of "made" precedes it. (Rivers) is the first object, and by "rivers," it is meant that which flows within it, not the location which is the crevice. That is, He made amidst it flowing rivers from which you benefit.

(And made for it)—that is, for the integrity of its affairs—(firmly set mountains). For they have an ordinary role that wisdom has necessitated in the disclosure of its inhabitable parts, its preservation from swaying with its inhabitants, and the water that supplies the rivers—which leads to its freshness—being at their foothills, among other things. Some have mentioned among the benefits of mountains the existence of minerals within them and the springing forth of water sources from their bases, but they did not address the benefit of them preventing the earth from moving and swaying. They justified omitting this by saying that if that were the intended meaning, it would have been mentioned immediately after "made the earth a settled place." He who is fair will see that the mountains preventing the earth from moving and swaying—which would remove the earth from the realm of utility and make its existence like its non-existence—is among the most important things to be mentioned here, for it is of that which ensures the integrity of its affairs and the loftiness of its status. The use of (for it) instead of "in it" or "upon it" is clear evidence that what is intended is this type of benefit; so contemplate this.

As for returning the pronoun in (for it) to the rivers, so that the meaning becomes "and He made for their supply firm mountains from whose foothills water springs forth, thus supplying them," the weakness of this is not hidden.

(And made between the two seas)—that is, the fresh and the salty, according to al-Dahhak; or the Persian and Roman seas, according to al-Hasan; or the seas of Iraq and al-Sham, according to al-Suddi; or the seas of the heaven and the earth, according to Mujahid—(a barrier)—a separator that prevents them from mixing. The discussion regarding the verification of this has already passed, so recall it.

(Is there a god with Allah?) in existence, or in the creation of these marvelous things, according to what has passed? (Nay, but most of them do not know), meaning [they do not know] any of the things with a knowledge worth counting; and for that reason, they do not understand the falsehood of the polytheism they are upon, despite its perfect clarity.