Tafsir of Ya seen 36:78

"And he struck a parable for Us" is a conjunctive phrase following the negative sentence, thus entering into the sphere of denunciation. According to the first interpretation, it is a conjunction to the sudden-occurrence sentence; the meaning being: "Then he suddenly became an open adversary," and he struck a parable for Us—that is, he presented regarding Us a story wondrous in its essence, being in its strangeness like a parable, which is the denial of Our reviving the bones. Or, it is a story wondrous in his own estimation, which he deemed improbable and counted among the category of parables, denying it with the most intense denial—namely, Our reviving them. Or, he set for Us a parable and an equal from among the creation and measured Our power against theirs, negating all of it in a general sense.

His saying—the Almighty—"And he forgot his own creation"—that is, Our creation of him in the aforementioned manner which proves the invalidity of the parable he struck—is either a conjunction to "struck," entering into the sphere of denunciation and astonishment, or it is a circumstantial qualifier (hal) for its subject, with the implicit understanding of "already" (qad) or without it. The "forgetting" of his creation refers to him not remembering it, according to one view—though there is some wavering in this—or it means he abandoned the thought of it due to his disbelief and stubbornness, or he is like one who forgets because he does not act according to the dictates of remembrance.

His saying—the Glorified—"He said" is a new beginning acting as an answer to a question arising from the account of his striking the parable, as if it were said: "What parable did he strike?" or "What did he say?" So it was said: "Who will revive the bones while they are decayed?"

(78)

...denying that, rejecting those states of the bones with which their return to life becomes extremely improbable, which is their being ramim—that is, decayed to the utmost degree of decay.

The apparent meaning is that ramim is an adjective, not a frozen noun. If it is from the intransitive verb ramma, meaning to decay, then it is on the scale of fa‘īl in the sense of the active participle (fā‘il); the reason it is not feminized is that it is predominantly used without being linked to a qualified noun, so it is treated as a frozen noun. Alternatively, it is treated as fa‘īl in the sense of the passive participle (maf‘ūl), in which the masculine and feminine forms are equal.

Muḥyī al-Sunnah said: He did not say ramīmah because it is diverted from the form fā‘ilah; everything that is diverted from its standard form and measure is deflected from its sisters. An example of this is baghiyy in the Almighty’s saying, "Your mother was not a harlot (baghiyy)," where the hā (feminine marker) was dropped because it was diverted from bāghiyah.

Al-Azharī said: Because ‘iẓāman (bones) is on the pattern of the singular—like kitāb (book) and qirāb (sheath)—it was treated as such, so it was said ramīm rather than ramīmah, and he provided evidence for this, though it is strange.

If it is from the transitive ramma, meaning to consume/decay—it is said rammahu (he caused it to decay), and its root meaning is "to eat," as Al-Azharī mentioned regarding the camels eating grass—then that which is decayed is that which the earth has consumed. Thus, it is fa‘īl in the sense of the passive participle (maf‘ūl), and its masculine usage is obvious in this case, due to the consensus that fa‘īl in the sense of maf‘ūl is equal for both masculine and feminine.

In al-Maṭla‘, it is stated that al-ramīm is a noun, not an adjective—like al-rimmah (decayed remnant) and al-rufāt (broken particles)—not fa‘īl in the sense of fā‘il or maf‘ūl. Because it is a noun and not an adjective, one does not ask why it was not feminized, even though it appears as a predicate for a feminine subject. It is not hidden, however, that it has a verb, which is ramma, as mentioned by the linguists, and it is one of the patterns of adjectives; therefore, the claim that it is a frozen noun is not entirely evident.