Tafsir of Al-Mulk 67:21

Regarding His saying, Exalted is He, “Or who is this that will provide for you if He should withhold His provision,” it means: or who is this—if Allah, Mighty and Majestic is He, withholds His provision through the withholding of rain and all its prerequisites—that is like the one previously mentioned [in the prior verses]?

His saying, “But they have persisted in disdain,” and so on, indicates an implied matter necessitated by the context. It is as if it were said: After the rebuke and the rendering of them helpless, they were not affected by that, nor did they yield to the truth; rather, they persisted and continued in their insolence—meaning in obstinacy, arrogance, and transgression—and in aversion, meaning in turning away from the truth because of its weightiness upon them.

Some have made “Or who is this,” etc., a parallel to His saying, “Have they not seen,” in the sense of: Have they not looked at such creations as the grasping and the spreading, the withholding, and what resembles these, which indicate perfect power? And thus, have they not realized Our ability to punish them by way of the earth’s swallowing them or sending a keeper—i.e., “Who is a host for you that can help you other than Allah if He sends His torment upon you?” It has been said that it is like His saying, “Or do they have gods who can defend them against Us?” except that it is cast in the form of an inquiry regarding the designation of who would help them, to signal that they actually held this belief.

Others made His saying, “Or who is this that will provide for you,” in the sense of: “Or who is he to whom one points, saying: ‘This is the one who provides for you?’” It was said that [the author of the commentary] considered Am (Or) in the first instance to be muttasilah (conjunctive) and Man (who) to be interrogative, and in the second, he considered Am to be munqati’ah (disjunctive) and Man to be a relative pronoun. In the latter, hatha (this) is a subject whose predicate is the relative clause, based on the estimation of a [suppressed] verb of saying. He estimated this to avoid the unattractiveness of saying “Al-ladhi (the one) is this who provides for you,” and makes hatha (this) stand in the place of the pronoun referring to the first relative pronoun. Others said Man is a subject whose predicate is omitted, meaning: “He is a provider for you.” It is as if he indicated by this the validity of both possibilities in both places.

As for the objection concerning the necessity of two interrogatives meeting in some instances, and the entrance of an interrogation upon an interrogation, it has been said in response that this is not harmful; there is no obstacle to the meeting of two interrogatives if the purpose is emphasis. Ibn al-Shajari reported from all the Basrans that the munqati’ah Am always carries the meaning of bal (nay) and the interrogative hamza, even if it enters upon an existing interrogative, such as “Am hal yastawi al-thulumat” (Or are the darkness and the light equal?) and “Am madha kuntum ta’malun” (Or what were you doing?). Others hold the position that it may come with the meaning of pure interrogation—a view narrated from Abu Ubaydah—and that it may come for pure transition (idrab), or it may contain both, or denote a denial-based or seeking-based interrogation.

Al-Zamakhshari said in both places: Am is followed by “who is pointed to, and it is said: This is he who provides for you.” He permitted that hatha (this) be a reference to a hypothetical entity, or a reference to all idols, due to their belief that they are protected from calamities and provided for through the blessing of their gods—as if they were the host, the helper, and the provider. According to this, the verse is not connected to His saying, “Have they not seen,” as established by the author of al-Kashshaf. After clarifying his position, he said: Once this is established, know that the structure requires this interpretation to mean that His saying, “Or who is this that is a host,” is connected to the mention of the swallowing, and His saying, “Or who is this that will provide for you,” is connected to the mention of sending the stony wind, in the manner of distribution. It is as if, when it was said, “Are you secure from Him who is in the heaven that He should cause the earth to swallow you,” causing them to flee after they were in the utmost state of humiliation, he followed it with: “Or does the group which you allege to be a host for you protect you from the torment of Allah and His severity?”—on the basis that Am is munqati’ah and the interrogation is sarcastic. Likewise, when it was said, “Are you secure from Him who is in the heaven that He should send against you a stony wind,” instead of Him sending upon you His mercy, he followed it with: “Or does the one you imagine provides for you secure you?”

As for His saying, “And certainly did those before them deny,” it is an interjection that strengthens the warning, [noting] that in the past nations—those who were swallowed by the earth, those against whom stony winds were sent, and other types of His punishment, Mighty and Majestic is He—there is that which strips them of security and gravity, if they would but reflect. Similarly, His saying, “Have they not seen,” is a depiction of His dazzling power, and that one who is capable of that—the swallowing and the sending of the stony wind—is capable of anything easier than that. It also contains the idea that, just as He, by His great power and encompassing mercy, holds the birds [in the air], so too is His withholding of the torment—otherwise, these people deserve every punishment. The employment of this [rhetorical strategy] serves to demean them, demonstrating the foolishness of their opinions, the estimation of the speech indicating their false claims, and the emphasis with the two relative pronouns, which indicates the intensity of their belief in that falsehood (if it refers to idols), or the perfection of the sarcasm against them (if it refers to a hypothetical group), for their state of [false] security necessitates that. This is more eloquent, and that is why Al-Zamakhshari prioritized it, for it contains what causes wonder and displays the inimitability of the Revelation; it is as if he saw it with his own eyes.

Then he said: This is what I have been guided to, with the admission that drawing from the torrent of the speech of Allah, Exalted is He, is reserved for its own people, and how far is one like me from them! Yet, I console myself with the words of our Imam al-Shafi’i:

“I love the righteous, though I am not one of them.”

By my life, he has shown great creativity and attained a high position in the acceptance of the wise.

“I am delighted by a hand whose tears pour down for his lofty excellence; for his merit is immense.”

The apparent meaning is that "who" in both places is the subject of an implied verb indicated by the context—I mean am-mana-kum—not a subject whose predicate is omitted, as was said previously. Other than the aforementioned parsing methods, it has been permitted in the verse that "who" be a fronted predicate and "this" be the subject. This is preferred over the reverse—as previously mentioned—because it is free from the reporting of a definite noun by an indefinite one, which is not permissible according to the majority; though its permissibility is the position of Sibawayh if the subject is an interrogative noun or a comparative form. Talha recited in the first [instance] a-min with the lightening of the mim, and stressed it in the second like the majority.