Surah Al-Jinn 72:12
ﲾ ﲿ ﳀ ﳁ ﳂ ﳃ ﳄ ﳅ ﳆ ﳇ ﳈ
And we have become certain that we will never cause failure to Allah upon earth, nor can we escape Him by flight.
Tafsir of Al-Jinn 72:12
Tafsir
Ruh al-Ma'ani
Verse range: 72:12
"And we were certain" Meaning: We have now come to know.
"That we will not escape Allah" Meaning: That the situation is that we will not be able to frustrate Allah, Exalted is He, while we are upon the earth.
"In the earth" Meaning: Wherever we may be within its regions.
"Nor can we escape Him by flight" Meaning: Or by fleeing from it [the earth] to the heavens. Thus, "in the earth" is construed with the sentence, and since "nor" follows "and," and "nor" follows "and," it necessitates that the flight be toward the heavens. In this, there is an escalation and hyperbole, as if it were said: We shall not frustrate Him, Glorified be He, on the earth, nor in the heavens. It is also permissible that no consideration be given to generality or specificity—as is the case in [the phrase] "we sent the thicket"—and that the escaping be divided into two categories, derived from the word "flight." The meaning would then be: We shall not frustrate Him, Glorified be He, on the earth if He intends an affair for us, and we shall not frustrate Him, Mighty and Majestic is He, by flight [such] that we seek to escape; the summary of which is that if He seeks us, we shall not escape Him, and if we flee, we shall not be saved from Him, Glorified be He.
The benefit of mentioning the "earth" is to illustrate that, despite its vastness and breadth, there is no refuge from Him, Exalted is He, and no place to flee, due to the intensity of His power, Glorified be He, and the excess of His dominance, Majestic is He. Similar to this is the saying of the poet: (And you are like the night that overtakes me, even if I imagine that the distance from you is vast.)
It has been said that the benefit of mentioning the "earth" is to illustrate their established presence upon it and the extent of its distance from the place of His dominion, Glorified be He and Exalted. However, this is not strong.
The view that "in the earth" and "by flight" are states [adverbial phrases], as we have indicated, is the view held by the majority. It has also been permitted regarding "by flight" that it is a tamiyiz (specification) transformed from the subject; meaning: "Our flight will not frustrate Him, Glorified be He."