Tafsir of Al-Isra 17:86

We can now move to verse 86: وَلَئِن شِئْنَا لَنَذْهَبَنَّ (And if We so will, We will surely take away...). It will be recollected that, in the previous verse (85), by giving an answer to the question about Ruh as true to the measure of its necessity, the underlying effort to find out the reality of the Ruh was blocked and it was declared that man's knowledge, no matter how much, still remains relatively insignificant in terms of the great span of the ulti¬mate reality of things. Therefore, getting entangled with unnecessary debates and investigations is a waste of precious time. The present verse: وَلَئِن شِئْنَا (And if We so will) indicates that the sum total of whatever knowl¬edge human beings have been given, even that is no private property of theirs. Allah Ta` ala can, if He so wills, take away that too. Therefore, they should be grateful to Allah for whatever of knowledge they have and stay away from wasting time in redundant and unnecessary investi¬gations - specially when pure investigation is just not the objective, instead, testing others or belittling them is. If one did that, it is not out of the realm of possibility that this crookedness may result in all that one has in the name of knowledge taken away in toto. The address in this verse is, though, to the Holy Prophet (صلی اللہ علیہ وآلہ وسلم) ، but the purpose is to really make his followers listen and get the message - when even the knowl¬edge of the Rasul of Allah (صلی اللہ علیہ وآلہ وسلم) is not within his exclusive power and control, not much can be said about others!