Cf. 2:30 and the corresponding note 22. In the present instance the accent is on God's having caused man to "inherit the earth" by endowing him with specific faculties and abilities - an implicit denial of man's claim that he is independent and "master of his fate".

I.e., metonymically, through all the seemingly insoluble complexities of human life.

See 7:57 and the corresponding note 44.

This relates to man's life on earth and his resurrection after bodily death as well as to the this-worldly cycle of birth, death and regeneration manifested in all organic nature.

As in 10:31, the term "sustenance" (rizq) has here both a physical and a spiritual connotation; hence the phrase, "out of heaven and earth".

Lit., "if you are truthful" - the implication being that most people who profess a belief in a multiplicity of divine powers, or even in the possibility of the one God's "incarnation" in a created being, do so blindly, sometimes only under the influence of inherited cultural traditions and habits of thought, and not out of a reasoned conviction.

In this context, the term al-ghayb - rendered by me here as "the hidden reality" - apparently relates to the "how" of God's Being, the ultimate reality underlying the observable aspects of the universe and the meaning and purpose inherent in its creation. My repetition, within brackets, of the words "none knows it", i.e., save God, is necessitated by the fact that He is infinite, unlimited as to space, and cannot, therefore, be included among the beings "in the heavens or on earth", who have all been created by Him.

I.e., they cannot truly visualize the hereafter because its reality is beyond anything that man may experience in this world: and this, it cannot he stressed often enough, is an indirect explanation of the reason why all Quranic references to the conditions, good or bad, of man's life after death are of necessity expressed in purely allegorical terms.

I.e., blind to its logical necessity within God's plan of creation. For, it is only on the premise of a life after death that the concept of man's moral responsibility and hence, of God's ultimate judgment can have any meaning; and if there is no moral responsibility, there can be no question of a preceding moral choice; and if the absence of choice is taken for granted, all differentiation between right and wrong becomes utterly meaningless as well.

I.e., those who denied the reality of a life after death and, hence, of man's ultimate responsibility for his conscious doings. As pointed out in the preceding note, the unavoidable consequence of this denial is the loss of all sense of right and wrong: and this, in its turn, leads to spiritual and social chaos, and so to the downfall of communities and civilizations.

Lit., "by their scheming". For the Quranic use of the term makr in the sense of "devising false arguments [against something]", see 10:21 and the corresponding note 33.

24:54-55

23:117

16:22

Having doubts about the hereafter is considered to be similar to not accepting it. The Quran does not accept "faith" as is understood by English speaking people; the Quran expects us to acknowledge the hereafter as a fact, by reflecting on circumstantial evidence abundant around us and within us. According to the Quran, those who do not find the Quran sufficient for guidance, those who do not enjoy mentioning God's name alone, and those who expect the intercession of a savior, do not really acknowledge the hereafter. See 6:113,150; 27:66; 34:21; 39:45; 74:46-48.