أَمَّن يَبْدَؤُا۟ ٱلْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُۥ وَمَن يَرْزُقُكُم مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ أَءِلَٰهٌ مَّعَ ٱللَّهِ قُلْ هَاتُوا۟ بُرْهَٰنَكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ صَٰدِقِينَ
am man yabdaʾu'l-khalqa thumma yuʿīduhū wa man yarzuqukum mina's-samāʾi wa'l-arḍ, a-ilāhun maʿa'llāh, qul hātū burhānakum in kuntum ṣādiqīn
"Or He who originates creation and then brings it back, and who provides for you from the sky and the earth? Is there a god beside God? Say: Bring your proof, if you are telling the truth!"
The fifth question moves into a different field from the others: it looks not at something seen with the eye but at the whole of a process.
And the word order must be recorded: the particle thumma (after an interval) is used — not fāʾ. There is thus an interval between the beginning and the bringing back.
I record this as an observation: four of the questions had enumerated things that can be observed (orchards, the earth, helplessness, the winds); the fifth brings into the sequence of proofs something that has not yet come about (the bringing back).
This demand was treated in detail in al-Qaṣaṣ at 28/75, and all its links across the series were set out in a table there (hātū burhānakum, arūnī mādhā khalaqa, iʾtūnī bi-kitāb, bi-ghayri sulṭānin atāhum). And the word burhān was defined there: an argument that binds the other side and ends the dispute. I do not repeat it here.
And in the discussion of al-Baqara at 2/111 it was recorded that this demand recurs throughout the Qurʾān, and this verse was cited there.
| Verse | The demand | Of whom |
|---|---|---|
| 21 | aw la-yaʾtiyannī bi-sulṭānin mubīn | Of a bird — Solomon demands it |
| 64 | qul hātū burhānakum | Of those addressed — said to the Prophet |
The same measure, in two different blocks of the sūra. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two verses themselves: the sūra first applies the measure of evidence inside a narrative, and then directs it at those it addresses. The measure is thus first shown and then demanded.
Second — that the sequence of five questions closes with this demand. The sequence enumerated five facts; at the close, one single thing is asked of the other side: a ground. And as was recorded in al-Qaṣaṣ, four sūras converge on this one measure.