وَلَئِن سَأَلْتَهُم مَّنْ خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ وَسَخَّرَ ٱلشَّمْسَ وَٱلْقَمَرَ لَيَقُولُنَّ ٱللَّهُ فَأَنَّىٰ يُؤْفَكُونَ
"If you were to ask them, 'who created the heavens and the earth, and made the sun and the moon subservient?', they would surely say, 'God'. How then are they turned away?"
The same structure was treated at Luqmān 31/25 and at al-Zukhruf 43/9: the other side being brought into contradiction by its own answer. I rely on that treatment.
The difference here must be recorded: the question is asked twice in this sūra — in verse 61 about creation, in verse 63 about rain. And in both the answer is the same: la-yaqūlunna'llāh.
فَأَنَّىٰ يُؤْفَكُون — root أ-ف-ك: to turn from its direction. The root had occurred in the seventeenth verse of this sūra as well (wa takhluqūna ifkā).
| Verse | Word | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 17 | Takhluqūna ifkā | They — they fabricate a lie |
| 61 | Fa-annā yuʾfakūn | They — they are turned away |
The same root, one active and one passive. I record this as an observation: what they fabricate becomes, in the end, the thing that turns them.
قُلِ ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ — and the section joins with the condition in the forty-third verse: wa mā yaʿqiluhā illa'l-ʿālimūn. The same root (ع-ق-ل), one as a condition and one as a diagnosis.