al-Shūrā 42:29

Wa min āyātihi khalqu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baththa fīhimā min dābba; wa huwa ʿalā jamʿihim idhā yashāʾu qadīr

"Among His signs are the creation of the heavens and the earth and the living creatures He has scattered in the two of them. And He has the power to gather them when He wills."

This pattern occurs three times in the sūra and builds a series of proofs:

And the same method recorded in Qāf is at work: the proof is not a miracle but what is seen every day. The same finding was made in al-Baqara at 2/163-164: "The verse does not offer a miracle as proof — it offers the familiar."

Bathth — to scatter a thing, to spread it, to strew it. The lexicographers record that in the root there is a dispersal that appears uncontrolled; indeed from the same root bathth also means "to pour out one's heart, to spread out one's trouble" (Yūsuf 12/86: innamā ashkū baththī wa ḥuznī ila'llāh).

And the choice of word is worth recording: baththa conveys not an orderly placing but a strewing. For the dispersal of living creatures over the earth this word accords with observation.

Dābba, in the root's original sense, means one that stirs on the ground, that moves. Dabba — he walked slowly, he stirred.

And the definition is wide: the word covers every moving creature. The Qurʾān says so outright: "There is no dābba on the earth but its provision is upon God" (Hūd 11/6).

There is a detail in the verse that the exegetes dwell on: mā baththa fīhimā — "in the two of them". That is, it is said that living creatures are in the heavens too.

Both readings are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. And no "scientific miracle" is drawn from this — per the method (Method), modern knowledge is not forced onto a verse in this commentary. What is recorded is what the wording says and what the exegetes understood.

The sentence brings in the opposite of the verb baththa (scattering): jamʿ (gathering).

And the word jamʿ comes for the third time in the sūra:

In all three occurrences the same work: bringing together what has been dispersed. This is directly connected with the sūra's main theme of "division" and is a verifiable fact.

Idhā yashāʾ — "when He wills". Not in (a condition, a possibility) but idhā (a time); in Arabic idhā is used for what will come to pass. The gathering, that is, is set down not as a possibility but as a time.