Surah Al-Waqi'ah 56:48
سُورَةُ الوَاقِعَةِ · Meccan · Verse 48 of 96
أَوَءَابَآؤُنَا ٱلْأَوَّلُونَ
Translation
And our earliest forefathers too?’
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'And our forefathers of old?' al-Saadi and Ibn Ashur note the deniers pile on their scorn, even our ancient ancestors, long turned to dust, will they be raised?, treating the sheer scale and antiquity of the dead as the clinching absurdity. Ask yourself: the mockery leans on scale, so many, so long gone, so utterly scattered; surely too much even for God. It is the same instinct in me that decides some things are simply too broken, too far gone, too vast to be undone. This verse records that scoffing precisely because it will be answered. What in my life or my faith have I dismissed as beyond even God's power to restore, using its size or age or hopelessness as my excuse, the way they used their ancestors' dust?
Grounded in classical tafsir: al-Saadi, Ibn Ashur, al-Biqa'i.
Topics that discuss this verse
Surah Al-Waqi'ah 56:48 is discussed in 2 study guides on Maani. Each guide gathers the key verses, Arabic words and lessons of one Quranic topic.
Reflect on this verse
Open Surah Al-Waqi'ah 56:48 in Maani to reflect on it through the Five Lenses: its wording, its context, what it means for you, its connections across the Quran and its lessons, grounded in classical tafsir.