Surah Al-Waqi'ah 56:61
سُورَةُ الوَاقِعَةِ · Meccan · Verse 61 of 96
عَلَىٰٓ أَن نُّبَدِّلَ أَمْثَٰلَكُمْ وَنُنشِئَكُمْ فِى مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
Translation
if We intended to change you and recreate you in a way unknown to you.
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'...that We may change your likenesses and recreate you in forms you do not know.' al-Saadi and Ibn Ashur note that death is not the end of His making but a transition to a new creation, He replaces this form with another, remaking us in a state beyond our present imagining. Ask yourself: I picture death as the terminus, the full stop. This verse frames it as a changing of form, the same self carried into a mode of being I cannot yet conceive. It reframes dying not as annihilation but as transformation, the way the seed 'dies' into the plant. It also humbles my confidence that I know the limits of what is possible: I am destined for 'forms I do not know'. If even my own future being is beyond my knowledge, how small is my grasp of reality, and how much should I trust the One who does know?
Grounded in classical tafsir: al-Saadi, Ibn Ashur, al-Biqa'i.
Topics that discuss this verse
Surah Al-Waqi'ah 56:61 is discussed in 3 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 56:61 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.