أَأَنتُم تَخلُقونَهُ أَم نَحنُ الخالِقونَ

Is it you who create it, or are We the creator?

EXPOSITION

Is it you who create it, or are We the creator? If the reader stubbornly and defiantly claims that I create it, then the Quran answers: OK, if you are in charge of your creation and if you conduct your affairs, then how about death; can you stop it from overtaking you? Then keep death off from yourselves, should you be truthful (3:168). It is indeed We who created it, because its death is also in Our hands.

REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE

Or (am in Arabic) in this verse has also been interpreted as ‘rather’ (based on it being disjointed (munqaṭiʿah)). Based on this, the first part of the verse would be a question and the second part would be its answer: is it you who create it? Rather, We are the creator. The same can apply to verses 64, 69, and 72.^{‎[1]Alusi, 14/147.}

However, this interpretation is against the apparent meaning of the verse. The only consideration that strengthens this meaning is that what follows the am can be read as a full independent sentence. But this consideration can be explained – more plausibly – by what was mentioned at the end of the Exegesis.

[1] Alusi, 14/147.