أَأَنتُم أَشَدُّ خَلقًا أَمِ السَّماءُ ۚ بَناها

Is it you whose creation is more prodigious or the sky which He has built?

EXEGESIS

Banāhā is a complete sentence including the verb, the subject, and the object. The verb comes from the root word banaya, which means to build. It is used in the context of building edifices and other structures (see 18:2, 40:36, and 66:11). It is noteworthy that this expression was used to describe the sky in verse 27 which seems to have nothing in common with a building at first glance. Today, however, modern science has established that the earth’s sky is made up of layers of gasses that act as a protecting edifice to life on earth. The use of the words that trace back to banaya in describing the sky have been repeated in the Quran on numerous occasions (2:22, 40:64, 50:6, 51:47, 78:12, 91:5). This is one way of understanding this Quranic expression in the light of modern science.

EXPOSITION

Having warned the disbelievers and sceptics by speaking to them of the unseen and of history, the verses now call them to reflect on the things that they can touch, see, and hear with their own senses in order to deduce the truths that surround them.^{‎[1]Fadlallah, 24/43.}

This verse is a rhetorical question that holds an element of reprimand and aims to dispel the scepticism of some with regards to the resurrection of humankind (40:57, 36:81). Specifically, in the context of the surah, it is in response to the question: Are we being returned to our earlier state? What, when we have been decayed bones?! (verses 10-11).^{‎[2]Nemuneh, 26/98.}

[1] Fadlallah, 24/43.
[2] Nemuneh, 26/98.