And His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "Then indeed, you, O misguided ones, who deny, will surely eat from a tree of Zaqqum. And you will fill your bellies with it. And you will drink upon it from boiling water. And you will drink like the drinking of the thirsty camels. This is their hospitality on the Day of Judgment. We created you, so why do you not believe? Have you seen what you emit? Are you the ones who create it, or are We the Creator? We have decreed death among you, and We are not to be outstripped. To replace you with others like you and to create you in that which you do not know. And certainly, you have known the first creation, so will you not remember?"

And His saying, the Most High: "Then indeed, you" is addressing the disbelievers of Quraysh and those in their condition. And "from" in His saying, the Most High: "from a tree" may be for partitive, and it may be for beginning of the limit. And "from" in His saying, the Most High: "from Zaqqum" is for indicating the type. And the pronoun in "from it" refers back to the tree, and "from" is for partitive or for beginning of the limit. And the pronoun in "upon it" refers back to the food or to the eating. And in the reading of Ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him: "will surely eat from a tree" is in the singular form.

And "the thirsty camels" said Ibn Abbas, and Mujahid, and Ikrimah, and Al-Dahhak: it is the plural of "ahyam" which is the camel that has been afflicted by thirst - with the letter 'h' pronounced - it is a disease that makes it thirsty, and the camels drink with it until they die or become severely ill. The female is hayma. And some of them said: it is the plural of hayma like 'aynā' and 'ayn' and 'bayḍā' and 'bayḍ'. And another group said: it is the plural of haym and haymah. And this also has this meaning because when the camel is afflicted by that, it wanders on its face and goes away. And Ibn Abbas and Sufyan Al-Thawri said:

The thirsty camels here are the sands that are not quenched by water. And that is because thirst - with the letter 'h' pronounced - is the fine, deep, and accumulated sand. And Tha'lab said: thirst - with the letter 'h' pronounced - is the sand that does not hold together. And Ibn Kathir, Ibn 'Amir, Abu 'Amr, and Al-Kisai read: "drank the thirsty camels" with the letter 'sh' pronounced, and this is the reading of Al-A'raj, Ibn Al-Musayyib, Shu'ayb Ibn Al-Habbab, Malik Ibn Dinar, and Ibn Jurayj. And there is no disagreement that it is a source. And Mujahid read: "the drinking of the thirsty camels" with the letter 'sh' broken, and there is no disagreement that it is a name. And the people of Medina and the rest of the seven read: "the drinking of the thirsty camels" with the letter 'sh' pronounced, and there was disagreement in it - some said: it is a source, and others said: it is a name for what is drunk.

And "the hospitality": the first thing the guest eats. And 'Amr read - in the narration of Ibn 'Ayash -: "their hospitality" with the zāy being silent, and the rest read, and Al-Yazidi from Abu 'Amr with the zāy pronounced, and both are in meaning like 'shughul' and 'shughul'. And "the Day of Judgment": the recompense.

Then Allah, the Most High, informed that He is the Creator. He urged belief in a manner of reprimand. Then He presented the compelling argument for belief. There was an objection from the disbelievers who said: 'Why should I believe?' It was said to him: 'Have you not seen such and such?' The signs. And there is no creature that is hidden from him that the sperm that comes out of him has no action, will, or ability in it. And 'Am' in His saying: ﴿Are We the creators?﴾ is not the equivalent according to Sibawayh; because the action has been repeated. Rather, the equivalent according to him is: 'Did Zayd establish or did Amr?' And this which is in this verse is an equivalent according to a group of grammarians. As for when the two actions differ, it is not an equivalent by consensus. The majority of the reciters read: 'You bestow' with a dammah on the tā. Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, and Abu al-Samāl read: 'You bestow' with a fatḥah on the tā. It is said: 'The man bestowed and bestowed' with one meaning. The majority of the reciters read: 'We have decreed' with a shaddah on the dāl. Only Kuthayyir read: 'We decreed' with a softened dāl. The meaning in both could be that we have decided and affirmed, and it could mean that we have arranged and adjusted the precedence and delay. That is, we have made death in ranks; the world does not die all at once, but in an arrangement that no one can surpass. Al-Tabari said: The meaning of the verse is: 'We have decreed death among you so that We may replace you with others.' That is, a group dies and We replace it with another group, thus generation after generation. And His saying: ﴿And We are not to be outstripped﴾ regarding your replacement if We will, and if We create you with attributes that your actions cannot reach and your thoughts cannot encompass. Al-Hasan said: From being monkeys and pigs. Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, interpreted this because the verse leans towards warning. The term 'precedence' here is similar to His saying, blessings and peace be upon him: 'So if you are able to not be outdone in performing a prayer before sunrise and a prayer before sunset, then do so; do not let it slip away from you.' The majority of the people read: 'The creation' with the shīn being silent. Qatadah and Abu al-Ashhab, and Abu Amr with a difference, read: 'The creation' with a fatḥah and with elongation. Most of the interpreters said: He referred to the creation of Adam and stopped at it because you will not find anyone who denies that he is from the offspring of Adam, peace be upon him, and that he is from clay. Some of them said: He meant by the first creation the creation of a human in his childhood, so a person knows his creation by what he sees from the creation of others. Then Allah, the Most High, urged remembrance and contemplation that leads to faith. The majority read: 'So why do you not remember?' with the dhāl being emphasized. Talhah read: 'So why do you not remember?' with the dhāl being silent and the kāf being pronounced. This verse is a clear text in the use of analogy and urging towards it.