Say, "Who provides for you from the heaven and the earth?" meaning, who provides for you from both of them? [[Mahamud said: "Its meaning is, who provides for you from both of them... etc." Ahmad said: "This verse is a refutation of the views of the Qadarites who claim that sustenance is divided; some of it is provided by Allah for the servant, which is lawful, and some of it is earned by the servant for himself, which is unlawful. This verse condemns this hidden shirk if they were to hear it: 'Can you make the deaf hear, even though they do not understand?']] He did not limit your sustenance to one aspect, so that He may bestow His grace upon you and expand His mercy. Who owns hearing and sight? Who can create them and shape them to the measure they have been shaped according to the wondrous nature? Or who protects them and shields them from calamities, despite their abundance over long periods? They are delicate and can be harmed by the slightest thing, needing His care and protection. And who manages the affair? Who oversees the management of the entire world? This came in general after the specific. Do you not fear? Do you not protect yourselves and beware of His punishment concerning the misguidance you are engaged in? That is a reference to the one whose power and actions are like this. Your Lord is the Truth, established in His Lordship, firmly without doubt for those who reflect. So what comes after the truth except misguidance? This means that there is no intermediary between truth and misguidance. Whoever surpasses the truth falls into misguidance. So how are you turned away from the truth to misguidance, from monotheism to polytheism, from happiness to misery? Likewise, the truth is like that: the word of your Lord has been established, meaning, just as it is established that after the truth comes misguidance, or just as it is established that they are turned away from the truth, so the word of your Lord has been established against those who have transgressed, meaning, who rebelled in their disbelief and went to the utmost limit in it. And that they do not believe is a substitute for the word, meaning, it has been decreed for them that faith is absent, and Allah knows that from them. Or the word refers to the decree of punishment, and that they do not believe is an explanation, meaning, because they do not believe.