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qul sīrū fī l-ʾarḍi fa-nẓurū kayfa badaʾa l-khalqa thumma llāhu yunshiʾu n-nashʾata l-ʾākhirata ʾinna llāha ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīrun
Say, ‘Travel over the land and observe how He has originated the creation.’ Then Allah will bring about the genesis of the Hereafter. Indeed Allah has power over all things.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-‘Ankabut - Verse 20
20. “Say: ‘Travel in the earth and see how He has originated the creation, then Allah brings forth the later creation; verily Allah is powerful over everything’.”
By exact study in creation, we can remove our doubt and know Allah better than before. Peregrination, traveling, studying the nature, and purposeful excursion is a duty and value. This holy verse continues the subject of Resurrection. This meaning has been expressed in the form of parenthetical clauses in the middle of the story of Abraham (as). This is not the first time that we encounter such a method of explanation. This is the style of the Qur’an that when the statement of a story reaches a sensitive stage, it temporarily leaves the rest of it and pays to the necessary conclusion emerged from that story.
However, this verse invites people to extroversive traveling upon the subject of Resurrection, while the previous verse had mostly the side of introversive traveling. The verse implicitly says that you should travel on the earth in order to see kinds of living creatures, and different nations with their specialties and observe how Allah (s.w.t.) has originated the creation. The verse announces:
Then, the same Lord, Who has the power to create these plenty creatures with various colours and different nations, is able to bring forth the next creation, because by the first creation He has proved His Power to all and, truly, He is powerful over everything. The verse says:
Both this verse and the verse before it prove the possibility of Resurrection through the way of the vastness of Providence, with this difference that the first verse talks about the first creation of man himself and whatever is around him while the second verse commands to study the different states of other nations and creatures so that they see the first life in different features and in various conditions, and be acquainted with the generality of the Power of Allah and understand His ability to the return of this life.
In fact, in the same way that proving Monotheism is sometimes possible by observing the ‘introversive signs’ and sometimes by ‘extroversive signs’, proving resurrection can be done through both of them, too. Today, this verse can give scientists some deeper and more exact meaning in this manner that they go and see the effects of the first living creatures in the depth of the seas, inside mountains, and between the levels of the earth. In this way, they can understand a part of the secrets of the beginning of life in the earth as well as the greatness and power of Allah, and do know that He is able to bring back the life.
By the way, the Arabic word /naš’at/ originally means ‘to create and train something’ and sometimes the term: /naš’at-il-’ula/ is used for ‘this world’ and /naš’at al-’axirah/ is used in the sense of ‘the next world’. This point is also notable that at the end of the previous verse the sentence:
and at the end of this verse the sentence:
are mentioned. This difference may be for the sake that the first verse states a limit study and the second one indicates to a vast study.