Surah Nahl Ayat 70 in Arabic Text
English Translation
Here you can read various translations of verse 70
And Allah created you; then He will take you in death. And among you is he who is reversed to the most decrepit [old] age so that he will not know, after [having had] knowledge, a thing. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Competent.
It is Allah who creates you and takes your souls at death; and of you there are some who are sent back to a feeble age, so that they know nothing after having known (much): for Allah is All-Knowing, All-Powerful.
Allah has created you, and then He causes you to die. Some of you have your lives prolonged to an abject old age, when one loses all knowledge after having acquired it. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Powerful.
And Allah has created you and then He will cause you to die, and of you there are some who are sent back to senility, so that they know nothing after having known (much). Truly! Allah is All-Knowing, All-Powerful.
And Allah createth you, then causeth you to die, and among you is he who is brought back to the most abject stage of life, so that he knoweth nothing after (having had) knowledge. Lo! Allah is Knower, Powerful.
And Allah created you; thereafter He takes you (to Him); and of you is he who will be turned back to the most decrepit age, that after knowing somewhat, he may know nothing; surely Allah is EverKnowing, Ever-Determiner.
It is God who has created you and in time will cause you to die. Some of you will be reduced, in old age, to a most abject state, so that, after having knowledge, they will know nothing at all: God is truly all knowing and all powerful.
اللہ تعالیٰ نے ہی تم سب کو پیدا کیا ہے وہی پھر تمہیں فوت کرے گا، تم میں ایسے بھی ہیں جو بدترین عمر کی طرف لوٹائے جاتے ہیں کہ بہت کچھ جاننے بوجھنے کے بعد بھی نہ جانیں۔ بیشک اللہ دانا اور توانا ہے
Quran 16 Verse 70 Explanation
For those looking for commentary to help with the understanding of Surah Nahl ayat 70, we’ve provided two Tafseer works below. The first is the tafseer of Abul Ala Maududi, the second is of Ibn Kathir.
Ala-Maududi
(16:70) Allah has created you, and then He causes you to die.[60] Some of you have your lives prolonged to an abject old age, when one loses all knowledge after having acquired it.[61] Allah is All-Knowing, All-Powerful.
60. It is to emphasize this: Allah not only provides you with the necessities and good things of life (as stated in the preceding verses), but also has full power over your life and death. None else has any power to give lift or cause death.
61. This fact has been mentioned to bring home to the disbelievers and the mushriks that knowledge, which gives superiority to man over all creatures on this earth, has been given by Allah, as if to say: You yourselves have seen that when a man, who once possessed much knowledge, becomes very old, he is reduced to a mere lump of flesh. Then that man who once taught knowledge to others loses all his senses and cannot look even after his own self.
Ibn-Kathir
70. And Allah created you and then He will cause you to die; and among you there are some who are sent back to senility, so that they know nothing after having known (much). Truly, Allah is Knowing, capable of all things.
Allah tells us that He is controlling the affairs of His servants. He is the One Who created them out of nothing, then He will cause them to die. But there are some of them that He allows to grow old, which is a physical weakness, as Allah says:
(Allah is He Who created you in (a state of) weakness, then gave you strength after weakness, then after strength gave (you) weakness) (30:54)
(so that they know nothing after having known.) meaning, after he knew things, he will reach a stage where he knows nothing because of weakness of mind due to old age and senility. Thus Al-Bukhari, when commenting on this Ayah, reported a narration from Anas bin Malik that the Messenger of Allah used to pray:
(I seek refuge with You from miserliness, laziness, old age, senility, the punishment of the grave, the Fitnah of the Dajjal and the trials of life and death.) Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma said, in his famous Mu`allaqah: “I became exhausted from the responsibilities of life. Whoever lives for eighty years, no wonder he is tired. I saw death hitting people like a crazed camel, and whoever it hit dies, but whoever is not hit lives until he grows old.”
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