"I give life and cause death" – contested divine claims
أَنَا۠ أُحْىِۦ وَأُمِيتُ
anā uḥyī wa-umīt — "I give life and cause death"
In 2:258 the verb pair aḥyā/amāta, first used by Abraham to describe his Lord, is taken up verbatim by his opponent as a first-person claim, so that the same words become the ground of dispute between the two parties.
The verse stages a verbal contest in which one root's verbs pass between speakers. Abraham opens with a description of his Lord: "My Lord is the One who gives life and causes death" (2:258). His opponent answers with the same verbs shifted into the first person: "I give life and cause death" (2:258). The mirror is exact in form — same two verbs, same order, same imperfective aspect — but the subject changes from a described third party ("the One who") to the speaker himself ("I"). The exchange is thus a claim and counter-claim over who performs these actions, not a dispute over what the actions are; both speakers treat giving life and causing death as the defining acts of lordship. Abraham's reply does not contest the verbs again but shifts to a different act, bringing the sun from the east, and challenges his opponent to perform it from the west (2:258). The opponent is then described as dumbfounded, and the verse closes with the statement that Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people (2:258). Read through the Qur'an's own usage here, the mirrored verbs function rhetorically: the opponent's repetition borrows Abraham's words while inverting their subject, and the narrative shows the borrowed claim collapsing when the challenge shifts to a different act that the opponent does not take up or answer.
Where it occurs
- 2:258 The opponent repeats Abraham's paired verbs in the first person, claiming the life-giving and death-causing acts for himself.
All Qur'anic expressions