The Clans
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE
[33:72]
Verily, We did offer the trust [of reason and volition] to the heavens, and the earth, and the mountains: but they refused to bear it because they were afraid of it. Yet man took it up – for, verily, he has always been prone to be most wicked, most foolish.


* v.72 : The classical commentators give all kinds of laborious explanations to the term amānah (“trust”) occurring in this parable, but the most convincing of them (mentioned in Lane I, 102, with reference to the above verse) are “reason,” or “intellect,” and “the faculty of volition” – i.e., the ability to choose between two or more possible courses of action or modes of behaviour. and thus between good and evil.
* Sc., “and then failed to measure up to the moral responsibility arising from the reason and the comparative free will with which he has been endowed” (Zamakhsharī). This obviously applies to the human race as such, and not necessarily to all of its individuals.