There is no animal on the earth, to the end [of the verse], but can undergo transfiguration (maskh), being communities like you in terms of veiledness, enmity, and the commission of vices, such as the people of the [breaking of the] Sabbath, who were transfigured into apes and swine. We have not neglected, We have not diminished [anything] of their Book which contains the forms of their deeds, which is the scroll of the soul of the celestial sphere, or the scroll of their intention in which the forms of their deeds are fixed; then to their Lord they shall be gathered, for the recompense, veiled at the source of the nondelimited union. Manifestly it seems that what is meant [here] is that they are communities like you under the care of a Lord in terms of what they need in the way of their [sources of] livelihood, with their provisions sufficiently taken care of by a measure determined by God and [by] His wisdoms. We have not left out anything from the Book of the Preserved Tablet that might benefit them; rather We have fixed therein their provisions, terms of life, deeds and everything which they might need; then to their Lord they shall be gathered to be recompensed for their deeds, as related in a ḥadīth about the gathering of beasts and the mutual retaliation between them for deeds [committed in this life], every one of which is a sign for you [a sign] by which your states, your provisions, your terms of life and your deeds can be known. Heed these [signs] then and do not expend your resolves (himam) and your efforts in the pursuit of provision or to rectify the affairs of the life of this world and then end up forsaking your souls, harming them and being wretched because of them in the Hereafter.
