Surat Alnahl - Verses 8 to 9

وَالْخَيْلَ وَالْبِغَالَ وَالْحَمِيرَ لِتَرْكَبُوهَا وَزِينَةً ۚ وَيَخْلُقُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ {8} وَعَلَى اللَّهِ قَصْدُ السَّبِيلِ وَمِنْهَا جَائِرٌ ۚ وَلَوْ شَاءَ لَهَدَاكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ {9}

My understanding

There’s a lot of things we just don’t know as humans .. and that makes life alot more interesting. If I look at how alot of things function today, and this could be anything — the stock market, food, the internet, voting, whatever. All these things were built by other humans at a point in time in the past where it was not abundantly clear how they would be used (certainly not compared to today). That is to say that I, as a user of this service/technology today, have more knowledge than the person who built it at the time they built it.

I’m thus empowered to change it, to improve it using the tools we have today to optimize the task it’s being used for.

God’s already made it easy; he’s given me power over my environment, the animals; he’s furnished all the building blocks of life. It’s now my turn to take that and run with it.

I find this view refreshing in many senses — when you think about the realm of possibilities for change this way, you realize that they are countless.

TL;DR: The World is big. Explore it. Change it.

Disclaimer: This is a description of my understanding of the verses in the Quran, and not the real true meaning of the verse. My understanding changes over time – I see many things differently than I did 3 years ago, and my understanding can (nay, it should) evolve with time. Think about how your understanding of the role of parents changes as you grow – first as a kid, then a teenager and later as a parent yourself. Your understanding evolves with time. The true meaning of the verses however, does not. I make absolutely no claims that this is in any way a resemblance of the true meaning of the verses. Instead, this is really just meant to be a record for me – a notebook of sorts, where I think over the meaning verses and try to glean valuable lessons with which I hope to apply to better myself.