Translation of the meanings Ayah 36 Surah Al-An‘ām - English Translation - Dr. Waleed Bleyhesh Omary - The Noble Qur'an Encyclopedia

Ayah: 36

۞ إِنَّمَا يَسۡتَجِيبُ ٱلَّذِينَ يَسۡمَعُونَۘ وَٱلۡمَوۡتَىٰ يَبۡعَثُهُمُ ٱللَّهُ ثُمَّ إِلَيۡهِ يُرۡجَعُونَ

(36) ^[1346]Indeed only those who can hear^[1347] will respond, yet the dead, Allah will resurrect them and then to Him they return^[1348].

[1346] This passage carries on from the few previous ones further expanding on them. Those who fail to be guided are so done by because they themselves are adamantly unwilling to receive the Signs of God. They are ‘dead’ to them revelling and languishing in a bottomless pit of darkness (cf. Riḍā, Ibn ʿĀshūr).
[1347] Those who are well-tuned and receptive (cf. al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Saʿdī).
[1348] Those who rebel against the call to Truth and are ‘dead’ to it will meet their fate on the Day of Judgement (cf. al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr, Ibn ʿĀshūr). That the misguided are ‘dead’ is a metaphor that carries on in Aya 6:122 below: “Is the one who was dead and We caused him to come alive and bestowed upon him a light to walk in among people be like the one who is plunged in complete darkness; there is no way for him to emerge out of which?” (al-Shinqīṭī draws attention to this point).