﴿ وَلَوْ نَشَآءُ لَمَسَخْنَٰهُمْ عَلَىٰ مَكَانَتِهِمْ فَمَا ٱسْتَطَٰعُوا۟ مُضِيًّۭا وَلَا يَرْجِعُونَ ﴾

“And had it been Our will [that they should not be free to choose between right and wrong], We could surely have given them a different nature [and created them as beings rooted] in their places, so that they would not be able to move forward, and could not turn back.]”

And had We willed We would have transformed them into apes or swine or stones in their place makānatihim variant reading has makānātihim the plural of makāna meaning makān in other words ‘in their dwellings’; then they would have neither been able to go ahead nor to return in other words they would not then be able to come and go.