Verses 53–61
These verses command the Prophet to call his people to submit to God and follow what He has sent down. At the same time, it tells him to warn them of the grief and regret that await them on a day when neither grief nor regret will avail them if they continue to commit excesses toward their own souls and to arrogantly reject the truth while in this world. The hellfire and loss that awaits the disbelievers is contrasted with the success and salvation that awaits the Godwary. However, the overall tone of these verses is manifestly gentle and merciful.
Commentary
قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنْفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ ٥٣
(39:53) Say ‘O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed Allah will forgive all sins. Indeed He is the All-forgiving, the All-merciful.’
Here, God enjoins His Messenger to summon his people on His behalf. God’s use of the expression O My servants to address His audience does two things: (1) It calls to mind the arguments He has already used to call them to worship Him and (2) it encourages them to respond to this summons. It reminds them of these arguments because it shows that they are His servants and He is their master, and it is the right of the master that his servants should obey his commands and serve him. Therefore, God, as their master, has the right to summon them to worship and obey Him. As for encouraging them to respond to this summons, the fact that He describes them as His servants using the first-person singular pronoun My suggests kindness and concern, which encourages them to take hold of His mercy and forgiveness.
Who have committed excesses against their own souls: According to al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, iṣrāf (to commit excess) means to exceed the proper bounds in any action that the human being performs, although it is most commonly used to denote immoderation in the spending of wealth. Furthermore, the verb iṣrāf can also suggest an offence or something approaching one, which is why it is made transitive here using the preposition ʿalā (against). Based on the context of the verse, to commit excess against one’s soul means to commit an offence against it by polluting it with sins, whether idolatry or any other of the major or minor sins.
A number of commentators have argued that My servants refers to the ones who believe, because this is usually how God refers to them in the Qur’an. Hence, the phrase O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls actually means: ‘O believers who have committed sins…’
However, this is refuted by the fact that the phrase O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls and the seven verses that follow it all share a single context (siyāq), which is calling the Prophet’s people to worship God. Moreover, the fact that this section of verses ends with the passage Yes, My signs certainly came to you, but you denied them and acted arrogantly and you were among the faithless () shows that these verses explicitly include the idolaters amongst God’s servants, as it certainly cannot be a reference to the faithful.
As for the claim that God uses the expression My servants to refer exclusively to the faithful, each and every one of the ten or so occasions that it appears in the Qur’an with this meaning is accompanied by a contextual indicator (qarīna) that demonstrates this fact. Therefore, it cannot be taken to denote only the faithful when it appears without further qualification, especially given that there are cases where it is used in an unqualified sense and it includes both the faithful and the idolaters.
To conclude, there can be no doubt that the phrase My servants in this verse includes the idolaters. In fact, the position that, based on the context of the verses, it specifically refers to the idolaters—an opinion that has been attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās—is more plausible than the claim that it refers exclusively to the faithful.
…do not despair of the mercy of Allah: Qunūṭ (despair) means to give up hope; and because this statement is addressed to the sinners with the intent of summoning them towards God, the meaning of raḥma (mercy) here is the divine mercy that pertains specifically to the Hereafter rather than the more universal kind, which encompasses both this world and the Hereafter. And, obviously, the kind of mercy that the sinners will need with urgency in the Hereafter is forgiveness (maghfira). Therefore, the meaning of God’s mercy in this verse is His forgiveness, which is why the next sentence gives the rationale behind this prohibition on losing hope as Indeed Allah will forgive all sins.
Notice that there is a shift (iltifāt) from the first-person to the third-person in the verse when it says Indeed Allah will forgive all sins. God does not say, ‘I will forgive all sins.’ This is to illustrate that God is the one with the Most Beautiful Names, and among these names are al-Ghafūr (All-forgiving) and al-Raḥīm (Most merciful). It is as if He means to say: ‘Do not despair of my mercy, for I am surely the God who forgives all sins, for God is the All-forgiving, the Most merciful.’
Indeed Allah will forgive all sins: This explains why God tells His servants not to despair of His mercy, because all of their sins can be forgiven. However, while forgiveness is universal, it is by no means haphazard; forgiveness requires a specified cause to bring it about. The Qur’an identifies two potential causes for forgiveness. One is intercession (shafāʿa) and the other is repentance (tawba). Now, when God says He will forgive all sins, this cannot be referring to intercession because intercession does not encompass idolatry (shirk), as explicitly stated by numerous verses of the Qur’an. For example, we have already discussed how the verse, Indeed Allah does not forgive that any partner should be ascribed to Him, but He forgives anything besides that to whomever He wishes (), pertains to intercession. On the other hand, Indeed Allah will forgive all sins includes idolatry and all other sins too.
Therefore, the only remaining possibility is that this verse is referring to the forgiveness of sins resulting from repentance. In it, God explicitly states that He can forgive all sins, even idolatry, through repentance.
As we have already established, these seven verses are all part of the same passage and share a single context. Taken together, they forbid God’s servants from despair—as a prelude to what follows—and bid them to repent for their sins, submit to God, and do righteous deeds. The first verse is not separate from those that follow it, and therefore it cannot be imagined that there are no conditions or prerequisites for this forgiveness, whether repentance or anything else.
There has been considerable debate amongst commentators about the sentence Indeed Allah will forgive all sins. Some have argued that this forgiveness does not extend to idolatry or any of the other major sins for which God has ordained the punishment of hellfire without qualifying this with the possibility of forgiveness. Therefore, according to this view, the forgiveness promised here extends only to minor sins.
Others have argued that God’s forgiveness is universal and does not require repentance or any other cause in order to be obtained. However, they also exclude idolatry from it, because of the verse Indeed Allah does not forgive that any partner should be ascribed to Him, but He forgives anything besides that to whomever He wishes (). On this basis, they conclude that forgiveness is universal, even if there is no specific reason for one sinner to be forgiven over another, such as intercession or repentance. This is a haphazard sort of forgiveness (maghfira juzāfiyya), and the arguments they offer for it are baseless.
However, it is obvious that the verse encompasses both idolatry and all other sins. Furthermore, it is clear from the Qur’an that idolatry can only be forgiven by virtue of repentance. Therefore, the universality of forgiveness offered by this verse is qualified by the need for repentance, and there is no escaping this.
وَأَنِيبُوا إِلَىٰ رَبِّكُمْ وَأَسْلِمُوا لَهُ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ يَأْتِيَكُمُ الْعَذَابُ ثُمَّ لَا تُنْصَرُونَ ٥٤
(39:54) And turn penitently to your Lord and submit to Him before the punishment overtakes you, whereupon you will not be helped.
The particle and means that this verse follows from the command do not despair in the previous one. Ināba (to turn penitently to God) means to return to Him, which is the act of tawba (repentance). Note that the verse says turn penitently to your Lord instead of ‘turn penitently to Him’ to illustrate the rationale for this command, as it is God’s lordship (rubūbiyya) that makes Him worthy of worship (ʿibāda).
The meaning of submit to Him is to act in accordance with His will. The verse says submit to Him instead of ‘believe in Him’ because the verses before and after this speak about their arrogance (istikbār) towards the truth, which is the opposite of submission to it.
…before the punishment overtakes you, whereupon you will not be helped: This sentence is joined to the commands to turn penitently and submit. Based on the content of the following verses, the meaning of the punishment here appears to be the punishment of the Hereafter rather than a worldly punishment. However, it is possible that it could refer to divine punishment in general, as whenever this descends (whether in this world or the next) repentance is no longer accepted, and this would include the divine punishment of being destroyed like previous nations, as per the verse But their faith was of no benefit to them when they sighted Our punishment—Allah’s precedent which has passed among His servants ().
…whereupon you will not be helped means that forgiveness will not reach you in any way, shape, or form because of the absence of its cause, which in this case would be repentance, because intercession would not encompass their idolatry.
وَاتَّبِعُوا أَحْسَنَ مَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكُمْ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ يَأْتِيَكُمُ الْعَذَابُ بَغْتَةً وَأَنْتُمْ لَا تَشْعُرُونَ ٥٥
(39:55) And follow the best of what has been sent down to you from your Lord, before the punishment overtakes you suddenly while you are unaware.
Like the previous verses, this is addressed to everyone, whether they are believers or disbelievers, as the Qur’an was originally sent down for both groups.
This verse commands the audience to follow the best of what God has sent down. Some have said this means to follow the rules governing the permitted and the prohibited (al-ḥalāl wa al-ḥarām) rather than the stories (qaṣaṣ). Others have said it means to obey the Qur’an’s commands and prohibitions by doing what is obligatory (wājib) and recommended (mustaḥabb) while avoiding that which is forbidden (ḥarām) or disliked (makrūh) but not avoiding the permitted (mubāḥ). Still others have said it means observing the major rules (ʿazāʾim), which are the obligatory and forbidden acts. And some have said what has been sent down refers to divine scripture in general, and the best of this category is the Qur’an. Therefore, follow the best of what has been sent down means ‘follow the Qur’an.’
In fairness, the phrase and submit to Him in the previous verse already encompasses all of these opinions. Therefore, the idea that follow the best of what has been sent down refers to any of them seems like an unnecessary repetition on the part of the Author.
Perhaps what is meant instead by the best of what has been sent down is those passages of the Qur’an that indicate how to best observe God’s right of servanthood by obeying His ordinances in both belief and practice. This is akin to those passages in which God summons people to be continuously mindful of Him, to love Him, to be wary of Him as befits Him, and to dedicate their faith exclusively to Him. This is because by following the commandments in these passages, the human being will be granted a good life, in which the spirit of faith will enter his heart, in which his behavior will be set right, and, as a result, he will be under God’s guardianship (wilāya). And this is a dignity unmatched by any other.
This is the most appropriate reading of before the punishment overtakes you, whereupon you will not be helped, as it is a call to take action while there is still time and before they are deprived of the opportunity to do so. This indicates that the person being called to action is procrastinating and reassuring himself that he still has time to do what is needed. This reading emphasizes the importance of setting oneself right inwardly so that one can set oneself right outwardly and take concrete actions. As such, this passage is alike in its meaning to the verse O you who have faith! Answer Allah and the Apostle when he summons you to that which will give you life. Know that Allah intervenes between a man and his heart ().
أَنْ تَقُولَ نَفْسٌ يَا حَسْرَتَىٰ عَلَىٰ مَا فَرَّطْتُ فِي جَنْبِ اللَّهِ وَإِنْ كُنْتُ لَمِنَ السَّاخِرِينَ ٥٦
(39:56) Lest any soul should say, ‘Alas for my negligence in the vicinage of Allah! Indeed I was among those who ridiculed.’
Al-Ṭabrisī writes in Majmaʿ al-bayān:
‘Tafrīṭ (negligence) means to ignore that which should be given priority until its time runs out.’
He also says:
‘Taḥassur (regret) means to be grieved by something whose time has run out and can no longer be obtained.’
Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī writes:
‘Janb (vicinity) means one’s flank… but then the Arabs used it to refer to the side adjacent to the limb, because it was their habit to do that with all of the body’s extremities, such as yamīn (right) and shimāl (left).’
Based on this, janb Allāh (the vicinage of God) means His side or vicinity, and this refers to all of the obligations whose performance the servant owes to Him, for example to worship Him alone and not to disobey Him. Therefore, to be negligent of God’s vicinage means to fall short in fulfilling one’s duties to Him.
‘…Indeed I was among those who ridiculed’: The particle in (indeed) in this passage is the softened version of inna, while sākhirīn (those who ridiculed) is the active participle of sakhar, which means to mock or deride.
Therefore, the overall meaning of the verse is: ‘We only address these words to you so that one of you will not say in future: “Woe to me for falling short in my duties towards God, surely I was one of those who mocked.”’ Of course, the context in which they will say these words is the Day of Judgment.
أَوْ تَقُولَ لَوْ أَنَّ اللَّهَ هَدَانِي لَكُنْتُ مِنَ الْمُتَّقِينَ ٥٧
(39:57) Or say, ‘Had Allah guided me I would have surely been among the Godwary!’
The verb taqūl (say) is feminine because its subject is the nafs (soul) in the previous verse, and the meaning of guidance here is to be shown the right path. The verse’s meaning is obvious, and it is presented here to foreclose any possibility of making such an excuse on the Day of Resurrection.
أَوْ تَقُولَ حِينَ تَرَى الْعَذَابَ لَوْ أَنَّ لِي كَرَّةً فَأَكُونَ مِنَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ ٥٨
(39:58) Or say, when it sights the punishment, ‘If only there had been a second chance for me I would be among the virtuous!’
The particle law (if only) signifies a wish, and karra (a second chance) literally means ‘a return.’ The meaning of the verse is: ‘Or for the soul to say when it sees the punishment that awaits it on the Day of Judgment: “I wish I could go back to the world and be one of the virtuous!”’
بَلَىٰ قَدْ جَاءَتْكَ آيَاتِي فَكَذَّبْتَ بِهَا وَاسْتَكْبَرْتَ وَكُنْتَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ ٥٩
(39:59) Yes, My signs certainly came to you, but you denied them and acted arrogantly and you were among the faithless.
This is a response and a rebuke to the second of the soul’s laments—namely, Had Allah guided me I would have surely been among the Godwary!—and it is delivered on the Day of Judgment as well, as indicated by its context.
Notice that between the soul’s second lament, Had Allah guided me…, and this response is the third lament, If only there had been a second chance… However, God only responds to the second one.
The reason for this is that the three laments appear in the order that they will issue from the guilty ones on the Day of Judgment. So, when the Day of Judgment sets in and the wrongdoers see that it is the day they will be recompensed for their deeds, in which they have been negligent and for which the time has now run out, they will be gripped by regret and remorse for this, and say: ‘Alas for my negligence in the vicinage of Allah! Indeed I was among those who ridiculed.’ God says elsewhere When the Hour overtakes them suddenly, they will say, ‘Alas for us, for what we neglected in it!’ ().
Then, they will be held to account for their deeds and the Godwary will be sent to paradise, while the wrongdoers will be told And ‘Get apart today, you guilty ones!’ (), whereat they will lament: ‘Had Allah guided me I would have surely been among the Godwary!’
Finally, when they are sent into the fires of Hell, first they will sight them and then they will enter them, whereat they will wish they could return to this world and act virtuously to escape this fate and be felicitous: Or say, when it sights the punishment, ‘If only there had been a second chance!’ God says: Were you to see when they are brought to a halt by the Fire, whereupon they will say, ‘If only we were sent back! Then we will not deny the signs of our Lord, and we will be among the faithful!’ (). He also portrays them as saying: ‘Our Lord! Bring us out of this! Then, if we revert, we will indeed be wrongdoers’ ().
Then, having related what the guilty will say on the Day of Judgment as they progress through its stages, God responds to them. Now, if God had rearranged the verses so that the original statement and the response occurred one after the other, whether by bringing the statement later or placing the response earlier, it would not have emphasized that He had singled out Had Allah guided me for a response, while not offering an answer to the first and third laments. This is because in the first they confess to mocking the truth, while in the third they wish for the chance to return to this world. However, God will rebuke them on the Day of Judgment, prevent them from speaking, and not answer their pleas—a fact to which He alludes in the verses, They will say, ‘Our Lord! Our wretchedness overcame us, and we were an astray lot. Our Lord! Bring us out of this! Then, if we revert, we will indeed be wrongdoers.’ He will say, ‘Begone in it, and do not speak to Me! Indeed there was a part of My servants who would say, ‘Our Lord! We have believed. So forgive us, and have mercy on us, and You are the best of the merciful.’ But then you took them by ridicule until they made you forget My remembrance, and you used to laugh at them. Indeed I have rewarded them today for their patience. They are indeed the triumphant’ ().
وَيَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ تَرَى الَّذِينَ كَذَبُوا عَلَى اللَّهِ وُجُوهُهُمْ مُسْوَدَّةٌ ۚ أَلَيْسَ فِي جَهَنَّمَ مَثْوًى لِلْمُتَكَبِّرِينَ ٦٠
(39:60) On the Day of Resurrection you will see those who attributed lies to Allah with their faces gloomy. Is not the abode of the arrogant in hell?
The lies they attributed to God were the fact that He has a partner or that He has a son. This category also includes innovations in religion (bidʿa).
To have gloomy faces means to be humiliated, which is a recompense for their arrogance in this world, which is why God asks Is not the abode of the arrogant in hell?
وَيُنَجِّي اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ اتَّقَوْا بِمَفَازَتِهِمْ لَا يَمَسُّهُمُ السُّوءُ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ ٦١
(39:61) Allah will deliver those who were Godwary with their triumph. No ill shall touch them, nor will they grieve.
The term mafāza (triumph) appears to be an m-infinitive (maṣdar mīmī) signifying success, which means to obtain one’s goal. The preposition bāʾ in bi mafāzatihim (with their success) either signifies accompaniment (malābisa) or causation (sababiyya), with the latter meaning that the success God decrees for them now is the cause of their deliverance.
No ill shall touch them—explains what is meant by their deliverance. In other words, He will deliver them such that no harm will come to them from outside, nor will they grieve in themselves.
Notice that this verse is akin in meaning to the latter most of the verses quoted from Sūrah al-Muʾminūn above: Indeed I have rewarded them today for their patience. They are indeed the triumphant ().
Examining Narrations
- In Majmaʿ al-bayān, al-Ṭabrisī narrates from the Commander of the Faithful: ‘There is no verse in the Qur’an that is broader in scope than O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls… ().’
Author’s comments: It is also narrated by al-Suyūṭī in al-Durr al-manthūr from Ibn Jarīr, from Ibn Sīrīn, from him, and in our commentary on Sūrah al-Layl we shall discuss the narration from him that says Soon your Lord will give you and you will be pleased () is even more hopeful than this verse.
- In al-Durr al-manthūr, al-Suyūṭī narrates from Aḥmad, Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ibn Mardawayh, and al-Bayhaqī’s Shuʿub al-īmān, from Thawbān that he heard the Messenger of God say: ‘Dearer to me than the world and all that it contains is the verse O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls… ().’ Someone asked: ‘O Messenger of God! What about one who associates partners with God?’ The Prophet fell silent, then said: ‘Except he who associates partners with God.’
Author’s comments: This narration is problematic, as we have already discussed that this verse explicitly pertains to idolatry (shirk) and that the verse is only qualified by the need for repentance (tawba).
- In the same source, al-Suyūṭī narrates from Ibn Abī Shayba and Muslim from Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī that he heard the Messenger of God say: ‘If none of you ever sinned, God would create creatures who did sin so that He could forgive them.’
Author’s comments: What this tradition says about forgiveness does not conflict with what we have said about forgiveness being conditioned on various causes, such as repentance and intercession.
- And in Majmaʿ al-bayān, it is reported that the verse O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls…was revealed about Waḥshī, the killer of the Prophet’s uncle Ḥamza, who wanted to embrace Islam but feared that his repentance would not be accepted. Then, when this verse was revealed, he embraced Islam.
Someone asked the Prophet: ‘O Messenger of God! Is this for anyone in particular or for the Muslims in general?’ He replied: ‘Rather, it is for the Muslims in general!’
- In his Saʿd al-suʿūd, Ibn Ṭāwūs quotes the following from al-Kalbī’s Tafsīr:
Waḥshī and a group of disbelievers sent a message to the Prophet that ‘naught prevents us from embracing your religion except that we have heard you recite in your scripture that the one who supplicates to other than God, kills an innocent, or commits fornication will be counted a sinner and punished eternally in Hellfire, and we have done all of those things.’ So the Prophet replied to them with the verse: excepting those who repent, attain faith, and act righteously (). Then they said: ‘We fear that we will not act righteously.’ So, he sent them the verse: Indeed Allah does not forgive that any partner should be ascribed to Him, but He forgives anything besides that to whomever He wishes (). Then they said: ‘We fear that we will not be amongst those whom God wishes to forgive.’ So he sent them the verse: O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed Allah will forgive all sins (). Whereat, they came and embraced Islam.
The Prophet told Waḥshī, the killer of Ḥamza: ‘Do not let me see you, for I cannot bear the sight of you.’ Therefore, Waḥshī went to Syria, and he died in Khammar.
Author’s comments: Similar accounts are presented by al-Suyūṭī in al-Durr al-manthūr via a number of chains of transmission. Some of them say that the verse O My servants who have committed excesses… was revealed about Waḥshī, as per what we read in Majmaʿ al-bayān, above. However, what weakens these accounts is that this chapter of the Qur’an was revealed in Mecca, whereas Waḥshī only embraced Islam after the Emigration. In addition to this, the report does not seem to make the forgiveness in this verse dependent upon repentance, and we have already seen that this does not accord with its context.
As for the statement ‘he died in Khammar,’ this may be a reference to Khammar, a place on the outskirts of Medina. However, it may also be an error and the correct reading is that he died in Homs, a city in Syria. Alternatively, it may be read as khamr (wine), in which case it means that he died because of his drinking, for he was a known wine bibber who was lashed more than once for this crime before he gave it up.
Know that there are also numerous traditions from the Imams of the Prophet’s Household that apply these verses to their followers (shīʿa) and janb Allāh (vicinage of Allah, ) to themselves. However, all of these represent extensions of the verses’ meaning (jarī) rather than an explanation of them (tafsīr). For this reason, we have omitted them from our discussion here.
We have already discussed intercession in the first volume of the commentary. (Auth.) ↩︎
For example, al-Ālūsī in Rūḥ al-maʿānī has presented seventeen different arguments to the effect that the verse does not predicate forgiveness upon repentance, but none of these are particularly strong. The idea that forgiveness can be bestowed haphazardly without the sinner needing to do anything to receive it, such as repenting for their sins, runs contrary to the principle of God’s wisdom. Then, al-Ālūsī qualifies the verse with the implicit clause ‘for whomever He wishes’ (li man yashāʾ) because it appears in some obscure recitations (qirāʾāt). If the reader wishes to know more about this, they can refer to his commentary for further information. (Trans.) ↩︎