Verses 7–12
This is a second group of verses, in which revelation is defined according to its end result, just as in the first group it was defined through reference to itself.
These verses make clear that the goal of revelation is to warn mankind, especially with regards to the Day of Gathering when people will be separated into two groups; one of which will go to Paradise and the other will be in Hellfire. Moreover, were it not for this warning about the Day of Gathering—a day on which people will be held to account and recompense for their deeds—then the prophetic mission would not have any effect.
They also state that it is God’s will to divide mankind into these two groups. This is why He sends down religion to mankind and warns about the Day of Gathering through His revelation; because He is their guardian (walī) who revives them after their death, and who will judge between them concerning that about which they differ.
Then the discourse shifts to discuss Divine Unity in Lordship (tawḥīd al-rubūbiyyah), meaning that God is the Lord and there is no lord besides Him. This is because only He possesses the attributes of lordship; there is no one who shares any part of it with him.
Commentary
وَكَذَٰلِكَ أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ قُرْآنًا عَرَبِيًّا لِتُنْذِرَ أُمَّ الْقُرَىٰ وَمَنْ حَوْلَهَا وَتُنْذِرَ يَوْمَ الْجَمْعِ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ ۚ فَرِيقٌ فِي الْجَنَّةِ وَفَرِيقٌ فِي السَّعِيرِ ٧
(42:7) And thus have We revealed to you an Arabic Qur’an, that you may warn the Mother of the Cities (Umm al-Qurā) and those around it, and that you may give warning of the day of gathering together wherein is no doubt; a party shall be in the Garden and [another] party in the burning fire.
And thus… refers to the revelation mentioned above; …the mother city… is Mecca, and to …warn the mother city… means to warn its people; …those around it… refers to all the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula beyond the city of Mecca, as supported by the description of the Qur’an as …an Arabic Qur’an.
The reason why God singles out the Arabian Peninsula here is that the Prophet’s mission had several stages in its scope. The Prophet’s public mission began when he called his closest kinfolk to believe, as God says And warn your nearest relations (); then his mission broadened to encompass all the Arabs, as He says: an Arabic Qur’an for a people who know (); and finally it expanded to include to all mankind, as He says: and this Qur’an has been revealed to me that with it I may warn you and whomsoever it reaches ().
This idea that the Prophet’s mission gradually expanded in scope is supported in part by God’s saying Say: I do not ask you for any reward for it; nor am I of those who affect. It is nothing but a reminder to the worlds (36:86–87). The tone of this verse we have just quoted suggests that it is directed to the disbelievers amongst the Quraysh. God says it is a reminder to the worlds, meaning it is not only for some people to the exclusion of others, because if it is for everyone, then it is senseless for some people—like the Prophet—to ask others for some sort of compensation.
And just as the calling of the People of the Book, especially the Jews and the Christians, to Islam is one of the facts of the Qur’an, so too is the conversion to Islam of non-Arabs such as Salmān al-Fārisī, Bilāl al-Ḥabashī and Ṣuhayb al-Rūmī one of the facts of early Islamic history.
It is said: ...those around it… means the rest of humanity; the inhabitants of all the towns of the earth, and this is supported by its reference to Mecca as …the mother of towns….
In any case, this verse defines revelation according to its goal. And the goal is to warn people through divine communication in the form of prophethood (nubuwwah), so revelation is divine communication for the purposes of prophethood and warning mankind (indhār).
…and that you may give warning of the day of gathering together wherein is no doubt; a party shall be in the garden and [another] party in the burning fire: This sentence is in conjunction (ʿaṭf) with the previous sentence ...that you may warn. This is an instance of a particular clause (khāṣṣ) being conjoined to a general one (ʿāmm) because of its importance, as if to say: “So that you may warn people and make them fear God, especially of His anger on the Day of Gathering!”
When He says the day of gathering, this is the second object (mafʿūl) of the verb warn and not an adverb (ẓarf) for it, as should be clear. And the Day of Gathering refers to the Day of Resurrection, as God says: this is a day on which the people shall be gathered together… then [some] of them shall be wretched and [others] felicitous ().
When God says, a party shall be in the garden and [another] party in the burning fire, He wants to explain the reason for what He has just said and prevent any confusion arising therefrom. It is as if someone asked: “Why should he warn them of the Day of Gathering?” So the answer was given: a party shall be in the garden and [another] party in the burning fire. In other words, they shall be divided into two groups; one shall be felicitous and rewarded, another shall be wretched and punished, so let them be warned that they might beware the path of wretchedness and avoid falling into destruction!
وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَهُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَٰكِنْ يُدْخِلُ مَنْ يَشَاءُ فِي رَحْمَتِهِ ۚ وَالظَّالِمُونَ مَا لَهُمْ مِنْ وَلِيٍّ وَلَا نَصِيرٍ ٨
(42:8) And if God had pleased, He would surely have made them a single community, but He makes whom He pleases enter into His mercy, and the unjust it is that shall have no guardian or helper.
This verse explains why it is necessity to warn mankind by sending prophets on the basis that they will be divided into two groups on the Day of Judgement. It might come to someone’s mind that if God had made mankind a single community altogether, then there would have been no division or distinction between them; everyone would have been the same—whether felicitous or wretched—without any difference and there would have been no need for prophets to warn humanity.
However, God says, …but He makes whom He pleases enter into His mercy, and the unjust it is that shall have no guardian or helper. This is a coda showing that it is God’s habit (sunnah) to sort people into groups. He did not desire to make them a single community, as demonstrated by the phrase He makes whom He pleases enter into His mercy. The verse uses the imperfect tense to show that this sorting is a continuous process. After all, God did not say—for example—“But He entered (perfect/past tense) into His mercy whomever He pleased.”
In this verse, the words …whom He pleases… are juxtaposed with the words …and the unjust it is… which reveal to us the meaning: “whomever He pleases besides the unjust.” God explains who “the unjust” (ẓālimīn) are on the Day of Resurrection by saying: Then a crier will cry out among them that the curse of God is on the unjust. Who hinder [people] from God’s way and seek to make it crooked, and they are disbelievers in the hereafter (7:44–5). So “the unjust” are those who stubbornly deny the Resurrection.
The phrase He makes… enter into His mercy… is also juxtaposed with …shall have no guardian or helper. This implies that the people who enter into His mercy are those whose guardian is God, and the people who have no guardian or helper are those whom God shall not admit into His mercy. Moreover, this also shows that mercy (raḥmah) is heaven, while the lack of a guardian or helper corresponds to hell.
So this verse means that God only appointed prophets to warn mankind on the basis of revelation because of the fact that mankind faces being divided into two groups on the Day of Resurrection, so that they can avoid being part of the group that goes to Hell.
And had God wished, He would have made them a single community; their condition would be the same and they would not be divided into two groups on the Day of Resurrection, in which case there would be no need for prophets to warn mankind and there would be no revelation. But He did not desire that. Instead, His habit was to look after a group of them who were not unjust, admit them into His mercy, and enter them into Paradise. He would not look after those who were unjust, leaving them with neither a guardian nor a helper, and they would enter the Fire from which they had no opportunity for salvation.
In light of the above, we can see that making them a single community (ummah wāḥidah) means making them equal by making all of them enter Paradise or making all of them enter Hellfire. In other words, nothing compels God to admit the felicitous to Paradise or the wretched to Hellfire had He not wished it so. But He wanted to separate the two groups, so this became His habit and His promise, and God does not break His promises. And yet, in spite of this, His power remains absolute: it is neither removed nor altered. So when He says, and that you may give warning of the day of gathering together wherein is no doubt… and the unjust it is that shall have no guardian or helper, this is in the sense of the verse in Sūrah Hūd: this is a day on which the people shall be gathered together… We will pay them back in full their portion undiminished (). So ponder on this.
It is said: Making them a single community means making them all faithful (muʾminīn) who will enter Paradise. In Kashshāf, Zamakhsharī says:
This means, had your Lord willed, He could have used His power to compel them all to believe. However, in His wisdom He willed to make them responsible for their own deeds and base their ultimate fates on what they chose for themselves, that the faithful might enter His mercy. It is they who are meant by whom He pleases (man yashāʾ). Do you not see their situation is contrasted with that of the unjust, and that God leaves the unjust without any guardian or helper against His punishment?
For his view, Zamakhsharī adduces as evidence the meaning of this verse:
And if We had pleased, We would certainly have given to every soul its guidance…. ()
…and if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them…. ()
And the evidence that the meaning of this verse is to force them to believe is the coda: …will you then force men till they become believers?
However, as you know, the verses under discussion must be read in the context of defining revelation according to its goals. It is the division of people into two groups on the Day of Gathering that is the very raison d’être for sending prophets to warn people by way of revelation. With this in mind, the verse And if God had pleased, He would surely have made them a single community… serves to clarify that He is neither compelled nor obligated to do this; if He so wills He can choose not to do it. This only makes sense if the verse means making them a single community—however they are—instead of divided into two groups. There is nothing in the verse to imply that He means to make them a single group of believers in particular.
As for the two verses, Zamakhsharī adduces to support his interpretation, their context differs from the verse under discussion. As he says, they do refer to compelling people to believe, and we have already discussed them elsewhere in this work.
It is said: The most appropriate reading for this context is uniting them in faithlessness by making them a single disbelieving community, as God says in the verse: People were a single nation; so God raised prophets (). This means that had God wished, He would have left them as a single community united by their disbelief by not sending any messenger to warn them. In which case, they would have surely remained in their original state of faithlessness. However, God admits into His mercy whomsoever He pleases; it is His habit to send everyone a warner so that anyone who would be receptive can be given the blessing of belief in and obedience to Him in this world, and then be admitted into His mercy in the Hereafter. Those who are not receptive are the wrongdoers; they will live faithlessly in this world and then enter hell in the Hereafter, not having any guardian or helper.
However, there are a few points we must consider here. First, when the verse to which this comparison is being drawn says “a single nation”, this does not mean they were united upon faithlessness. Rather, it means that there were no differences amongst them in matters relating to their way of living, as we have already mentioned in our discussion of that verse. Moreover, if we accept this interpretation, this leads to a contradiction between the verse under discussion and the verse to which it is being compared; the former says that people are be divided into groups anyway, while the verse to which it is being compared (according to the quoted interpretation) says that they are unified and not divided into groups at all.
Now, one could respond that the verse adduced from Sūrat al-Baqarah indicates that people were a single nation according to their natural disposition (ṭabʿ) rather than in actuality (fiʿliyyah), so there is actually no contradiction between the two verses. However, we must reject this reading because it contradicts the meaning of those verses which indicate that the human being is a believer according to his innate human nature (fiṭrah aṣliyyah), as in the verse: And the soul and Him Who fashioned it, Then He inspired it to understand what is right and wrong for it ().
The second point we must consider is that this reading removes the juxtaposition between the statements …but He makes whom He pleases enter into His mercy… and …the unjust… without reason, requiring a torturous interpretation to arrive at the same meaning and preserve this verse’s central conceit.
أَمِ اتَّخَذُوا مِنْ دُونِهِ أَوْلِيَاءَ ۖ فَاللَّهُ هُوَ الْوَلِيُّ وَهُوَ يُحْيِي الْمَوْتَىٰ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ ٩
(42:9) Or have they taken guardians besides Him? But God is the Guardian, and He gives life to the dead, and He has power over all things.
The use of Or…? (am) here implies a repudiation (inkār), as Zamakhsharī has stated. The previous verse told us that God looks after the affairs of the faithful alone and enters them into His mercy, while the unjust—meaning those who obstinately disbelieve—have no guardian to protect them. In this verse we see that this is because they have taken guardians whom they follow and worship besides God, while they should have followed and worshipped Him instead. They are rebuked for this and criticized for failing to take God as a guardian with one argument after another. This is represented by God’s saying: But God is the Guardian, and He gives life to the dead, and He has power over all things…
When God says, But God is the Guardian…, this explains why He repudiates them above for taking guardians besides Him, and provides the conclusive argument (ḥujjah) for why they should have taken Him as their guardian in the first place. The sentence, But God is the Guardian… indicates that guardianship (wilāyah) belongs only to God. And the proof for the fact that guardianship rests only with Him can be found in the aforementioned verse: Thus does God, the Mighty, the Wise, reveal to you, and [thus He revealed] to those before you. His is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, and He is the High, the Great (), as we have discussed in our commentary on it.
So this means that God is the only true guardian in existence. Therefore, anyone who wishes to take a guardian should take Him as one and not seek recourse to others, for there is none who can be their guardian besides Him.
When God says …and He gives life to the dead…, this is the second argument for taking Him alone as a guardian. Its upshot is that the ultimate goal of taking a guardian, following him, and serving him is to be spared punishment in hell and win entry to heaven on the Day of Resurrection. The one who punishes and rewards on the Day of Resurrection is none other than God, who gives life to the dead, gathers them, and then requites them for their deeds. Therefore, it is God who should be taken as a guardian rather than the guardians they have taken; their guardians are lifeless and dead, and they shall be just as senseless when they are resurrected.
God’s saying …and He has power over all things represents the third argument for why they should take God alone as their guardian. It is to the effect that in order to have guardianship, the guardian must have power over the affairs and conditions of those for whom he acts as a guardian. God has power over all things, and no one has any power besides Him save that which He has bestowed upon them. Whatever a person may possess, God is its true master, and whatever power they may have, it is in truth His power. So He is the true guardian; there is no guardian except him.
وَمَا اخْتَلَفْتُمْ فِيهِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ فَحُكْمُهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ ۚ ذَٰلِكُمُ اللَّهُ رَبِّي عَلَيْهِ تَوَكَّلْتُ وَإِلَيْهِ أُنِيبُ ١٠
(42:10) And in whatever thing you disagree, the ruling thereof is to God; that is God, my Lord, on Him do I rely and to Him do I turn time after time.
This is the fourth argument for God being the sole guardian in existence. The ruling of an arbitrator between disputants is his verdicts (aḥkām) and settling the case being contested by them. They might dispute in a matter of belief, such as whether God is one or many, or perhaps in a matter of action (or something which devolves to an action), such as a disagreement in matters of daily life. So ruling (hukm) is equivalent to judgement (qaḍāʾ) in practice, even if it differs from it conceptually.
Now, a ruling or judgement is only effective to the extent that the one who issues it has the authority to do so. This authority must devolve to some form of sovereignty or guardianship, even if this simply means is that the disputing parties have appointed him to settle their quarrel. For example, if two persons take recourse to a third to resolve their dispute, they make him an arbitrator to judge between them and agree to adhere to whatever he decides. In this case, they have given authority to his opinion and promised their obedience to him in this matter, making him their guardian in this regard.
But God is the absolute sovereign and in truth there is no sovereign besides Him; everything that exists only exists through His being and whatever effect they may have is only by virtue of Him. So judgement and authority actually belong to him. He says:
…everything is perishable but He; His is the judgment, and to Him you shall be brought back. ()
…surely God orders whatever He wills. ()
…the truth is from your Lord. ()
Now, God’s ruling (ḥukm) is of two kinds: Either it is creative (takwīnī) which is when He actualizes effects (musababbāt) and make them subsist through their various competing causes (asbāb) by giving priority to what we call the “complete cause” (sabab tāmm) over all others. God says of Jacob: …judgment is only God’s; on Him do I rely… (). Or else, God’s ruling is moral (tashrīʿī), such as the duties laid down in the Divine Religion relating to belief and practice. God says: …judgment is only God’s; He has commanded that you shall not serve aught but Him; this is the right religion… ().
There is also a third category of ruling which could be counted as belonging to either of the aforementioned categories in some way. This refers to God’s judgement between His servants on the Day of Resurrection concerning that about which they disagreed. And this takes the form of Him making the truth plain and manifest on the Day of Resurrection to the people assembled so that they can witness it with certainty and see it with their own eyes. By this and its effects everyone who stood with the truth in this world is gladdened, while those who disdained it are made miserable because of their arrogance and its consequences. God says: …so God shall judge between them on the day of resurrection in what they differ (). So people’s disagreements in beliefs or actions are moral disagreements which can only be resolved by moral laws and rules. And were it not for these disagreements, there would be no need for a law, as God points out with His words: people were a single nation; then God raised prophets as bearers of good news and as warners, and He revealed with them the Book with truth, that it might judge between people in that in which they differed; and none but the very people who were given it differed about it after clear arguments had come to them, revolting among themselves; so God has guided by His will those who believe to the truth about which they differed and God guides whom He pleases to the right path (). Clearly, moral authority belongs to God, and He is the guardian in that. This means He alone should be taken as a guardian to be obeyed and worshipped through the religion he sends down. This is what God means when He says And in whatever thing you disagree, the ruling thereof is to God….
So, to summarize, this argument means that the guardian who is worshipped and obeyed must do several things: First, He must remove disagreements between those who take him as a guardian. Second, He must reform what is corrupt in their communities. And third, He must guide them towards eternal happiness through the religion he sends down for them. The judgement in all of this belongs to God, so He is the only one worthy of being taken as a guardian.
Some, including Zamakhsharī in his Kashshāf, offer an alternate interpretation for the verse And in whatever thing you disagree, the ruling thereof is to God…. It is said: Here God is relating the words of the Prophet to the faithful, namely: In whatever matter of religion the faithless People of the Book and idolaters oppose you, and you disagree with them in, the judgement of that controversy rests with God. And this is the reward of the faithful who affirmed it and the punishment of those who denied it.
It is also said: It means whenever there is a legal dispute or disagreement between you, take it to Gods Messenger for arbitration, and do not prefer anyone else’s judgement over his. As in God’s saying: if you quarrel about anything, refer it to God and the Messenger ().
It is said: It means whenever you disagree about the interpretation of a verse of the Qur’an, refer to the clear verses of God’s Book to clarify it, and the apparent meaning of the sunnah of the Prophet.
And it is said: It means whenever you disagree about something that is not connected to your moral duties and you have no way of decisively ascertaining what is true, say “God knows best” (allāhu aʿlam) just as when God says concerning knowledge of the Spirit (rūḥ): And they ask you about the soul. Say: The soul is one of the commands of my Lord, and you are not given aught of knowledge but a little ().
According to all of the above opinions, this verse refers to the speech of the Prophet, whether by relating something he has already said, or implying that God is commanding him to say it. But anyone who ponders on the context of the verses then examines the above interpretations will doubtless see that none of them suit this verse.
…that is God, my Lord, upon Him do I rely and to Him do I turn frequently: Here, God relates something from the speech of His Prophet. The demonstrative pronoun “that” (dhālikum) refers to the arguments just given for taking God as a guardian, and further emphasizes His guardianship being a corollary of His lordship.
Having presented conclusive proofs that He is the true guardian and there is none save him, God commands the Prophet to declare that this is God and, at the same time, to announce that he has taken Him as a guardian. He does this by acknowledging His lordship, which means mastery over the affairs of Creation (mulk al-tadbīr), which he follows with an explicit statement that he has taken Him as a guardian as a result of this, namely: upon Him do I rely and to Him do I turn frequently.
This shows that the guardianship of lordship (wilāyat al-rubūbiyyah) is connected to the cosmic order (niẓām al-takwīn); through it, God governs the affairs of the universe and arranges the system of cause and effect in such a way that the intended creatures, such as the human being for example, are brought into being and sustained thereby. By a similar token, this same guardianship is connected to the moral order (niẓām al-tashrīʿ); through it, God organizes the affairs of human existence by promulgating laws and rules for people to follow and base their actions upon in their daily lives with the goal of attaining complete felicity.
From the cosmic aspect, taking God as a lord and a guardian means entrusting the matters of the universe to Him. This is by not placing one’s hope in the apparent causes of things and relying solely on Him as the ultimate cause behind all causes. This is the meaning of relying on God (tawakkul). From the moral aspect, it means referring to His judgement in every situation we face in our daily lives. And this is the meaning of turning towards God frequently (inābah). So when God says, …upon Him do I rely and to Him do I turn frequently, this means that I go back to Him in all my affairs and it is an explicit statement that every issue, whether cosmic or moral, ultimately returns to Him.
فَاطِرُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ جَعَلَ لَكُمْ مِنْ أَنْفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا وَمِنَ الْأَنْعَامِ أَزْوَاجًا ۖ يَذْرَؤُكُمْ فِيهِ ۚ لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِ شَيْءٌ ۖ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْبَصِيرُ١١
(42:11) The Originator of the heavens and the earth; He made mates for you from among yourselves, and mates of the cattle too, multiplying you thereby; nothing like a likeness of Him; and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.
Having announced that He is his Lord because of the conclusive proofs put forward for He alone being the Guardian, God follows on by putting forth further proofs in this verse and those that follow it for God alone being the Lord.
In short, the argument put forth is God created everything and originated it by bringing it forth from the silence of nothingness into existence; He made you as mates and thereby multiplied you, and He also made the cattle mates and thereby multiplied them that you might benefit from them. This is the creation and arrangement of the cosmos. He is All-Hearing of the entreaties of His creation for their needs, and He meets each of their needs as they deserve. He is All-Seeing because He knows whatever deeds His creations perform, and He will recompense them for these. It is His hand that grasps the keys to the treasure-houses of the heavens and the earth, in which are stored those things whose properties and effects give rise to the visible order of things. And it is He who provides sustenance for the creatures; He expands and contracts this sustenance on the basis of His knowledge of that. All of these things pertain to governing the universe (tadbīr al-ʿālam), so He alone is the Lord who governs all affairs.
The Originator of the heavens and the earth… Meaning the one who brought them into being from the silence of nothingness by way of creation.
…He made mates for you from among yourselves… By creating male and female, through the union of which the human race could procreate and multiply.
…and mates of the cattle too… Meaning He made them as male and female also.
…multiplying you thereby… Meaning He made you numerous by making you in this fashion.
And the target of the address in multiplying you (yadhraʾukum) includes both human beings and cattle, by including the non-rational beings with the rational ones, as Zamakhsharī says.
…nothing is like a likeness of Him… Meaning nothing is a likeness of Him, and the use of a superfluous like (ka) is for emphasis, and this is a common convention of Arabic speech.
…and He is the Hearing, the Seeing: Meaning He hears the entreaties of His creatures and perceives their deeds. Elsewhere in the Qur’an, He says:
All those who are in the heavens and the earth ask of Him…. ()
And He gives you of all that you ask Him…. ()
…and God sees what you do. ()
لَهُ مَقَالِيدُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ يَبْسُطُ الرِّزْقَ لِمَنْ يَشَاءُ وَيَقْدِرُ ۚ إِنَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ ١٢
(42:12) His are the keys of the heavens and the earth; He expands and constrains the sustenance for whom He pleases; surely He is Cognizant of all things.
By affirming that there are keys to the heavens and the earth, this suggests that they are treasure houses that contain the source of whatever phenomena and realities appear in the manifest universe.
He expands and constrains sustenance… Expanding sustenance means to make it ample, while narrowing it means to limit it. Sustenance (rizq) is whatever helps one to endure and removes his essential needs of subsistence.
Appending the phrase …surely He is Cognizant of all things to the verse alludes to the fact that sustenance is not increased or constrained at random or blindly. Rather, it is based on God’s knowledge of everything; the sustenance of each creature is apportioned according to the divine knowledge of whatever this creature needs in its present state and whatever external conditions or situations are affecting it. This is Divine Wisdom. So God expands or restricts sustenance according to His wisdom.