Verses 16–32
These verses are also in the same context as those above; they deal with the condition of those who have a sickness in their hearts, the hypocrites, and those who apostatize after believing.
Commentary
وَمِنْهُمْ مَنْ يَسْتَمِعُ إِلَيْكَ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا خَرَجُوا مِنْ عِنْدِكَ قَالُوا لِلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ مَاذَا قَالَ آنِفًا ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ طَبَعَ اللَّهُ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ وَاتَّبَعُوا أَهْوَاءَهُمْ ١٦
(47:16) There are some among them who prick up their ears at you. But when they go out from your presence, they say to those who have been given knowledge, “What did he say just now?” They are the ones on whose hearts God has set a seal and they follow their own desires.
Just now (ānifan) is an active participle in the accusative because it is either a qualifier of time (ẓarf) or a locative object (mafʿūl fīh). It means “a short time ago”. It is also said: It means “right now”. In any case, it is derived from anf, the nose.
In there are some among them who prick up their ears at you…, them refers to the faithless, and their listening to the Prophet means to pay attention to him reciting the Qur’an and his explanation of the principles of knowledge and the teachings of the religion.
But when they go out from your presence…, they refers to some among them who… Here in Arabic the plural form is used in consideration of the meaning, while above the verb prick up their ears at you is singular in consideration of the word “who” (man) rather than its meaning.
…they say to those who have been given knowledge, “What did he say just now?” Those who have been given knowledge refers to those Companions who knew God. He refers to the Prophet.
As for their question: What did he say just now? It is said that they want to know the meaning (ḥaqīqah) of what he said because they are so immersed in pride, conceit and following their whims that it does not allow them to comprehend true speech, as God says: What is the matter with these people that they would not understand any matter? ().
It is also said: They say it in derision.
And it is said: They say it to belittle what was said. As if to say that the speech was so loaded with vanities that it did not really contain any meaning.
And each of these three readings has an element of validity to it.
They are the ones on whose hearts God has set a seal: This is a characterisation of them—and they follow their own desires—and this is yet another characterisation of them, so this conjunction is like an explanatory one. From this we understand that following desires is a symptom of having your heart sealed by God; a heart which has not been sealed remains in its original state of pure nature (fiṭrah) which is not prevented from understanding religious teachings or divine truths.
وَالَّذِينَ اهْتَدَوْا زَادَهُمْ هُدًى وَآتَاهُمْ تَقْوَاهُمْ ١٧
(47:17) As for those who are guided, He enhances their guidance, and invests them with their Godwariness.
The obvious contrast between this verse and the one immediately before it suggests that guidance (ihtidāʾ) here means the opposite of going astray (ḍalāl), which goes with having a seal on one’s heart. Guidance, on the other hand, means submitting to what a healthy human nature (fiṭrah salīmah) guides you to and following the truth. God enhancing their guidance means that He elevates the level of their faith, and we have already discussed how guidance and faith have different degrees. Godwariness means the opposite of following one’s desires, namely observing God’s prohibitions and avoiding committing sins.
This shows that enhancing guidance means completing them with respect to knowledge, while investing them with Godwariness means completing them with respect to practice. From the contrast with the previous verse, we also see that sealing the hearts means losing the virtue of knowledge, while following the desires means lacking righteous deeds and being deprived of them. And this does not contradict what we have said above, namely that and they follow their own desires is an exposition of they are the ones on whose hearts God has set a seal.
فَهَلْ يَنْظُرُونَ إِلَّا السَّاعَةَ أَنْ تَأْتِيَهُمْ بَغْتَةً ۖ فَقَدْ جَاءَ أَشْرَاطُهَا ۚ فَأَنَّىٰ لَهُمْ إِذَا جَاءَتْهُمْ ذِكْرَاهُمْ ١٨
(47:18) Do they await anything except the Hour, that it should overtake them suddenly? Certainly its portents have come. Of what avail to them will their admonition be when it overtakes them?
Portents (ashrāṭ) is the plural of sharṭ, meaning “mark” (ʿalāmah); the original meaning of sharṭ is that upon which the existence of another entity depends because when the mark of something comes into being, that means the thing-itself has come into being. Therefore the portents of the Hour are the signs which point to it.
The tone of this verse is disdainful, as if to portray them standing at a juncture; either they will follow the truth and have a happy outcome, or they are awaiting the Hour in order to be absolutely sure of its coming and to see it for themselves; then they will take admonition, believe and follow the truth. As for following the truth in the here and now, no proof, admonition or lesson will convince them to submit themselves to it. As for awaiting the coming of the Hour to take admonition when it does, this will not benefit them in the slightest, for it will come suddenly and it will not give them any respite to make ready for it through taking admonition. When the Hour sets in, no amount of admonition will benefit them because that day will be a day of recompense, not a day of work. God says: The day when hell is brought near, on that day man will take admonition but what will the admonition avail him? He will say, “Alas, had I sent ahead for my life!” ()
Not to mention that its signs and portents have already come and set in! Perhaps one of its portents is the creation of the human being and the division of the human race into righteous and corrupt, Godwary and sinners, which requires there to be a judgement between them and the sending down of death upon them. All of these are signs of the coming event and the setting in of the Hour. It is said: The “portents of the Hour” means the appearance of the Prophet, who is the Seal of the Prophets, the splitting of the Moon, and the sending down of the Qur’an, which is God’s final revelation to mankind.
This is what is understood by pondering on the meaning of this verse which is—as you can see—a logical argument, even though it carries a tone of derision.
Therefore, when God says suddenly, this is a circumstantial qualifier for the coming of the Hour, and it is used to expound the reality of the matter. Following logically from this, God says Of what avail to them will their admonition be when it overtakes them? However, suddenly should not be read as qualifying await, such that they are waiting for it to come suddenly! That is why God says except the Hour, that it should overtake them suddenly, and He does not say “except that the Hour should overtake them suddenly.”
Of what avail to them will their admonition be when it overtakes them?—Of what avail is an advanced predicate (khabar muqaddam), and their admonition is a delayed subject (mubtadaʾ muʾakhkhar), and when it overtakes them is an aside that interposes between them. It means: “How shall they take admonition when it comes to them? How will they benefit from admonition on a day when no deeds will benefit their doer because it is only a day of recompense.”
Other opinions have been given about the meaning of this verse and its sentences, but we have not seen fit to present them here. Interested readers can refer to the more detailed books of commentary.
فَاعْلَمْ أَنَّهُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لِذَنْبِكَ وَلِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مُتَقَلَّبَكُمْ وَمَثْوَاكُمْ ١٩
(47:19) “So know that there is no god except God, and plead for forgiveness of your sin and for the faithful, men and women. God knows your itinerary and your abode.”
It is said: This follows from everything that has been said so far in this sūrah concerning the felicity of the faithful and the misery of the faithless. This is as if to say: If you have understood that the matter is as it has been described above—concerning the felicity of these and the misery of those—then stand firm upon your knowledge of God’s oneness. So according to this reading, the command know… means to stand firm upon knowledge.
It is possible that this could follow logically from the contrast drawn in the above two verses—meaning There are some among them who prick up their ears at you… () and …and invests them with their Godwariness. ()—that God seals the hearts of the idolaters and leaves them with their sins, while the opposite is true for those who are guided to Divine Unity and faith in it. So it is as if to say: If this is the case, then cling tightly to your knowledge of Divine Unity, seek forgiveness for your sin and forgiveness of your community (ummah) of those who believe in you and the faithful so that you will not be one of those whose hearts God has sealed, from whom He has withheld Godwariness and who He has left alone with their sins. This reading is supported by the words at the end of the verse: God knows your itinerary and your abode ().
In this case so know that there is no god except God means, according to the context of the verse, to hold fast to your knowledge that there is no god except God.
And plead for forgiveness of your sin…: We have already spoken about the proper understanding of any “sin” (dhanb) ascribed to the Prophet, and we shall discuss it further when commenting on the opening verses of Sūrah al-Fatḥ, God-willing.
…and for the faithful, men and women: God commands His messenger to plead forgiveness for the faithful men and women; and far be it from God to command someone to seek forgiveness and not respond by forgiving him, or to command him to pray and not respond by answer his prayers!
God knows your itinerary and your abode: This provides the rationale for the beginning of the verse: so know that…. Meanwhile, itinerary (mutaqallab) appears to be a mīm verbal noun meaning to move from one state to another, while abode (mathwā) appears to be a mīm verbal noun with the meaning of being settled and still. This means that God knows all of your states, whether changing or fixed, whether in motion or stationary, so stand firm upon your belief in Divine Unity, seek His forgiveness and beware your hearts being sealed and being left alone with your desires.
It is said: Itinerary and abode mean your behavior in this world and your abode in the Hereafter.
It is said: Mutaqallab actually means to move from the loins to the wombs, while mathwā means to rest in the earth.
It is said: Mutaqallab means your activity while awake, while mathwā means your sleep.
And it is said: Mutaqallab means the activity you undertake to subsist and earn a living, while mathwā means to reside in your home. However, what we have said is closer to the apparent meaning and more general.
وَيَقُولُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَوْلَا نُزِّلَتْ سُورَةٌ ۖ فَإِذَا أُنْزِلَتْ سُورَةٌ مُحْكَمَةٌ وَذُكِرَ فِيهَا الْقِتَالُ ۙ رَأَيْتَ الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ مَرَضٌ يَنْظُرُونَ إِلَيْكَ نَظَرَ الْمَغْشِيِّ عَلَيْهِ مِنَ الْمَوْتِ ۖ فَأَوْلَىٰ لَهُمْ ٢٠
(47:20) The faithful say, “If only a sūrah were sent down!” But when a definitive sūrah is sent down and war is mentioned in it, you see those in whose hearts is a sickness looking upon you with the look of someone fainting at death. So they deserve!
If only… is used in the sense of urging, in other words: “Will a sūrah not come down?” They display enthusiasm for a new sūrah being revealed which will bring them new moral duties to obey. A definitive sūrah means one which is clear and without ambiguity. War being mentioned means that a command to fight is issued. Those in whose hearts is a sickness refers to those believers whose faith is weak, but not the hypocrites as the verse explicitly says that those who display enthusiasm for its revelation are the faithful. The term faithful does not encompass the hypocrites unless it is used with a liberality that does not befit the Divine Discourse. Therefore, this verse resembles the words of God concerning a group of the faithful: Have you not regarded those who were told, “Keep your hands off [from warfare], and maintain the prayer, and give the zakat”? But when fighting was prescribed for them, behold, a part of them were afraid of people as if fearing God, or were even more afraid… ().
Fainting at death means someone who is on his death bed. The word for fainting, ghashiyah literally means when something is covered or veiled. We say someone is “covered” (ghashā ʿalā fulān) when they are afflicted by something that covers their comprehension (fahm). The look of someone fainting at death means when a person fixes his eyes upon you without blinking.
So they deserve! could be the predicate of an implicit subject, namely: “That befits them!” In other words, they should look like someone on their death bed. Al-Aṣmaʿī says that so they deserve! is used as a threat, meaning “Woe to you!” and “You shall have what you hate!” So this verse is like God’s saying: So woe to you! Woe to you! Again, woe to you! Woe to you! ()
The meaning of the verse is: The faithful say “Will a sūrah not come down?” But when a definitive and unambiguous sūrah comes down in which they are commanded to fight and struggle, you see those of them with weak faith looking at you with the gaze of one on his deathbed out of extreme fear, and they deserve that!
طَاعَةٌ وَقَوْلٌ مَعْرُوفٌ ۚ فَإِذَا عَزَمَ الْأَمْرُ فَلَوْ صَدَقُوا اللَّهَ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُمْ٢١
(47:21) Obedience and upright speech. So when the matter has been resolved upon, if they remain true to God that will surely be better for them.
When the matter has been resolved upon means when it has been determined and implemented.
Obedience and upright speech appears to be a predicate for an implicit subject with the meaning: “Our affair is obedience and upright speech” or “Their affair and their condition is obedience and upright speech.” In other words, their faith in Us is obedience in which they trust Us, and that they speak upright speech to us rather than denials, meaning they show that they have heard and obeyed. This is as God relates about them elsewhere: The Messenger has faith in what has been sent down to him from his Lord, and all the faithful… and they say, “We hear and obey.” ()
This means that this fragmentary phrase is plainly connected to what he says next in the verse: So when the matter has been resolved upon, if they remain true to God that will surely be better for them. It means: “The affair is something on whose basis they trust God because they say ‘We hear and obey.’ So when the matter has been resolved upon, if they declared that what God has said is true in their speech and obeyed him in his commands—including the command to fight—then this is better for them.”
However we can also read Obedience and upright speech as the predicate of a pronoun that refers to the fighting mentioned in the previous verse, meaning that the aforementioned fighting is obedience from them and upright speech. So if when the matter was decided they had believed in God and obeyed Him because of their faith, this would have been better for them. In this reading it is clear how this constitutes obedience (ṭāʿah) from them; as for upright speech (qawl maʿrūf), this is because the affirmation of fighting and the command to defend the righteous community in order to thwart the schemes of its enemies both constitute upright speech that is known to the intellect and those who use their intellects.
It is said: Obedience and upright speech are the subject of a nominal sentence. The predicate of this sentence is better for them.
It is also said: They are a subject whose predicate is so they deserve in the previous verse, in which case this verse completes the one before it. And this is a poor reading.
Worse still is the reading that says that they are an adjective for “sūrah” in when a definitive sūrah is sent down. And other opinions have been given too.
فَهَلْ عَسَيْتُمْ إِنْ تَوَلَّيْتُمْ أَنْ تُفْسِدُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَتُقَطِّعُوا أَرْحَامَكُمْ ٢٢
(47:22) So may it not be that if you were to turn aside (tawallaytum) you would cause corruption in the land and ill-treat your blood relations?
This verse is addressed to those with a sickness in their hearts who are burdened by the command to struggle in the way of God. The discourse has shifted to address them directly to intensify the force of the rebuke. It is phrased as a rhetorical question in the affirmative. Turn aside (tawallī) means to turn away, meaning to turn away from the Book of God and from acting upon its contents, returning to polytheism and rejecting the Religion.
This renders the meaning of the verse thus: Is it to be expected of you that were you to turn aside from the Book of God and from acting upon its contents, including struggling in the way of God, that you would cause corruption in the earth and mistreat your relations by shedding blood, plundering wealth, and violating honour? Would you not pounce upon the corpse of this world like carrion eaters? In other words, this is what would be expected of you if you turn aside. From this it becomes clear that this verse explains the rationale for the statement that will surely be better for them in the previous verse. This is why the verse begins with so (fa).
It is said: Tawallī means to take up the reins of power and governance, in which case the verse means: “If you were given power, is it expected of you that you would cause corruption in the land and mistreat your relatives by shedding the blood of innocents, taking bribes, and ruling unjustly?” However this reading is far removed from the context of the verse.
أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ لَعَنَهُمُ اللَّهُ فَأَصَمَّهُمْ وَأَعْمَىٰ أَبْصَارَهُمْ ٢٣
(47:23) They are the ones whom God has cursed, so He made them deaf, and blinded their sight.
They refers to those who cause corruption in the land and mistreat their relatives; God describes them as being cursed by him. He has left them deaf and without hearing to listen to the words of truth, and He has blinded their sights so that they do not see the true opinion, for it is not the eyes that go blind but the hearts that are in the breasts.
أَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ أَمْ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبٍ أَقْفَالُهَا ٢٤
(47:24) Do they not contemplate the Qur’an, or are there locks on hearts?
This is a rhetorical question intended to rebuke them. They refers to those mentioned in the previous verse, and it is said that hearts is left indefinite to show that it means both their hearts and the hearts of others like them.
In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, we read: “This verse demonstrates the falsity of the claim that we cannot interpret even the apparent parts of the Qur’an without a report or tradition.”
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ ارْتَدُّوا عَلَىٰ أَدْبَارِهِمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا تَبَيَّنَ لَهُمُ الْهُدَى ۙ الشَّيْطَانُ سَوَّلَ لَهُمْ وَأَمْلَىٰ لَهُمْ ٢٥
(47:25) Indeed those who turned their backs after the guidance had become clear to them, it was Satan who had seduced them, and he had given them hopes.
To “turn one’s back” (irtidād ʿalā al-adbār) means to go backwards after having come forwards, and this is a metaphor for forsaking something after having taken it up. Seduced (taswīl) means to make decorous what excites the low self (nafs) and to put something evil in a pleasant form. Given them hopes (imlāʾ) means to have extended and outstretched their hopes.
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قَالُوا لِلَّذِينَ كَرِهُوا مَا نَزَّلَ اللَّهُ سَنُطِيعُكُمْ فِي بَعْضِ الْأَمْرِۖ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ إِسْرَارَهُمْ ٢٦
(47:26) That is because they said to those who loathed what God had sent down: “We shall obey you in some matters,” and God knows their secret dealings.
That refers to Satan seducing them and extending their hopes. In short it refers to him gaining power over them. Those who loathed what God had sent down means those who disbelieve, as we have already seen in the aforementioned verse: As for the faithless, their lot will be to fall, and He will make their works go astray. That is because they loathed what God has sent down, so He made their works fail ().
When they say We shall obey you in some matters, this means they promise to obey the faithless. Qualifying this promise with the phrase in some matters indicates in a general sense that these are the words of someone who is not at liberty to give his full obedience in all matters to the one whom he wishes to obey because openly obeying them poses some danger to him. Instead he promises to obey them secretly in whatever he can while sitting and waiting for a change of fortunes.
From this we can deduce that these were a group of hypocrites who confided the above statement to the faithless and promised to obey them however they were able. This reading is supported by what God says next: and God knows their secret dealings.
Commentators have disagreed about who this verse actually refers to. Some say it is the Jews of Medina who told the hypocrites: “If you openly disbelieve, we will assist you.” Others say that it was the Jews of Medina or the Jews and the hypocrites saying this to the idolaters. However, both these possibilities are excluded by the fact that the subject of the discourse in this verse are those who are apostates after believing, while the Jews have not believed in order to be counted as apostates.
It is said: They are the hypocrites promising assistance to the Jews of Medina, as God says:
Have you not regarded the hypocrites who say to their brethren, the faithless from among the People of the Book: “If you are expelled, we will surely go out with you, and we will never obey anyone against you, and if you are fought against we will surely help you.” ()
However, the verse they quote can be applied to this, but it can also be applied to the Jews when they promised to assist the idolaters, but only with great semantic difficulty in applying the meaning of apostasy (iridād) to their disbelief in God’s Messenger after his message became clear to them. However there is nothing in the wording of the verse to suggest that. So perhaps they are another group of hypocrites.
فَكَيْفَ إِذَا تَوَفَّتْهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ يَضْرِبُونَ وُجُوهَهُمْ وَأَدْبَارَهُمْ ٢٧
(47:27) So how will it be when the angels take them away, striking their faces and their backs?!
This follows logically from the above. It means: This is their condition today. They apostatise after guidance has become clear to them and do whatever they please. So what will be their condition when the angels take them away, striking their faces and their backs!?
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمُ اتَّبَعُوا مَا أَسْخَطَ اللَّهَ وَكَرِهُوا رِضْوَانَهُ فَأَحْبَطَ أَعْمَالَهُمْ ٢٨
(47:28) That, because they pursued what displeased God, and loathed His pleasure. So He has made their works fail.
What displeased God appears to refer to their low desires (ahwāʾ al-nafs) and the seductions of Satan that result from disobeying God and committing ruinous sins, as God says: and they follow their own desires () and it was Satan who had seduced them ().
God’s pleasure (riḍā) and displeasure (sakhṭ) are amongst his Attributes of Act (ṣifāt fiʿliyyah), and they denote His reward and punishment respectively.
That refers to the description in the previous verse of the angels punishing the apostates as they take their souls. In other words, the reason for their punishment in this fashion is that their works had failed because they followed what displeased God and because they loathed His pleasure. Therefore, because they have no righteous deeds, they suffer punishment instead.
أَمْ حَسِبَ الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ مَرَضٌ أَنْ لَنْ يُخْرِجَ اللَّهُ أَضْغَانَهُمْ ٢٩
(47:29) Do those in whose hearts is a sickness suppose that God will not expose their spite?
Al-Rāghib says: “Spite (ḍighn or ḍughn) means intense hatred.” Those in whose hearts is a sickness refers to those who are weak in faith. And perhaps these faithful were first simply weak in their faith, then they inclined to hypocrisy and apostatized after believing. A careful study of early Islamic history reveals that there was a group of people who believed in the Prophet and fit this description, just as there were others who were hypocrites from the moment they believed until the end of their lives. With this in mind, the above verses count them amongst the faithful with regards to the beginning of their affair.
Therefore, this verse means: Rather these hypocrites in whose heart there is a sickness thought that God would not bring out and expose their hatred for the Religion and its followers.
وَلَوْ نَشَاءُ لَأَرَيْنَاكَهُمْ فَلَعَرَفْتَهُمْ بِسِيمَاهُمْ ۚ وَلَتَعْرِفَنَّهُمْ فِي لَحْنِ الْقَوْلِ ۚ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ أَعْمَالَكُمْ ٣٠
(47:30) If We wish, We will show them to you so that you recognize them by their mark. Yet you will recognize them by their tone of speech, and God knows your deeds.
“Mark” (simāʾ) means brand. The verse as a whole means: If We wish, We will show you those with sick hearts and you would recognize them with the brands we have marked them with.
Yet you will recognize them in their tone of speech—al-Rāghib says:
“Tone (laḥn) means to alter your speech from the way it is normally spoken, either by neglecting proper declension (iʿrāb) and mispronouncing words, which is a blameworthy trait (madhmūm)—and this is the most common usage of the word—or it can mean not speaking plainly but using insinuations and allusions, which is a praiseworthy trait in the eyes of most belletrists from the perspective of rhetoric.”
This means that you will recognize them from the way they speak because it is full of allusions and insinuations. And making their tone of speech a container for recognizing them (by using the preposition in) displays a kind of figurative concern.
And God knows your deeds: In other words He knows their realities and the real goals and intentions you have when you do them, so He will recompense the faithful for their righteous deeds, and others by other deeds. So this is both a promise of reward for the faithful and a warning of punishment for others.
وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ حَتَّىٰ نَعْلَمَ الْمُجَاهِدِينَ مِنْكُمْ وَالصَّابِرِينَ وَنَبْلُوَ أَخْبَارَكُمْ٣١
(47:31) We will surely try you until We ascertain those of you who wage jihad and those who are steadfast, and We shall appraise your reports.
Try means to test or examine. This verse expounds the wisdom (ʿillah) behind the prescription for the faithful to fight; it is a divine test to distinguish those who struggle in the way of God and who are steadfast in the face of difficulty when fulfilling their divine duties.
And We shall appraise your reports—Reports (akhbār) means deeds insofar as they emanate from their doers and are thus a report about them; evaluating deeds distinguishes righteous actions from vicious ones, just as testing the souls distinguishes good and righteous ones. We have already discussed previously that when God says He will ascertain something by way testing his servants, this means that He will make apparent the condition of the servants (rather than come to know anything new Himself). To be more precise, this is an act of knowledge (ʿilm fiʿlī) that is external to the Divine Essence (dhāt).
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَصَدُّوا عَنْ سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَشَاقُّوا الرَّسُولَ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا تَبَيَّنَ لَهُمُ الْهُدَىٰ لَنْ يَضُرُّوا اللَّهَ شَيْئًا وَسَيُحْبِطُ أَعْمَالَهُمْ ٣٢
(47:32) Indeed those who are faithless and bar from the way of God and defy the Messenger after guidance has become clear to them will not hurt God in the least, and He shall make their works fail.
This refers to the leaders of misguidance amongst the faithless of Mecca and anyone who becomes like them; they bar others from the way of God, defy the Messenger and show extreme enmity towards him even though guidance has become clear for them.
…they will not hurt God in the least… because when a human being plots and schemes, this only affects himself and it will not harm anyone besides him.
…and He shall make their works fail means that their efforts to destroy the foundations of the religion and extinguish God’s light shall come to naught. It is said: Causing their works to fail means that they will not be rewarded for any of their deeds in the Hereafter. However, the first meaning we gave is more appropriate to the context of the verse because it is intended to encourage the faithful to fight the idolaters and reassure them that they will be victorious, as we glean from the following verses.
Examining Narrations
- In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, concerning the words There are some among them who prick up their ears at you (), it is narrated from al-Aṣbagh b. Nabātah from [Imām] ʿAlī:
We were with God’s Messenger and he would inform us of the revelation, so I and some others understood it. But when we went out, some would ask: “What did he say just now?”
- In al-Durr al-Manthūr, Aḥmad, Bukhārī, Muslim, and Tirmidhī narrate from Anas:
God’s Messenger said: “The Hour and I have been sent like these two.” Then he held up his index finger and middle finger.
- Therein we also read a narration from Ibn Abī Shaybah, Bukhārī, Muslim, Ibn Mājah, and Ibn Mardawayh from Abū Hurayrah:
One day God’s Messenger had come out to the people and a man came and asked him: “O Messenger of God! When is the Hour?”
He said: “The one who is asked is not better informed than the asker, but I shall recount to you some of its portents: When the slave-girl gives birth to her mistress. That is one of its portents. When naked barefoot shepherds are the leaders of men. That too is one of its portents. And when goatherds compete in erecting tall buildings. That is one of its portents.”
- In ʿIlal al-Sharāʾiʿ, with a chain of narrators going back to Anas b. Mālik, we read a lengthy tradition in which the Prophet says to ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām, who had asked him some questions:
As for the portents of the Hour—a fire that drives people from the East to the West.
Author’s comments: Perhaps its meaning is unclear. The reports concerning the portents of the hour that have been narrated through Sunni and Shiʿi chains are too numerous to count. At the end of the fifth volume of the present work, we discussed the narration of Salmān from the Prophet and that of Ḥumrān from al-Ṣādiq, which are two of the most comprehensive narrations on this topic.
- In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, the author has declared authentic a tradition going back to Ḥudhayfah b. al-Yamān:
I was a man who used to speak harshly to my family, so I said: “O Messenger of God! I am indeed fearful that my tongue will cast me into the Fire!”
And God’s Messenger replied: “So why do you not seek God’s forgiveness? I plead to God to forgive me a hundred times a day!”
- In al-Durr al-Manthūr, it is narrated from Aḥmad, Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, Nasāʾīm Ibn Ḥabbān, and Ibn Mardawayh from Agharr al-Manazī that the Messenger of God said:
It is a lapse of my heart, and verily I seek God’s forgiveness a hundred times a day.
- In the same source, concerning the words so may it not be that if you were to turn away… (), we read that Bayhaqī narrates from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh that God’s Messenger said:
The womb (raḥm) is connected to God’s Throne and it has a fluent tongue, with which it says: “O God! Join what I join and cut off what I cut off!”
Author’s comments: There are many narrations about blood-relations, in keeping ties with them and mistreating them, and a selection of these has already been discussed in our commentary on the beginning of Sūrah al-Nisāʾ.
- In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, concerning God’s words:
Do they not contemplate the Qur’an…? ()—It is narrated from Abū ʿAbd Allāh and Abū al-Ḥasan [Imām al-Ṣādiq and Imām al-Kāẓim]: “Do they not contemplate the Qur’an and discharge their duties?”
- In Tawḥīd with a chain of narrators going back to Muḥammad b. ʿAmārah:
I asked al-Ṣādiq, Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad: “O son of God’s Messenger! Tell me about God, does He become pleased and displeased?”
He said: “Yes, but not in the way you find amongst the creatures. Rather God’s anger is His punishment, and His pleasure is His reward.”
- And in Majmaʿ al-Bayān, it is narrated about the verse Yet you will recognize them in their tone of speech () from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī:
The tone of speech some of them used about ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib… we knew the hypocrites during the time of God’s Messenger by their hatred for ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.
- In Majmaʿ, we are also told that a similar narration has been transmitted from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī.
- And it is narrated that ʿUbādah b. al-Ṣāmit said:
We used to test our children with the love of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. So if we saw one of them did not love him, we knew that this was because he lacked good sense.
- In al-Durr al-Manthūr, Ibn Mardawayh relates from Ibn Masʿūd:
We did not know the hypocrites during the time of God’s Messenger except by their hatred of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.
- In the Amālī of al-Ṭūsī, with a chain back to ʿAlī:
There are four places in which God has confirmed me in His Book… a man is hidden beneath his tongue; he appears when he talks. So God sent down the verse Yet you will recognize them in their tone of speech.
In other words, they became hypocrites when their hearts “died” from the sickness. [Pub.] ↩︎
A belletrist is a person who writes essays, particularly on literary and artistic criticism, that are composed and read primarily for their aesthetic effect. [Pub.] ↩︎
Because this kind of knowledge actually belongs to the Attributes of Act (ṣifāt fiʿliyyah), which denote God’s actions in relation to His creatures and are therefore external to the Divine Essence. [Trans.] ↩︎
See the section on narrations after the exegesis of . [Trans.] ↩︎