Verses 45–49
These verses draw the chapter to a close and bid the Prophet to leave the deniers to their own devices and not to concern himself with them, and to patiently submit to the judgement of his Lord and glorify His praise. In the course of these verses, God repeats the warnings of inevitable punishment He delivered to them at the beginning of the chapter, adding to this the warning of another punishment for those who do wrong.
Commentary
فَذَرْهُمْ حَتَّىٰ يُلَاقُوا يَوْمَهُمُ الَّذِي فِيهِ يُصْعَقُونَ ٤٥
(52:45) So leave them (dhar–hum) until they encounter their day on which they will be thunderstruck (yuṣʿaqūn).
Dhar-hum is a command to forsake them or let them alone, and this verb is only used in the imperative or future tense. Yaṣʿaqūn is derived from iṣʿāq, meaning ‘to cause to die.’
Having warned those who deny the Prophet’s message of an imminent punishment about which there can be no doubt, God refuted all of their excuses for rejecting his mission (or all of the hypothetical excuses they could raise to reject it). Now, He says that they are obstinately persisting in falsehood to the extent that even if they saw the clearest and most obvious sign of the truth, they would explain it away and reject it. Based on this, He commands His Prophet to forsake them and leave them to their own devices. However, this is, in fact, a subtle warning that they will be engulfed by divine punishment, and this was indeed the case.
The meaning of their day on which they will be thunderstruck is the day on which the Trumpet will be sounded, causing all of the denizens of the heavens and the earth to pass away, and it is one of the signs of the End Times. God says, And the Trumpet will be blown, and whoever is in the heavens will swoon and whoever is on the earth ().
This interpretation of the phrase is supported by the subsequent verse, which reads, the day when their guile will not avail them in any way, nor will they be helped (). After all, saying that guile will be of no use and that there will be no help for them are descriptions that are particular to the Day of Resurrection, the day on which all means will be exhausted and the command will belong solely to God.
Now, one could object that when the Trumpet is sounded only living creatures will pass away, and these deniers will not be alive by that point. The response to this objection is that not only will everyone who is alive in this world die, but everyone in the Purgatory (Barzakh) will die as well, and if these deniers are no longer living in this world, they will exist in Barzakh.
It is also possible that the pronoun ‘they’ in they will be thunderstruck refers to those who are alive on that day, but that the threat is not the threat of the Trumpet being sounded but rather of the punishment that will befall the deniers on the day it is sounded.
Some commentators have said that their day on which they will be thunderstruck is a reference to the Battle of Badr, but this is an unlikely reading. Others have said it refers to the day on which they die, but this does not match the overall context of the verse or the warning found at the beginning of the chapter, which threatens the deniers with the punishment that awaits them on the Day of Judgement, not the punishment on the day they die.
يَوْمَ لَا يُغْنِي عَنْهُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ شَيْئًا وَلَا هُمْ يُنْصَرُونَ ٤٦ وَإِنَّ لِلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا عَذَابًا دُونَ ذَٰلِكَ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ ٤٧
(52:46–47) the day when their guile will not avail them in any way, nor will they be helped. And indeed for those who do wrong, there is a punishment besides that, but most of them do not know
It is not unlikely that this is a reference to the punishment of the grave (ʿadhāb al-qabr). The phrase, but most of them do not know, hints that there are some of them who know of this punishment but still persist in their denial and disbelief out of sheer obstinacy. Some scholars have said that this is a reference to the Battle of Badr, but the ending of the verse does not accord with such a reading.
وَاصْبِرْ لِحُكْمِ رَبِّكَ فَإِنَّكَ بِأَعْيُنِنَا ۖ وَسَبِّحْ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ حِينَ تَقُومُ ٤٨
(52:48) So submit patiently to the judgement of your Lord, for indeed you fare before Our eyes. And celebrate the praise of your Lord when you rise,
The command, So submit patiently at the beginning of this verse follows on from So leave them… () and, based on the context, it appears that the judgement of your Lord refers to His decision to grant the deniers a temporary respite and to seal their heart, and His command to the Prophet to continue calling to the truth for the sake of God in spite of the persecution and hardships he faced. Therefore, the meaning of the phrase, indeed you fare before Our eyes is that ‘We see you, and nothing of your condition is hidden from us. We have not forgotten you.’ Therefore, by giving this as the rationale for the command to submit patiently, it emphasizes the importance of the Prophet being patient and intensifying his preaching.
Some have said that indeed you fare before Our eyes means that ‘You are under our guard and our protection’, for ‘eye’ (ʿayn) can be used figuratively in the sense of guarding. However, the meaning we have given above appears more appropriate to the context of the verse.
And celebrate the praise of your Lord when you rise: What does when you rise refer to? Some have said it means ‘when you rise from sleep’, others have said it means ‘when you rise from a nap’—a reference to the noon prayer (ṣalāt al-ẓuhr)—and others still have said it means ‘when you rise from a gathering.’ Then there are those who say it means any kind of rising. Some have said it means rising to perform obligatory prayers, while other have said it means rising to perform any prayer. Yet other have said it refers to the two units of prayer performed before the obligatory morning prayers. These are the seven opinions reported by al-Ṭabrisī.
وَمِنَ اللَّيْلِ فَسَبِّحْهُ وَإِدْبَارَ النُّجُومِ ٤٩
(52:49) and also glorify Him during the night and at the receding of the stars
In other words, glorify Him and declare Him transcendent while also praising Him.
and also glorify Him during the night: This is a reference to night prayers, although some have said it refers to the prayers of sunset (ṣalāt al-maghrib) and evening (ṣalāt al-ʿishāʾ).
… and at the receding of the stars: Some have said that the receding of the stars is when they vanish at daybreak, which would make this a reference to the two units of prayer offered before the obligatory morning prayer. Other have said it is a reference to the morning prayer itself, while still others have said it refers to glorifying God in the morning and the evening, meaning to remember Him and be mindful of Him constantly.
Examining Narrations
- In Tafsīr al-Qummī, we read: ‘and celebrate the praise of your Lord when you rise () for night prayers (ṣalāt al-layl), and also glorify Him () in night prayers.’
Author’s comments: The same meaning is reported in Majmaʿ al-bayān from Zurāra, Ḥumrān, and Muḥammad b. Muslim from Imām al-Bāqir and Imām al-Ṣādiq.
- In the same source, via a chain of narrators going back to Imām al-Riḍā: ‘Following prostrations (adbār al-sujūd) refers to four units of prayer after Maghrib, while the receding of the stars refers to two units of prayer before morning prayers.’
Author’s comments: The latter part of this tradition is narrated in Majmaʿ al-bayān from Imām al-Bāqir and Imām al-Ṣādiq and in Tafsīr al-Qummī via a chain of narrators going back to Imām al-Ṣādiq.
And Sunnī sources narrate a number of traditions to the effect that whenever the Prophet rose from sitting, he would glorify God and celebrate His praise, saying: ‘It is the expiation of breaking up a gathering.’ However, this is not self-evidently an explanation of the meaning of the present verse.