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“You Will Not Have Communicated His Message”
Qur’an 5:67 · Al-Māʾidah · With other exegetes
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلرَّسُولُ بَلِّغْ مَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِن رَّبِّكَ ۖ وَإِن لَّمْ تَفْعَلْ فَمَا بَلَّغْتَ رِسَالَتَهُۥ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ يَعْصِمُكَ مِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَهْدِى ٱلْقَوْمَ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ
O Apostle! Communicate that which has been sent down to you from your Lord, and if you do not, you will not have communicated His message, and Allah shall protect you from the people. Indeed Allah does not guide the faithless lot. (5:67)
The question
How can “you will not have communicated His message” be the consequence of “if you do not [communicate it]”, when it seems to say the same thing again?
Views answered: Al-Zamakhsharī (al-Kashshāf) · the majority of the exegetes · Fakhr al-Rāzī · With: ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī
Jawādī Āmulī’s argument
Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī holds that what was sent down is one of the principles of the religion, so important that if the Prophet did not communicate it he would not have communicated anything of the religion at all. Once this meaning is clear, there is no need to answer the difficulties that the explanations of al-Zamakhsharī and others raise, and he sees traces of deviation in them. Fakhr al-Rāzī rejects the majority answer, that leaving some is like leaving the whole, and reads the phrase as intensification, like the poet’s “my poetry is my poetry”. He gives the different reading of ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī: if this ruling is not communicated, the root of His message, or the whole of it, is not communicated; and the end of the verse shows that a faithless lot were set on opposing this ruling.
Views compared
The views are given as al-Tasnim reports them. Each point opens al-Tasnim at that place.
Leaving some is leaving all Read →
Al-Zamakhsharī and others
The messages are like a single thing: leaving one unconveyed is like leaving them all, as disbelieving one is like disbelieving all.Jawādī Āmulī
Traces of deviation appear plainly in explanations of this kind; once the correct meaning is clear, there is no need to reply to their difficulties.Why it can be the apodosis Read →
Al-Zamakhsharī
Either leaving even one word is like the hideous act of hiding all, as killing one soul is like killing all mankind; or it means “yours is the punishment for hiding the whole”, the cause put for the effect.Jawādī Āmulī
What was sent down is a principle so important that without it nothing of the religion would have been communicated.A weak answer? Read →
Fakhr al-Rāzī
To say that one who left some has left the whole is a lie, and their offences are not equal; the phrase is intensification, like “I am Abū al-Najm, and my poetry is my poetry”.Jawādī Āmulī
With ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī: the phrase is in the setting of Abū al-Najm’s saying, but it means that if this ruling is not communicated, the root of His message, or the whole of it, is not communicated.The end of the verse Read →
The reading that the rulings are bound up together
This ruling counts as the whole message because the teachings of the religion are bound up with one another.Jawādī Āmulī, with ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī
With ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī: unobjectionable in itself, but it does not fit “Allah shall protect you from the people … does not guide the faithless lot”, which shows a faithless lot set on opposing this ruling.Reading guide
Each step opens al-Tasnim at that point.