Appearance
Summaries of Sūrat al-Aʿrāf
The summary with which Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī opens his commentary on each verse of Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, in the order of the verses. To read the summary of one verse, type it on the Summary page.
7:1–2 — Alif, Lam, Mim, Suad.
(1) Alif, Lam, Mim, Suad. (2) [This is] a Book that has been sent down to you—so let there be no disquiet in your heart on its account that you may warn thereby—and as an admonition for the faithful.
Taking up and plunging into great matters needs strong support and firm resolve. On the one hand, the aim of sending the prophets (a.s.) is to guide people. On another, people are afflicted with two destructive and dangerous ills: ignorance at the level of knowledge, and folly at the level of action. And on a third, fighting these ills and cleansing human societies of such things requires great openness of breast and great serenity of temper. That is why God, Exalted, sent down the noble Qur’an: so that His honoured Prophet (s.a.w.) would not fall into such a strait, but would have breadth of breast and ease of mind, to be able to carry out the tasks of warning and reminding with the support of revelation, to bring the ignorant out of their ignorance, and to alert the heedless to the truth and reality.
7:3 — Follow what has been sent down to you from your Lord
Follow what has been sent down to you from your Lord, and do not follow any masters besides Him. Little is the admonition that you take!
The expression of the Book being sent down to people rests on the fact that the aim of its sending down, and the final landing point of God’s word, is the ears of the whole Islamic community, not the heart of the most noble Prophet (s.a.w.), which is the original landing place of revelation. In this verse God (s.w.t.) urges people, in the form of a guiding command and prohibition, to attain the happiness of both abodes. He commands them to follow the commands of the Lord in the shade of guardianship (wilāyah) and of following the infallible guardian, and no one else, in the various affairs of their lives. He ends the verse with the danger of forgetting God and being heedless of Him, in a form that establishes that those who remember God and do not forget Him are few.
7:4 — How many a town We have destroyed
How many a town We have destroyed! Our punishment came to it at night, or while they were taking a midday nap.
Many ignored the warnings and reminders of the prophets (a.s.), stained themselves with sins and acts of disobedience, and lived in a circle of false and imaginary security. God (s.w.t.) afflicted them with various heavenly and earthly punishments. Punishment took some of them at night while they slept, and came down on others while they were taking their midday rest.
7:5 — Then their cry, when Our punishment overtook them
Then their cry, when Our punishment overtook them, was only that they said, ‘We have indeed been wrongdoers!’
Those whom God (s.w.t.) afflicted with punishment for their wrongdoing and corruption found no escape from it when they saw the punishment coming down. They had nothing left but to admit their wrongdoing, and their voices rose in admitting their sin and turning back. But the repentance that is accepted and benefits a person is the one that comes before the first signs of divine punishment come down.
7:6 — We will surely question those to whom the apostles were sent
We will surely question those to whom the apostles were sent, and We will surely question the apostles.
Questioning is of various kinds, and the kind of question differs according to the one asked. When God, Exalted, questions the nations, His question to them is one of rebuke or of bringing them to admit: what stance did you take, and what was your reaction to the calls of the prophets (a.s.)? And to complete the proof against the nations, He asks the prophets (a.s.) to testify to that, by questioning them about how people dealt with them.
7:7 — Then We will surely recount to them with knowledge
Then We will surely recount to them with knowledge, for We had not been absent.
Every report in the world must rest on acquired or presential knowledge. God, Blessed and Exalted, on the basis of His witnessing knowledge, presents a comprehensive report on people’s beliefs and deeds at the Resurrection. That most holy divine Essence is the origin of the world of existence, and the cause accompanies its effect and is nearer to it than anything. So He encompasses in knowledge all the states of the world, and is able to report all its affairs.
7:8–9 — The weighing [of deeds] on that Day is a truth
(8) The weighing [of deeds] on that Day is a truth. As for those whose deeds weigh heavy in the scales—it is they who are the felicitous. (9) As for those whose deeds weigh light in the scales—it is they who have ruined their souls, because they used to wrong Our signs.
The spirit, beliefs and deeds of the children of Ādam will be weighed at the Resurrection: both the Muslim, whose degrees are weighed, and the faithless, whose descents are weighed. The doer of good and the doer of evil alike are placed on the scale, and the weight that stands in it is nothing but the truth.
The weighing is one, but there may be many scales for assessing a person’s various beliefs and deeds, since each person carries differing beliefs, character and conduct.
If someone’s scales are heavy and weighty, he is among the successful and the people of the Garden. If the scales of his deeds are light, he is without any doubt among the losers; his end is Hell, and how evil a resting place! This loss has negative consequences, and it is the result of his own shortcomings and the deficiency of his soul.
7:10 — Certainly We have established you on the earth
Certainly We have established you on the earth, and made in it [various] means of livelihood for you. Little do you thank.
God (s.w.t.) settled man on the earth. He gave man a place, equipped him with the power to act on the earth, and poured on him material and spiritual provisions for the continuance of his life there. No one can grant all this but the Lord of the worlds. These blessings are not the goal; they are a means to remembering the true Bestower and to reaching the station of the thankful. But most people are heedless of the blessings of the Lord of the worlds and do not reach this lofty goal; so the number of the thankful is small.
7:11 — Certainly We created you, then We formed you
Certainly We created you, then We formed you, then We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam.’ So they [all] prostrated, but not Iblis: he was not among those who prostrated.
With this verse begins the story of creation and of Iblīs’s refusal to prostrate to Ādam (a.s.). God (s.w.t.) first created the bodies of mankind in stages from earth and gave them form; after this He commanded the angels to prostrate to Ādam, and all prostrated except Iblīs.
The creation of man is mentioned before the command to prostrate to Ādam (a.s.) because the command to prostrate is connected with his station of vicegerency (khilāfah). On the basis of the verses on vicegerency, this station is not specific to Ādam (a.s.) alone but covers all human beings (each according to his measure and his state).
The angels’ prostration is a prostration of humility and respect before the human station. It is not a prostration of worship, nor one in which Ādam (a.s.) is the direction of prostration.
The last sentence of the verse shows Iblīs’s arrogant character, which caused his pride, so that he refused to prostrate before Ādam (a.s.).
7:12 — Said He, ‘What prevented you from prostrating
Said He, ‘What prevented you from prostrating, when I commanded you? ’‘I am better than him,’ he said. ‘You created me from fire and You created him from clay.’
God (s.w.t.) asked Satan, with a question of rebuke, why he had refused to prostrate to Ādam (a.s.). Iblīs answered haughtily, saying: I am better than he, and the perfect does not prostrate to the deficient; and he hinted that Ādam ought to prostrate to him. Iblīs, who did not know the right standards of assessment, claimed by a false analogy that fire is better than earth, and overlooked the dominion-reality (malakūt) of Ādam. He also approved the vice of arrogance and boasted of his discourtesy towards his Lord.
7:13 — ‘Get down from it!’ He said
‘Get down from it!’ He said. ‘It is not for you to be arrogant therein. Begone! You are indeed among the degraded ones.’
After Iblīs’s refusal and his arrogant opposition to the divine command to prostrate before Ādam (a.s.), God commanded him to descend, and his fall was joined with lightness and abasement. The starting point of this descent was not the Garden; it was the more perfect and loftier station of divine nearness and of the company of the angels.
The basic factor in Iblīs’s refusal to prostrate was the pride that came from him, arising from arrogance before the Lord of the worlds, not mere boasting over Ādam (a.s.). For pride towards Ādam (a.s.) is an ordinary sin, while pride towards God is faithlessness. That is why God (s.w.t.) addressed Iblīs: one who is in the lofty station of servitude and in the company of the angels is not fit to be proud. As a result Iblīs was expelled from the holy divine presence, and so became “cursed” and “outcast”, light and abased, even though outwardly, in the eyes of some, such as the worshippers of Iblīs, he is great and lofty.
7:14–15 — He said, ‘Respite me till the day they will be resurrected.’
(14) He said, ‘Respite me till the day they will be resurrected.’ (15) Said He, ‘You are indeed among the reprieved.’
After God, Exalted, expelled Iblīs, he wanted respite, to remain alive until the Day of Raising. God announced the respite itself; perhaps this was the recompense of his years of worship, or a punishment for him, to bring about his abandonment and his further fall. For Iblīs’s request for a long life was for the sake of enmity towards mankind and leading them astray, not for making up for the past.
7:16 — ‘As You have consigned me to perversity,’ he said
‘As You have consigned me to perversity,’ he said, ‘I will surely lie in wait for them on Your straight path.
Iblīs’s insistence on asking God (s.w.t.) for respite was not for making up for his black past. For he ascribed his misguidance to God with all boldness and insolence, while God had made His general guidance available to all. Whoever deliberately does not bear it, God deprives of His special guidance; and this is the meaning of leading astray as a punishment, which is good on the part of God, Exalted. But natural and initial leading astray is not good on His part, and He, Exalted, is free of it.
In this verse Iblīs stresses that he will cut off the road and lie in ambush on the straight path.
7:17 — Then I will come at them from their front and from their rear
Then I will come at them from their front and from their rear, and from their right and their left, and You will not find most of them to be grateful.’
After declaring his intent to lead the son of Ādam astray and to lie in ambush for him, Satan set out how he would besiege him, penetrate man’s hidden recesses and surround him from four directions: from in front, from behind, from the right side and from the left side.
No doubt these directions belong to what is beyond nature, not to this geography. For the place of Iblīs’s ambush and leading astray is the straight path, which is not something material; so his attacks are not sensory or material, even if material effects accompany them.
Iblīs also makes many attacks from above and from below. The noble verse does not mention them, but according to some reports their application to supplication and prostration is established. It is also reported from the final Prophet (s.a.w.) that he asked God, Exalted, to protect him from Iblīs from six directions.
Iblīs’s aim, and the result of his leading astray, is to keep people far from the station of thankfulness. Those who are absolutely thankful to God are the sincere, and they are safe from Iblīs’s arrows.
Iblīs knew, from what the angels said, or from conjecture, or by an a fortiori analogy, that most of mankind are not of the company of the thankful.
7:18 — Said He, ‘Begone hence, blameful and banished
Said He, ‘Begone hence, blameful and banished! Whoever of them follows you, I will surely fill hell with you all.’
When Iblīs rebelled against God (s.w.t.) a second time, this caused God to repeat the command to expel him and make him descend a second time, and to rebuke him and drive him out of that lofty station. It is possible, though, that the repetition of this punishment was the result of his three sins: refusing to prostrate to Ādam (a.s.), his egotism, and his leading astray. After Iblīs’s decisive words about leading the children of Ādam astray, God, Exalted, likewise threatened him and his helpers, and promised them the fire of Hell with full decisiveness and greater emphasis. God’s warning was general, and some people may be saved from it if they do not follow Iblīs’s temptations.
Filling Hell with Satan and his followers makes Hell tight and hard for them, and this in itself doubles the punishment on them.
7:19 — [Then He said to Adam,] ‘O Adam
[Then He said to Adam,] ‘O Adam, dwell with your mate in paradise, and eat thereof whence you wish; but do not approach this tree, lest you should be among the wrongdoers.’
After the Creator, Exalted, commanded Iblīs to descend from the station he was in, He likewise commanded Ādam (a.s.) and his wife to dwell in the Garden: a setting not on earth, which had some of the features of worldly blessings, such as orchards and the like, and enjoyed some of the rulings of the Garden. He permitted them free use of everything and warned them against approaching a particular tree: the tree of the barzakh, which could bear a number of material and spiritual fruits, and from which no one could eat without divine permission without wronging himself by doing so. On this basis the wrongdoing in the verse is unkindness to oneself, not wrongdoing against others or against the self; and the prohibition mentioned has a guiding character, that is, the loss from approaching the tree comes back on the one who approaches it.
All these scenes took place before Ādam (a.s.) reached the station of prophethood.
7:20 — Then Satan tempted them, to expose to them what was hidden from them of their nakedness
Then Satan tempted them, to expose to them what was hidden from them of their nakedness, and he said, ‘Your Lord has only forbidden you from this tree lest you should become angels, or lest you become immortal.’
Iblīs whispered to Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) and tempted them to eat from the forbidden tree in the Garden of the barzakh. This whispering, suited to that barzakh setting, left its mark; for when Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) ate of that fruit, their shameful parts became apparent to them.
Iblīs did not hide in the belly of a serpent in order to enter the Garden, nor did he deceive Ādam (a.s.) through women. Iblīs aimed to deceive Ādam (a.s.), to bring him down from the station of the one prostrated to and from vicegerency, and to bring him down from the high degrees; and the appearance of their shameful parts followed from this, even though uncovering their shameful parts was not his goal.
To make his whispering take effect and penetrate the heart of Ādam (a.s.), Satan brought an argument. He interpreted, by his own opinion, the divine prohibition on eating the fruit, and told them that the Lord’s prohibition was so that they would not become angels or become immortal.
This verse is no proof that the angels are above Ādam (a.s.). For by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree he wanted, besides his human station, to gain the features and privileges of the angels (such as being far from desires, having no need to eat and drink, and being far from comfort and trial).
7:21–22 — And he swore to them, ‘I am indeed your well-wisher.’
(21) And he swore to them, ‘I am indeed your well-wisher.’ (22) Thus he brought about their fall by deception. So when they tasted of the tree, their nakedness became exposed to them, and they began to stitch over themselves with the leaves of paradise. Their Lord called out to them, ‘Did I not forbid you from that tree, and tell you, ‘‘Satan is indeed your manifest enemy?’’ ’
Satan whispered to Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.), and interpreted God’s prohibition and gave it a reason by his sick opinion. He swore a strong oath to them and assured them that he wished them good, and under the pretext of guidance he tricked them and deceived them gradually, so that they ate from the forbidden tree. They were struck by bitter consequences: 1) their shameful parts appeared; 2) they grasped the ugliness of the situation and began covering their nakedness with leaves from the trees of the Garden; 3) they were removed from the station of divine nearness; 4) they deserved the divine rebuke in these two sentences: “Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan is a manifest enemy to you?”
By doing what was divinely forbidden, Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) lost a perfection suited to that world. That is, it was not a legislative prohibition, such that it would be forbidding or discouraging; for this whole story took place before Ādam’s descent to earth, the coming down of the law, and their being charged with duties.
7:23 — They said, ‘Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves
They said, ‘Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves! If You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers.’
When Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) received the rebuke from the Lord’s presence, they admitted their shortcoming with complete humility and abasement, and asked their Lord for forgiveness, saying: if You do not forgive us, we shall certainly be among the losers.
In this noble verse there are three points (wronging oneself, seeking forgiveness, and declaring loss) that suit the realm in which Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) were. They do not belong to the circle of obligation and legislation, such that they would mar the infallibility of Ādam (a.s.).
Admitting having wronged oneself, and seeking forgiveness, have a great role in bringing the servant near to his Lord. It is not unlikely that what is meant by the words Ādam (a.s.) received from his Lord, which prepared the ground for his repentance, is the manner of admitting and of seeking forgiveness.
7:24–25 — He said, ‘Get down, being enemies of one another
(24) He said, ‘Get down, being enemies of one another! On the earth shall be your abode and sustenance for a time.’ (25) He said, ‘In it you will live, and in it you will die; and from it you will be raised [from the dead].’
After setting out Satan’s whispering and the preparing of the ground for their descent, God (s.w.t.) set out three basic rulings: the descent and settling on earth; life and death; and the raising of the son of Ādam from the earth.
The address at the beginning of the verse is to Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) and Iblīs: that is, descend to the earth, where enmity will flare among you. Although the command to expel Iblīs had been issued before this, the command was now repeated to them in the plural.
The descent of Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) and Iblīs entails the appearance of offspring for them in the place of descent, the earth; just as implicit enmity exists between humans among themselves and between jinn among themselves, besides the basic enmity between Satan and man.
The secret of the descent of Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) is setting foot in the realm of obligation and travelling the road of happiness and perfection.
7:26 — ‘O Children of Adam! We have certainly sent down to you garments to cover your nakedness
‘O Children of Adam! We have certainly sent down to you garments to cover your nakedness, and for adornment. Yet the garment of Godwariness—that is the best.’ That is [one] of Allah’s signs, so that they may take admonition.
One of the most comprehensive addresses in the noble Qur’an is the address “O children of Ādam”, which is mentioned four times in this section of verses. It reminds them of the story of Ādam (a.s.) and of what happened to him, so that they are not deceived by Satan and deprived of human perfections.
What is meant by sending down clothing in the verse we are discussing is its sending down from the unseen treasury, by way of manifestation; not that clothing was sent down with Ādam (a.s.) and descended with him, for that would be a forced reading.
The treasury of all things is kept with God, and what is with God is fixed and does not cease. The clothing of beauty, of majesty and of Godwariness, like the other divine blessings, also comes down from that treasury; and whoever strengthens his relationship with his Lord will be connected with that divine treasury and benefit from it always.
God (s.w.t.) covers man’s outward faults and nakedness with ordinary clothing, which, besides protecting him from heat and cold, brings him modesty and covering. He adorns him with fine clothing to answer his instinct for seeking perfection; and likewise, by clothing him with the clothing of Godwariness, He covers his inner faults and ugly traits. The benefit of clothing, along with protecting the body, is covering and veiling faults: “clothing to cover your shameful parts”. The secret of His words “to cover your shameful parts” not coming after His words “and finery” is that finery means adorned, fine clothing, which has no central role in covering faults. The word “finery” shows that using fine dress is permitted and allowed; it does not show that it is recommended, since that needs a special proof. In any case, God, Exalted, sent down these blessed verses to remind all mankind of divine care, and the use of hope in His words “that they may remember” prepares the ground for accepting admonition and advice.
In its addresses the noble Qur’an points, besides natural adornment, to adornment beyond nature, and counts the latter as the root. We see this in this verse: after mentioning the outward clothing of covering and of adornment, to meet natural and instinctive need, it immediately follows them with the clothing of Godwariness and counts it better than all other dress and clothing.
The clothing man wears outwardly may be to bring a perfection and something suitable, or to ward off a deficiency or something unsuitable, such as protecting man from heat and cold and from wounds in wars. So too the clothing of Godwariness is for bringing beauty and perfection, and for warding off and removing evil.
The word “that” in His words “and the clothing of Godwariness, that is best” shows the magnifying and honouring of the clothing of Godwariness, which covers faults and has no connection with the instances of clothing worn on the body. No material clothing, even the clothing of jihād or the clothing of iḥrām, counts as an instance of the clothing of Godwariness.
7:27 — ‘O Children of Adam! Do not let Satan tempt you
‘O Children of Adam! Do not let Satan tempt you, like he expelled your parents from paradise, stripping them of their garments to expose to them their nakedness. Indeed he sees you—he and his hosts—whence you do not see them. We have indeed made the devils friends of those who have no faith.’
In his first and most important steps, Satan strips man of the clothing of Godwariness, to uncover his faults, expose him by this, and keep him far from the road of perfection and happiness. That is why God, Exalted, warned the offspring of Ādam in this verse to beware of Satan, lest he strip from you the clothing of Godwariness as he stripped it from your parents. The repetition of this address shows the importance of this message in this verse, and draws the attention of those addressed. The warnings are as follows:
- Iblīs’s enmity and temptation towards them have ancient roots, and their most prominent instance is what befell Ādam and Ḥawwāʾ (a.s.) and caused their descent from the Garden. Spreading this temptation among the children of Ādam is easier.
According to the outward sense of this part of the verse, it is as if the righteous faithful are now living in the Garden. For God, Exalted, warns the children of Ādam (a.s.) against Iblīs’s temptation and being afflicted by it, just as He expelled your parents from the Garden; and this comparison carries a subtle hint.
- Satan attacks man from where man does not see him, and a disguised attacker is far more dangerous than one who attacks openly.
Seeing devils and jinn is possible, because, like humans, they have spirits and bodies, though these bodies are subtle, since they are created from fire and joined with their spirits. But Satan betrays the children of Ādam from where they do not perceive; so outward sight is not what matters.
- In the order of creation Satan is a divine agent (like a trained dog): God, Exalted, has permitted him to whisper to mankind for the purpose of testing them. Whoever submits to Iblīs and to his guardianship, God will then leave free before the attacks of strangers; and He confirms and lets this run for whoever accepts Iblīs’s authority and has faith in his guardianship.
Satan has no initial authority over anyone, but he has punitive authority. That is, whoever does evil by his own choice and accepts his authority, God, Exalted, sets Satan over him as a punishment; and this punitive authority is specific to those who bear the trait of arrogance and never have faith.
7:28 — When they commit an indecency
When they commit an indecency, they say, ‘We found our fathers practising it, and Allah has enjoined it upon us.’ Say, ‘Indeed Allah does not enjoin indecencies. Do you attribute to Allah what you do not know?’
When the polytheists of the Ḥijāz submitted to the guardianship of Satan, they became stained with sins such as going naked while circling the House of God, or in other gatherings. They justified these by fallacies and by confusing creation with legislation, and they justified their evil deeds as the customs of their fathers and forefathers, saying that God had called us to follow their customs.
God (s.w.t.) answered their justifications, stressing strongly that God does not call anyone to indecency, and that what the polytheists and the faithless repeat is nothing but accusation and invention. By this the customs of their forebears of the age of ignorance are answered too; for the justification of their elite was also a justification of the blind imitation their common people practised. Since the falsity of blind imitation is clear, it was not stated explicitly.
At the end, God (s.w.t.) condemns and rebukes them, saying to them: you have no right to invent and to say something that has no place in reason or in transmitted proof. The essence of the polytheists’ sayings is nothing but fallacies and the confusion of creation with legislation; that is, they claimed that freedom in creation is freedom in legislation. Otherwise, in reality, reason and primordial nature do not accept indecency and wrongdoing, and no prophet or successor (waṣī) ever urged indecency or idol-worship.
7:29 — Say, ‘My Lord has enjoined justice,’ and [He has enjoined,] ‘Set your heart [on Him] at…
Say, ‘My Lord has enjoined justice,’ and [He has enjoined,] ‘Set your heart [on Him] at every occasion of prayer, and invoke Him, putting your exclusive faith in Him. Even as He brought you forth in the beginning, so will you return.’
The Creator, Exalted, never commands indecency; ascribing the command of indecency to Him, who is free of what the inventors invent, is invention and ignorance. Rather, He, Exalted, commands equity, turning to the Creator, and sincere supplication to Him. What is meant by equity (qisṭ) is a just share; so justice is required in all matters, and going too far and falling short must be avoided.
The “face” is the reality of man and the reality of his being. Setting the face at every place of prostration means: turn the substance of your self and the reality of your being, in every act of worship, to God (the One worshipped), and turn your whole being to Him.
Whoever turns to the absolutely Self-sufficient with his reality, his being and his self knows that God alone meets needs. So he calls on Him with sincerity and humility and obeys Him as He should be obeyed.
The point of comparison in the phrase “as He began you, so you will return” is the root of creation, and both are within the power of God, Exalted, because the beginning is the proof of the Return. In this phrase He began by mentioning the proof, to remove the root of doubt and to prevent any further question.
7:30 — A part [of mankind] He has guided and a part has deserved [to be consigned to] error
A part [of mankind] He has guided and a part has deserved [to be consigned to] error, for they took devils for guardians instead of Allah, and supposed they were guided.
God (s.w.t.) grants to those who accept initial guidance the guidance of recompense; that is, He gives them an inclination so that they may live a happy life with ease and not grieve over securing it. The faithless and those who deny God’s blessings will be afflicted with the punishment of being led astray. So the guidance in this verse is guidance as recompense, and, by the contrast, the misguidance in it is punitive too. Besides, the change of wording for misguidance is also evidence for this.
The outward sense of this verse, like other verses, divides people into groups: faithful and faithless, guided and astray. It is understood that at the Return people are divided into these two groups, because they were two groups in this world too.
The misguided group embraced the guardianship of Satan; so they have no support in knowledge or in action to rely on. Their intellectual base and their perception are fancy, supposition and imagination; and when their perceptions are imaginary and weak, their words too are built on ignorance, fancy and feebleness.
7:31 — O Children of Adam! Put on your adornment on every occasion of prayer
O Children of Adam! Put on your adornment on every occasion of prayer, and eat and drink, but do not waste; indeed, He does not like the wasteful.
The address in this verse is general, covering all human beings until the Day of Resurrection. In this respect it can be taken as proof that the noble prophetic mission, and the sending of the Messenger Muḥammad (s.a.w.), is for all mankind.
Adornment at places of prostration and while staying in them is, according to the internal evidence and the testimony of the next verse, where adornment is ascribed to the Real, Exalted, a matter of worship. From this it is known that what is meant is adornment in all places set apart for worship, not only in mosques, even though the mosque counts as the most prominent instance of these places. And adornment covers all prayers; it is not specific to the Friday prayer or the prayers of the two festivals.
The command to eat and drink is a command of permission, but the prohibition of extravagance is a forbidding prohibition, whose circle includes extravagance in adornment. Going too far in using the blessings of adornment and of consumption is forbidden and harmful, and falling short likewise is an undesirable rigidity. From this standpoint Islam has urged strongly towards economy and moderation, belittled extravagance, and poured divine loathing and wrath on the extravagant.
7:32 — Say, ‘Who has forbidden the adornment of Allah which He has brought forth for His servants
Say, ‘Who has forbidden the adornment of Allah which He has brought forth for His servants, and the good things of [His] provision?’ Say, ‘These are for the faithful in the life of this world, and exclusively for them on the Day of Resurrection.’ Thus do We elaborate the signs for a people who have knowledge.
In the age of ignorance there was a group of people who, out of ignorance, forbade themselves the eating of some livestock. When the Creator, Exalted, wished to change their understanding, He put to them a rhetorical question of disapproval and appealed to them, saying: who has forbidden the natural adornment and the divine handiwork, and the lawful, permitted provisions that the Lord of the worlds created for man?
Ascribing adornment to God is specific to matters of legislation only; otherwise, in creation, all phenomena are ascribed to God, Exalted.
Divine blessings in this world are shares held in common between the person of faith and the one without faith. On the Day of Resurrection they are reserved for the faithful, and none of them reaches the faithless at the Return.
The detailing of the verses refers to their contents.
7:33 — Say, ‘My Lord has only forbidden indecencies
Say, ‘My Lord has only forbidden indecencies, the outward among them and the inward ones, and sin and undue aggression, and that you should ascribe to Allah partners for which He has not sent down any authority, and that you should attribute to Allah what you do not know.’
After denying, in the previous verse, that adornment and good things are forbidden, in this verse He sets out the divine prohibitions, as appears from the relative restriction in the verse: these indecencies (ugly acts, open and hidden), sins, wrongdoing, and associating partners with God, which are inventions against the Lord of the worlds.
The qualifier “without right” in “and rebellion without right” is explanatory and emphatic, not a restrictive qualifier.
Polytheism has no proof. No prophet has supported it through divine revelation, and no evidence accompanies its affirmation. Ascribing unknown things to God (inventing lies against God) is a major sin and counts as polytheism. The last axis of the closing sentence of the noble verse concerns ascribing unknown things to God, and those who speak and talk on matters of religion and its teachings without any knowledge; there is no doubt that the verse covers them.
7:34 — There is a [preordained] time for every nation
There is a [preordained] time for every nation: when their time comes, they shall not defer it by a single hour nor shall they advance it.
This verse tells that every nation has a span of life and death, and every society has a fixed term; when that term arrives, they can neither put it forward nor put it back at all. It is plain that establishing a real and separate existence for the nation (society) is no easy matter.
When the life of a person or of a society reaches its end, it cannot be put back or put forward. When the term ends and runs out, it is not delayed or advanced even by a moment.
It is worth mentioning that the verse is not setting a limit, so it has no implied sense that would allow advancing or delaying by less than a moment. Advancing the term after it has arrived has no sound supposition either: it is impossible; and delaying is in the same position as advancing, so it too is impossible.
7:35–36 — O Children of Adam! If there come to you apostles from among yourselves
(35) O Children of Adam! If there come to you apostles from among yourselves, recounting to you My signs, then those who are Godwary and righteous will have no fear, nor will they grieve. (36) But those who deny Our signs and are disdainful of them, they shall be the inmates of the Fire and they shall remain in it [forever].
In a universal address to all mankind, from first to last, God (s.w.t.) says: if messengers of their own kind come to them and recite My verses to them, then those who are Godwary after this and respond to this address will have no fear and will not grieve. They have no fear in this world and no dread of the Hereafter; they neither fear what is to come nor grieve over the past, because they submitted to the truth and acted on its way (they have goodness of the act and goodness of the doer). But those who denied God’s signs, rejected them and were too arrogant to accept them will burn in the fire of Hell and abide in it forever.
The prophets (a.s.) are all of human kind, though, according to other verses, those addressed by the prophets include both men and jinn.
“Relating” (qaṣaṣ) the divine verses does not mean storytelling. It means the separating and coming down of the Qur’anic verses and the divine teachings from the divine treasury; or it means that the verses came down one after another and were recited to people in succession.
7:37 — So who is a greater wrongdoer than him who fabricates a lie against Allah
So who is a greater wrongdoer than him who fabricates a lie against Allah, or denies His signs? Their share, as decreed in the Book, shall reach them. When Our messengers come to take them away, they will say, ‘Where is that which you used to invoke besides Allah?’ They will say, ‘They have forsaken us,’ and they will testify against themselves that they were faithless.
The content of this verse branches off from what the previous verses contained and is closely linked with them: who is more wrongdoing than those who lie and invent against the Lord of the worlds, claiming prophethood, or who deny the signs of God? None is more wrongdoing than these.
The severity or lightness of wrongdoing is tied to its object: wrongdoing in belief is graver, more severe and uglier than wrongdoing in action.
On the basis of the all-embracing mercy of God (s.w.t.), the material blessings decreed for the faithless will also reach them, and it has been decreed in the divine Book that they reach them. But in the Hereafter they have no share of spiritual blessings; rather, they will be afflicted with a painful punishment.
Those who carry out the divine punishment will question them when they are brought into Hell, and the question will be put in a severely accusing way: where have your feeble, false claims gone, such as claiming prophethood, the soundness of idol-worship, and seeking intercession from idols? The followers of falsehood answer this question that all of it has been lost and wiped out at once and has become nothing. That is, the divinity of the idols has gone and turned away from them, and punishment has struck them as a penalty for their denial and for setting up partners for God, Exalted.
When their terms come, the followers of falsehood will find that no one owns benefit and harm but God, Exalted, and that they went astray when they ascribed benefit and harm to their feeble objects of worship; and they admit this with their tongues. The secret hidden in expressing the admission of the followers of falsehood as testimony is that the scene of their falsehood is witnessed and known, and they cannot deny it or dispute it.
7:38–39 — He will say, ‘Enter the Fire
(38) He will say, ‘Enter the Fire, along with the nations of jinn and humans who passed before you!’ Every time that a nation enters [hell], it will curse its sister [nation]. When they all rejoin in it, the last of them will say about the first of them, ‘Our Lord, it was they who led us astray; so give them a double punishment of the Fire.’ He will say, ‘It is double for each [of you], but you do not know.’ (39) And the first of them will say to the last of them, ‘You have no merit over us! So taste the punishment because of what you used to earn.’
After God (s.w.t.) takes the faithless and moves them to the world of the Hereafter, He calls them, one after another, to the punishment of the fire of Hell by a creative address. The chiefs of faithlessness and the heads of polytheism enter the Fire before their followers; the order of their entry into Hell is known from the quarrel that breaks out among them.
In the quarrel among the people of Hell, each later group curses the group that went before it and entered before them. When their number is complete and they are all gathered, the fire of quarrel and argument will flare among them. The followers will complain of the heads of faithlessness and polytheism, saying to God, Exalted: these associated partners with You and led us astray with them through their polytheism; they are astray and led us astray, so double Your punishment on them. The answer comes from the Lord of the worlds that the punishment will be doubled for both follower and followed, so the punishment on them will be twofold. For the state of those who submitted to these heads and chiefs is like that of those they submitted to: they committed the same two sins and the same two destructive acts, misguidance, and accepting the rule of tyranny (blind imitation) and preferring the leaders of tyranny to the leaders of truth.
Their great ones and leaders will say, gloating, to those who followed them: you have no merit over us that would lighten the punishment for you, so taste the divine punishment; for you turned towards us deliberately and intentionally and left the divine leaders, so you were faithless and did wrong, and shared with us in wrongdoing and faithlessness.
The second verse shows that the punishment of the followers is like the punishment of the leaders of wrongdoing too, so the punishment on them is twofold. For when the Real, Exalted, relates the words of the leaders of misguidance, He does not refute them or dismiss them with any objection.
7:40–41 — Indeed, those who deny Our signs and are disdainful of them—the gates of the heaven will…
(40) Indeed, those who deny Our signs and are disdainful of them—the gates of the heaven will not be opened for them, nor shall they enter paradise until the camel passes through the needle’s eye, and thus do We requite the guilty. (41) They shall have hell for their resting place, and over them shall be sheets [of fire], and thus do We requite the wrongdoers.
The doors of the unseen of the heavens are opened before the faithful in the life of this world and after death. These doors are not opened before those who deny the divine signs and are arrogant, just as they are barred from entering the Garden and being in it.
“The heaven” in this verse is the heaven that is the source of spiritual provision and the axis of revelation, through which the divine command comes down between it and the earth. What is meant is not this natural sky, open to the faithless to reach with their aircraft. The closing of the doors of heaven before the faithless is not specific to the Hereafter; in this world too they are deprived of the benefits, the tables and the contents of heaven.
The phrase “until the camel passes through the eye of the needle” qualifies the last sentence, which concerns the faithless being barred and kept from the Garden. It can also qualify the first sentence, the closing of the doors of heaven. So both matters are made dependent on something impossible.
At the end of the first verse the punishment of other guilty people is likened to the punishment of those who deny the divine signs and are arrogant towards them, so that all may understand that guilt is the cause of punishment. The likening is repeated in the second verse too, because every guilty person wrongs himself.
The Fire surrounds such faithless people, sets their seats in the Fire, and its flames cover them, because their inner selves are full of corrupt belief and vile morals, and their outer selves of ugly deeds.
7:42–43 — As for those who have faith and do righteous deeds—We task no soul except according to…
(42) As for those who have faith and do righteous deeds—We task no soul except according to its capacity—they shall be the inhabitants of paradise, and they shall remain in it [forever]. (43) We will remove whatever rancour there is in their breasts, and streams will run for them. They will say, ‘All praise belongs to Allah, who guided us to this. We would have never been guided had not Allah guided us. Our Lord’s apostles had certainly brought the truth.’ And the call would be made to them: ‘This is paradise, which you have been given to inherit because of what you used to do!’
After God, Exalted, warned the faithless and threatened them with punishment, in this blessed verse He wished to give good news to the faithful and to promise them entry into the Garden, on condition of securing two basic conditions: faith (goodness of the doer) and righteous deeds (goodness of the act). Since the object is omitted in “and those who have faith”, which conveys generality, faith is required in all that the noble Messenger (s.a.w.) brought; and doing good things and righteous deeds are also conditions for entering the Garden. But each person’s duty is limited by his ability and capacity; if he is unable to do a good deed, he is not charged with it.
By contrast, just as the followers of falsehood and the stubborn faithless are neighbours of the Fire and abide in it forever, so the faithful abide in the Garden and are its neighbours for ever and ever.
The hearts of the people of the Garden are empty of all rancour (ghill), that is, hatred, envy and enmity. They are free and clear of rancour, and their breasts are broad and spacious. The removal of rancour is, for the faithful of greater merit, by way of prevention, and for the ordinary faithful, by way of removal, which is a kind of purification.
On the basis of the settled traits they bear, the people of the Garden must render the due and give thanks for the sensory and spiritual blessings in the Garden. They say to God, Exalted: We praise You, O God, for guiding us through the prophets (a.s.), keeping us far from the fire of Hell and showing us the way to the Garden; had You not guided us with Your special guidance and Your lordly care, we would never have attained the honour of this station. On this basis what “this” points to is not only the removal of rancour. The people of the Garden also admit that what the prophets (a.s.) promised them has come true and was the truth.
With the word “that” (tilkum), which points to what is far off and to loftiness of degree and rank, the people of the Garden are addressed: this Garden is the one you were promised in return for your deeds; it is your inheritance. This inheritance tells of their special relationship with God (s.w.t.), for they inherited the Garden from Him.
7:44–45 — The inhabitants of paradise will call out to the inmates of the Fire
(44) The inhabitants of paradise will call out to the inmates of the Fire, ‘We found what our Lord promised us to be true; did you find what your Lord promised you to be true?’ ‘Yes,’ they will say. Then a caller will announce in their midst, ‘May Allah’s curse be on the wrongdoers!’ (45) —Those who bar [others] from the way of Allah, and seek to make it crooked, and disbelieve in the Hereafter.
After the precise reckoning of the servants is over, and the faithful have settled in the Garden and the faithless are confined in the fire of Hell, the people of the Garden call to the people of the Fire: we have found what our Lord promised us in the world to be true; have you found true the threats from your Lord that you used to accuse of lying in the world, and have you now met their reality? The people of the Fire say: Yes! This questioning by the faithful, and their reproach, is only for the reassurance of the hearts of the faithful; and it is a wise vengeance, not a foolish one.
Then one of the people of the Garden announces: let divine mercy be far from the guilty wrongdoers who went astray in the life of this world and did not keep upright, who strove to turn people from the way of guidance and to show the way of God as crooked and not straight; they do not have faith in the Return.
7:46 — There will be a veil between them
There will be a veil between them. And on the Elevations will be certain men who recognize each of them by their mark. They will call out to the inhabitants of paradise, ‘Peace be to you!’ (They will not have entered it, though they would be eager to do so.
At the Resurrection there is a veil separating the people of the Garden from the Fire, called the Aʿrāf (the Heights). This veil prevents reaching and entering, but does not prevent conversation and seeing between the people of the Garden and of the Fire. On those heights and veils sit the men of God, who are not veiled. They look over both sides of the veil and know everyone by their particular features. These men are neither jinn nor angels; they are great, godly human beings.
At the Resurrection people’s secrets are not uncovered in every station and to all; rather, each individual is gathered with a feature that distinguishes him from the rest. Those sitting on those heights know every individual of mankind by his marks. For they know the signs (sīmāʾ), and know the people of the gathering by their inner marks, formed by the beliefs and character they had; and knowledge of the signs in the Hereafter is specific to these alone.
The lordly men call to those who sit at the thresholds in the Aʿrāf, who have not yet entered the Garden but hope to enter it, either through intercession or through divine pardon: Peace of God be upon you. These people (who are the oppressed, or those whose good and evil deeds are equal) are certainly among the people of triumph and of the Garden. For the Creator, Exalted, has described them as longing for it and having hope of reaching it; and since their hope is good and praiseworthy, it will therefore be fulfilled.
7:47 — And when their look is turned toward the inmates of the Fire
And when their look is turned toward the inmates of the Fire, they will say, ‘Our Lord, do not put us among the wrongdoing lot!’)
The people of the Aʿrāf, who have not yet entered the Garden but hope to, do not wish to look at the Fire and its people. When their eyes fall on them involuntarily, they call on their Lord in supplication not to place them with the wrongdoing people.
This request is not of the kind of worldly supplication, because the Resurrection is not a setting for obligation and legislation. Rather, what is meant is the emergence and appearance of worldly settled traits. For in this world they always used to ask their Lord to protect them from the punishment of the Fire; so, as a result, the people of the Aʿrāf take a spiritual delight in saying “our Lord”, which is the fruit of their supplications and prayers in the abode of this world.
7:48 — The occupants of the Elevations will call out to certain men whom they recognize by their…
The occupants of the Elevations will call out to certain men whom they recognize by their marks, ‘Your rallying did not avail you, nor what you used to disdain.
This verse sets out the conversation that takes place between the men of the Aʿrāf and the people of the Fire who have not yet entered Hell but are on the threshold of entering it. The “Companions of the Aʿrāf” are those settled on the summit. For this reason they are mentioned by the explicit name, because the five absent pronouns in the previous verses refer to “the companions of the Garden”; if the subject of “called” had come as a pronoun, it might be thought that the subject was the companions of the Garden, not the men of the Aʿrāf.
The indefinite “men”, with tanwīn, is for belittlement; this shows that the people of the Aʿrāf deal with the group mentioned with contempt. Those sitting on the summit know them by their signs among the people of the gathering, and address them: Look now how your power, your wealth and your arrogant conduct have not availed you, and in the end you are driven to the fire of Hell. These, who in this world were people of arrogance and leaders of faithlessness, and who used to scorn the oppressed in the abode of this world, are afflicted at the Resurrection with a humiliating punishment.
7:49 — Are these the ones concerning whom you swore that Allah will not extend them any mercy?’…
Are these the ones concerning whom you swore that Allah will not extend them any mercy?’ ‘Enter paradise! You shall have no fear, nor shall you grieve.’
Those settled on the summit of the Aʿrāf say to the people of the Fire who are close to entering the Fire: these faithful sitting at the thresholds of the Aʿrāf, who are about to enter the Garden, are the ones you swore would never receive God’s mercy, and would be barred from God’s mercy and from the happiness of the Hereafter. Now look well how they are commanded to enter the Garden without fear or dread, while your gathering of the debris of this world and your arrogance have not availed you, and you have no share of God’s mercy at the Resurrection.
On this reading, those pointed to by “these” are those sitting at the thresholds of the Aʿrāf, of the people of the Garden, who have not yet entered it but hope and long for it. Those who make this call, “Enter the Garden”, are the men of God settled on the summit of the Aʿrāf, whose Lord permits them to command the people of the Garden to enter it.
7:50 — The inmates of the Fire will call out to the inhabitants of paradise
The inmates of the Fire will call out to the inhabitants of paradise, ‘Pour on us some water, or something of what Allah has provided you.’ They will say, ‘Allah has indeed forbidden these two to the faithless!’
Once the people of Hell have fallen into the fire of Hell, they are afflicted with a terrible thirst. For this reason their most basic need is water, and what they ask of the people of the Garden is that they pour a draught of it upon them. In such a state, water is more important and more useful to the people of Hell than anything else. So they ask the people of the Garden for their outward needs too, but the answer of the people of the Garden to the people of Hell is a disappointing refusal, because God, the Wise, Exalted, has forbidden, in creation, the people of Hell from benefiting from the blessings of the Garden, at root and forever.
In this world the people of Hell were busy with their appetites and with what fills their bellies. For this reason what they mean by the phrase “of what God has provided you” is outward, material blessings, not lofty spiritual knowledge.
7:51 — Those who took their religion for diversion and play and whom the life of the world had…
Those who took their religion for diversion and play and whom the life of the world had deceived. So today, We will forget them as they forgot the encounter of this day of theirs, and as they used to impugn Our signs.
The faithless sank into the pit of unbelief in stages.
The first of them was distraction and amusement. Then they took their religion as a pretext for play. The life of this world deceived them, so they made themselves forget the Resurrection, knowingly and deliberately, and in the end they denied the divine signs. So God (s.w.t.), knowingly and deliberately, forgot them too; that is, He, Exalted, abandoned them entirely, just as they made themselves forget the Day of Resurrection, and as a result they deny the signs of God, Exalted, always.
Divine forgetting, according to the rational and transmitted proofs and the internal and external indications, is that same deliberate forgetting and abandoning, not forgetting in the usual sense, because forgetting is something involuntary, without choice, and it is one of the attributes of majesty that are negated of Him, Majestic is His majesty, as in the noble verse “and your Lord is not forgetful”.
7:52 — Certainly We have brought them a Book
Certainly We have brought them a Book, which We have elaborated with knowledge, as a guidance and mercy for a people who have faith.
We have sent down to the polytheists a Book which, among its necessary features, sent down for their ascent and to complete the proof against them, is this:
Its active source, the One who sets it out, is God (s.w.t.), the All-Knowing without limit.
In its inner structure and composition, it is a detailed Book, protected, in its setting out of truth and falsehood, from any ambiguity or ignorance whatever.
As to its order of purpose, its aim is guidance and mercy; but only those who believe in the truth benefit from the guidance and the mercy.
The detailing of the Book with knowledge is the very separating of the places of guidance from misguidance, of truth from falsehood, of honesty from lying, and of good from evil.
This detailing is in view of knowledge and complete awareness.
7:53 — Do they not consider [the consequences of] its fulfillment
Do they not consider [the consequences of] its fulfillment? The day when its fulfillment comes, those who had forgotten it before will say, ‘Our Lord’s apostles had certainly brought the truth. If only we had some intercessors to intercede for us, or we would be returned, so that we may do differently from what we did!’ They have certainly ruined their souls, and what they used to fabricate has forsaken them.
Those who denied the signs of God, Exalted, in this world, making themselves forget them, have nothing to wait for but the taʾwīl of the Qur’an, that is, the outward realisation and the complete, comprehensive appearance of the reality of the noble Qur’an on the Day of Resurrection. On that day some people will be compelled to confess with their tongues that the messengers sent by God, Exalted, came with true words and a true garment, and came with the truth, but they will say: we are the ones who did not accept it; or: would that you returned us to the world to do good deeds. But this request of theirs is nothing but a wish, not that they are confident of benefiting from intercession, nor is a return to the world possible, because their own hands have squandered the capital of their lives, and they have been afflicted with a great loss.
There the falsity of their inventions will appear, and they will find that everything they imagined would intercede for them is nothing but a mirage. On that day all those false intercessors will have vanished and gone.
7:54 — Indeed your Lord is Allah
Indeed your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and then settled on the Throne. He draws the night’s cover over the day, which pursues it swiftly, and [He created] the sun, the moon, and the stars, [all of them] disposed by His command. Look! All creation and command belong to Him. Blessed is Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.
This noble verse reminds the polytheists of the lordship, partial or total, of the Creator of the world of existence, and makes clear that your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, or in six stages, and then after that managed their affairs according to what He had resolved to establish.
Among the instances of management is the act of God, Exalted, which is carried out on the basis of knowledge and power, and the way the night and the day are managed. In this way God (s.w.t.) has made the night a covering for the day; the night covers it, and the night follows the day swiftly, enveloping it in such a way that when the day ends the night takes its place. Then, lest anyone imagine that this precise order governing the night and the day is chance, He says at once that the sun, the moon and the stars are obedient to the command of God and under His management, and by His creative command He has made them subservient to man.
Yes, the system of the heavens and the earth is created by God, Exalted, and lies in the shade of His absolute lordship. Since the axis of creation and the pivot of the management of the universe, that is, bringing the world of existence into being, nurturing it and raising it, are in the hand of the power of God alone, Majestic is His majesty, all blessings and outpourings come from Him, Glorified is He, who is the Creator of all the worlds of existence and their Lord.
7:55 — Supplicate your Lord, beseechingly and secretly
Supplicate your Lord, beseechingly and secretly. Indeed, He does not like the transgressors.
Among the manners of supplication is that it be with weeping, tears and sighs, and that it be in secret, to be saved from outward ailments such as showing off. The moaning should be hidden, and for the reform of the self and to be saved from the inner danger, such as self-admiration and conceit, it must be done with a broken heart. For this reason, at the end of the verse, the one who departs from this state in supplication is described as a transgressor who oversteps his bounds, and God does not love those who overstep, even in supplication. Overstepping in supplication has other instances too, such as praying for something forbidden, and making an unlawful, forbidden request.
7:56 — And do not cause corruption on the earth after its restoration
And do not cause corruption on the earth after its restoration, and supplicate Him with fear and hope: indeed Allah’s mercy is close to the virtuous.
Religious rules, besides their personal side, also cover social matters. In this noble verse comes the prohibition of causing corruption in the earth, pointing to the relation of the individual with society; that is, just as supplication prepares the way for reforming the individual, it also paves the way to keeping away from social corruption, for the reform of society.
The reform of the individual is bound up with the reform of society, because if each individual person is not reformed, society cannot be reformed. For this reason, in the rest of the verse, returning to the act of worship that is supplication, He calls everyone to its spiritual manners, because the effect of supplication in reforming personal and social life depends on supplicating in fear and in hope. As long as a person does not fear becoming a captive of his own self, is not seized with dread at the terror of the divine punishment, and does not hope for the divine mercy, he will not feel the constructive effects of supplication in himself or in society. And since fear and hope of an answer, each on its own, are not enough, the two must go side by side, so that each makes up for the negative effects of the other. Then the special mercy ends up “near to the doers of good”; that is, the arrival of the special mercy needs supplication with humility, by way of fear, and hope that God will answer the supplication.
7:57 — It is He who sends forth the winds as harbingers of His mercy
It is He who sends forth the winds as harbingers of His mercy. When they bear [rain-] laden clouds, We drive them toward a dead land and send down water on it, and with it We bring forth all kinds of crops. Thus shall We raise the dead; maybe you will take admonition.
The winds are messengers from God in the order of creation. They move by the command of God, Exalted, before the rain comes down, to bring the hope of this blessing to the earth and to its people.
The winds have carried on their shoulders the mission of the heavy, rain-bearing clouds, and have driven them, with God’s guidance, toward the dead lands so that it may come down there. On this basis the Real, Exalted, is the active source of bringing the rain down by the clouds onto the dead lands. He also sends it down in suitable drops, so that it falls gently and settles on the surface of the thirsty, dry earth, and the rain soaks in slowly and calmly. In this way, too, the dead earth gains life by His command, Exalted, and bears abundant fruits. So the One who drives, the One who waters and the One who gives life is God (s.w.t.). Just as He gives life to the earth and to the dead seed in the abode of this world, so He brings forth dead people from the depths of the soil, and gives them life a second time.
7:58 — The good land—its vegetation comes out by the permission of its Lord
The good land—its vegetation comes out by the permission of its Lord, and as for that which is bad, it does not come out except sparsely. Thus do We paraphrase the signs variously for a people who give thanks.
After God (s.w.t.) has made clear how the dead earth is brought to life by rain, He sets out to remove a misconception: that rain falling in a single manner does not entail that all lands are brought to life in the same way, nor that their fruits become equal, because regions differ from one another. Where the land is good and ready to grow useful plants, by the leave of its Creator it grows plants overflowing with blessing and benefit; against that, salty, bad land grows only worthless plants of little value. So too are human grounds, good and bad.
It is clear that benefiting from the guidance and teachings of these verses belongs only to the grateful, because they understand how to benefit from the good land and good grounds, and how to avoid the bad land (the land and the grounds that are not good).
7:59 — Certainly We sent Noah to his people
Certainly We sent Noah to his people. He said, ‘O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him. Indeed I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous day.’
The prophet Nūḥ (a.s.) is the first of the resolute prophets (a.s.). Among the central principles of his mission, which is the preamble of the call of all the divine prophets, is the call to tawḥīd and the rejection of idol worship. The call of Nūḥ (a.s.) was joined to a warning of the punishment of God, Exalted, to achieve this important aim and to guide people toward the religion of tawḥīd.
7:60–61 — The elite of his people said
(60) The elite of his people said, ‘Indeed we see you in manifest error.’ (61) He said, ‘O my people, I am not in error. Rather, I am an apostle from the Lord of all the worlds.
The prophet Nūḥ (a.s.) delivered the divine message to the people. Then the nobles of the people of Nūḥ (a.s.), their notables and well-known men, in the face of his sincere preaching and his learned guidance, began to speak improper words, with threats; they violated his sanctity and accused him, ascribing him to clear misguidance.
The prophet Nūḥ (a.s.) addressed them with an expression full of love and compassion, saying: “O my people”. It is clear that such an expression is a way of stirring reasonable feelings of kinship and of bringing about the adoption of a praiseworthy course. After that, by denying every kind of misguidance, that very denial is a setting out of the presentation of the message of the Lord of the world of existence.
7:62 — I communicate to you the messages of my Lord
I communicate to you the messages of my Lord, and I am your well-wisher, and I know from Allah what you do not know.
After the prophet Nūḥ (a.s.) answered the insolence and fierceness of the nobles of his people, he made clear that he is free of any misguidance and counted himself a messenger from his Lord. Completing the explanation of his duty of delivering the messages of his Lord the Creator (many kinds and types of commands and rules), he said: I want nothing but what is good for you; I counsel you sincerely, and I make clear to you that I have knowledge of things disclosed to me, resting on revelation, of which you have no knowledge, and I am the one who makes them clear to you.
The closing sentence of the verse brings together warning and good tidings, and is a setting out of the summary of the program of the messengers.
7:63 — Do you consider it odd that a reminder from your Lord should come to you through a man…
Do you consider it odd that a reminder from your Lord should come to you through a man from among yourselves, to warn you so that you may be Godwary and so that you may receive His mercy?’
The people of Nūḥ (a.s.) held a false notion: that the one who brings the addresses of the Lord of the worlds, His commands and His prohibitions, must be of the kind of the angels. On this pretext they did not accept the prophethood of Nūḥ (a.s.), and in a strange way set about denying him. To refute this false notion of theirs, the prophet Nūḥ (a.s.) asked them: do you wonder that the divine message is entrusted to a man like you, so that he warns you that you may become Godwary and attain the divine mercy, which brings with it abundant blessings of this world and the Hereafter?
7:64 — But they denied him. So We delivered him and those who were with him in the ark
But they denied him. So We delivered him and those who were with him in the ark, and We drowned those who denied Our signs. Indeed, they were a blind lot.
The prophet Nūḥ (a.s.) bore many hardships to guide his people, but they were not guided. They denied his message and denied the signs of God too. In the end, as the outcome of the matter, God (s.w.t.) saved him and the faithful with him, who believed in Him, in an ark that he had built with guidance and teaching from God, Exalted, and drowned the faithless people, who denied the truth, in the flood, because they were among those whose hearts had died.
7:65 — And to [the people of] ‘Ad [We sent] Hud
And to [the people of] ‘Ad [We sent] Hud, their brother. He said, ‘O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him. Will you not then be wary [of Him]?’
God chose a prophet from among every people, since the prophet’s tongue being the same as that of his people has a special importance in delivering the commands of God, Exalted, and guiding people. On this basis Hūd (a.s.) was chosen from among the people of ʿĀd to guide and direct them. Although the people of ʿĀd had no religious brotherhood with him, they were his equals in people and tribe, and that is counted as the brotherhood of Hūd (a.s.). This expression of brotherhood stirs feeling, like the expression “O my people”, and has the effect of endearing and softening hearts.
Hūd (a.s.), like Nūḥ (a.s.), called his people to innate tawḥīd and to servanthood to the One, Unique God, and to the rejection of polytheism. He reminded them of the story of the people of Nūḥ, to take heed and draw a lesson.
The story of the people of Nūḥ (a.s.) reminds us of that. By mentioning Godwariness he warned them against heading toward such an evil end, saying to them: beware of doing deeds for which you become a lesson for the generations to come, like the people of Nūḥ (a.s.).
7:66 — The elite of his people who were faithless said
The elite of his people who were faithless said, ‘Indeed we see you to be in folly, and indeed we consider you to be a liar.’
The great men of ʿĀd, hoarders of gold, and their faithless ones, like the arrogant of the people of Nūḥ (a.s.), fought the call of Hūd (a.s.) to tawḥīd and disputed with him about it, saying: we see you sunk in foolishness and lack of reason, and we think you too are like that group who before you falsely claimed prophethood.
In truth, by these words of theirs, besides believing that Hūd was a liar, they also denied his news and his prophethood.
7:67–68 — He said, ‘O my people, I am not in folly
(67) He said, ‘O my people, I am not in folly. Rather, I am an apostle from the Lord of all the worlds. (68) I communicate to you the messages of my Lord and I am a trustworthy well-wisher for you.
When his rude people imagined that he, the prophet Hūd (a.s.), was sunk in foolishness, he answered their words with every courtesy (a.s.): there is not an atom of foolishness in me, and I am a messenger from the Lord of the worlds. With these words he (a.s.) made clear the proof that he was not foolish, because the message is given only to the most qualified of people, and the divine messenger possesses a complete intellect; so the message and foolishness cannot come together. From another side he answered his people’s charge of lying; that is: since I am the messenger of God, I have no lie, whether as one who informs or as news. Then he made clear his duty: that I deliver the commands of my Lord and His messages, in the fields of beliefs, morals and deeds, with all sincerity, without any lack or shortfall, and I am to you a trustworthy adviser.
7:69 — Do you consider it odd that there should come to you a reminder from your Lord through a…
Do you consider it odd that there should come to you a reminder from your Lord through a man from among yourselves, so that he may warn you? Remember when He made you successors after the people of Noah, and increased you vastly in creation. So remember Allah’s bounties so that you may be felicitous.’
The people of ʿĀd were astonished at Hūd’s (a.s.) claim to prophethood, because they thought a prophet had to be an angel from among the angels.
To remove this illusion of theirs and their astonishment, the prophet Hūd (a.s.) said to them: do you wonder that revelation should come from God, Exalted, to a man like you, to warn you of the consequences of your deeds? Take heed from past events, and remember the material and spiritual blessings of God that He has granted you, making you inheritors of them, giving you the enjoyment of abundant material means, and giving you special strength in body and in skill. The condition of your success and prosperity is remembering these blessings.
7:70 — They said, ‘Have you come to [tell] us that we should worship Allah alone and abandon…
They said, ‘Have you come to [tell] us that we should worship Allah alone and abandon what our fathers have been worshiping? Then bring us what you threaten us with, should you be truthful.’
The ignorant zealotry of the people of ʿĀd and their blind imitation of the ways of their forebears prevented them from answering the call of Hūd (a.s.) positively. That is why, in their closing words to the prophet Hūd (a.s.), they said: you want us to set aside the worship of our fathers’ gods and worship God alone; that will never be, and we will not abandon the way of our forebears. So carry out your threat and bring us that punishment you promised us, “if you are of the truthful”.
7:71 — He said, ‘Punishment and wrath from your Lord has become due against you
He said, ‘Punishment and wrath from your Lord has become due against you. Do you dispute with me regarding names, which you have named—you and your fathers—for which Allah has not sent down any authority? So wait! I too am waiting along with you.’
The request of the people of ʿĀd, at the end of their words, that punishment be sent down on them shows how fiercely they refused to accept the call of Hūd (a.s.). For this reason, after despairing of their guidance, he (a.s.) said in answer to their request that punishment be sent down on them: the divine punishment is certain and inevitable, and will come down on you soon. Then he answered another part of their words, about their blind imitation of the ways of their forebears, their belief in many separate lords and their worship of idols, saying: the names you give to these idols are all names without things named, with no trace of lordship in them, and God (s.w.t.) has sent down no proof for them; so you have no demonstration for your claim. At the end of his words he also threatened them, saying: since you are in a hurry to see my threat carried out before your eyes, wait for the divine punishment to come down, and I too am waiting for it with you.
7:72 — Then We delivered him and those who were with him by a mercy from Us
Then We delivered him and those who were with him by a mercy from Us, and We rooted out those who denied Our signs and were not faithful.
When the time for the punishment to come down arrived, God (s.w.t.) saved Hūd (a.s.) and his followers from the punishment by His special mercy. That punishment was a punishment of extermination, tearing them out by the roots from the foundations, as “came at their building from the foundations”, because there was no hope of their believing. This is the divine way with all nations who do not believe after the proof has been completed against them.
7:73 — And to [the people of] Thamud [We sent] Salih
And to [the people of] Thamud [We sent] Salih, their brother. He said, ‘O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him. There has certainly come to you a manifest proof from your Lord. This she-camel of Allah is a sign for you. Let her alone to graze [freely] in Allah’s land, and do not cause her any harm, for then you shall be seized by a painful punishment.
Continuing the account of the stories of some of the great divine prophets (a.s.) and their nations, whose ends were alike, this verse and the verses after it mention the story of the prophet Ṣāliḥ (a.s.).
The prophet Ṣāliḥ (a.s.), like the other divine prophets, called the people of Thamūd to tawḥīd. His miracle (a.s.) was a she-camel that came out of the heart of the mountain, after his people asked for it, by the divine leave, and God (s.w.t.) named it a sign and a clear proof. Then he (a.s.) warned his people, asking of them: leave this she-camel to graze as it is in God’s earth; do not trouble it with anything at all, and keep away from harming it, or a painful punishment will overtake you.
7:74 — Remember when He made you successors after [the people of] ‘Ad
Remember when He made you successors after [the people of] ‘Ad, and settled you in the land: you build palaces in its plains, and hew houses out of the mountains. So remember Allah’s bounties, and do not act wickedly on the earth, causing corruption.’
After the prophet Ṣāliḥ (a.s.) called his people to the worship of the One, Unique God, he warned them to take heed from the ends of the earlier peoples, and reminded them of the countless blessings of God, Exalted: He made them successors of the people of ʿĀd and gave them the enjoyment of many abundant material blessings, and made them their successors in their land, which was ready for life in every way, so that they could build palaces on the plains and in the lowlands, and were able to carve firm houses of stone in the mountains. So he said to them: you must give thanks for these blessings of God (s.w.t.), and avoid corruption in the earth.
7:75–76 — The elite of his people who were arrogant said to those who were oppressed—to those among…
(75) The elite of his people who were arrogant said to those who were oppressed—to those among them who had faith—‘Do you know that Salih has been sent by his Lord?’ They said, ‘We indeed believe in what he has been sent with.’ (76) Those who were arrogant said, ‘We indeed disbelieve in what you have believed.’
After the call of Ṣāliḥ (a.s.) had spread and become public, the arrogant rebels said to the oppressed who had believed in Ṣāliḥ (a.s.): are you certain that Ṣāliḥ is sent by his Lord? Those who believed in Ṣāliḥ (a.s.) answered them: we have not been content with believing in Ṣāliḥ (a.s.) and knowing that he is sent by God; we have also submitted to his way with our souls and our hearts. Facing the clear, decisive answer of the faithful, which showed their firm faith in Ṣāliḥ (a.s.), the obstinate, arrogant chiefs and nobles of the people of Thamūd answered: we will never accept or believe in what you have believed in.
7:77–78 — So they hamstrung the She-camel and defied the command of their Lord
(77) So they hamstrung the She-camel and defied the command of their Lord, and they said, ‘O Salih, bring us what you threaten us with, if you are one of the apostles.’ (78) Thereupon the earthquake seized them, and they lay lifeless prostrate in their homes.
The end of the people of Thamūd was like the ends of the earlier peoples who rebelled in arrogance. They paid no heed to the counsels and warnings of the prophet Ṣāliḥ (a.s.) about hamstringing the miraculous she-camel, and they followed those peoples in asking their prophets to bring the punishment down on them. So they deserved the divine punishment, and a violent, terrible earthquake, together with a thunderbolt and a cry, overtook them, and they were crushed, in their homes, in complete abasement and utter lowliness.
The secret of ascribing the killing of the she-camel to all the wicked of the people of Thamūd is that all of them conspired in hamstringing the miraculous she-camel and were content with it. For this reason the divine punishment overtook them all.
7:79 — So he abandoned them [to their fate]
So he abandoned them [to their fate], and said, ‘O my people! Certainly I communicated to you the message of my Lord, and I was your well-wisher, but you did not like well-wishers.’
The last words the prophet Ṣāliḥ (a.s.) spoke to his people were: my duty was only to deliver the message of my Lord, and I delivered it to you in the most complete way. I held back no exhortation or useful counsel from you, and I warned you many times of the dangers of the divine punishment, but your arrogant nature kept you from hearing my counsels and warnings.
Yes, you are a people who do not love sincere guides, and that is why you were seized by the divine wrath, overpowering and subduing you.
7:80 — And Lot, when he said to his people
And Lot, when he said to his people, ‘What! Do you commit an outrage none in the world ever committed before you?!
This noble verse reminds the most noble Prophet of Islam (s.a.w.) of the story of the prophet Lūṭ (a.s.), saying: remember the story of Lūṭ (a.s.) when he rebuked his people, saying: do you commit a sin that oversteps the bounds of nature? By this act of yours, besides its being extremely ugly, you have become the first to commit this great sin.
7:81 — Indeed you come to men with desire instead of women
Indeed you come to men with desire instead of women! Indeed, you are a profligate lot.’
The ugly act of the people of Lūṭ, which had no precedent in the past, to satisfy their lustful sexual instincts, was sexual deviance: men coming to men and keeping away from women. Yet God, Exalted, made the natural way of satisfying the sexual instinct the marriage of men to women, so that the human line may be preserved, and sexual deviance prevents the survival of the human species. The people of Lūṭ in this matter were excessive and overstepped the divine limits, and excess becoming an ingrained trait is the cause of persisting in corruption. On this basis the noble Qur’an in other verses also counts them as transgressors, ignorant, corrupters, wrongdoers and the iniquitous.
7:82 — But the only answer of his people was that they said
But the only answer of his people was that they said, ‘Expel them from your town! They are indeed a puritanical lot.’
The reply of the people of Lūṭ to Lūṭ (a.s.), when he objected to their ugly act, was to say: drive him and those who follow him out of this town, because they keep themselves pure and are people of cleanliness. Against the prophet Lūṭ’s (a.s.) forbidding of what is wrong they had nothing but violence and the threat of banishing him (a.s.) and his followers from their town. They had no answer and no argument, because this act of theirs is against innate nature; and no one before them or among their contemporaries had done such a vile act, so that they might defend it with a blind defence like that of the idol worshippers and say: we do this act following our forebears and our fathers.
7:83 — Thereupon We delivered him and his family
Thereupon We delivered him and his family, except his wife; she was one of those who remained behind.
When the divine punishment of the people of Lūṭ became certain and inevitable, God (s.w.t.) saved Lūṭ (a.s.) and his faithful relatives before the punishment came down, bringing them out of their homes, except his wife, for the punishment took her as she stayed among the faithless, and she perished.
7:84 — Then We poured down upon them a rain [of stones]
Then We poured down upon them a rain [of stones]. So observe how was the fate of the guilty!
The people of Lūṭ paid no heed to the exhortations, counsels and warnings of Lūṭ (a.s.), and did not give up their ugly deeds. So the divine punishment was poured down on their heads in the form of stones rained upon them; the scroll of their life was rolled up and they perished, all of them. At that point He, Glorified is He, addressed His most noble Prophet (s.a.w.), so that those who came later might take heed of it, saying: so see then “how was the end of the guilty”.
7:85 — And to [the people of] Midian [We sent] Shu‘ayb
And to [the people of] Midian [We sent] Shu‘ayb, their brother. He said, ‘O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him. There has certainly come to you a manifest proof from your Lord. Observe fully the measure and the balance, and do not cheat the people of their goods, and do not cause corruption on the earth after its restoration. That is better for you, if you are faithful.
Continuing the stories of the prophets (a.s.), in this section He, Glorified is He, sets out for the most noble Prophet (s.a.w.) the story of the prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.), as He, Exalted, sent to the people of Madyan their brother Shuʿayb (a.s.). Like the rest of the earlier prophets, he began his mission with the call to tawḥīd and the rejection of polytheism, and brought a miracle. But the noble Qur’an does not mention clearly and plainly what the miracle of the prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) was, and it is possible that his miracle (a.s.) was his message itself. After setting out his clear miracle from God (s.w.t.), he first of all rose against the social corruption spread through the society of Madyan, which, besides moral, financial and economic corruptions, was its prominent trait. He called his people to respect the rights of people and to give full measure and weight, and forbade them to give short weight in all transactions of buying and selling, taking and giving. He warned them against causing corruption in the earth after God (s.w.t.) had set it right, in creation and in legislation.
7:86 — And do not lie in wait on every road to threaten and bar those who have faith in Him from…
And do not lie in wait on every road to threaten and bar those who have faith in Him from the way of Allah, seeking to make it crooked. Remember when you were few, and He multiplied you, and observe how was the fate of the agents of corruption.
After the prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) announced his message, and after he began to fight polytheism and social corruptions, together with the nobles and the affluent who kept people from believing in him (a.s.) and listening to his words, he said: do not cut off people’s road to guidance, and do not bar from the way of God, sometimes by threats and sometimes by bad propaganda, saying that this straight divine path is a crooked road.
Then he (a.s.) went on, saying: remember the material and spiritual divine blessings He has poured upon you. He made your small group many, and likewise turned your weakness into strength and power. So take heed from the ends of the earlier peoples, who perished because they did not obey the rulings of God, Exalted.
7:87 — If a group of you have believed in what I have been sent with
If a group of you have believed in what I have been sent with, and a group have not believed, be patient until Allah judges between us, and He is the best of judges.’
After the number of those who believed in the prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) had grown, he (a.s.) counselled both groups to be patient and to live peacefully, to limit internal conflicts between the faithful and the faithless, and to preserve stability, calm and the security of the homeland, until God, Exalted, judges between the two groups of truth and falsehood, for God (s.w.t.) is the best of judges.
Shuʿayb’s (a.s.) general call to patience is good tidings for the faithful but a warning for the faithless, and it shows the wide scope of the messages of the divine messengers (a.s.), since they used to call people to patience and to bearing with one another, so that society might stay protected from turmoil, chaos and strife.
7:88 — The elite of his people who were arrogant said
The elite of his people who were arrogant said, ‘O Shu'ayb, we will surely expel you and the faithful who are with you from our town, or else you shall revert to our creed.’ He said, ‘What! Even if we should be unwilling?!
The arrogant of the people of Shuʿayb said to him (a.s.) and to those who believed in him: either accept banishment from the land, or return to the polytheism we follow. But their real aim in this choice was the very return to polytheism and idol worship, and the threat of expulsion was a preliminary.
The use of the word “in” in the phrase “to our creed” is because the arrogant thought that the prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) and the faithful were still strongly bound to them in belief, and counted them as their own.
The prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) answered them with wise, courteous words, by a rhetorical question of denial: how is it possible to return to their creed, polluted with polytheism, when he hates it with the strongest hatred? The prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) did not answer their threat of banishment, and from this answer of his it appears that the real aim of the arrogant was his return, and the return of the faithful with him, to the way of idol worship.
7:89 — We would be fabricating a lie against Allah should we revert to your creed after Allah…
We would be fabricating a lie against Allah should we revert to your creed after Allah had delivered us from it. It does not behoove us to return to it, unless Allah, our Lord, should wish so. Our Lord embraces all things in [His] knowledge. In Allah we have put our trust.’ ‘Our Lord! Judge justly between us and our people, and You are the best of judges!’
Continuing his reply to the polytheists, the prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) said: returning to the way of the polytheists is a lie invented against God (s.w.t.), so how could we return to it when our Lord has saved us from it? No, we will never do so, unless God wills it; God (s.w.t.), who has forbidden us that and certainly does not will it. So this exception in this noble verse looks to the negative side; He will never command it again in any way. It is an emphasis of what is excepted from, and of the kind of making something depend on the impossible, because the divine knowledge is unlimited, and has no partner either.
The prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) set out these words on the tongue of the faithful; otherwise he (a.s.), like the other prophets and awliyāʾ (a.s.), never associated anything with God, and it is impossible, God forbid, that a return to polytheism should take place in him. Then he added, saying: in the face of the threats of the arrogant we place our trust in God, and make Him (s.w.t.) the guardian of our affairs, because His knowledge encompasses everything. So at that point we raise our hands in supplication and ask our Lord to judge between us and the faithless people, and to save us from their wrongdoing, for relief and judgment are in His hand, Exalted.
The use of the explicit noun in place of the pronoun, the repetition of the word for God, and likewise the title “Lord”, all serve to show Shuʿayb’s (a.s.) deep immersion in devotion to God and his rank of perfection in the tawḥīd of lordship.
7:90 — The elite of his people who were faithless said
The elite of his people who were faithless said, ‘If you follow Shu'ayb, you will indeed be losers.’
After the faithless people of Shuʿayb despaired of fighting him (a.s.), they turned to his followers who had believed in him (a.s.) and threatened them: if you follow Shuʿayb, you will certainly be among the losers. By this loss they meant both material and spiritual loss, but they left the kind of loss vague, and this vagueness itself causes anxiety; it is one of the methods of psychological warfare.
7:91 — So the earthquake seized them
So the earthquake seized them, and they lay lifeless prostrate in their homes.
The end of the rebellious people of Madyan was what had befallen the earlier peoples, for they were punished with an evil end because they did not obey the commands of their prophets (a.s.).
The divine punishment overtook them all in the form of a violent earthquake, and destroyed them in their homes.
7:92 — Those who impugned Shu'ayb became as if they had never lived there
Those who impugned Shu'ayb became as if they had never lived there. Those who impugned Shu‘ayb were themselves the losers.
Those who denied Shuʿayb (a.s.) were seized by an evil, painful end, and perished in such a way that it was as though they had never lived in the city of Madyan before, and as though they had never enjoyed all these blessings. They are the ones who used to say to the faithful: the result of your following Shuʿayb is nothing but loss. Yes, they were the losers in truth, for they were seized by a humiliating divine punishment.
The divine destruction, from the roots, of the guilty tyrants who deny the divine messages is a divine way. The end of the people of Shuʿayb: just as they were preceded by such an end, so too they are followed by its like.
7:93 — So he abandoned them [to their fate] and said
So he abandoned them [to their fate] and said, ‘O my people! Certainly, I communicated to you the messages of my Lord, and I was your well-wisher. So how should I grieve for a faithless lot?’
When the humiliating divine punishment came down on the faithless, arrogant people of Madyan, the prophet Shuʿayb (a.s.) moved away from them, and addressed those being punished, saying, in that state: I delivered to you, as a sincere adviser, all the messages of my Lord, and I fell short in nothing in guiding you; but you took the path of rebellion and arrogance. So I feel no sorrow or grief at all over your destruction, and I do not grieve over the end of faithless people like you.
7:94 — We did not send a prophet to any town without visiting its people with stress and…
We did not send a prophet to any town without visiting its people with stress and distress so that they might entreat [for Allah’s forgiveness].
Among the divine ways is the testing of nations with hardships and afflictions, so that they may humble themselves before God, Exalted, and return to Him. Poverty, illness and the like are to awaken man and bring him to repentance, turning back and taking refuge in God (s.w.t.), just as they are to bring out his humility in His presence, Exalted.
The divine ways are universal principles that cannot be changed or replaced, and are not particular to one time rather than another, or one land rather than another, even if they are mentioned within the account of the end of some earlier nations in human history.
7:95 — Then We changed the ill [conditions] to good until they multiplied [in numbers] and said
Then We changed the ill [conditions] to good until they multiplied [in numbers] and said, ‘Adversity and ease befell our fathers [too].’ Then We seized them suddenly while they were unaware.
If the Lord’s testing with afflictions and hardships does not bring people back to God (s.w.t.), then, on the basis of a divine way, the hardships are taken away from them and their financial and bodily troubles are exchanged for health and wealth, in such a way that they enjoy joys, delights and every kind of blessing to the full. In this way the various trials are wiped out with the passing of earlier events, and they say: our forebears too had grief and joy; sometimes they were tried with adversity and at other times they lived in prosperity; they fell ill, just as at other times they were in health; this variety is basically what the nature of time requires, and there is no test involved. So when they were at the height of joy, delight and luxurious enjoyment, the Majestic, Majestic is His majesty, seized them with punishment suddenly, and they received the recompense of their vile deeds.
This is the meaning of the divine way of istidrāj and of the divine plan.
7:96 — If the people of the towns had been faithful and Godwary
If the people of the towns had been faithful and Godwary, We would have opened to them blessings from the heaven and the earth. But they denied; so We seized them because of what they used to earn.
Faith and Godwariness are two causes of the descent of divine blessings and the increase of material and spiritual blessings, and there is a mutual link between the deeds of man and the events of the world. Hence He says: had the people of the towns believed and been Godwary, God (s.w.t.) would have opened before them the doors of the blessings of the heaven and the earth. Faith is correct belief, and Godwariness, besides guarding belief, points to the practical parts too, that is, morals and deeds.
At the end of the verse He mentions the consequence of lacking faith and Godwariness: that the faithless and corrupt nations were seized because they denied the divine signs and because of their evil deeds. Seizing means punishment and requital; that is, We requited them because of their evil deeds.
7:97–98 — Do the people of the towns feel secure from Our punishment overtaking them at night while…
(97) Do the people of the towns feel secure from Our punishment overtaking them at night while they are asleep? (98) Do the people of the towns feel secure from Our punishment overtaking them at midday while they are playing around?
These verses are a warning to all the faithless who feel safe from the punishment of God, Exalted. On the basis of the divine way, once the divine proof has reached them, those who denied the prophets (a.s.) and the signs of the Real, and saw with their own eyes divine trials they had not witnessed before, are not safe from the wrath of God, Exalted. The feeling of safety from God’s punishment is a false feeling. God’s punishment takes them by surprise and reaches them at night or during the day, while they are heedless and busy with amusement, and the book of their life, its scroll, is rolled up.
7:99 — Do they feel secure from Allah’s devising
Do they feel secure from Allah’s devising? No one feels secure from Allah’s devising except the people who are losers.
The divine punishment sometimes comes down suddenly. So let those who deny the prophets and the signs of God not imagine that they are safe from the plan of God, Exalted, and from His sudden penalty and punishment, for none imagines himself in a false safety from God’s plan except the losers.
7:100 — Does it not dawn upon those who inherited the earth after its [former] inhabitants that…
Does it not dawn upon those who inherited the earth after its [former] inhabitants that if We wish We will punish them for their sins, and set a seal on their hearts so they would not hear?
The stories of the earlier prophets (a.s.) and the ends of their peoples are sufficient guidance for those who inherit from them (whether their present offspring and descendants or their offspring and descendants in the future). If those who come later, who have received their stories in various ways, do not take heed, they may be afflicted with their evil ends in the future, be called to account because of their pollution with sins, and have a seal set on their hearts too, so that they do not hear the voice of the truth, and then perish as the earlier peoples perished.
7:101 — These are the towns some of whose accounts We recount to you
These are the towns some of whose accounts We recount to you. Their apostles certainly brought them manifest proofs, but they were not the ones to believe in what they had denied earlier. Thus does Allah put a seal on the hearts of the faithless.
These are towns whose news We relate to you. Their prophets were sent to their people with clear, evident proofs, but they did not believe, because they counted them as lies, and would not submit to believing in what they had denied before, out of stubbornness and obstinacy. So their unbelief was caused by their earlier denial, and that prepared the way for the sealing of the heart; that is, the trait of denying God’s prophets and taking the way of stubbornness toward them (a.s.) became so rooted in their hearts that even after seeing the miracles there was no room left in their hearts, in any way, to accept the truth and accept the call of the messengers. So God sealed their hearts. This divine way covers all the faithless in all times and places, and is not particular to the earlier nations.
7:102 — We did not find in most of them any [loyalty to] covenants
We did not find in most of them any [loyalty to] covenants. Indeed, We found most of them to be transgressors.
Most of the earlier nations did not keep their natural and rational covenants to worship God alone, their covenants with the prophets (a.s.), or their social covenants with one another.
Most of them were covenant-breakers, iniquitous and guilty, and their iniquity and wickedness brought about their persistence in unbelief and lack of faith, and their opposition to the prophets (a.s.). Iniquity in this verse is more general than iniquity in belief and iniquity in practice; that is, most of the earlier nations, besides deviating in belief from the principles of religion, were also corrupt and guilty people from the moral side.
7:103 — Then after them We sent Moses with Our signs to Pharaoh and his elite
Then after them We sent Moses with Our signs to Pharaoh and his elite, but they wronged them. So observe how was the fate of the agents of corruption!
Continuing the account of the stories of the prophets (a.s.), this section of the noble verses tells the story of the prophet Mūsā (a.s.). He (a.s.) is the third of the resolute among the messengers, and the bearer of the third divine Book and heavenly law. God, Exalted, sent him after the earlier prophets (a.s.) with His clear signs to Pharaoh and the great men of his people.
Mūsā (a.s.) began his mission with reasoned arguments and the presentation of miracles. But the clan of Pharaoh did not accept his proofs (a.s.); they denied his message and contrived, imagining that his miracles (a.s.) were sorcery, and denied the divine signs unjustly. In the end they were afflicted with the divine punishment and, like the earlier peoples, became a lesson for the generations to come and those that follow. They were corrupt people, who were wiped out because of their arrogant nature, which stirred up corruption.
7:104–105 — And Moses said, ‘O Pharaoh
(104) And Moses said, ‘O Pharaoh, I am indeed an apostle from the Lord of all the worlds. (105) It behooves me to say nothing about Allah except the truth. I certainly bring you a manifest proof from your Lord. So let the Children of Israel go with me.’
By the command of God, Exalted, the prophet Mūsā (a.s.) called Pharaoh and his court to tawḥīd, prophethood and the Return. To prove the truth of his call (a.s.) he said: the divine message requires truthfulness and trustworthiness; the messenger of God says nothing but the truth. Then, to establish this claim, he said: I have come to you with a clear, evident proof from God. “The clear proof” is the two miracles of the staff and the white hand, plain and perceptible.
Continuing his words, he (a.s.) said: free the Children of Israel from the chains they are in, and send them with me, because freeing the servants from the wrongdoing of the wrongdoers is a requirement of the prophets’ mission.
7:106 — He said, ‘If you have brought a sign
He said, ‘If you have brought a sign, produce it, should you be truthful.’
The prophet Mūsā (a.s.) first proved his claim to prophethood, and since the reasoned proof was of no use, he spoke of a perceptible miracle, which Pharaoh asked to see, saying: if you are truthful in what you say, bring a miracle.
The expression at the end of the noble verse under discussion seems to show that Pharaoh, contrary to the words of the prophet Mūsā (a.s.), was either certain that he (a.s.) was not truthful, or in doubt about his (a.s.) truthfulness.
7:107–108 — Thereat he threw down his staff
(107) Thereat he threw down his staff, and behold, it became a manifest python. (108) Then he drew out his hand, and behold, it was white to the onlookers.
The prophet Mūsā (a.s.) produced the miracle after Pharaoh asked him for it, and the miracle was the one spoken of before. He threw down his staff, and behold, it was a serpent, which Pharaoh and his entourage had not expected to happen. Then he put his hand into his garment and drew it out, and behold, it was white before their eyes, which were bewildered by all this.
The changing of the staff into a huge serpent and the whitening of the hand are two great divine miracles. The changing of the staff into a living snake, like all other miracles, breaks the ordinary course of things and goes against the familiar, customary laws; it does not break causality, nor does it go against the laws of reason, because this same staff, which by the divine miracle turned into a huge serpent in a single moment, could turn into a snake naturally after a period of time had passed, given the conditions. But what reason holds impossible never falls within the bounds of a miracle in any way.
7:109–110 — The elite of Pharaoh’s people said
(109) The elite of Pharaoh’s people said, ‘This is indeed an expert magician; (110) he seeks to expel you from your land.’ ‘So what do you advise?’
After Mūsā (a.s.) displayed the miracles, the practical confrontation of Pharaoh and the nobles of his people with his (a.s.) call to tawḥīd and his miracles began. Since sorcery was widespread in that age, Pharaoh’s entourage, after consulting one another, decided to accuse Mūsā (a.s.) of being a sorcerer. So some of them said to others: this man is a skilled sorcerer, versed in sorcery, and his aim in this sorcery of his is to drive you out of your land and make his people your masters. At that point they exchanged views among themselves on how to confront the prophet Mūsā (a.s.).
7:111–112 — They said, ‘Put him and his brother off for a while
(111) They said, ‘Put him and his brother off for a while, and send heralds to the cities, (112) to bring you every expert magician.’
After Pharaoh and his entourage accused Mūsā, the one spoken to by God (a.s.), of being a sorcerer, and consulted one another, they advised Pharaoh to delay carrying out his decision about Mūsā, whether imprisoning him, expelling him or killing him, and said to him: send men to seek out and bring you those expert in sorcery, so that perhaps we may overcome him by confronting him in knowledge and in practice.
7:113–114 — And the magicians came to Pharaoh
(113) And the magicians came to Pharaoh. They said, ‘We shall indeed have a reward if we were to be the victors?’ (114) He said, ‘Of course! And indeed you shall be among those near [to me].’
By Pharaoh’s command his men spread through the cities of Egypt, found the skilled sorcerers of those lands and brought them to Pharaoh. When the sorcerers learned what had happened, they said to Pharaoh: if we win in this field, will we have a great reward? Pharaoh said: yes; and then added: besides the material reward, you will also have a spiritual closeness to me.
7:115–116 — They said, ‘O Moses, will you throw [first]
(115) They said, ‘O Moses, will you throw [first], or shall we throw?’ (116) He said, ‘Throw [yours].’ So when they threw, they bewitched the people’s eyes and overawed them, producing a tremendous magic.
At last the appointed time and the fixed hour arrived, the promised day for the contest, when they were confident, and the people of Egypt gathered in a set public place to watch the scene of victory between the sorcerers and the prophet Mūsā (a.s.). The sorcerers, confident that day that their sorcery would triumph over the miracle of Mūsā (a.s.), gave Mūsā the choice of who would begin, and said to him: either you begin and throw your staff, or we are the ones who start by throwing the tools of sorcery. The prophet Mūsā (a.s.) answered: you are the ones to throw first. So the sorcerers threw their ropes and those wooden sticks into the middle of the field, and that worked upon the eyes of the people; they terrified them and produced a mighty sorcery, so that they thought the sticks and ropes had really begun to move.
7:117 — And We signalled to Moses
And We signalled to Moses: ‘Throw down your staff.’ And behold, it was swallowing what they had faked.
The people in the field of the contest saw that the sorcerers’ tools of sorcery were boards and ropes, but through the effect of the sorcerers’ sorcery, which worked upon the eyes of the onlookers, the people saw the field of the contest suddenly filled with snakes. At that point God, Exalted, revealed to the prophet Mūsā (a.s.): throw your staff. When he (a.s.) threw his staff, the sorcery of the sorcerers came to nothing, and all saw that there was nothing in the field of the contest but a single real snake, and nothing besides boards and ropes. The miracle of Mūsā (a.s.) swallowed up the falsehood of the sorcerers and their scheme.
7:118–119 — So the truth came out, and what they had wrought was reduced to naught
(118) So the truth came out, and what they had wrought was reduced to naught. (119) Thereat they were vanquished, and they retreated, humiliated.
In the end the truth was established by the miracle of the prophet Mūsā (a.s.) and prevailed, and what the sorcerers had done came to nothing. At that moment Pharaoh and his followers were broken, and they went back from the field of the contest and struggle humbled, with their heads bowed. Their humiliation came from their defeat in the field of the contest, and also from the sorcerers’ believing in Mūsā.
7:120–122 — And the magicians fell down in prostration
(120) And the magicians fell down in prostration. (121) They said, ‘We have believed in the Lord of all the worlds, (122) the Lord of Moses and Aaron.’
When the sorcerers became certain that Mūsā’s act was not of the kind of sorcery, after seeing the miracle from him (a.s.), they fell to the ground prostrating, and said: we believe in the Lord of the worlds. Then, to escape any misuse by Pharaoh and his entourage, and to struggle against the one who claimed lordship, that is, Pharaoh, who used to proclaim the slogan “I am your Lord, the most high”, they made clear that what they meant by “the Lord of the worlds” is “the Lord of Mūsā and Hārūn”.
7:123–124 — Pharaoh said, ‘Do you profess faith in Him before I may permit you
(123) Pharaoh said, ‘Do you profess faith in Him before I may permit you? It is indeed a plot you have devised in the city to expel its people from it. Soon you will know [the consequences]! (124) Surely I will cut off your hands and feet on opposite sides, and then I will surely crucify all of you.’
After the sorcerers believed in the Lord of the worlds, the God of Mūsā and Hārūn (a.s.), Pharaoh said to them, threatening them: have you believed in Mūsā before I gave you leave? The source of this petty objection was his claim to lordship. Then, to stir up the minds of the common people, he said to them: this is a plot you hatched with Mūsā in the city and have now carried out in this public scene, and your only aim is to take the land, drive its people out of it, and then rule the city; and you will soon know what I will do to you. Know for certain that I will cut off your right hands and your left feet, or cut off your left hands and your right feet, and put you all to death on the gallows.
7:125–126 — They said, ‘Indeed we shall return to our Lord
(125) They said, ‘Indeed we shall return to our Lord. (126) You are vindictive toward us only because we have believed in the signs of our Lord, when they came to us.’ ‘Our Lord! Pour patience upon us, and grant us to die as Muslims.’
The sorcerers answered Pharaoh’s threats bravely, saying: if you kill us, we will return to our Lord, so we have no fear. The only thing that has moved you to take revenge on us is our faith in the One, Unique God; you are opposed to faith in God, and that is why you want to take revenge on us, for our crime is nothing but believing, following our seeing the divine signs, and following the lordship of God, Exalted. At that point they raised their hands in supplication, asked God (s.w.t.) for patience under Pharaoh’s tortures, and asked that their end be to die “in submission”.
7:127 — The elite of Pharaoh’s people said
The elite of Pharaoh’s people said, ‘Will you leave Moses and his people to cause corruption in the land, and to abandon you and your gods?’ He said, ‘We will kill their sons and spare their women, and indeed we are dominant over them.’
After the Pharaonites were routed and Mūsā (a.s.) succeeded in confronting the sorcerers, Mūsā (a.s.) consolidated the work of religious preaching and the spreading of his message. This deepened the anxiety of Pharaoh’s chiefs and his entourage of the nobles and great men of Egypt, so they put a request to Pharaoh, hoping for a harsh reaction to what Mūsā (a.s.) had done. They claimed that the success Mūsā had won in this confrontation would help pull the carpet from under the beliefs of ordinary people, spread corruption and chaos, and shake the stability of the country. Pharaoh answered their request, saying: soon we will kill their sons and their men, keep their women alive and cut off their lines, for we still have our former power; we will overcome them, put a stop to their corruption, and prevent them from changing the people’s religion.
7:128 — Moses said to his people, ‘Turn to Allah for help and be patient
Moses said to his people, ‘Turn to Allah for help and be patient. The earth indeed belongs to Allah, and He gives its inheritance to whomever He wishes of His servants, and the outcome will be in favour of the Godwary.’
The prophet Mūsā (a.s.) called his people to face Pharaoh’s threats by seeking help from God, standing firm and holding out against these Pharaonic wrongs. Then he followed this with a reassurance that breathed into them the spirit of hope: the earth is not in the possession of Pharaoh and his like, that he should subdue you by his domination. The true owner and inheritor of the earth is God, Exalted, and there is none who can subdue Him (s.w.t.). Subduing and prevailing belong to Him, Exalted, alone, and befit no one else. God, Exalted, by His subduing and powerful will, has willed to make the Godwary inherit the earth, those who are His successors in it.
7:129 — They said, ‘We were tormented before you came to us and [also] after you came to us.’ He…
They said, ‘We were tormented before you came to us and [also] after you came to us.’ He said, ‘Maybe your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you successors in the land, and then He will see how you act.’
Intense fear took hold of the people of Mūsā (a.s.) after the news spread among them of Pharaoh’s threats to kill their men and sons and keep the women and girls alive, because they had been through such threats in times past and thought they still lacked all power to defend themselves. That is why, when Mūsā (a.s.) called them to seek help from God and to be patient and steadfast before Pharaoh’s tyrants, they spoke in a tone of complaint, saying: O Mūsā (a.s.), before you came we suffered many pains and harms from the clan of Pharaoh; Pharaoh killed our sons and left our women alive to prevent your birth and your appearance. This state, these tortures and afflictions, have gone on after your appearance and the rise of your message too. So how long must we be bound under these conditions, and when will these afflictions and hardships leave us?
Mūsā (a.s.) answered them, consoling them in what his people had complained to him of, saying: be hopeful that your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you successors in his place, giving you rule over the earth and placing you in charge of it, to see how you will rule after He has freed you from those harsh conditions.
7:130 — Certainly We afflicted Pharaoh’s clan with droughts and loss of produce
Certainly We afflicted Pharaoh’s clan with droughts and loss of produce, so that they may take admonition.
After the clan of Pharaoh turned away from believing in the call and claim of Mūsā (a.s.), and set about harming those who believed in Mūsā (a.s.), God tried them with natural afflictions (drought and barrenness in farming and orchards), that perhaps they might wake from their sleep and return to Him. This calling to account for the deeds of the clan of Pharaoh did not strike the group of Mūsā (a.s.); or, if it covered both groups, its purpose was punishment for the clan of Pharaoh and purification and testing for the people of Mūsā (a.s.). The shortage of fruits could be caused by drought or by blight, such as the attack of insects on the harvest, as was pointed to in the previous verses.
It is clear that the Lord’s calling to account and purifying through natural afflictions comes about when man is awake, and it is highly effective for humble entreaty and repentance.
7:131 — But whenever any good came to them
But whenever any good came to them, they would say, ‘This is our due.’ And if any ill visited them, they took it for ill omens attending Moses and those who were with him. (Look! Indeed the cause of their ill omens is from Allah, but most of them do not know.)
The clan of Pharaoh took no lesson from the purifying penalties (the descent of natural afflictions, such as famine and drought), and did not wake from the slumber of their heedlessness. Rather, because they clung to the customs and ideas of the age of ignorance, whenever a blessing from God, Exalted, reached them, their claims led them to think they were worthy of what they had been granted, and they boasted that they deserved that blessing. And when an affliction befell them, in loss of wealth or illness in the body, they put it down to the ill omen of Mūsā (a.s.) and his people who followed him; they took Mūsā (a.s.) and those with him as an evil omen, and accused the companions of Mūsā (a.s.) of bringing bad luck.
Then God said in reply to them: know that the source of their ill omen is nowhere but with God, and God is the One who calls them to account for their evil deeds, but most of them do not know. The will of God, Exalted, is enough to bring down misfortune and calamities that warn the servants.
7:132 — And they said, ‘Whatever sign you may bring us to bewitch us
And they said, ‘Whatever sign you may bring us to bewitch us, we are not going to believe you.’
Ignorance and arrogance prevented the clan of Pharaoh from believing in what Mūsā (a.s.) brought, even though they had learned the difference between sorcery and miracle in the event of the confrontation with the sorcerers; still they did not go back on their false words. They said to Mūsā (a.s.): whatever sorcery you try to bring to make us believe in you, we will never do so for you.
The nominal sentence, filled with particles of emphasis, shows no sincere turning of the clan of Pharaoh toward the truth.
7:133 — So We sent against them a flood and locusts
So We sent against them a flood and locusts, lice, frogs and blood, as distinct signs. But they acted arrogantly, and they were a guilty lot.
After the clan of Pharaoh did not believe in Mūsā (a.s.) despite the clear proofs and the radiant reasoned miracles, God, Exalted, granted them respite for a while and exposed them to afflictions and some temporary punishment, that perhaps by this they might take notice and return to their innate tawḥīd. Some of these punishments of natural afflictions, such as drought and the shortage of fruits, were pointed to in the previous verses, and in this verse other examples of them are pointed to, such as the flood, the attack of locusts, lice, frogs, and the illness of nosebleed: bleeding from the noses.
All these punishments came one after another, at intervals of time, and that in itself is a divine sign and a demonstration of the truth of the message of Mūsā (a.s.). But the clan of Pharaoh, instead of taking notice through these events, continued in their arrogant conduct toward the divine signs, and they had been wrongdoers from long before.
7:134–135 — Whenever a plague fell upon them
(134) Whenever a plague fell upon them, they would say, ‘O Moses, invoke your Lord for us by the covenant He has made with you. If you remove the plague from us, we will certainly believe in you and let the Children of Israel go along with you.’ (135) But when We had removed the plague from them until a term that they should have completed, behold, they broke their promise.
Whenever any punishment came upon them, the clan of Pharaoh sought refuge with Mūsā (a.s.) and adjured him by the divine covenant (relying on his claim, not on any acceptance of his prophethood), begging him to pray to his Lord to lift the punishment from them. They pledged to him: once the punishment is removed, we will believe in you, fulfil your demand, free the Children of Israel from captivity and send them with you. But whenever the punishment was removed from them for a limited time through the prayer of Mūsā (a.s.), they broke their covenant and returned to their polytheism once again, denied the Children of Israel their freedom, and did not release them from captivity.
7:136 — So We took vengeance on them and drowned them in the sea
So We took vengeance on them and drowned them in the sea, for they denied Our signs and were oblivious to them.
After the reasoned ways, the punishments and the temporary penalties had failed to guide the clan of Pharaoh and bring them to right conduct, their end was like that of the earlier peoples who were arrogant. They deserved punishment, and the page of their life was rolled up like a scroll. God said of the manner of their punishment that He took revenge on them and drowned them in the sea. The justification for this revenge is their denial of the signs of God; they shunned the signs of God and abandoned them deliberately, arrogantly and knowingly.
7:137 — We made the people who were abased the heirs to the east and west of the land which We…
We made the people who were abased the heirs to the east and west of the land which We had blessed, and your Lord’s best word [of promise] was fulfilled for the Children of Israel because of their patience, and We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people had built and what they used to erect.
In the end what Mūsā (a.s.) had promised his people came true. God, Exalted, entrusted the eastern and western parts of the blessed land of Egypt to the Children of Israel, who had remained for long years under the rule of Pharaoh and his band. Yes, when the Children of Israel stood firm, God fulfilled His fair promise and made them inherit the land, and uprooted the cultural, political, military and economic structure of the Pharaonic regime and its works. By destroying Pharaoh and his group, God opened the great and blessed lands of Egypt, Syria and Palestine to the oppressed.
7:138 — We carried the Children of Israel across the sea
We carried the Children of Israel across the sea, whereat they came upon a people cleaving to certain idols that they had. They said, ‘O Moses, make for us a god like the gods that they have.’ He said, ‘You are indeed an ignorant lot.
The confrontation between Pharaoh and Mūsā (a.s.) came to an end after the Children of Israel crossed the sea by the command of God, Exalted, in a miraculous way, and the story of Mūsā (a.s.) and Pharaoh, fragrant with the scent of lessons, began. When the Children of Israel had crossed the sea and set off on their way, they came upon a people on their way who held various idols sacred. The Children of Israel were stirred by this sight and proposed to Mūsā (a.s.) that he set up for them a god like the gods of these people, who could see the gods they worshipped. With this regrettable talk the Children of Israel went back to their former works of polytheism. Mūsā (a.s.) was angered by their blind imitation and charged them with ignorance; what they had proposed to him, imposing a visible god for them, is far removed from reason.
7:139–140 — What they are engaged in is indeed bound to perish
(139) What they are engaged in is indeed bound to perish, and what they have been doing shall come to naught.’ (140) He said, ‘Shall I find you a god other than Allah, while He has graced you over all the nations?’
Mūsā’s (a.s.) answer to his people’s proposal, which lacked all wisdom, was that idol worship is a false tendency and a conduct that drags man down to the depths, and the end of those who worship idols will be destruction.
Nothing and no one in this universe is worthy of worship and godhood but God, Exalted.
Relying on polytheism is ingratitude for the divine blessings that God has granted to all, and among those granted blessings are the Children of Israel, for God, Exalted, is the One who preferred them over the nations of their age, or preferred their people over the peoples of their time. So is it right that Mūsā (a.s.) should seek for them an object of worship other than the One, Unique God?
7:141 — And when We delivered you from Pharaoh’s clan who inflicted on you a terrible torment
And when We delivered you from Pharaoh’s clan who inflicted on you a terrible torment, slaughtering your sons and sparing your women, and there was a great test in that from your Lord.
After Mūsā (a.s.) had finished refuting his people’s worthless proposal to return to idol worship, he reminded them of their painful past: you were under the heel of Pharaoh and his rule, so you must praise God much for His blessings, in that He saved you from those wrongs and freed you from the harshest kinds of torment, when they used to slaughter your sons and keep your women alive (using them for service and the like); that is why they kept them alive. And this was a great trial from your Lord.
7:142 — We made an appointment with Moses for thirty nights
We made an appointment with Moses for thirty nights, and completed them with ten [more]; thus the tryst of his Lord was completed in forty nights. And Moses said to Aaron, his brother, ‘Be my successor among my people, and set things right and do not follow the way of the agents of corruption.’
God, by His grace and mercy, favoured the Children of Israel and saved them from the hand of Pharaoh and his group. Then after that He summoned Mūsā (a.s.) to intimate converse.
The length of the appointed time and meeting that God, Exalted, set for Mūsā (a.s.) from the start was forty days. During this time Mūsā, the one spoken to by God (a.s.), was occupied with intimate converse and closeness with the Lord of the worlds, and left all his daily work. But he did not leave his community without a guardian; he appointed his brother Hārūn (a.s.) as his successor over them, as deputy for a set time, and charged him with setting things right and avoiding following the corrupters. This charge shows the importance of the successor, his qualities and his duties. Perhaps the secret in this is that what is meant by successor here in the verse is the management of the affairs of the society of the Children of Israel, one of the functions of imamate and leadership. The prohibition of following the corrupters is a warning to the Children of Israel and their great men, drawing their attention to the presence of a corrupt clique that had crept in among them and was waiting for the right time to kindle strife. Second, that corrupt faction saw that the best opportunity to carry out their hateful plans was the period of Mūsā’s (a.s.) absence. Third, they pressed Mūsā (a.s.) to take Hārūn (a.s.) with him, so that the field would be clear for them.
7:143 — When Moses arrived at Our tryst and his Lord spoke to him
When Moses arrived at Our tryst and his Lord spoke to him, he said, ‘My Lord, show [Yourself] to me, that I may look at You!’ He said, ‘You shall not see Me. But look at the mountain: if it abides in its place, then you will see Me.’ So when his Lord disclosed Himself to the mountain, He levelled it, and Moses fell down swooning. When he recovered, he said, ‘Immaculate are You! I turn to You in penitence, and I am the first of the faithful.’
When Mūsā (a.s.) came to the appointed time to converse intimately with his Lord, and the Real spoke with him, the direct speech of the Lord affected his soul and body. Then it became dear to him to ask his Lord to let him see Him inwardly, and since he was not able to see with the heart, his request was turned down with an emphatic negation.
It appears from the Qur’anic verses that the Lord’s speaking with Mūsā, the one spoken to by God (a.s.), at the start of the undertaking of prophethood on Mount Ṭūr was by means of a tree; but at the appointed time He spoke with him in a distinctive way, different from before.
When Mūsā (a.s.) listened to the speech of his Lord without an intermediary, he longed to see the beauty of the Real, and in his request he looked for his Lord to provide him with the conditions needed for the lofty rank and sublime stage of witnessing the beauty of the Real (s.w.t.).
In view of the standing in knowledge and spirit of Mūsā, the one spoken to by God (a.s.), and God’s answer to what he asked by manifesting Himself to the mountain, and from the philosophical, gnostic and theological proofs, it is known that the seeing Mūsā (a.s.) asked for is only seeing by witnessing with the heart, and knowledge by presence; he did not ask for seeing with the senses, or for acquired, representational proof.
On the basis of many indications, Mūsā (a.s.) sought witnessing for himself, not for his people. Even if, supposing the impossible, he had seen his Lord with the eye of sight and told the Children of Israel, they would not have believed him, because they wanted to see God themselves, not that someone other than them should witness Him and then tell them about it.
The particle “lan” (never), which admits a limit, comes to emphasise the negation, and does not make the negation perpetual, even though it may be used for perpetual negation where there is an indication or a proof showing it.
Seeing God is possible with the eye of the heart. For this reason the seeing denied in the verse goes back to the deficiency of the receiver (Mūsā (a.s.)) and his being veiled by the veil, without going back to God, Glorified and Exalted is He, who is the light of the heavens and the earth.
The divine manifestation is of two kinds:
- The general manifestation, which is for everyone. 2. The special manifestation, which requires special conditions and a particular place of manifestation, such as God’s manifestation to Mount Ṭūr. This manifestation was real, not a representation to show the will and power of God, Exalted.
Perhaps the levelling and crumbling of Mount Ṭūr came as a result of its grasping the divine teachings and enjoying the divine outpouring in the light of the knowledge it attained, and it was not a material event devoid of perception.
“Fell swooning” in the verse before us, given the indication of his recovering, is a state of love and bewilderment, not fainting and death. When Mūsā (a.s.) recovered, he glorified his Lord and declared his faith to Him, and that he was the first of the faithful.
Was Mūsā’s (a.s.) swoon caused by the Lord’s manifestation to the mountain, or was the mountain made a place of manifestation because of the wilāyah of the one spoken to by God?
7:144 — He said, ‘O Moses, I have chosen you over the people with My messages and My speech
He said, ‘O Moses, I have chosen you over the people with My messages and My speech. So take what I give you, and be among the grateful.’
Mūsā (a.s.) recovered from his swoon, glorified God, Exalted, and turned to Him in repentance. Then God reminded him, in a way of showing him favour, that He had chosen him above the people of his community and above people, and had raised him above the rest of people by two merits: 1. He gave him the messages of God to convey to people. 2. God, Exalted, spoke with him without the intermediary of anything.
Mūsā (a.s.) was distinguished from the rest of people in that he enjoyed choosing in himself and also comparative choosing. As for his comparative choosing, it is that he is preferred over the people of his community by his message and his speaking with God without an intermediary.
The verses carrying the content “take what I have given you” are of two groups: unqualified, and qualified by “with strength”. These two groups of verses fit together as follows: the setting in which the verse under discussion came down requires that Mūsā (a.s.) be content simply with taking the Torah and be among the grateful; but after the Torah came down, Mūsā (a.s.) was commanded to take it with strength, to establish the divine limits and to convey the aims of the sublime law.
7:145 — We wrote for him in the tablets advice concerning all things and an elaboration of all…
We wrote for him in the tablets advice concerning all things and an elaboration of all things, [and We said], ‘Hold on to them with power, and bid your people to hold on to the best of [what is in] them. Soon I shall show you the abode of the transgressors.
God wrote the tablets of the Torah for Mūsā (a.s.) without the intermediary of the angels. He dictated part of them in exhortations and matters of spiritual conduct, and dictated the other parts in detail on what relates to the happiness of the Children of Israel in this world and the next. He commanded Mūsā (a.s.) to take these tablets with spiritual and bodily seriousness, to take in their content and align his conduct with what they brought, and then to convey their contents to his people, so that they might take them in in the best way and keep earnestly to acting on them; otherwise they would be among the iniquitous at the Resurrection, and God would show them the abode of the iniquitous and their evil end.
What is meant by “the best” in receiving the content of the tablets, “take the best of it”, is the best in knowledge and understanding and the most excellent in morals.
7:146 — Soon I shall turn away from My signs those who are unduly arrogant in the earth
Soon I shall turn away from My signs those who are unduly arrogant in the earth: [even] though they should see every sign, they will not believe in it, and if they see the way of rectitude they will not take it as [their] way, and if they see the way of error they will take it as [their] way. That is because they deny Our signs and are oblivious to them.’
False and blameworthy arrogance is accompanied by severe divine punishment, such as being turned away from the divine signs.
In view of the indication of the context and the five qualifiers in the noble verse, the qualifier “without right” is counted as emphatic, not restrictive; that is, arrogance in the land, not before the arrogant, is false and blameworthy.
Turning the hearts of the arrogant away from understanding the divine signs is a punishment by way of penalty, not an initial one: they are afflicted with this punishment because of their false arrogance.
On the basis of the sentence “and if they see every sign they will not believe in it”, whose content is a sweeping negation, the arrogant do not believe in the principles of belief through any miracle or proof, just as in morals and rights they choose the path of deviation and corruption, and leave the path of guidance and right conduct.
Denying the divine signs of creation and of revelation, and being heedless of them, are among the things that bring about the turning of the arrogant away from understanding the divine signs.
7:147 — Those who deny Our signs and the encounter of the Hereafter
Those who deny Our signs and the encounter of the Hereafter, their works have failed. Shall they not be requited for what they used to do?
Denying the divine signs and denying the Resurrection bring about the vanishing of the reality of the deeds of the deniers, not only that they are deprived of their fruit.
The recompense of their deeds, which is the nullifying of deeds, is an instance of that in the world of this life and the world of the Hereafter; the verse before us is not limited to the Hereafter alone.
The changing of a deed into its recompense, like every other movement and change, is the act of God, Exalted.
7:148–149 — The people of Moses took up in his absence a calf [cast] from their ornaments—a body that…
(148) The people of Moses took up in his absence a calf [cast] from their ornaments—a body that gave out a lowing sound. Did they not regard that it did not speak to them, nor did it guide them to any way? They took it up [for worship] and they were wrongdoers. (149) But when they became remorseful and realised they had gone astray, they said, ‘Should our Lord have no mercy on us, and forgive us, we will be surely among the losers.’
Al-Sāmirī exploited the ignorance of the people, helped by their weakness of thought and their sensory approach, by their inclination to idol worship, and by the absence of Mūsā (a.s.) for forty days. He exploited all these conditions and tempted them, making for them, from what remained of the ornaments of Pharaoh and his group, a calf that lowed, and he led them to imagine that this was the god of the Children of Israel and of Mūsā (a.s.).
From the word “took” it is clear that calf worship was a deep-rooted way and practice of the Children of Israel. Yes, a group of them worshipped the idol formally, but apart from a small band of them, most of the Children of Israel either believed in calf worship or did not oppose this wrong and were pleased with this religion; so idol worship was ascribed to all the Children of Israel.
The noble Qur’an gave a simple, deterring proof in the form of a logical syllogism, making the Children of Israel understand that God is the One who speaks and guides, while the statue of the calf utters no word and does not speak, so it does not deserve to be a lord who is worshipped.
When Mūsā (a.s.) made their misguidance clear to the Children of Israel, remorse showed on them and they displayed their disappointment: if God did not have mercy on them and forgive them, they would be among the losers.
7:150 — When Moses returned to his people
When Moses returned to his people, angry and indignant, he said, ‘Evil has been your conduct in my absence! Would you hasten on the edict of your Lord?’ He threw down the tablets and seized his brother by the head, pulling him towards himself. He said, ‘Son of my mother, indeed this people thought me to be weak, and they were about to kill me. So do not let the enemies gloat over me, and do not take me with the wrongdoing lot.’
While he was at the appointed time, God informed His prophet Mūsā (a.s.) that His wisdom, Exalted, had required that his people be tested after his departure, and that al-Sāmirī had led them astray by what they were tested with. When he returned to his people, he rebuked them in the severest terms, gripped by reasoned anger and grief at what they had done: why had they not succeeded him well, but succeeded him badly, and been hasty in the matter of their Lord? He threw the tablets to the ground, expressing his intense anger, then seized his brother by the head and dragged him to himself.
Hārūn (a.s.) appealed to the feelings of Mūsā (a.s.) with an expression charged with stirring emotion, saying: “Son of my mother”. He argued to him that he had not been slack with them in guiding and explaining, for they had deemed him weak and nearly killed him. He said: had I taken another path, the causes of the scattering of the Children of Israel would have been set in motion; so let your reaction toward me not be one of wrath that makes the enemies gloat, and do not put me in the company of the faithless in your rebuke of them for their beliefs and conduct. Since Hārūn referred to the enemies by the explicit noun, he declared openly the enmity of the Children of Israel.
7:151 — He said, ‘My Lord, forgive me and my brother
He said, ‘My Lord, forgive me and my brother, and admit us into Your mercy, for You are the most merciful of the merciful.
Mūsā (a.s.) asked the Lord, the Most High, for forgiveness for himself and his brother, but did not ask it for any of his close companions, because they were not accused of worshipping the calf or of neglecting their duty toward the calf worshippers.
The mercy of God, from four sides, its being guided by reason, and its enjoying absolute knowledge, absolute power and absolute generosity, is better than the mercy of others, and that is why God is the Most Merciful of the merciful.
7:152–153 — Indeed those who took up the calf [for worship] shall be overtaken by their Lord’s wrath…
(152) Indeed those who took up the calf [for worship] shall be overtaken by their Lord’s wrath and abasement in the life of the world.’ Thus do We requite the fabricators [of lies]. (153) Yet [to] those who commit misdeeds but repent after that, and believe—indeed, after that, your Lord shall surely be all-forgiving, all-merciful.
These two verses tell another part of the story of Mūsā (a.s.), the outcome of the calf worship, for the divine wrath in this world and the Hereafter showed on those who worshipped it. This punishment is not particular to those who worshipped the calf; rather, it is a recompense of punishment for every inventor of lies, and one of the fixed ways of God.
The path of repentance is open before every sinner, but the acceptance of repentance depends on its conditions being met, one of which is making good the ugly results of the sin and setting them right.
7:154 — When Moses’ indignation abated
When Moses’ indignation abated, he picked up the tablets whose inscriptions contained guidance and mercy for those who are in awe of their Lord.
The flame of reasoned divine anger, not anger of the ego, subsided in Mūsā (a.s.), and he lifted the tablets from the ground. These are the very tablets that came down to him on Mount Ṭūr; nothing of them was lost and they were not broken.
The tablets are guidance and mercy for the faithful who worship God out of awe and longing, or out of love for Him. Since many people obey their Lord out of awe, this verse mentions them.
7:155 — Moses chose seventy men from his people for Our tryst
Moses chose seventy men from his people for Our tryst, and when the earthquake seized them, he said, ‘My Lord, had You wished, You would have destroyed them and me before. Will You destroy us because of what the fools amongst us have done? It is only Your test, by which You lead astray whomever You wish and guide whomever You wish. You are our master, so forgive us and have mercy on us, for You are the best of those who forgive.
Mūsā (a.s.) chose seventy men from among his people to accompany him to the appointed time with his Lord. There, when they turned away from faith and were not content with God’s speaking with Mūsā (a.s.), they foolishly proposed seeing with the senses. The quake seized them all, or a part of them, and they perished.
After this tragic event Mūsā (a.s.) feared that he would be accused of their deaths and the pillars of his call would be shaken, so he asked God to bring the dead back to life. With the highest degree of courtesy toward his Lord as he put his request, he ascribed the death of these men to the divine way of testing. Then, after praise and acceptance of the constant divine way of testing, he called on God by the two beautiful names “the Guardian” and “the Best of those who forgive”, and turned to his Lord in utmost humility, asking of His holy majesty forgiveness and mercy in general for himself and his community.
7:156 — And appoint goodness for us in this world and the Hereafter
And appoint goodness for us in this world and the Hereafter, for indeed we have come back to You.’ Said He, ‘I visit My punishment on whomever I wish, but My mercy embraces all things. Soon I shall appoint it for those who are Godwary and give the zakat and those who believe in Our signs
Mūsā, the one spoken to by God (a.s.), continued his supplication and hoped from his Lord for good in this world and the Hereafter. God, Exalted, paid special attention to Mūsā’s (a.s.) request, and turned from the pronoun of the speaker with others to the speaker alone, repeating it five times, when He said: My punishment is specific to the sinners whom My wisdom wills it to strike; My general mercy embraces every person of faith and every faithless one, while My special mercy surrounds the people of Godwariness, those who give the zakāh, and those who believe in the signs of God and affirm them.
7:157 — —those who follow the Apostle
—those who follow the Apostle, the untaught prophet, whose mention they find written with them in the Torah and the Evangel, who bids them to do what is right and forbids them from what is wrong, makes lawful to them all the good things and forbids them from all vicious things, and relieves them of their burdens and the shackles that were upon them—those who believe in him, honour him, and help him and follow the light that has been sent down with him, they are the felicitous.’
A condition for enjoying the special divine mercy is belief in the message of the Prophet Muḥammad (s.a.w.) and following him in practice.
The word “prophet” is absolutely more general and “messenger” absolutely more specific, but because of the importance of the matter of the message and its delivery, He put “messenger” before “prophet”. The listing of the three attributes, that is, messengership, prophethood and being unlettered, for the Prophet (s.a.w.) is because he was mentioned in the two Testaments by these three attributes. By “unlettered” is meant that he did not attend places of learning, not that he was ignorant of reading and writing; otherwise, the message of the prophets (a.s.) is neutral with respect to being unlettered.
The good tidings of the mission of the Prophet (s.a.w.) were in the Torah and the Gospel when the Qur’an came down; otherwise the Jews and Christians would have objected to this statement. But the hand of distortion and forgery has hidden this truth in the Torah and Gospel that exist today.
After introducing the Prophet (s.a.w.), the verse explains his message by five acts, pointing to their summit: commanding what is right, forbidding what is wrong, making good things lawful, forbidding bad things, and lifting the incorrect restrictions and laws among humanity, the rulings of the divine punishments, and the condemnation of the false Jewish foundations of thought, such as their superiority over the rest of people.
The verse closes by making clear what is meant by following, and highlights the prosperous faithful: besides following the rulings of belief and worship in the stages of spiritual conduct and practice, they help him, even if it leads them to fighting and being killed in the way of God. Honouring the Prophet (s.a.w.) means preventing wrong and aggression against him and helping him to prevail over his opponents and overcome them.
According to the apparent meaning of this verse, the noble Qur’an and the Prophet (s.a.w.) have both come down, and ascribing the sending down to them is real: the Qur’an came down from the station of “a hidden Book” and “the Mother of the Book”, and the most noble Prophet (s.a.w.) came down from the station of “with God” and “then he drew near and came down”.
The Qur’an’s being with the most noble Prophet (s.a.w.) is of the kind of the sustaining togetherness, like the togetherness of a shadow and its owner.
7:158 — Say, ‘O mankind! I am the Apostle of Allah to you all
Say, ‘O mankind! I am the Apostle of Allah to you all, [of Him] to whom belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. There is no god except Him. He gives life and brings death.’ So have faith in Allah and His Apostle, the untaught prophet, who has faith in Allah and His words, and follow him so that you may be guided.
The Messenger of Islam (s.a.w.) was commanded to spread his universal message to different ages and lands. The Prophet’s (s.a.w.) call to tawḥīd was universal from the start, even if at first it began in his near surroundings, and the first he called were the faithless living within his geographical bounds.
Each of the three attributes, authority over the order of existence and godhood, the oneness of God, and the power to give life and death, and especially tawḥīd and restricting these attributes to God, Exalted, is the summit of the proofs of the prophets (a.s.), above all the message of the Seal (s.a.w.).
The three matters mentioned yield the necessity of faith and following, as stated by the fāʾ of consequence: the Islamic ideology is the result of the divine worldview.
Being unlettered is one of the miracles of the Prophet, whose message was universal.
All the prophets (a.s.) went before others in believing in the words of creation, such as the angels and the divine messengers, and the words of revelation, such as the heavenly Books.
The command to follow covers the commands, prohibitions and deeds that were not among the things particular to the Prophet (s.a.w.), and among his ordinary deeds.
Being guided in this verse is guidance by way of reward and attaining what is sought; it is not guidance in the sense of attaining the initial path to faith and righteous deeds, because being guided (guidance by way of reward) is the result of that initial guidance.
7:159 — Among the people of Moses is a nation who guide [the people] by the truth and do justice…
Among the people of Moses is a nation who guide [the people] by the truth and do justice thereby.
Of the people of Mūsā (a.s.), none fell short in supporting him and accepting his leadership and imamate except a small group. This few had two attributes: 1. They call people and guide them to the truth. 2. They rule and judge with justice. The content of this verse, besides the prophets of the Children of Israel (a.s.), also applies to the scholars and righteous of the Children of Israel who were not infallible, in whom these two attributes were realised.
7:160 — We split them up into twelve tribal communities
We split them up into twelve tribal communities, and We revealed to Moses, when his people asked him for water, [saying], ‘Strike the rock with your staff,’ whereat twelve fountains gushed forth from it. Every tribe came to know its drinking-place. And We shaded them with clouds, and We sent down to them manna and quails: ‘Eat of the good things We have provided you.’ And they did not wrong Us, but they used to wrong [only] themselves.
By divine command Mūsā (a.s.) divided the Children of Israel into twelve groups, so that the task of managing them would be easier for him. The tribes are the offspring of Yaʿqūb (a.s.) and the grandchildren of Ibrāhīm (a.s.); each of them led the group belonging to him, and in this way Mūsā (a.s.) divided the Children of Israel into these groups.
The staff of Mūsā (a.s.) had roles in every period of his mission: one day it turned into a serpent in the confrontation with Pharaoh and the sorcerers; another time it made the sea dry, splitting the sea to open a road through it; and at another time, in the barren desert, it struck the rocks, and twelve springs of water gushed out.
The blessings the Children of Israel are reminded of in this verse could have been accompanied by much religious knowledge, as divine signs; but unfortunately the share of the Children of Israel in them was only the material and outward dimension, not the spiritual and the dimension of knowledge; otherwise they would not have been afflicted with wrongdoing and disobedience.
Man is made up of genuine human parts and non-genuine animal parts; if he makes anger and appetite rule over his innate nature and reason, he has thereby wronged himself and his own being, and lost.
7:161–162 — And when they were told, ‘Settle in this town and eat thereof whence you wish
(161) And when they were told, ‘Settle in this town and eat thereof whence you wish; and say, ‘‘Relieve [us of the burden of our sins],’’ and enter prostrating at the gate, that We may forgive your iniquities, and soon We shall enhance the virtuous.’ (162) But the wrongdoers changed the saying with other than what they had been told. So We sent against them a plague from the sky because of the wrongs they used to commit.
God, Glorified and Exalted is He, commanded the Children of Israel through Mūsā (a.s.) to enter the holy land (Jerusalem, or another inhabited land) by a known gate, with humility and a particular remembrance, to dwell in it and eat of its many fruits, and to ask for forgiveness, so that their sins would be forgiven and the good of the doers of good increased. But the wrongdoers among the Children of Israel changed the aim and the meaning, not merely the wording, of the commands recited to them. So We sent down on them punishment from the sky because of their continuing wrongdoing.
7:163 — Ask them about the town that was situated on the seaside
Ask them about the town that was situated on the seaside, when they violated the Sabbath, when their fish would come to them on the Sabbath day, visibly on the shore, but on days when they were not keeping Sabbath they would not come to them. Thus did We test them because of the transgressions they used to commit.
O Prophet (s.a.w.), ask the Jews about a town that was beside the sea, whose people were struck by punishment because of their transgression and their disobedience to the command of God, so that they may know that if they follow that conduct and disobey the command of God, they will be punished like their forebears. The people of that town disobeyed the command of God about catching fish on the Sabbath and failed the divine test. The Messenger’s (s.a.w.) motive in asking the Jews about the town was to condemn their forebears and to warn those of them who were present.
On the day of rest, which perhaps corresponds to Saturday, catching fish was forbidden to the Jews. The fish would come to the surface of the sea by the command of God, Exalted, and come close to the shore, so that the Jews might be tested by this and the faithful group be told apart from the faithless.
7:164–166 — When a group of them said
(164) When a group of them said, ‘Why do you advise a people whom Allah will destroy, or punish with a severe punishment?’ They said, ‘As an excuse before your Lord, and [with the hope] that they may be Godwary.’ (165) So when they forgot what they had been reminded of, We delivered those who forbade evil [conduct] and seized the wrongdoers with a terrible punishment because of the transgressions they used to commit. (166) When they defied [the command pertaining to] what they were forbidden from, We said to them, ‘Be you spurned apes.’
In the event of the Sabbath (the divine test in the story of catching fish), the Jews of that place split into three parts: those who fished, disobeying the command; those who had faith and admonished; and the silent, who did not care.
The third part, because of the weakness of their faith, not only failed to carry out the duty of forbidding what is wrong, but also blamed the faithful who were doing their duty: why do you forbid what is wrong to those whose punishment and destruction God has decreed? The faithful justified what they did with two reasons: 1. So that we may be excused before God, for we have done our duty to the last moment, and have closed the door of excuse and apology against them on the Day of Resurrection. 2. We have not lost hope of counselling them.
The rebellious fishers paid no heed to the command of God and threw the word of God behind their backs. For this reason God, Exalted, saved the faithful who forbade what is wrong, and destroyed the wrongdoers because of their iniquity, and afflicted them with severe punishment. Forgetting in the noble verse means feigning forgetfulness and making a show of forgetting, and amounts to deliberate abandonment.
When the fishers who disobeyed the command of God, the Mighty and Majestic, persisted in their wrongdoing and went on defying the command of God (catching fish on the Sabbath), God turned them into apes. This is what is called malakūtī transformation, which is possible by reason and by transmitted texts and has happened in this world and the next; not mulkī transformation, which is transmigration, impossible and false.
7:167 — And when your Lord proclaimed that He would surely send against them
And when your Lord proclaimed that He would surely send against them, until the Day of Resurrection, those who would inflict on them a terrible punishment. Indeed your Lord is swift in retribution, and indeed, He is all-forgiving, all-merciful.
Besides the affliction of internal disagreement falling among the Children of Israel, God, Exalted, swore that He would afflict all the Jews, not only the people of the Sabbath, with the domination of others over them; and unless they desist and repent, this punishment will continue upon them until the Day of Resurrection. This verse is silent about naming those set over the Jews, and does not mention a name for them.
From the announcement that the Jews will be afflicted until the Resurrection it is known that they will be present until the Hour of the Resurrection, and from this verse it is known that they will not be able to establish a secure state, protected from the domination of others.
From the mention of the beautiful names “Swift in punishment”, “the Forgiving” and “the Merciful”, it appears that the punishment of the Jews for their deeds takes place in the abode of this world, unless they repent, and then divine forgiveness and mercy reach them.
7:168 — We dispersed them into communities around the earth
We dispersed them into communities around the earth: some of them were righteous, and some of them otherwise, and We tested them with good and bad [times] so that they may come back.
God, Exalted, scattered the Jews in the earth into groups, some of them doers of good and others doers of evil, and He tested them with afflictions and blessings so that they might desist from their corruption.
Dividing a community is sometimes for a desirable political end, meaning the organising of their ranks for the purpose of managing them better, and sometimes for punishment and affliction, meaning their scattering and displacement in the earth. The Children of Israel were afflicted with this because of their intense unbelief, that perhaps by this they might return to the straight path and the upright religion of God.
The important aim of the divine tests is man’s return to God and his obedience to Him.
7:169 — Then they were succeeded by an evil posterity
Then they were succeeded by an evil posterity, which inherited the Book: they grab the transitory gains of this lower world, and say, ‘It will be forgiven us.’ And if similar transitory gains were to come their way, they would grab them too. Was not the covenant of the Book taken with them that they shall not attribute anything to Allah except the truth? They have studied what is in it, and [know that] the abode of the Hereafter is better for those who are Godwary. Do you not exercise your reason?
The descendants of the Children of Israel inherited the Torah one after another to read it, but their immersion in the world came between them and acting by the Book. Because of their greed for the world they strove after the lowest unlawful things; they had no repentance and no seeking of forgiveness, and in justifying their taking bribes and consuming usury they used to say that they would be forgiven; and when another such offering came to them, they took it.
God took a covenant from the scholars of the Children of Israel that they would not invent lies against Him or say anything false about Him, and would not ascribe to Him, Exalted, anything but the truth. But though they recited the Book, they distorted it to gain the benefits of the lowly world. Are these not people of reason, that they should reflect that the Hereafter is kinder to life for the people of Godwariness than living in the life of this world?
This covenant to speak the truth and to speak soundly is one of the universal lines in religiousness and in comprehensive Islam, and is not particular to any one law.
7:170 — As for those who hold fast to the Book and maintain the prayer—indeed
As for those who hold fast to the Book and maintain the prayer—indeed, We do not waste the reward of those who bring about reform.
Truly holding fast to the heavenly Book guarantees righteousness and reform at the level of the individual and society, and the pivot of this reform is the religious centres. Much spiritual building-up by the intellectual, cultural and religious centres prepares the way for raising righteous people, who bear the greater part of the responsibilities of confronting corruption.
On the basis of this verse, holding firmly to revelation and establishing the prayer are counted as two causes of the multiplying of righteous deeds and the increase of the righteous. And God, Exalted, does not waste the reward of the doers of good.
Mentioning the prayer beside the heavenly Books is because of its importance and its special effect in reform.
7:171 — When We plucked the mountain [and held it] above them as if it were a canopy (and they…
When We plucked the mountain [and held it] above them as if it were a canopy (and they thought it was about to fall on them): ‘Hold on with power to what We have given you and remember that which is in it, so that you may be Godwary.’
The obstinate Children of Israel rejected the Torah. So God, Exalted, raised Mount Ṭūr in a miraculous way and set it like a canopy over their heads, and at that time, when the Children of Israel thought the mountain would fall on their heads, He said to them: you must truly believe in the Torah, take it with strength and not neglect it, that perhaps by this you may be Godwary.
There is no doubt that this terrifying miracle did not take away from the Children of Israel the choice of faith and action, just as the miracle of the staff turning into a serpent did not take choice away from the people of Pharaoh. So it is with all the miracles of the prophets (a.s.): they did not compel their nations to faith and righteous deeds.
7:172–174 — When your Lord took from the Children of Adam
(172) When your Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their descendants and made them bear witness over themselves, [He said to them,] ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yes indeed! We bear witness.’ [This,] lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘Indeed we were unaware of this,’ (173) or lest you should say, ‘Our fathers ascribed partners [to Allah] before [us] and we were descendants after them. Will You then destroy us because of what the falsifiers have done?’ (174) Thus do We elaborate the signs, so that they may come back.
At the very outset, God Almighty disclosed to the human being his own reality, so that he came to know that his reality and his being are nothing but connection (ʿayn al-rabṭ) to God Almighty. Then God asked the human being about His Lordship and the human being’s servanthood, and the human being acknowledged both, so that on the Day of Resurrection (the place where proofs are put forward) he would not be able to deny them. In the present, too, if the veils of heedlessness were lifted, the human being would see his relational and dependent (rabṭī and faqrī) identity. The connection cannot be witnessed without witnessing that to which it is connected.
To preserve the apparent meaning of the verse, the locus in which the covenant was taken must have certain characteristics: it must precede the life of this world, it must be possible to recall what happened there, and it must be continuous, universal, and a locus of awareness and perception.
The exegetes differ over the locus in which the covenant was taken. They have held it to be, variously, the World of Particles (dharr), the locus of reason, the locus of revelation, a representation (tamthīl), the malakūt, the World of Spirits, or the fiṭrah. Some of these views clash with the wording of the verse and with the purpose of taking the covenant, and some give rise to the problem of transmigration (tanāsukh). Some conflict with aspects of the verse such as its apparent meaning, its universality, the reasoning given in its closing words and the presential knowledge (al-ʿilm al-ḥuḍūrī) that it conveys, and so do not agree with other verses. Others are undermined by further proofs and are open to objection on other grounds. Likewise, taking certain narrations to refer to the World of Spirits contradicts the apparent meaning of the verse, although establishing that a covenant was taken from the human being at each of the earlier stages would not in itself lead to anything objectionable.
The way that is safe from these problems and agrees with the apparent meaning of the noble verse is the way of the heart, of the fiṭrah and of witnessing (shuhūd), which differs from the ways of reason and of revelation.
On this basis, the meaning of the verse is: in the locus of the covenant We took from all the Children of Adam the pledge of God’s Lordship and of their servanthood to Him, and all of them answered with the tongue of the fiṭrah, ‘Yes indeed!’, and acknowledged it. If the dust were cleared from the fiṭrah, it would become possible to recall the situation in that mode of existence (nashʾah) and the scene of the taking of the covenant and the pledge.
In any case, God (s.w.t.) took the covenant in the locus mentioned, and He gave this reason why the covenant had to be taken there: to close the door to argument in the arena of the Resurrection, so that no one could say, ‘I was heedless’, or ‘I grew up in an unsound environment; our fathers drew us into polytheism and idol worship; will You then destroy us for what the falsifiers did?’
In this way God Almighty sets out His signs in detail, so that people may be guided, turn away from polytheism and unbelief, and return to their monotheistic fiṭrah.
On the Summary page · Read the commentary on 7:172–174 →
7:175 — Relate to them an account of him to whom We gave Our signs
Relate to them an account of him to whom We gave Our signs, but he cast them off. Thereupon Satan pursued him, and he became one of the perverse.
Reciting the signs is one of the functions of the prophets (a.s.). From here comes the command of God, Exalted, to His noble Messenger (s.a.w.) to recite to people the news of one who was among the Children of Israel, whom We had favoured with Our signs and many marvels, but he tore them out of himself by his own bad choice. Inclination to the world and following the desire of the self caused him to throw off the garment of faith and Godwariness. So Satan followed him, made him his follower and placed him under his guardianship, and in the end the matter led him to be among those who go astray, and his end was evil.
It is known from the expression “sloughing off” that faith had not taken root in his spirit; rather it was a matter of the shell and the outward. For this reason, by leaving faith he fell from his spiritual station and had an evil end, such that every sign of return was closed off.
7:176–177 — Had We wished, We would have surely raised him by their means
(176) Had We wished, We would have surely raised him by their means, but he clung to the earth and followed his [base] desires. So his parable is that of a dog: if you make for it, it lolls out its tongue, and if you let it alone, it lolls out its tongue. Such is the parable of the people who deny Our signs. So recount these narratives, so that they may reflect. (177) Evil is the parable of the people who deny Our signs and wrong themselves.
Had Balʿam son of Bāʿūrāʾ not sloughed off the garment of Godwariness by his own bad choice, the creative divine guidance would have embraced him and he would have risen by those signs to a lofty station. But the will of the Lord of the worlds does not attach to the happiness and guidance of one who clings to the world and follows his desire, and his being deprived of creative guidance was by his own bad choice.
Inclination to the world and following the desire of the self brought Balʿam down to the depths and veiled him from the high degrees of humanity. In stirring up strife and bringing harm to people he was like the rabid dog: whether you attack it or not, it pants, and so harm reaches man. The secret of this likeness is his constant inclination to the life of this world and to decline, and his using the divine signs as a means to secure worldly aims; he stirs up strife whether they attack him or not.
This punishment is not particular to Balʿam; rather, this is the reality of whoever denies the signs of God and wrongs himself by wrongdoing, rebellion and apostasy.
7:178 — Whomever Allah guides is rightly guided
Whomever Allah guides is rightly guided, and whomever He leads astray—it is they who are the losers.
Those who believe in the legislative guidance of God and stand firm on this path are favoured with special care and have a share of the creative divine guidance; these are the truly guided. As for those who turned away from legislative guidance by their own bad choice and chose, knowingly and deliberately, the way of misguidance, God will leave them to themselves, and that is the punitive misguiding from God. These are the ones whose capital has gone as scattered dust, who have lost their way in the whirlpool of punitive misguidance, and who have lost an everlasting loss.
7:179 — Certainly We have winnowed out for hell many of the jinn and humans
Certainly We have winnowed out for hell many of the jinn and humans: they have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, they have ears with which they do not hear. They are like cattle; indeed, they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless.
In the end many of the jinn and of mankind, by their own bad choice, turn away from the straight highway of the truth and change their course toward Hell, as if they had been created for Hell; but the case is the complete opposite, and it is they who willed this path. For God, Exalted, has granted them hearts, eyes and ears, so that they may tell the level road from falling into the trap; but they have closed off every channel of understanding to themselves: they have hearts but do not understand with them, they have eyes but do not see with them, and they have ears but do not hear with them.
The reason for mentioning the heart before the eye in this verse is that at first the heart of the sinful man is polluted with the filth of sins, and then, as a result, his eyes and ears turn aside, because the source of decision and the head of man’s being is his heart, and when it is polluted all the members that obey it are polluted.
These are like cattle, afflicted with appetite and anger; nay, they are further astray than them and lower, because despite having their innate capital (the heart, hearing and sight), they have mistaken the way.
The sinners, in falling into the animal depths, pass through three stages, since a leap all at once is impossible for them: first they are like an animal; then after that they turn into an animal; then they sink to a stage lower than this, and are lower than an animal.
These are the ones who have forgotten the Hereafter, and the repetition of the pronoun “they” shows how deeply heedlessness is rooted in them.
7:180 — To Allah belong the Best Names
To Allah belong the Best Names, so supplicate Him by them, and abandon those who commit sacrilege in His names. Soon they shall be requited for what they used to do.
Every beautiful name in the universe belongs exclusively to the holy divine Essence; that is, absolute perfection in any attribute of perfection belongs to God alone. The affairs of the universe are managed by the beautiful names of God; that is why we have been encouraged to call on God, the One named by the beautiful names, by the beautiful names.
The effect of the names of the Creator, Exalted, in the form of supplications and the like, is in harmony with the order of cause and effect.
Every needy person may hold fast to one of the beautiful names of the Lord (a name that suits what he asks for) to remove by it the need that has befallen him. The many beautiful divine names are a grace from God, Exalted; otherwise God is strong enough to bring things about by a single name.
The beautiful divine names have four stages: the words, the concepts, the realities, and the manifestations (the external entities). The determined Essence is the ultimate one named by the names. The lowest of them is the words, which are in reality the name of the name of the name, because the word “name” was coined for the concept, the concept of the name for the external reality, and the external reality of the name for the determined Essence. On this basis the real name of God is the determined Essence, considered together with the attribute, and the perfect man is its highest manifestation.
It is drawn from the opening of the verse that the divine names are general and widespread, and it allows us to ascribe every attribute of perfection to God, Exalted; so there is no proof that the names of God are fixed by revelation alone. But religious courtesy requires that we distinguish between the name and the attribute: in describing, it is right to apply to God, Exalted, every word free of deficiency; but for names, one keeps to the names stated in the texts, as courtesy requires and out of religious caution.
The word “most beautiful” means real beauty, not conventional beauty, bound up with the degree of existential perfection; so the beauty of God, Exalted, goes back to His real, existential perfection. All the divine names are most beautiful, and “most beautiful” is an unlimited description, unlike the beautiful names that point to limited perfection, which count as a deficiency for God. God, Exalted, does not have limited knowledge, power and life; rather His attributes of perfection are not limited by any limit.
Calling on God by the beautiful names has degrees: the lowest is remembrance with the tongue, and the highest is taking on the character of God and being a beautiful manifestation of the beautiful divine names.
God, Exalted, commands that they keep apart from those who deviate concerning His beautiful names, that is, those who strip the names that are named from the holy divine Essence and apply them to others; for those who fall down in worship of other than God, Exalted, have no real one named by the names, and worship nothing but the spoken names. That is why God has called them deviators.
The deviators concerning the beautiful divine names will find the outcome of their deeds and taste it. The expression at the end of the verse makes clear that the recompense is identical with the deed; and it appears from it that the punishment of the deviators is nothing but another form of the hideous evil deeds they committed.
7:181 — Among those We have created are a nation who guide by the truth and do justice thereby
Among those We have created are a nation who guide by the truth and do justice thereby.
Facing the great group of jinn and mankind who enter the Fire there certainly stands a group of the truly happy. These, besides their individual guidance, are a manifestation of divine guidance: they guide to the truth, walk with the truth, and act with justice and equity in their life and livelihood.
The most prominent instance of this noble verse is the Prophet Muḥammad (s.a.w.) and his successors, the infallible Imams (a.s.), for God has favoured them with an exceptional guidance.
7:182–183 — As for those who deny Our signs
(182) As for those who deny Our signs, We will draw them imperceptibly [into ruin], whence they do not know. (183) And I will grant them respite, for My devising is indeed sure.
The two divine punishments (istidrāj, leading on step by step, and imlāʾ, granting respite) are particular to sinners, and the firm plan of God will strike those who deny the signs of the Generous God. Such people must wait for the punishment, for they turned away from all the ways of knowledge (calling to the path of the truth with wisdom, good exhortation and disputing in the best way) and of practice that the Lord of the worlds set for them, and the chance of repentance and turning back has passed them by. So the punishment became due against them: the Lord of might grants them respite with blessings, and they drown in them so that they increase in sins and wrongdoing by them; then, while they are heedless and from where it never crossed their minds, their page is rolled up by punishment. This divine punishment is a sound plan of God, striking the wrongdoers after God has granted them respite.
The sinners feel their gradual rise in station and rank and the increase of wealth and other material blessings, but they do not know the causes of that, and do not know that the flow of blessings to them is a preliminary to falling into punishment.
7:184 — Have they not reflected that there is no madness in their companion
Have they not reflected that there is no madness in their companion, [and that] he is just a manifest warner?
The noble verse has taken the life and conduct of the noble Messenger (s.a.w.) as a subject of reflection, so as to arrive at faith in the station of messengership and to prove the Prophet’s (s.a.w.) connection with the source of revelation. The polytheists used to accuse the Prophet (s.a.w.) of madness! This ascription of theirs was either to fight his person (s.a.w.) and the values he brought, or because of seeing the states that came over him at the time revelation came down.
God, Exalted, with every emphasis, denies any kind of madness of the Prophet (s.a.w.), and establishes this in another place with the help of a proof, as follows: how did your consciences allow you to slander with madness one who lived among you for forty years, renowned for wisdom and good sense, who was the trustworthy one accepted among you and counted by you as one of your companions? Did you see anything contrary to reason in any of his acts?
The Prophet (s.a.w.) was not mad; rather he is the Messenger of God (s.a.w.), sent to warn people. The reason for confining the message of the Prophet (s.a.w.) to warning is the far-reaching effect it carries in people; otherwise the Prophet (s.a.w.) is a bearer of good tidings and a warner.
7:185 — Have they not contemplated the dominions of the heavens and the earth
Have they not contemplated the dominions of the heavens and the earth, and whatever things Allah has created, and that maybe their time has already drawn near? So what discourse will they believe after this?!
Looking (considering and reflecting) at the creatures guides man to the order of agency and purpose in the world. Looking into the dominion of the heaven and the earth includes looking into the dominion of the Messenger (s.a.w.); by reflecting on him, apart from gaining the knowledge of tawḥīd and prophethood, one draws from it that God, Exalted, is a Guide and a Sender of messengers. Since reflection and looking into tawḥīd and prophethood are necessary in principle, no one should neglect this important matter, for a man’s lifetime and term are not in his own choice; perhaps death arrives at any moment. This is an exhortation that supports wisdom and proof; it is not a merely moral exhortation but an exhortation arising from rational probability, and it is addressed to those who doubt the Resurrection or deny it, on whom exhortations have no benefit and no effect. That is why He said: perhaps after death there is a Resurrection; then what will be done, and how will they believe?
What is meant by “discourse” at the end of the verse is the noble Qur’an, the glorious, divine miracle for the guidance of mankind; those who make excuses will find no proof clearer than the glorious Qur’an to believe in.
7:186 — Whomever Allah leads astray has no guide
Whomever Allah leads astray has no guide, and He leaves them bewildered in their rebellion.
When the outward and inward proofs are complete and their outpouring comes to man one after another, and he still does not believe, God, Exalted, leaves him to himself. That is the punitive misguiding, and it is something privative: God, Exalted, does not lead the sinners astray, except that He withdraws from them His special grace. Whomever God leads astray has no way to guidance, whatever and whoever he may be; it is beyond him, and God leaves them wandering blindly in their rebellion.
The pronoun “him” comes in the singular because the word “whom” is singular, and the pronouns that come after “whom” come in view of its meaning.
7:187 — They question you concerning the Hour
They question you concerning the Hour, when will it set in? Say, ‘Its knowledge is only with my Lord: none except Him shall manifest it at its time. It will weigh heavy on the heavens and the earth. It will not overtake you but suddenly.’ They ask you as if you were in the know of it. Say, ‘Its knowledge is only with Allah, but most people do not know.’
The polytheists’ questioning of the Prophet (s.a.w.) centres on the Resurrection and its reality. From the repetition of the word “they ask you” and the difference in the expressions in answering the questions, it is clear that the questions have several topics.
What is meant by “the Hour” in the verse, by the indication of the context, is the time of appearance, that is, the Great Resurrection; not man’s term, nor the time of the appearance of the Master of the Age and Time (a.s.). The purpose of calling the Resurrection “the Hour” is that it happens suddenly, or because of the swiftness of the reckoning in it, or because the length of the reckoning is as short as the twinkling of an eye for God, Exalted, even if its span is fifty thousand years.
The question about the anchoring of the ship of the Resurrection has a special subtlety, and three things about the Resurrection are known from it:
The Resurrection is a reality that exists now.
Its reality is in turmoil, like a storm.
When the Resurrection anchors, that is, when it appears.
Using “when” and “where” about the Resurrection is not fitting, because once the carpet of place and time has been rolled up, “when” and “where” have no meaning any more. The expression that the Resurrection comes suddenly means that its appearance leaves man bewildered, because the sudden and the gradual both fall within the realm of time, and the familiar time ends its span and its record is rolled up before the Resurrection takes place.
God, Exalted, instructs the Prophet (s.a.w.) to say in answer to the polytheists: knowledge of the Hour of the Resurrection is disclosed to God alone. The Resurrection is hidden from all other than God, in its coming about and in its continuing.
“Knowledge of the Hour” differs essentially from its external reality. The infallible perfect man (a.s.) can, by the leave of God, know the time of the Resurrection, because his knowledge is drawn from God; but the manifestation of the Resurrection belongs to God alone. Hence the reality of the Great Resurrection is heavy for the order of existence, even for the perfect man. With certainty, at the start of the manifestation of the events of the Resurrection the heaven and the earth are blown apart, so it is hard for the heaven and the earth to bear the reality of the Resurrection, in knowledge and in practice.
The reality of the Resurrection, from which God, Exalted, lifts the veil of the unseen, overtakes man suddenly; but this does not mean that it is in time, because the passing away of the world goes together with the disappearance of familiar time. So the Resurrection is neither sudden nor gradual, and is neither within the realm of time nor at its edges; that is why man will be bewildered by the terror of the event when it appears.
Three meanings have been given for “ḥafiyy”:
Its meaning is: they ask you about it as if you were ḥafiyy of it, that is, knowing about it, having asked much about it. On this reading the word “about it” attaches to “they ask you”.
They ask you about it as if you were ḥafiyy of them, that is, kind to them, glad at their question; ḥafāwah in asking is cheerfulness toward the one asked about. On this basis the word “about it” attaches to “the Hour”, which is left out, that is, the one asked about.
That is, ignorant of it: they question you about the Resurrection and think you do not know how to answer their question, unaware that you know.
He says to them a second time: knowledge of the Resurrection is with God alone. But most people do not know that the knowledge of the Hour and its reality are run by divine management, nor do they know how to ask about a thing; they do not know the manners of asking. So the ignorance of most of them is not in contrast to the lesser knowledge of the Hour
7:188 — Say, ‘I have no control over any benefit for myself
Say, ‘I have no control over any benefit for myself, nor [over] any harm except what Allah may wish. Had I known the Unseen, I would have acquired much good, and no ill would have befallen me. I am only a warner and bearer of good news to a people who have faith.’
According to the previous verse, the polytheists ask about the time of the Resurrection and its reality. God, Glorified is He, follows this with the proof denying knowledge of the unseen to all other than God concerning the time and reality of the Resurrection, and commands His Messenger (s.a.w.) to say to the polytheists: I have no power to benefit or harm myself, except as God wills. I am not furnished with knowledge of the unseen independently; nor have I acquired much good for myself, or kept many evils away from myself, such as illnesses and poverty; and I am nothing but a bearer of good tidings and a warner.
By rational entailment, attaining the unseen, as a result of the holiness of the self, is a cause of acquiring much good and reaching one’s aims, even though the unseen is not something man is charged with.
God, Exalted, according to His will, acquaints His prophets and awliyāʾ (a.s.) with a kind of the unseen. So the Prophet’s (s.a.w.) knowledge of the unseen, as the theologian, the philosopher and the gnostic understand it, is dependent, figurative and accidental, not original, essential and real.
Putting benefit before harm, and good before evil, is to fit the verse to the discussion of the previous verses, which put guidance before misguidance. The context of the last sentence of the verse shows that the message of the Messenger (s.a.w.) is confined to warning and giving good tidings, and none benefits from this warning and good tidings except the faithful.
7:189–190 — It is He who created you from a single soul
(189) It is He who created you from a single soul, and made from it its mate, that he might find comfort with her. So when he had covered her, she bore a light burden and passed [some time] with it. When she had grown heavy, they both invoked Allah, their Lord: ‘If You give us a healthy [child], we will be surely grateful.’ (190) Then when He gave them a healthy [child], they ascribed partners to Him in what He had given them. Exalted is Allah above [having] any partners that they ascribe [to Him]!
The content of these two verses is concerned with the tawḥīd of creatorship and the tawḥīd of lordship and the impossibility of polytheism, and the descriptions set down in them make clear the specific reality of man.
God created man from a single reality, and from it (the single self) He created for him a mate, so that he might find rest in her, which comes only in the shade of rational and faithful affection and forbearance on the part of the husband and the wife; for man’s heart finds rest only in the shade of spiritual things. After the marriage of the man and the woman, the woman feels the effects of a light burden, that is, she carries the drop of fluid, the clot and the lump of flesh, and her burden is not heavy for her. But when the pregnancy passes through the stages of its growth, and the bones grow strong and are clothed with flesh, the woman feels the heaviness of what she carries. Then the couple raise their hands in prayer and hope that their Lord will grant them a righteous child, sound and whole, sound in soul, spirit and body together, so that they may be among the grateful.
The expression “we shall surely be”, from the man and the woman, reveals the anxiety of both of them at the time of prayer, as they feel the danger; not in the ordinary state, in which most turn away from the Oneness of God and are heedless. When God grants them a child free of defects, they set up partners in what God has granted them, whether they intend it or are ignorant; in the end it follows from their belief, and they make other than God a share in what God has bestowed on them. God is far above that and exalted above anything other than Him having an effect in His act; for the holy divine Essence is an infinite, all-embracing reality that leaves no room for what is other than it. So God is too majestic to take a partner, and His essential godhood and infinite reality testify to the denial of any partner to Him.
7:191–195 — Do they ascribe [to Him] partners that create nothing and have been created themselves
(191) Do they ascribe [to Him] partners that create nothing and have been created themselves, (192) and can neither help them, nor help themselves? (193) If you call them to guidance, they will not follow you: it is the same to you whether you call them or whether you are silent. (194) Indeed those whom you invoke besides Allah are creatures like you. So invoke them: they should answer you, if you are truthful. (195) Do they have any feet to walk with? Do they have any hands to grasp with? Do they have any eyes to see with? Do they have any ears to hear with? Say, ‘Invoke your partners [that you ascribe to Allah] and try out your stratagems against me without granting me any respite.
The most complete proof of the impossibility of polytheism is establishing the deficiency and lack of perfection of the polytheists’ object of worship. Some of the proofs of the impossibility of polytheism and the falsity of idol worship are set out in these matters:
The polytheists made as partners to God things that are unable to create anything, but are themselves created; so those idols are not at all fit to be worshipped.
The polytheists worship things that are unable to help them; indeed they are unable even to defend themselves. So how did their reason allow them to take such things as partners to God, Exalted?
The idols suffer from extreme inability and deficiency in the practical field, and likewise in the fields of knowledge. They do not respond to the one who guides them or calls them; indeed they cannot tell the one who calls from the one who guides. They are not worthy of leadership and command, nor are they worthy to follow anyone, because they lack feeling and perception. Whether the polytheists guide the idols to good and virtue and call them to it, or stay silent, it is all the same to the polytheists. So by what proof are they called objects of worship, when they are inanimate?
The idols and images that the polytheists call on and worship are servants like them (the proof from equality and the mention of the like). Just as the polytheists, because of their inability and need, are not lords, so too the idols. If they reject this and imagine that the idols have a lofty standing with God and have the power to bring benefits, then let them call on them so that they may answer them in what they asked, if they are truthful; and they should know that the idols have no ability to answer their call and are of no benefit.
The idols and images are equal to man in their being created, in their need and in their inability, yet they are more lowly and more incapable than man in other respects, for they are empty of any perfection and of the channels of perception, motivation and desire. So why do they glorify them, honour them and fall down before them in worship? Since the son of Ādam is not a lord or a creator, it is certain that they do not have those qualities (the proof from priority).
At the close of these verses God, Exalted, instructs the Prophet (s.a.w.) and commands him to tell the polytheists that he has completed his mission of refuting and belittling their false objects of worship: if you see your idols as beneficial, then seek help from them to defend themselves, and gather your plot against me, and do not slacken for a single moment in it, ever.
7:196 — My guardian is indeed Allah who sent down the Book
My guardian is indeed Allah who sent down the Book, and He takes care of the righteous.
God, Glorified and Exalted is He, besides His general creative wilāyah over all creation, has a special wilāyah over the faithful, and more especially over the prophets and awliyāʾ (a.s.), and more especially still He has wilāyah over the person of the beloved, the Chosen One (s.a.w.). The Messenger of God’s (s.a.w.) mentioning this wilāyah before the polytheists is a radiant proof, and one of the most effective of the proofs mentioned of the prophets (a.s.) that speak of trust in God against the superstitious beliefs their peoples held about their objects of worship and their idols; for the rank of the wilāyah of the Guardian, and the rank of the one under guardianship, is higher than trust, and comes after deputising, entrusting, contentment and submission.
On the basis of this verse the Messenger (s.a.w.) was authorised to declare, in the face of the superstitious beliefs of the polytheists: “Surely my Guardian is God, who sent down the Book, and He takes care of the righteous.”
The word “the righteous”, by the proof of unqualified wording and by the sense of priority, includes the person of the Messenger (s.a.w.) too. The righteous is the one in whose self the disposition of righteousness has taken root, not merely one whose deeds are righteous.
7:197–198 — Those whom you invoke besides Him can neither help you
(197) Those whom you invoke besides Him can neither help you, nor help themselves. (198) If you call them to guidance, they will not hear. You see them facing you, but they do not see.’
In the station of challenge and confrontation with the polytheists, the Prophet (s.a.w.) was obliged to say to them: the idols and images you call on besides God are not able to do anything. They do not protect themselves or remove harm from themselves, nor do they help themselves so as to defend; they do not reward whoever obeys them or punish whoever disobeys them. If the polytheists call the idols to guidance, they will not hear them; hearing is forever impossible for them. And He also says to the Messenger (s.a.w.): it is as though they look at you when you look into their eyes, for they were carved with skill and dazzling craft and then adorned, until their eyes seemed to be looking at you, while they only resemble looking and do not really look.
Looking is different from seeing, for the polytheists used to look at the outward person of the Messenger (s.a.w.), not at his inner self and his character; that is why they did not believe in his heavenly message.
7:199 — Adopt [a policy of] excusing [the faults of people]
Adopt [a policy of] excusing [the faults of people], bid what is right, and turn away from the ignorant.
The Messenger (s.a.w.) was commanded to deal with people by three things: to take the side of pardon, to command what is right, and to turn away from the ignorant.
What is meant by “take” here, on both sides of knowledge and practice, is pardon, that is, waiving personal rights as far as a person is able and can manage. The expression “take pardon” is better than commanding what is right, and reveals the appearance and presence of the moral virtue in various affairs; that is, the character of the Messenger (s.a.w.) shows itself and flows from his inner self to his outer self, so that it is reckoned that the matter is in his hand, and it is easy for him to bestow on people the disposition of pardon and pardon them. The unqualified wording of the verse includes pardoning the faithful person, whether upright or not.
“What is right” (al-ʿurf) is every matter that reason and transmitted texts approve; and the command to command what is right is a command to the Prophet (s.a.w.) to take what is known through the law. From the mention of commanding what is right after the command to pardon it is drawn that the one who commands what is right must act by it himself, just as the goodness of the manner of commanding and of what is commanded are two further conditions of commanding what is right. What the command attaches to is the divine rulings or the rights of the people at large, not personal rights.
The Messenger (s.a.w.) was obliged to take graceful turning away as his way with the ignorant who do not deserve pardon and are not affected by the command to what is right; that is, the Messenger (s.a.w.) avoids clashing with them, not that he leaves them and neither commands them to what is right nor forbids them what is wrong. For the religious leaders were commanded to guide people to the last breath of their lives, and not to grow weary of the community and withdraw from them. The command to turn away concerns ignorant things in particular; that is, remove the ignorance, which is a kind of commanding what is right, not the ignorant person.
7:200 — Should a temptation from Satan disturb you
Should a temptation from Satan disturb you, invoke the protection of Allah; indeed He is all-hearing, all-knowing.
Satan is in constant effort to turn man’s gaze from the path of the truth and to prevent the aims of the divine religion from being realised. So God, Exalted, said, addressing His Chosen Messenger (s.a.w.): if, while acting on the divine commands mentioned in the previous verse, you become aware of the crowding whisperings of Satan, then seek refuge in God at once; He is the Hearing, the Knowing.
The address in the verse to the Messenger (s.a.w.) is of the kind of warding off the prompting, not removing it, because the whisperings of Satan do not penetrate the safe sanctuary of the prophets and awliyāʾ (a.s.); the conditional sentence points to this meaning, not to its occurring. The infallible are charged with duties like the rest of creation, and the verse addresses all those who are charged, like real and universal propositions that resolve onto all individuals, not a particular ruling for each person. In the case of the prophets and awliyāʾ (a.s.), the meaning is warding off the prompting of whispering, like seeking refuge before reciting; and in others it is removing the prompting.
The nearest, quickest and safest way to deliverance from the whispering of the devils of mankind and the jinn is to rely on the firm fortress of tawḥīd and to seek refuge in God, and this is within the power of all people; for man knows by his nature, when he senses danger to himself, to protect himself. Practical seeking of refuge is beneficial, while merely verbal remembrance has either little effect or none. So when the dangers of sin arise, man must be anxious and afraid, and take refuge in God, entreating and crying out to Him.
“God is Hearing” means that He is Merciful, Forgiving, Powerful and Exalted, hears the seeking of refuge and brings about its effect, and knows the place for answering the prayer.
7:201 — When those who are Godwary are touched by a visitation of Satan
When those who are Godwary are touched by a visitation of Satan, they remember [Allah] and, behold, they perceive.
The urging to seek refuge against the promptings of Iblīs is because seeking refuge is the way of the people of Godwariness: when Satan touches them, they remember and at once they see.
It has been said that prompting is the first of the whispering, and touching comes only after taking hold; that is why God, Glorified is He, distinguished between the Prophet (s.a.w.) and others, saying to the Prophet (s.a.w.) “and if a prompting from Satan prompts you”, and saying of people “when a visitation from Satan touches them”.
The faithful among the people of Godwariness, when they face Satan, sense him in the sanctuary of their hearts; and by the blessing of remembrance, which is one of the instances of practical seeking of refuge, they remember that the refuge is God, Exalted, and they rely on Him. Insight comes from remembrance, and the one with insight fixes his position soundly and does not go astray in practice, for his way is clear, and God has bestowed on him the scale for knowing truth from falsehood.
7:202–203 — But their brethren, they draw them into error
(202) But their brethren, they draw them into error, and then they do not spare [any harm]. (203) When you do not bring them a sign, they say, ‘Why do you not improvise one?’ Say, ‘I only follow what is revealed to me from my Lord; these are insights from your Lord, and a guidance and mercy for a people who have faith.’
The polytheists were brothers of Satan and banded together with Satan against the faithful and the people of Godwariness, and this firm bond between them does not dissolve. The devils too did not slacken in dragging their polytheist brothers into misguidance, asleep and awake.
The polytheists call revelation fable and fabrication, and if the coming down of revelation to the Messenger (s.a.w.) was delayed, they taunted him that his fabrication had stopped, meaning that the noble Qur’an has no content and is nothing but a fabrication the Messenger (s.a.w.) brought of his own accord and ascribed to God. This meaning holds if “choosing” means fabricating and inventing; but if “choosing” means selecting and picking, then it means their taunting and mockery: why does he not contrive a sign from here or there to bring to people?
The Messenger (s.a.w.) was commanded to say to them that he follows what is revealed to him; his speaking and his silence depend on the leave of God, Exalted, and neither he nor others have any say in it.
The Qur’an is a Book which, from the side of knowledge, enriches with knowledge, thought and insight, and from the side of practice is the motive and the guiding light for the faithful; for they alone believe in its vision, and others benefit neither from its insight nor from its guidance and mercy.
The noble Qur’an is insight for the awliyāʾ of mercy, mercy mixed with guidance for the people of proof, and unqualified mercy for the faithful at large; and this mercy is for these three groups as long as they stand firm on their way, by witnessing, by proof and by faith.
7:204 — When the Quran is recited
When the Quran is recited, listen to it and be silent, maybe you will receive [Allah’s] mercy.
Listening is hearing the sound, even if accompanied by whispering; but attentive silence is higher than listening: it is silence joined with listening and reflection.
God, Exalted, called the polytheists, who accused the noble Qur’an of being fable and fabrication, to listen to the Qur’an and be attentively silent for it, that perhaps they may receive mercy and believe in the active source and the inner order of the noble Qur’an; for listening and attentive silence are causes of mercy, not the complete cause of it. This verse is not only for the faithless; the faithful are addressed by it too, for they need to raise their faith and the level of their guidance and Godwariness by being attentively silent for the speech of God, the Mighty and Majestic.
Among the most important instances of listening and attentive silence is complete, general silence from everyone before the law of the Qur’an. So one must be attentively silent for the noble Qur’an and listen to it, so as to move from recitation to teaching the Book and the sunnah, and from that to purification too.
7:205 — And remember your Lord within your heart beseechingly and reverentially
And remember your Lord within your heart beseechingly and reverentially, without being loud, morning, and evening, and do not be among the heedless.
Man must be one who speaks and utters, besides being one who hears; that is, he sends what he has heard to his heart, and from there runs it onto his tongue, and is among the people of remembrance and humble supplication. He continues, in the depths of himself, in the remembrance of God with entreaty and rational fear (taking awe, affected by the divine majesty and might), and is not among the heedless.
Remembrance of God is not limited to supplication; simply turning one’s attention to the lordship of God is remembrance of Him, Exalted. Supplication and remembrance must be between fear and hope, inclination toward Him and taking refuge in Him.
Remembrance of God is of two kinds, of the heart and of the tongue, and remembrance of the heart and the self is weightier in importance, for it is nearer to sincerity and further from showing off and display.
Between the tongue and the heart there is a mutual relation. Whoever brings the remembrance of God to life in himself and runs the remembrance of God on his tongue, the remembrance of the tongue will affect his imagination, enter his heart, and his heart will be illuminated; and the soundness and purity of the heart must be accompanied by righteous deeds.
Remembrance with the tongue must be hidden, for this state gathers the senses, brings one near to sincerity and keeps one far from showing off; just as the divine presence requires that when man remembers God and calls on Him, the sound of his supplication should not be raised, and he should recite in a low voice. Likewise remembrance with the tongue has no special standing, but since the activity of the tongue is of great importance, the word is mentioned as being speech; silence, witnessing, listening, and so on, may also be remembrance of God, Exalted.
The remembrance of God has no limit, and whoever has remembrance in the self, his affairs will be set straight, and all his conduct, words and states will be remembrance of God, Exalted.
The remembrance of God is of the utmost importance; that is why, besides the command to remember, heedlessness has been forbidden too, so that man may guard against heedlessness taking root in his heart.
7:206 — Indeed those who are [stationed] near your Lord do not disdain to worship Him
Indeed those who are [stationed] near your Lord do not disdain to worship Him. They glorify Him and prostrate to Him.
Those (the leaders of purity of spirit, the perfect human beings and the angels) who are with the Lord call on God always with entreaty and fear, never disdain to worship their Lord, glorify Him always, and submit in humble submission, prostrating before His holy Essence.
They are the model in the remembrance of God. They have joined belief in the lordship of the Real with their servanthood to Him, have attained a station with God, and are the leaders of purity of spirit, of teaching and of purification; so you must follow their example.
The remembrance of God brings man to the station of those brought near to God, guides man to angelic traits and to deliverance from the prompting and touch of Satan, and places man in the company of “those who are with your Lord”. This rank has degrees, the highest and most perfect of which belong to the People of the House of infallibility and purity (a.s.).
For you to be among the people of remembrance, you must first do away with arrogance, conceit and selfishness, and clean the dust of polytheism and sin off the tablet of the spirit. Then turn to glorifying the Lord, who is free of every deficiency and able to remove the deficiency of others. Then, with humility and humbleness, prostrate at the threshold of the holy Essence of the Lord, to purify yourself of the arrogant nature that strengthens the claim to lordship in man.