Volume 7: Surah Ale-Imran, Verses 176-180
وَلَا يَحْزُنكَ الَّذِينَ يُسَارِعُونَ فِي الْكُفْرِۚ
إِنَّهُمْ لَن يَضُرُّوا اللَّـهَ شَيْئًاۗ
يُرِيدُ اللَّـهُ أَلَّا يَجْعَلَ لَهُمْ حَظًّا فِي الْآخِرَةِۖ
وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ ﴿١٧٦﴾ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الْكُفْرَ بِالْإِيمَانِ لَن يَضُرُّوا اللَّـهَ شَيْئًا وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ ﴿١٧٧﴾ وَلَا يَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَنَّمَا نُمْلِي لَهُمْ خَيْرٌ لِّأَنفُسِهِمْۚ
إِنَّمَا نُمْلِي لَهُمْ لِيَزْدَادُوا إِثْمًاۚ
وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ مُّهِينٌ ﴿١٧٨﴾ مَّا كَانَ اللَّـهُ لِيَذَرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ عَلَىٰ مَا أَنتُمْ عَلَيْهِ حَتَّىٰ يَمِيزَ الْخَبِيثَ مِنَ الطَّيِّبِۗ
وَمَا كَانَ اللَّـهُ لِيُطْلِعَكُمْ عَلَى الْغَيْبِ وَلَـٰكِنَّ اللَّـهَ يَجْتَبِي مِن رُّسُلِهِ مَن يَشَاءُۖ
فَآمِنُوا بِاللَّـهِ وَرُسُلِهِۚ
وَإِن تُؤْمِنُوا وَتَتَّقُوا فَلَكُمْ أَجْرٌ عَظِيمٌ ﴿١٧٩﴾ وَلَا يَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ يَبْخَلُونَ بِمَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّـهُ مِن فَضْلِهِ هُوَ خَيْرًا لَّهُمۖ
بَلْ هُوَ شَرٌّ لَّهُمْۖ
سَيُطَوَّقُونَ مَا بَخِلُوا بِهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِۗ
وَلِلَّـهِ مِيرَاثُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِۗ
وَاللَّـهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ ﴿١٨٠﴾
And let not those grieve you who fall into unbelief hastily; surely they can do no harm to Allah at all; Allah intends that He should not give them any portion on the hereafter, and they shall have a great chastisement (176). Surely those who have bought unbelief at the price of faith shall do no harm at all to Allah, and they shall have a painful chastisement (177). And let not those who disbelieve think that Our granting them respite is good for their souls; We grant them respite only that they may increase in sins; and they shall have a disgraceful chastisement (178). On no account will Allah leave the believers in the condition which you are in until He separates the evil from the good; nor is Allah going to make you acquainted with the unseen, but Allah chooses of His messengers whom He pleases; therefore believe in Allah and His messengers; and if you believe and guard (against evil), then you shall have a great reward (179). And let not those deem, who are niggardly in giving away that which Allah has granted them out of His grace, that it is good for them; nay, it is worse for them; they shall have that whereof they were niggardly made to encircle their necks on the Resurrection Day; and Allah's is the heritage of the heavens and the earth; and Allah is aware of what you do (180).
COMMENTARY
The verses have some connection with those revealed about the battle of Uhud. These and especially the first four of them are probably a sort of epilogue to the preceding ones. The most important theme of the preceding talk was the principle of test and trial, which Allah makes His servants to undergo. Therefore, these are like the sum total of the verses of Uhud. Allah describes here that the test and trial is an established and continual system from which no one - neither a believer nor an unbeliever - can escape; Allah will certainly test both in order to expose and unveil the hidden realities of their souls; in this way the unbeliever will become totally fit for the Fire, and the evil will become separated from the good in the believer.
QUR'AN:
And let not those grieve you . and they shall have a painful chastisement:
The verse consoles the Prophet and removes sorrow by describing the reality of the whole affair. The unbelievers compete with each other in rushing towards disbelief; they help one another to extinguish the light of Allah and sometimes even succeed in overpowering the believers. It sometimes grieves the believers, as it seems as if they (the unbelievers) have scored against Allah by thwarting His plan to make the word of truth triumphant. But if the believer ponders on the system of general and all-encompassing test, he will become sure that it is Allah Who is victorious; and that all persons are relentlessly proceeding to their destination in order that their creative and legislative guidance to their goals may be completed. The unbeliever is driven to that goal by the health and strength, bounty and comfort that he is provided with - Allah in this way draws him nearer to his destruction in degrees and unfolds His plan against him - enabling him to go to the furthest possible limit of transgression and disobedience. The believer on the other hand is continuously scraped through test and trial until his belief and faith is cleansed from all rust and pollution, and he becomes absolutely pure for Allah; while the unbeliever's polytheistic tendencies are purged of every shade of belief and he falls down where other friends of false deities and leaders of infidelity have gone.
The verse therefore means as follows: You should not grieve on account of those who proceed with increasing haste towards disbelief. Why should you grieve? Do you think as if they can do any harm to Allah? Certainly you cannot think so, because they cannot do any harm to Allah; they are under complete control of Allah, and He is driving them in their lives' journey to their goal where they will be left with no portion, no share, in the hereafter (and it is the final limit of their infidelity); and they shall have a painful chastisement. The prohibition, therefore, in the clause, “And let not those grieve you”, is of advisory nature; the clause, “surely they can do no harm to Allah”, describes the reason of that prohibition; and the next words, “Allah intends that He should not give them . .”, explains why they are unable to do any harm to Allah.
Thereafter Allah makes it clear that no unbeliever - whether he hastens to fall into disbelief or not - can do any harm to Him. The next verse thus states the general principle after mentioning a particular case. This may serve as the reason for the preceding prohibition, “And let not those grieve you”, or it may be treated as the reason of the preceding reason, “surely they can do no harm “ - because it has a general import which may explain the reason of a particular reason. The meaning thus will be as follows: We have said that those who fall into disbelief hastily can do no harm to Allah, because no unbeliever can do any harm to Him.
QUR'AN:
And let not those who disbelieve think. . a disgraceful chastisement:
After putting the Prophet's mind at rest regarding the unbelievers' falling into unbelief hastily, and explaining that in all this they are in fact subsequent to Allah's plan, Who is driving them to a stage where they shall have no share in the hereafter, Allah now turns to the unbelievers themselves. He tells them that they should not be happy with the respite granted to them by Allah, because Allah through this respite is giving them a chance to pile up sins over sins, and behind it all there is a disgraceful chastisement waiting for them - there is nothing for them except shame and ignominy in the hereafter. This all is based on the divinely established system of completion that every creature should bring his potentials to fruition, according to his own choice.
QUR'AN:
On no account will Allah leave the believers then you shall have a great reward:
Now the Speaker turns to the believers. He explains to them that the system of test and trial covers them too, in order that they too should reach the stage of completion; and the purified believer may be distinguished from the impure, and evil and wicked ones may be separated from the good and virtuous ones.
The next sentence aims at removing a possible misconception. It could be assumed that there was another way of distinguishing evil from good; that is, Allah could let the believers know who was wicked and evil so that they could avoid him. Thus, they could easily be saved all these troubles and turmoil which they had to suffer because of their commingling with hypocrites and those whose hearts were diseased. Allah erases such erroneous impression by pointing out that He has exclusively reserved the knowledge of unseen to Himself, He does not reveal it to anyone except to some chosen messengers whom He might acquaint with it. This is the import of the sentence, “nor is Allah going to make you acquainted with the unseen, but, Allah chooses of His messengers whom He pleases”.
Thereafter, Allah says to them: As there is no escape from test and trial, nor from turning the potentials into accomplishments, it is in your interest that you should believe in Allah and His messengers, so that you should be counted among the good ones - and not among the evil ones. But mere belief is not sufficient to preserve the blessedness of the life, it is also necessary to support it with good deeds that would raise the belief up to Allah and preserve its blessings - it is then that the reward would be complete. It was with this connotation in view that the Qur'an first said, “therefore believe in Allah and His messengers”, and then completed it with the next clause, “and if you believe and guard (against evil), then you shall have a great reward”.
It is evident from this verse that: -
First:
Every soul has to reach its perfection, has to be brought to its goal and destination - be it felicity and happiness or infelicity and unhappiness. It is an issue, which cannot be avoided, a proposition from which there is no escape.
Second:
The good and the evil are attributed to the “self” or “soul” of the persons, but at the same time and in the same context they depend on the belief and the disbelief respectively - and these two are within man's power and emanate from his will and choice. This is among the finest Qur'anic realities which opens the door to many secrets of monotheism. It may be understood from the words of Allah: And every one has a direction to which he would turn; therefore hasten to (do) good works (2:148), when read in conjunction with the words: but that He might try you in what He gave you, therefore strive with one another to hasten to virtuous deeds (5:48). We shall write on this topic in full detail under the verse: That Allah may separate the impure from the pure, and put the impure, some of it upon the other, and pile it up together, then cast it into hell (8:37).
Third:
The belief in Allah and His messengers is the essence of the goodness of life, i.e., goodness of “person” or “soul”. So far as reward is concerned it depends upon piety and good deeds. That is why Allah has first mentioned the subject of separating the good from the evil; then basing on that, has given the order to believe in Allah and His messengers; thereafter when He wanted to mention the reward, He added piety (guarding against evil) to the belief; and said: “and if you believe and guard (against evil), then you shall have a great reward “.
From the above, you may easily understand the connotation of the verse 97 of chapter 16: Whoever does good whether male or female and he is a believer, We will most certainly make him live a happy life, and We will most certainly give them their reward for the best of what they did. Evidently his happy life is the result of his belief, and emanates from it; but the reward is the result of the good deeds. Therefore, belief is the soul of the good life. But its continuity - so that it may produce the desired effects - requires good deeds. It is like the natural life which depends on a soul for its coming into being but its continuity depends on the use of its powers and organs - if all become still, all will die and life will end.
The name, Allah, has been repeated several (i.e. four) times in this verse. There was a possibility of using pronouns in place of the latter three, but the proper Divine Name was used so that it might clearly guide to the Source of all greatness and beauty, because the verses were related to those affairs which are exclusively reserved to Him in His divinity, that is, test of the creatures, knowledge of the unseen, selection of the messengers and man's ability to believe in Him.
QUR'AN:
And let not those deem, . and Allah is aware of what you do:
The preceding verse has described how Allah gives respite to the unbelievers. The case of niggardliness, of not spending the wealth in the way of Allah, is not different from that; a niggardly person rejoices in, and boasts of, the riches he has amassed. Therefore Allah now addresses them and shows that what they are proud of, is actually worse for them. The wealth is described as, “that which Allah has granted them out of His grace”; it shows how mean they are and how much they should be condemned. The description, that the wealth, which they are so niggardly about, shall become like iron collar around their necks, shows why their niggardliness is worse for them. The clause, “and Allah's is the heritage of the heavens and the earth”, is apparently a circumstantial one related to “the Resurrection Day”, that is, on the Resurrection Day when to Allah will belong the said heritage The same is the position of the last clause, “and Allah is aware of what you do”.
As a remote possibility, the words, “and Allah's is the heritage..., may be treated as the circumstantial clause of the verb, “are niggardly”; while the next clause, “and Allah is aware of what you do”, may have the same position (i.e. circumstantial clause of, “are niggardly “), or may be treated as an independent sentence.
TRADITIONS
al-Baqir (a.s.) was asked about the unbeliever whether death was better for him or life. He said: “Death is better for the believer and the unbeliever (both); because Allah says, and that which is with Allah is best for the righteous (3:198), and He (also) says: 'And let not those who disbelieve think that Our granting them respite is good for their souls. .” (at-Tafsir, al-'Ayyashi)
The author says:
The argument given in this tradition does not fully conform with the style of the Imams of the Ahlu 'l-bayt (a.s.), because the word, “righteous”, refers to only a particular group of the believers, not to all of them. Although it may be said that the word covers all the believers because each of them has got some portion of righteousness in him.
A tradition of the above meaning has been narrated in ad-Durru 'I-manthur, from Ibn Mas'ud.
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Author: Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai
