Appearance
Verses 26–30
In this passage, the topic of discussion once again turns to the rewards for righteous deeds and the return of everything to God, the Real One—as has already been discussed—and affirms His oneness in lordship.
لِلَّذِينَ أَحْسَنُوا الْحُسْنَىٰ وَزِيَادَةٌ ۖ وَلَا يَرْهَقُ وُجُوهَهُمْ قَتَرٌ وَلَا ذِلَّةٌ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ الْجَنَّةِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ ٢٦
(10:26) Those who are virtuous shall receive the best reward (al-ḥusnā) and an increase (ziyāda). Neither soot (qatar) nor abasement shall overcast (yarhaq) their faces. They shall be the inhabitants of paradise, and they shall remain therein.
The word ḥusnā is the feminine form of aḥsan (the best), and it refers to the best reward (al-mathūba al-ḥusnā); ziyāda (increase) means they will receive more than they deserve. This is because God has made the reward and recompense for good deeds a part of His grace, then made this what is due to the doer of good deeds. He says, They shall have their reward near their Lord (). Then He augments it and makes this addition a right for the doer of deeds, Whoever brings virtue shall receive ten times its like (). Therefore, when God says, Those who are virtuous shall receive the best reward, this refers to their deserving the reward and the best recompense, and the increase is an increase beyond what they deserve, whether that is the like of their good deeds or ten times their likeness, as indicated by the verse, As for those who have faith and do righteous deeds, He will pay them in full their rewards, and He will enhance them out of His grace ().
If the meaning of ḥusnā in those who are virtuous shall receive the best reward is, in fact, ‘the best outcome’ (al-ʿāqiba al-ḥusnā), there is nothing beyond that can be conceived beyond the best. Therefore, the increase mentioned in this verse refers to an increase out of God’s grace that is utterly above what human minds conceive. This is what is indicated by the verse, no one knows what has been kept hidden for them of comfort as a reward for what they used to do (), and the verse, there they will have whatever they wish, and with Us there is yet more (). It is obvious that these verses include everything that a person could possibly desire, and the extra beyond what they desire is something beyond their comprehension, so ponder on this.
Rahq (from whence is derived yarhaq) means to attach to something or cover it; qatar means black smoke or black dust. Describing the believers’ faces as not being covered in soot or abasement is in contrast to the description of the inhabitants of Hell in the following verse, where their faces are darkened with soot, which is outward darkness, and abasement, which is inward darkness.
Therefore, the meaning of this verse is: ‘For those who have done good deeds and acted virtuously in this world, they shall have the best reward and an increase out of God’s grace, or the best of outcomes and an increase that their minds cannot comprehend. Their faces shall not be darkened by soot or abasement. They are the inhabitants of Paradise, and they will dwell in it forever.’
وَالَّذِينَ كَسَبُوا السَّيِّئَاتِ جَزَاءُ سَيِّئَةٍ بِمِثْلِهَا وَتَرْهَقُهُمْ ذِلَّةٌ ۖ مَا لَهُمْ مِنَ اللَّهِ مِنْ عَاصِمٍ ۖ كَأَنَّمَا أُغْشِيَتْ وُجُوهُهُمْ قِطَعًا مِنَ اللَّيْلِ مُظْلِمًا ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ ٢٧
(10:27) For those who have committed misdeeds, the requital of a misdeed with its like, and they shall be overcast by abasement. They shall have no one to protect from Allah. As if their faces were covered with patches of the dark night. They shall be the inmates of the Fire, and they shall remain therein.
Grammatically, the phrase, the requital of a misdeed with its like, is the subject of an implicit predicate, namely they shall have the requital of a misdeed with its like. It is also the predicate of a nominal sentence, whose subject is, For those who have committed misdeeds. It means that those who have committed misdeeds shall only be requited with a punishment that is like what they have earned. The punishment of an evil deed is an evil outcome.
They shall have no one to protect from Allah: They shall have no one to protect them from God, meaning from His punishment. This verse negates the existence of the partners who they associate with God, who they believe will intercede on their behalf, insofar as it negates any protector who could repel God’s harm from them, whether an associate, an intercessor, or a powerful opponent, or any other conceivable kind of protector.
As if their faces were covered with patches of the dark night (qiṭaʿ min al-layl muẓlim): The word qiṭaʿ is the plural of qitʿa (‘piece’); grammatically, muẓlim (‘dark’) is an adverb of the word ‘night.’ This evokes the image of a dark night that is cut into pieces, and these pieces are used to cover the faces of the wrongdoers, so that their faces are completely shrouded in darkness. Therefore, the face of each idolater is covered with a piece of the night. It is not the case, as some have read it, that the face of each idolater is shrouded by those pieces one after another, such that they are covered by one layer of darkness above the next, as there is nothing in the wording of the verse to indicate this.
They shall be the inmates of the Fire (aṣḥāb al-nār), and they shall remain therein (hum fīhā khālidūn). This shows that they will remain in Hell forever by the dual signification of aṣḥāb (‘inmates’, lit. ‘companions’) and khālidūn (‘to live forever’); these words are used in the previous verse about the inhabitants of paradise to signify the same thing.
وَيَوْمَ نَحْشُرُهُمْ جَمِيعًا ثُمَّ نَقُولُ لِلَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوا مَكَانَكُمْ أَنْتُمْ وَشُرَكَاؤُكُمْۚ فَزَيَّلْنَا بَيْنَهُمْ ۖ وَقَالَ شُرَكَاؤُهُمْ مَا كُنْتُمْ إِيَّانَا تَعْبُدُونَ ٢٨
(10:28) On the day when We gather them all together (nasḥshuruhum jamīʿan), We shall say to those who ascribe partners, ‘Stay where you are—you and your partners!’ Then We shall set them apart from one another, and their partners will say, ‘It was not us that you worshipped …’
The term ḥashr (‘to gather’) includes all of the believers, the idolaters, and the partners they ascribe to God mentioned above. In this verse and the following ones, God mentions the idolaters and their partners, then refers to everyone with His saying in the subsequent verse: There every soul will examine what it has sent in advance ().
We shall say to those who ascribe partners, ‘Stay where you are—you and your partners!’: In other words, you shall remain in your places, and the partners you shall ascribe shall remain in their places. This statement implies that a separation has occurred between them and their partners, and the bond that connected them to their partners, which was a bond of illusion and false assumptions, has been severed. They are cut off from their partners, and their partners are cut off from them. It becomes apparent that their worship did not reach their partners and was not attached to them, as they worshipped their partners who were not truly partners.
The evidence for what we mentioned is God’s saying following it, And their partners will say, It was not us that you worshipped. The statement, on its apparent meaning, is a sincere denial of being worshipped by them. They are not lying in this statement, as they invoke God as a witness to what they are saying. They do not mean to say that they never called people to worship them, as the statement does not suit this meaning either. Nor do they mean to imply that people were actually worshipping their desires and the devils who deceived them, as this would not fit with their claim of being unaware. Similarly, this would not fit with His saying afterward: There every soul will examine what it has sent in advance, the meaning of which will be discussed later. Instead, the intention of these partners is to deny the reality of worship by denying the reality of partnership and to attest to that with God’s testimony and His knowledge of their unawareness of being worshipped.
Worship, which is the connection of servitude and humility from the worshipper to the one being worshipped, is only considered worship when it is connected and linked to the one being worshipped—fulfilling the meaning of the preposition ‘for’ (la) in our saying ‘worship is for Him’ (al-ʿibāda lahu). This can only occur with the awareness and knowledge of the one being worshipped. If there is no established knowledge, then true worship is not established, and it is only the outward form of worship.
It is clear that the meaning of His saying, On the day when We gather them all together, We shall say to those who ascribe partners, ‘Stay where you are—you and your partners!’ Then We shall set them apart from one another (), is to reveal and emphasize the truth of the matter, which was concealed by illusions and desires in this world. The truth is that the real ownership, lordship, and sovereignty belong to God alone, and nothing belongs to others in terms of ownership and lordship to justify seeking their help or validating their worship.
When God unveils the truth on that Day, He will reveal to the polytheists that their partners were not really partners or objects of worship for them in reality, due to their partners’ unawareness of being worshipped. They only approached their partners with the outward form of worship, which illusions and desires made them believe was worship when it was not.
It is to this that the verse alludes, When the polytheists sight their partners, they will say, ‘Our Lord! These are our partners whom we used to invoke besides You.’ But they will retort to them, ‘You are indeed liars!’ ().
From this also, it becomes clear that when their partners say, ‘It was not us that you worshipped’ this is spoken in complete truth and seriousness. This, in turn, invalidates the claim of those who say that the meaning of this is, ‘You did not worship us by our command and invitation’ rather than ‘You did not worship us at all.’ This is because such a denial would be a lie, and a lie cannot be spoken in the Hereafter, as in the Hereafter they seek to avoid immoral acts.
Negating the essence of worship from their worship, in the sense that we have set forth here, is correct and true. On the other hand, any claim that what they did was, in fact, worship (albeit worship that was not invited by the partners), even if this is not necessarily a lie, can only be understood figuratively in this context, as there is no evidence from the text to support the hypothesis.
Lying is not permissible in the Hereafter if it is a deed of moral significance. However, if it occurs as a result of worldly attributes, there is nothing to preclude its occurrence. In fact, it is something that will actually take place, as God tells us in this and other verses, Then their only excuse will be to say, ‘By Allah, our Lord, we were not polytheists.’ Look, how they forswear themselves, and what they used to fabricate has forsaken them! ()
The same is true of the claim made by some scholars that the intended meaning of their statement is, ‘You did not actually worship us, but rather you worshipped your own desires, inclinations, and the devils that misled you.’ Indeed, calling their actions the worship of their own desires and the devils is correct due to their actions, being a result of following desires and devils, does not negate the fact that their worship is also the worship of idols. God validates all three aspects in His speech: They worship besides Allah that which neither causes them any harm, nor brings them any benefit (); Have you seen him who has taken his desire to be his god (); ‘Did I not exhort you, O children of Adam, saying, “Do not worship Satan. He is indeed your manifest enemy …?” ();
It is evident that the partners (idols) reject the notion of being worshipped by the polytheists, not to establish that desires and the devils are worshipped alongside them, as this argument would not help them in the least. Furthermore, it would render their claim of being oblivious to their worship, as expressed in the statement We were indeed unaware of your worship, absurd. After all, desires, similar to the idols, which are inanimate objects, are also unaware of their worship.
Perhaps the one who propounds this argument has read the phrase, it was not us that you worshipped, as an exclusive statement. The ostensible meaning of this would be to confine the denial of worship to themselves and affirm the worship of others, rather than negating that any worship took place whatsoever, as they appear to affirm that the worship of the idolaters is indeed worship with the phrase, your worship.
However, the reality is that these partners declared to the polytheists, it was not us that you worshipped, in response to what the idolaters professed, as God relates, ‘Our Lord! These are our partners whom we used to invoke besides You’ (). In other words, the polytheists deny that they worshipped God and affirm that they worshipped the idols instead. Hence, the idols would only benefit by denying that the idolaters were worshipping them. As for whoever or whatever they were actually worshipping, the idols have no interest in this. Their sole concern is to absolve themselves from the claim of partnership with God. They support this by claiming that they were unaware of the worship, because if they had been conscious of the worship and had been worshipped, they would have been guilty, in some sense at least, of allowing themselves to be set up as partners beside God.
فَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ شَهِيدًا بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمْ إِنْ كُنَّا عَنْ عِبَادَتِكُمْ لَغَافِلِينَ ٢٩
(10:29) ‘… Allah suffices as a witness between you and us. We were indeed unaware of your worship.’
The meaning of this is clear based on what has already been discussed.
هُنَالِكَ تَبْلُو كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَا أَسْلَفَتْ ۚ وَرُدُّوا إِلَى اللَّهِ مَوْلَاهُمُ الْحَقِّ ۖ وَضَلَّ عَنْهُمْ مَا كَانُوا يَفْتَرُونَ ٣٠
(10:30) There every soul will examine (tablū) what it has sent in advance, and they will be returned to Allah, their real master, and what they used to fabricate will forsake them.
Balāʾ (from whence is derived the verb tablū) means ‘to examine.’ The word, there, refers to the place referred to in the previous verse, We shall say to those who ascribe partners, ‘Stay where you are—you and your partners!’ Then We shall set them apart from one another ().
Therefore, this station is one where every soul is tested and examined for its past actions and what it has sent ahead for itself. Hence, the reality of its deeds will be revealed to it in the form of direct witnessing, not merely through them being recounted or explained to it. By witnessing the truth of everything first hand, it becomes apparent that God is the true master, all illusions fall away, and all the claims that human beings fabricate against the truth on the basis of their fantasies and desires vanish.
These fabrications and claims have all arisen from the connections we draw in this world between causes and causal factors, as well as the independence and authority that we wrongly attribute to these causes. There is no god but God, and there is no true authority except Him, the Exalted. When the reality of the matter becomes clear, the cloud of illusion dissipates, and the veil of lies is torn apart, it becomes evident that there is no true guardian except Him. All the deities that were fabricated by human minds are nullified, and all actions are rendered futile, except for those in which God is worshipped in truth.
Therefore, the three sections of the verse, namely, …, …, and …, each clarify the other two in conveying the true essence of their meaning. The cumulative effect of these sections is that the reality of divine guardianship will be made manifest on the Day of Resurrection in a direct and unambiguous matter, showing that nothing but neediness and servitude belong to those besides God. Consequently, all false claims are invalidated, and the very basis for these illusions and lies crumbles.
This is also reference in these and other verses: There, all authority belongs to Allah, the Real (); The day when they will emerge, nothing about them will be hidden from Allah. ‘To whom does the sovereignty belong today?’ ‘To Allah, the One, the All-paramount!’ (); … and all command that day will belong to Allah ().
Examining Narrations
- In the Amālī of Shaykh al-Mufīd, he narrates via his chain of transmitters from Abū Isḥāq al-Hamdānī, from the Commander of the Faithful, in his letter to Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr when he made the latter governor of Egypt and which he instructed him to read to the population: ‘God says, Those who are virtuous shall receive the best reward and an increase ()—the ‘best reward’ is paradise, and the increase is this world.’
- In Tafsīr al-Qummī, it is narrated via Abū Jārūd, from Imām al-Bāqir about the same verse: ‘The ‘best reward’ is paradise, while the ‘increase’ is this world. Whatever God gives them in this world, He will hold them to account regarding in the Hereafter, and He will combine for them the reward of this world and the Hereafter.’
Author’s comment: These two narrations both pertain to the first meaning we mentioned for the verse (that al-ḥusnā here refers to ‘the best reward’). As for the second meaning (that it refers to ‘the best outcome’), al-Ṭabrisī narrates this in Majmaʿ al-Bayān from al-Bāqir.
- In Tafsīr al-burhān, it is narrated from Nahj al-bayān, from ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm: ‘The increase is God’s gift.’
- In al-Durr al-manthūr, al-Suyūṭī narrates from al-Dārquṭnī and Ibn Mardawayh from Suḥayb concerning the same verse that the Messenger of God said: ‘The increase is gazing upon the face of God.’
Author’s comment: There are traditions with a similar meaning narrated via numerous chains of transmission from the Prophet in Sunnī sources, and we have already explained the correct meaning of these statements in our commentary on the verse, My Lord, show me, that I may look at You! ().
- In al-Kāfī, al-Kulaynī narrates via his chain going back to Abū Baṣīr from Imām al-Ṣādiq, concerning the verse, As if their faces were covered with patches of the dark night (): ‘Have you seen a house when it is night? It appears darkest from the outside. The same is true of their faces, which will increase in darkness.’
Author’s comment: Al-ʿAyyāshī also narrates this from Abū Baṣīr from Imām al-Bāqir. It appears that the Imām is explaining the meaning of patches of the dark night from the verse.
- In al-Durr al-manthūr, Abū al-Shaykh narrates from al-Sudayy, concerning the verse, … and they will be returned to Allah, their real master … (): ‘It was abrogated by the verse, that is because Allah is the master of the faithful, and because the faithless have no master ().
Author’s comment: This is one of the most foolish explanations of the verse, for both it and the verse cited are concerning with two different aspects of the word ‘master’, one of which is outward and the other of which is inward.