Appearance
Verses 31–36
This section contains some powerful arguments for God’s oneness in lordship, which He instructs His Prophet to present to the idolaters. These arguments are threefold, arranged according to their precision and strength.
The first argument follows the path of the idolaters and polytheists, who worship the deities behind their idols because they believe that they direct and manage the universe. Each of these deities is worshipped for the specific domain over which they exercise control in order to seek their blessings and to ward off their wrath or punishment. So, for example, people who lived in coastal regions would worship ocean deities, and likewise for peoples who lived on mountains or plains, or people of specific professions, such as learning, industry, or warfare, and so on—each would worship those deities whose power and domain encompassed the matter that concerned them most in order to propitiate them and, thereby, receive their blessings and ward off their anger.
The conclusion of the first argument is that the governance of the human realm and that of all other beings is solely undertaken by God Almighty and no other, as they acknowledge. Therefore, they must affirm His oneness in lordship and not worship anyone besides Him.
The second argument follows the path of the generality of the believers, as they do not pay excessive attention to worldly pleasures or physical delights. Instead, they focus primarily on the everlasting life of the Hereafter, the happiness or misery of which is determined by God’s recompense for their deeds. Hence, when rational evidence establishes that the Resurrection is no different to the original act of creation, it is obligatory that none should worship anyone except God, nor should anyone take any lords besides Him, in order to seek His reward and avoid His punishment.
The third argument follows the path to which the hearts of the elect of the believers incline, namely that truth is whatever reason dictates they should follow. Insofar as God Almighty is the one who guides to the truth, rather than the lords the idolaters invoke besides God, then He alone should be followed and not those false deities.
These three arguments will be expounded more fully in our commentary on the verses in question.
Were it not for this subtle point, it would have seemed more appropriate to mention the second of these arguments first, then the third, and then the first, or to mention the second argument and then combine the first and third after it.
قُلْ مَنْ يَرْزُقُكُمْ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ أَمَّنْ يَمْلِكُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَمَنْ يُخْرِجُ الْحَيَّ مِنَ الْمَيِّتِ وَيُخْرِجُ الْمَيِّتَ مِنَ الْحَيِّ وَمَنْ يُدَبِّرُ الْأَمْرَ ۚ فَسَيَقُولُونَ اللَّهُ ۚ فَقُلْ أَفَلَا تَتَّقُونَ ٣١
(10:31) Say, ‘Who provides for you (yarzuqukum) out of the sky and the earth? Who controls hearing and sight, and who brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living, and who directs the command?’ They will say, ‘Allah.’ Say, ‘Will you not then be wary?
The term rizq (‘provision’, from whence the verb yarzuqukum is derived) means continuous sustenance, and His provision for the human world from the sky is the sending down of rains, snow, and the like. His provision from the earth is the nurturing of plants and animals from whence human beings meet their needs. It is through the blessings of these divine bounties that the human species continue to exist. What is meant by God’s mastery of hearing and sight is His sovereignty over the human senses, which regulate the various types of enjoyment from the diverse provisions that God Almighty has allowed them to indulge in. Indeed, humans discern and distinguish what they desire from what they do not through the use of hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell, moving toward what they want and stopping or fleeing from what they dislike.
The senses are the means through which the benefits of divine sustenance are realized. Hearing and sight are singled out among them for mention due to the more apparent influence they have on vital activities compared to the other senses. God Almighty is the one who controls them, managing them through granting or withholding, increasing or decreasing.
‘ … and who brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living, and who directs the command?’: Life, as initially perceived in humans, is the source from which a being’s knowledge and power become manifest, and it produces actions based on knowledge and power as long as it continues to live. When life ceases, the actions cease as well.
Later, through scientific observation, it was discovered that life is not exclusive to the animal kingdom, as initially thought. The essential aspect that necessitates life in an animal, which is having a soul that generates various actions without a single, natural pattern, like moving in different directions with different movements and being still without any motion, is also found in plants.
Similarly, ongoing research through modern methods supports this notion. The living cells found in animals, to which their vital activities are attributed, have counterparts in plants, making them no less alive than animals. Thus, scientific observation, in any case, leads to the generalization of life for all types of animals and plants.
Then, life, which is opposed to death, which is the cessation of the principle of vital activities, can be traced back, according to analysis, to the state of something that produces its desired effects. Similarly, death is the absence of such a state. Thus, the life of the earth is its state of being green and flourishing, and its death is the opposite. The life of an action is its state of achieving the purpose for which it was undertaken, and its death is the opposite. The life of a word is its state of having the desired impact on the listener, and its death is the opposite. The life of a human being is their adherence to the guidance provided by human nature, such as having a sound mind and a pure soul. Therefore, the Qurʾan considers religion as life for humans because it sees the true religion, which is that of Islam, as identical with the innate God-given nature upon which the human being was originated.
Once this is clarified, it becomes apparent that bringing the living out of the dead and the dead out of the living varies in meaning, depending on the explanation of life and death. According to the first two views, it is the emergence of animals or animals and plants from something else, like sperm, eggs, and seeds. The living, just as their life does not last indefinitely, also do not begin life infinitely, nor is there any argument that can conclusively demonstrate that. The emergence of lifeless parts from animals, or animals and plants, occurs through separation.
According to the last view, which generalizes life to everything that produces its desired effects, it means that something not beneficial in one domain emerges as something beneficial in that domain, through existence and generation, like the creation of living humans, animals, and plants from dead soil, and vice versa. It is also like the emergence of a wise and righteous person from someone without intellect and righteousness, and vice versa, and the emergence of a believer from a disbeliever and a disbeliever from a believer.
The apparent meaning of the noble verse, considering its tone and its context as something being directly addressed to the idolaters, is that the intended meaning of bringing the living out of the dead and vice versa refers to this latter explanation. The verse establishes an argument against the polytheists based on the path they took in arguing for adopting various deities. They believed that the observable world is a collection of various, scattered entities, both celestial and terrestrial, including humans, animals, plants, seas, lands, and many other things beyond that. Each of these is under the management of a mediator before God, whom they worship by worshipping their idols and lesser deities to draw nearer to the Supreme Deity. In summary, the different domains of the created world necessitate the existence of different entities to direct each of them, necessitating the existence of numerous lords besides God.
The verse refutes their claim by explaining that the various domains of governance within the created world all ultimately depend on God Almighty, indicating that God alone is the Lord of everything. The verse addresses them by pointing out that they acknowledge that all matters concerning them, such as their sustenance and what benefits them and others, ultimately come from God Almighty. Therefore, He is the One who manages their affairs and the affairs of others, and He alone is the Lord, with no other lord besides Him.
The verse begins by calling attention to those matters that concern humans—meaning the statement, Say, ‘Who provides for you out of the sky and the earth?’—and concludes by calling attention to those things that are beneficial to both them and others—meaning the statement, ‘… and who directs the command?’ Now, it is evident from the context that the intended meaning of the phrase, who controls hearing and sight, and who brings forth the living from the dead, refers to the particular management of human affairs. Therefore, when the verse says that God has control over the hearing and sight, it means the hearing and sight of individual humans. Likewise, when it says He is responsible for bringing forth the living from the dead and vice versa, this means amongst humans. Moreover, it is obvious that the life specific to human beings is their possession of the blessings of intellect (ʿaql) and religion (dīn).
Thus, the intended meaning of bringing forth the living from the dead and vice versa is bringing forth a human being who is alive and flourishing with human happiness from a human being who is dead and has no happiness, and vice versa.
God Almighty instructs His Prophet to present an argument for His oneness in lordship, so He commands him to say: Say, ‘Who provides for you out of the sky and the earth by sending rains, causing growth, and bringing things into being? Who controls hearing and sight that you possess, so that you can benefit from your sustenance by identifying the good provisions through them? Without them, you would not have succeeded in this, and you would have perished like the last of you. And who brings forth the living from the dead—everything that is beneficial from something that is not—and brings forth the dead from the living—bringing forth the felicitous human being from the wretched one and the wretched one from the felicitous one—and who directs the command throughout all of creation?’
They will say, ‘Allah.’ They will acknowledge that all of these domains of governance in the human realm and beyond ultimately devolve to God, as this is something that the idolaters believed. Therefore, God commands His Prophet to first rebuke them for not being sufficiently wary of God by worshipping deities besides Him in spite of the overwhelming evidence they have seen, and then to draw the conclusion from this evidence that they should affirm His oneness and worship Him alone: Say, ‘Will you not then be wary?’ He concludes by saying, at the start of the next verse: That, then, is Allah, your true Lord ().
فَذَٰلِكُمُ اللَّهُ رَبُّكُمُ الْحَقُّ ۖ فَمَاذَا بَعْدَ الْحَقِّ إِلَّا الضَّلَالُ ۖ فَأَنَّىٰ تُصْرَفُونَ٣٢
(10:32) That, then, is Allah, your true Lord. So what is there after the truth except error? Then where are you being led away?
The first sentence, That, then, is Allah, your true Lord, is the conclusion drawn from the argument in the previous verse. The Qurʾan describes God as their ‘true’ Lord to clarify the essence of the argument and as a prelude to the subsequent statement, So what is there after the truth except error?
When God says, ‘So what is there after the truth except error?’, this is the logical corollary of the above argument, drawing the conclusion that the polytheists are misguided in their worship of idols. If God’s lordship alone is true, then guidance lies in following and worshipping Him alone, for guidance is associated with the truth and nothing else. Thus, nothing remains except error for those who follow falsehood.
Therefore, the intended meaning of the statement is: What is there after the truth, which comes with guidance, except falsehood, which comes with misguidance? The Qurʾan omits something from both clauses for the sake of conciseness. It is said, ‘So what is there after the truth except error?’ Some scholars have said that this verse is an example of reciprocal ellipsis (iḥtibāk), a rhetorical device in which there are two opposing statements, and something is left implicit in each and indicated by the other. The intended meaning of the statement is: ‘What is there after the truth except falsehood? And what is there after guidance except error?’ Here, ‘falsehood’ is omitted from the first statement and ‘guidance’ from the second one. This leaves the phrase, So what is there after the truth except error? The reason is the one we have mentioned above.
Then, the verse is brought to a close with the statement, Then where are you being led away?, meaning, for how long will you turn away from the truth, which comes with guidance, towards misguidance that accompanies falsehood?
كَذَٰلِكَ حَقَّتْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ عَلَى الَّذِينَ فَسَقُوا أَنَّهُمْ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ ٣٣
(10:33) Thus the word of your Lord became due against those who transgress that they shall not have faith.
The context of this verse suggests that the word that God Almighty speaks against the transgressors is that they will not believe, meaning that He has decreed for them an inevitable fate: The transgressors, while persisting in their transgressions, will not believe and will not attain divine guidance to faith. God says elsewhere, and Allah does not guide the transgressing lot ().
Based on this, the word ‘thus’ refers to what was deduced from the previous verse: That the polytheists turned away from the truth and transgressed, falling into misguidance because there is nothing beyond the truth except misguidance.
Therefore, the meaning of the verse, Thus the word of your Lord became due … is that the divine word and the inevitable decree concerning the transgressors—that they will not believe—has thus become true and established in objective reality; its referent is that they have deviated from the truth and fallen into misguidance. This means: ‘We did not decree the lack of guidance and faith of the transgressors unjustly or arbitrarily, but rather we decreed it because they turned away from the truth, transgressed, and fell into misguidance, for there is no middle ground between the two.’
The verse implies that the self-evident propositions, ordinances, and clear laws that govern the material realm, such as our assertion that ‘there is no middle ground between truth and falsehood or between guidance and misguidance’, have a kind of basis in the divine decree (al-qaḍāʾ al-ilāī) and are not inherently established in God Almighty’s domain by virtue of their own nature.
Some commentators have argued that the term ‘word’ (kalima) in the verse refers to the ‘word’ of punishment (in other words, that they have been sentenced to divine punishment), and the phrase ‘that they shall not have faith’ (annahum lā yuʾminūn) is intended to explain why this sentence became due against them, with the assumption that there is an implicit lām (the Arabic preposition for ‘because’, so li-annahum lā yuʾminūn) in the sentence. In this case, the meaning of the verse is that once this conclusive argument has been established against them, the word of your Lord, which is a threat of punishment, becomes due against those who transgress. They are sentenced to this punishment because they do not believe.
However, this explanation is not without its flaws, as the link between the argument and their punishment is not apparent, nor is it unanimously agreed upon. The argument is inherently established against them, while the punishment is not established in the same way but rather for another reason, which is that they do not believe.
The argument presented, as we saw in the previous explanation, is a simple one that the polytheists acknowledge the truth of. However, they diverted it from its intended meaning and instead tried to use it to prove the lordship that they claimed for their false deities and that these deities are deserving of worship besides God. They say that the governance of each affair of the general affairs of the world is up to one of these deities, who is the lord of that affair. They worship the idols and statues of these lords to propitiate them so that they may intercede for them with God due to their closeness to Him.
Hence, the verse takes their acknowledgement that the governance of the cosmos belongs to God Almighty—and how could they not belong to Him when He is the Creator and Sustainer of everything?—and draws the conclusion from this that, according to their own beliefs, the true reality of lordship belongs to Him alone and, therefore, He is the one deserving of worship, not anyone else.
قُلْ هَلْ مِنْ شُرَكَائِكُمْ مَنْ يَبْدَأُ الْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُ ۚ قُلِ اللَّهُ يَبْدَأُ الْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُ ۖ فَأَنَّىٰ تُؤْفَكُونَ ٣٤
(10:34) Say, ‘Is there anyone among your partners who originates the creation and then brings it back?’ Say, ‘Allah originates the creation, then He will bring it back.’ Then where do you stray?
The verse presents an argument from the perspective of the origin and the return (meaning the Creation and the Resurrection). Indeed, the One who originates everything and then brings it back is worthy that human beings should worship Him out of wariness of the Day of the Encounter, to be safe from His painful punishment and to attain His great rewards on the Day of Resurrection.
Since the polytheists, who are the ones being addressed with the argument, do not believe in the Resurrection, God Almighty commands His Prophet to respond to the question himself by saying, Allah originates the creation, then He will bring it back. Then where do you stray?—and until when will you wander from the path of truth?
Note that the fact that the argument in this verse relies on the doctrine of the origin and the return does not mean it is based on an unclear or unexplained premise. Different approaches have been used in the divine speech to demonstrate the truth of the Resurrection, such as the argument from the perspective of the necessity of God’s actions having an ultimate purpose, or from the perspective of the principle of divine justice (al-ʿadl al-ilāhī) necessitating God’s recompense of human beings for their deeds, among others. Almighty God has refuted doubts about resurrection and judgment on more than ten separate occasions in Qurʾan.
As previously indicated, the argument presented here is a general one for all believers who worship Him, the Most High, out of fear of punishment or out of desire for the reward that He has prepared for them on the Day of Resurrection.
قُلْ هَلْ مِنْ شُرَكَائِكُمْ مَنْ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْحَقِّ ۚ قُلِ اللَّهُ يَهْدِي لِلْحَقِّ ۗ أَفَمَنْ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْحَقِّ أَحَقُّ أَنْ يُتَّبَعَ أَمَّنْ لَا يَهِدِّي إِلَّا أَنْ يُهْدَىٰ ۖ فَمَا لَكُمْ كَيْفَ تَحْكُمُونَ ٣٥
(10:35) Say, ‘Is there anyone among your partners who may guide to the truth (yahdī ilā al-ḥaqq)?’ Say, ‘Allah guides to the truth (yahdī li al-ḥaqq). Is He who guides to the truth worthier to be followed, or he who is guided not unless he is guided? What is the matter with you? How do you judge?’
The phrases yahdī ilā al-ḥaqq and yahdī li al-ḥaqq, both mean ‘to guide to the truth’, as the verb yahdī can be made transitive with both the preposition ilā (lit. ‘to’) and the preposition li (lit. ‘for’). The use of the preposition li can be seen in many places throughout the Qurʾan, such as in the verses, Does it not dawn upon them …? (a wa lam yahdī la-hum, ), and Indeed this Qurʾan guides to what is most upright (li allatī hiya aqwam, ), amongst others. Therefore, the claim that the use of the preposition li in the present verse signifies causation (giving the meaning of ‘because’) is not correct.
Key Debate: Who Guides to the Truth →
God Almighty instructs His Prophet to relay this, the third of the arguments; it is a rational argument that is intended for the elect of the believers to rely on. The explanation of this argument is as follows: It is a matter of innate human nature, which the human intellect deems obligatory, that a person must follow the truth. Even if someone deviates from the truth in some actions and follows something else, whether as a mistake, due to a doubt, or because they followed their own desires, they only follow this other thing because they believe it to be the truth and because they were mistaken in this regard. Thus, they justify their actions based on what they consider to be true. Therefore, it is obligatory to follow the truth in all circumstances, without restriction or qualification.
Based on this, it is also obligatory to follow the one who guides you to the truth by virtue of the truth they possess, and it is necessary to give them priority over those who do not guide to the truth or who guide to something else, because following the one who guides to the truth is, in essence, following the truth itself, which is self-evidently obligatory to follow.
The argument is based on this self-evident premise. It begins by asking them about the partners they ascribe to God, if any of these can guide them to the truth. It is clear that the polytheists have no affirmative answer to this, as their partners, whether they are inanimate objects without life, like idols and statues, or living beings, such as angels, deities, jinn, or tyrants like Pharaoh, Nimrod, and others, do not possess the power to bring harm or benefit, nor death, life, or resurrection for themselves, let alone others.
As they have no affirmative answer to this, they cannot respond. Therefore, God instructs the Prophet to answer on their behalf, affirming that guidance to the truth is from God Almighty, Say, ‘Allah guides to the truth.’ Indeed, it is God alone who guides everything to its intended purpose and to those matters necessary for its existence, as we read in the verse, Our Lord is He who gave everything its creation and then guided it (), and in the verse, … who created and proportioned, who determined and guided (). He is the One who guides humans to the happiness of life and invites them to Paradise and forgiveness by His leave, by sending messengers, revealing scriptures, legislating laws, and commanding the faithful among them to spread the call to the true religion among people.
In our commentary on the verse, this is the truth from your Lord, so do not be among the sceptics (), we saw that the truth of belief, speech, and action is only true when it conforms to the cosmic order that governs the universe, which is nothing other than God’s acting upon reality. Therefore, the reality is that truth is only true by virtue of His will and His desire.
Since it has been conclusively established that none of their partners can guide anyone to the truth, and that God Almighty is the one who guides, He asks them, Is He who guides to the truth worthier to be followed, or he who is guided not unless he is guided? to determine which should be given preference between following Him, the Exalted, and following the partners which they have ascribed to Him. It is God who guides to the truth, while the partners they ascribe neither guide nor are guided without others. It is self-evident that priority should be given to the one who guides over the one who does not, meaning they should follow Him instead of following them. However, the polytheists judge the opposite to be right, so He rebukes and chastises them by saying, What is the matter with you? How do you judge?
Notice that the verse uses the expression, worthier to be followed, which is in the comparative form (al-tafḍīl), without qualifying this with anything else. This indicates that it is preferable or better to follow God, rather than declaring that God is the one and only who should be followed. This is because, while there is absolutely no doubt that following God is the truth and nothing else, and following others besides Him has no share in the truth, the verse presents this argument from the standpoint of preference to make it easier for the idolaters to accept it while avoiding provoking their prejudice or inflaming their foolishness.
Pay attention to God’s eloquence in His saying, Is He who guides to the truth worthier to be followed, or he who is guided not (lā yahiddī) unless he is guided?
The common reading of the verb yahiddī is with a kasra on the hāʾ and a shadda on the dāl, it being originally yahtadī. The apparent meaning of the phrase, he who guides not unless he is guided is that he can only be guided by others, and that he cannot guide himself.
Now, in this passage, the clause He who guides to the truth is juxtaposed with he who is guided not. However, the opposite of saying someone ‘guides to the truth’ is to say that they ‘do not guide to the truth’, while the opposite of ‘is not guided to the truth’ should be ‘is guided to the truth.’ On the surface, then, these two clauses do not appear to be opposites. However, through the unusual pairing of He who guides to the truth with he who is guided not unless he is guided, this verse shows that being guided by another necessarily means that a person will not be guided to the truth and that, conversely, someone who is innately guided to the truth will be able to guide others to it as well. Therefore, whoever guides to the truth must first be guided themselves, but not by virtue of anyone else guiding them, as whoever relies on others for guidance cannot guide to the truth.
This is what the apparent meaning of the verse suggests. And it is undoubtedly the fairest indication that what it says is based on the truth alone, without the embellishment and indulgence that we habitually rely on in conversations among ourselves. As a matter of convention, we generally say that anyone who speaks the truth and calls others to it is guiding to the truth, even if they do not really believe in it themselves, or if they believe it but do not act upon it, or if they act upon it but do not fully understand its meaning, regardless of whether they are guided to it by themselves or guided to it by others.
However, guidance to the truth, meaning leading to the explicit truth and the core of reality, is only from God Almighty or from those who are guided by themselves, meaning those whom God guides without any intermediary between them and Him. They are guided by God and guide others by the command of God. A brief discussion on this idea has already been presented in our commentary on the verse, And when his Lord tested Abraham with certain words, and he fulfilled them ().
In light of our above discussion of the verse, the following points have become clear:
First, the guidance referred to in the verse is not merely about presenting the path and showing the right way; rather, it means leading to the desired outcome. This is because it is an established and self-evident fact that anyone can point out the path of truth, regardless of whether the speaker has found the path through others or on their own, or whether they have not found it at all. The verse speaks of a kind of guidance that is not the purview of just anyone; hence, it becomes evident that the meaning of guidance here is not merely to show others the path of truth.
Secondly, His saying, or he who is guided not, except that he be guided, refers to those who do not guide themselves. This is broader in meaning than those who are guided by others or those who are not guided at all, such as idols and statues, which are inanimate and cannot be guided by anyone. The clause, except that he be guided, is an exception from His saying, or he who guides not, which is more general than not being guided at all or being guided by others. The phrase, that he be guided (an yuhdā) is a verb with the preposition an, which gives it the meaning of an infinitive. Now, a verbal sentence with the meaning of an infinitive does not mean that the activity denoted by the verb has actually taken place, unlike an infinitive that is attached to its subject. For example, consider the difference between the verse, and to fast is better for you (an taṣūmū khayrun lakum, ), which does not suggest that fasting has taken place, and the verse, We were indeed unaware of your worship (in kunnā ʿan ʿibādatikum la-ghāfilūn), which definitely does indicate the occurrence of worship.
Therefore, the phrase … or he who is guided not except that he be guided? refers to someone who has not be guided from himself and needs someone else to guide him, and it is obvious that one person can only be guided by another if they are naturally capable of being guided. As for someone who cannot accept guidance, then the attribute of ‘is guided not’ will remain with him.
Commentators have offered some unusual explanations of the exception, except that he be guided’:
For example, one such reading is that this exception is exhaustive and encompasses all circumstances (meaning that only those who are guided can guide others). Otherwise, if we read it to mean that whoever the polytheists take up as partners besides God cannot guide others, this would include Jesus, Ezra, and the angels—as these have all been taken up as partners besides God—when they, in fact, did guide others to the truth through God’s guidance and revelation, as we read in the verse of Sūrah al-Anbiyāʾ, We made them leaders (Imāms), guiding by Our command ().
The problem with this reading is that it means that no one can guide unless they are first guided by God. Therefore, they can guide others after they have been guided through God’s guidance. However, as you can see, this distorts the essence of the verse, as someone who is not guided to the truth themselves is not fit to guide others to the truth, as they only touch the truth from behind a veil themselves, so how can they bring others to it?
In addition, this reading of the verse does not even cover the idols that are the primary subject of the argument, as idols are not capable of guidance. It is implausible to present an argument against idol worship that does not include idols but instead includes Jesus and Ezra, who are considered sacred by other religious groups like the Jews and Christians, even though they were not the intended subjects of the verse, even if the verse implicitly includes them and others within its criteria.
Another unusual reading of the verse that commentators have suggested is as follows: That the exception it contains is discontinuous (istithnāʾ munqatiʿ, meaning that the excepted set were not originally included within the set from which they are being excluded) and that the phrase he who is guided not is referring only to the idols, which are not capable of receiving guidance anyway. Therefore, the meaning of the verse becomes, ‘…or those who are not guided at all, like idols, unless God guides them, whereat they will be guided.’
The problem with this reading is that, if we interpret the verse in this way, the comparison between the phrase, who guides to the truth, and the phrase, or he who is guided not, does not yield the intended contrast unless the meaning is interpreted as something like: ‘Is the one who guides to the truth more deserving of being followed, or the one who does not guide at all, unless God guides them, then they are guided and guide others?’ However, this is to be rejected because there is no reason to specifically mention the likes of idols amongst those who are not guided at all. Without this, there is no need to say that the exception is discontinuous. Instead, the exception should include both those who are not guided at all, whether by themselves or others, and those who are not guided by themselves but who are guided by others, such as the angels, for example. In this case, the same objection we raised to the previous reading also applies here.
Another unusual reading is that the meaning of he who is guided not are the idols that are incapable of receiving guidance, and the meaning of ‘except …’ (illā) here is, in fact, ‘until …’ (ḥattā), meaning he who is guided not until he is guided.
However, the problem with this reading is that the question expressed in the verse then becomes: ‘Is He who guides to the truth worthier to be followed, or he who is guided not until he is guided to the truth?’ However, this renders the phrase ‘even if he is guided to the truth’ superfluous to the argument. This is in addition to the fact that it is not established in the rules of classical Arabic that the particle illā can be used in the sense of ‘until…’. In fact, even if we assume that it can, there are very few examples of it, and it is not considered eloquent speech.
Another unusual reading is that the meaning of he who is guided not unless he is guided refers to the angels and the jinn who are worshipped besides God and who accept guidance from God even if they are not guided by themselves. Or that it refers to the leaders who have gone astray and call others to disbelieve, for while they are not guided, they can receive guidance, and if they were guided to the truth, they would guide others to it too.
The problem with this reading is that the verse occurs in the context of a debate with idol worshippers, and interpreting the phrase he who is guided not unless he is guided as referring to the angels, jinn, or leaders who have gone astray takes it out of the scope of relevance to the discussion at hand.
The third point to become clear from our discussion from the verse above is that guiding to the truth means conveying people towards it, and this is something that can only be done by those who are guided through themselves. This means that there is no intermediary between them and God in the matter of guidance, whether this was the case from the very beginning of their existence or whether it came about by virtue of a special grace they received from God, such as the prophets and their successors amongst the Imāms. As for guidance in the sense of showing people the path of truth and describing the route they must take, this is obviously not something that is restricted to the God or to the prophets and Imāms. See, for example, the verse in which God relates the words of the believer from Pharaoh’s clan, And he who had faith said, ‘O my people! Follow me, I will guide you to the way of rectitude’ (); and see also the verse, Indeed We have guided him to the way, be he grateful or ungrateful ().
When God addresses the Prophet—who is a leader—in the verse, You cannot guide whomever you wish, but Allah guides whomever He wishes () and other similar verses, this serves to clarify the distinction between possessing a function inherently and acquiring it subordinately. This is in the same vein as the verses about death, knowledge of the unseen, and other such matters, which show that God Almighty is the true and inherent possessor of these functions, while others only possess them through God’s bequest, in a subordinate or incidental manner, and they become a means for these functions to be realized by God’s leave. He says, We made them leaders (Imāms), guiding by Our command (). The narrations also refer to this, and they state that guiding humankind to the truth is the responsibility of the Prophet and his Household. We have already discussed some aspects of divine guidance previously.
When God says at the end of the verse, What is the matter with you? How do you judge?, it is a rhetorical question that expresses amazement and astonishment at their decision to follow their partners, despite the clear judgment of reason that it is not permissible to follow those who are not guided and do not guide to the truth.
وَمَا يَتَّبِعُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ إِلَّا ظَنًّا ۚ إِنَّ الظَّنَّ لَا يُغْنِي مِنَ الْحَقِّ شَيْئًا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ بِمَا يَفْعَلُونَ ٣٦
(10:36) Most of them just follow conjecture; indeed conjecture is no substitute for the truth (lā yughnī min al-ḥaqq shayʾan). Indeed Allah knows best what they do.
The verb yughnī can take an object with either of the prepositions min or ʿan (‘from’, ‘of’), and both forms appear in the Qurʾan, sometimes taking an object with min, as in the present verse, and sometimes with ʿan, as in the verse, My wealth did not avail me (mā aghnā ʿannī māliyah) ().
The reason the verse says that the majority of the disbelievers follow conjecture is because a minority among them—and they are the leaders of error—are actually certain of the truth, but they have given preference to falsehood over it and call towards falsehood for no other reason than enmity, as God says: and none differed in it except those who had been given it, after the manifest proofs had come to them, out of envy among themselves (). As for the majority, they blindly follow the opinions of their leaders because of the good opinion they hold of them.
Indeed Allah knows best what they do: This provides a rationale for the statement, Most of them just follow conjecture, meaning that God knows well what they do and He knows well that they are following conjecture.