Appearance
Verses 94–103
These verses present an argument for the truth of what God has revealed in this chapter of the Qurʾan regarding the creation and the Resurrection and the stories of the prophets and their nations—including Noah, Moses, and other messengers and nations—summarizing what the people of other scriptures read in these before the Qurʾan was revealed to the Prophet.
Next, the verses present something akin to a distillation of the meaning of the previous sections, which is, that no one will be able to believe in God and His signs except by God’s leave. And that God only permits belief in those whose hearts have not been sealed and who have not been contaminated by impurities. Otherwise, if God’s verdict becomes due against him, he will not believe in God and His signs until he sees the punishment.
So, the divine order that has governed the cosmos since people were created is that they differed between those who denied God’s signs and those who affirmed them, and God’s custom (sunna) has been to judge between them by truth after the arrival of their messengers, saving the messengers and those who believed in them, and overtaking others with destruction.
فَإِنْ كُنْتَ فِي شَكٍّ مِمَّا أَنْزَلْنَا إِلَيْكَ فَاسْأَلِ الَّذِينَ يَقْرَءُونَ الْكِتَابَ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ ۚ لَقَدْ جَاءَكَ الْحَقُّ مِنْ رَبِّكَ فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْمُمْتَرِينَ ٩٤
(10:94) So if you are in doubt (shakk) about what We have sent down to you, ask those who read the Book before you. The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord; so do not be among the sceptics.
Shakk means suspicion, and the phrase about what We have sent down to you refers to the teachings related to the creation and the Resurrection and God’s custom of judging the nations that has already been discussed in this chapter. When God says, ‘ask those who read the Book before you’ (yaqraʾūn al-kitāb min qablik), the verb yaqraʾūn is a present tense verb, signifying continuity, while the prepositional phrase before you qualifies the meaning of the Book, meaning ‘the Book that was sent down before you.’ This is what the context indicates.
Therefore, the meaning of the verse is: So if you—O Prophet!—are in doubt—and have misgivings—about what We have sent down to you—about the teachings relating to the creation and the Resurrection and the summarized accounts of previous prophets that reflect the divine order that governs God’s creation, namely to invite people to the truth first and then to judge between them—ask those—of the People of the Book—who—continue to—read the Book—that was sent down—before you. I swear—The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord; so do not be among the sceptics—who are hesitant.
Now, this does not imply the existence of any doubt in the heart of the Prophet, nor does it confirm any hesitation from him. This form of address is valid for addressing those who may harbor doubts or misgivings, and it is also valid for addressing those who are certain of the matter and are well-versed that the meaning being conveyed is of something that is affirmed by multiple evidences and supported by numerous verses. If the addressee or listener doubts any of these, they could rely on another one of them.
This is a common method in the norms of communication and understanding that is used by rational people in their interactions. It is in accordance with what their faculties direct them towards. For instance, one might present an argument for a matter, then say: ‘If you have doubts about that, or we agree that it does not necessarily produce the desired conclusion, there is another argument for it, which is such and such...’ This hints that there are available and supporting arguments like pillars raised for something that does not need more than one of them, but the aim of having many of them is for the pavilion to have multiple sources of support and, thereby, be as stable as possible.
The focus of the discourse, then, is that these are teachings that God has made clear to you with arguments that human minds cannot deny, and stories illustrating God’s custom in dealing with His creation, and the evidence supporting this. He explained these to you in a Book in which there is no doubt. For each explanation, there is an argument, and there is another argument that the people of the previous scriptures—who continue to read these scriptures faithfully—find therein. There is the creation and the Resurrection, and there is the divine religion that God’s messengers were sent with, calling people to it, and no nation was called to it except that they were divided into believers and deniers. Then God revealed a decisive sign to separate between truth and falsehood and judged between them.
This is something that the People of the Book cannot deny. They only used to deny the glad tidings brought by the Prophet some of the teachings that were exclusive to Islam, and the particular details they had altered in their scriptures. This verse subtly indicates that God did not mention the accounts of the prophets Hūd and Ṣāliḥ in the verses of this chapter, because the Torah available to them did not contain their stories. The same is true of the story of Jethro and the story of Christ, due to the disagreement of the People of the Book about these figures. Only what they cannot deny was used as evidence in these verses.
Therefore, this verse, in instructing the Prophet to present this argument, is of a similar form to the argument found in the verse: Is it not a sign for them that the learned of the Children of Israel recognize it? (42:197).
This chapter of the Qurʾan is one of the earliest to be revealed in Mecca, when the dispute between the Muslims and the People of the Book, especially the Jews, was not as intense as it became in Medina. They had not yet shown the level of obstinacy and defiance that they exhibited after the Prophet’s emigration to Medina, nor had fighting yet broken out between them and the Muslims, reaching a point where they declared, Allah has not sent down anything to any human ().
This is the meaning given by the context of the verse. I believe that if you ponder deeply over this verse and other related verses that address the Prophet, affirming the truth of what has been revealed to him by his Lord, challenging humans with their inability to produce anything like it, and describing the Prophet as having clear insight into his mission and being guided by his Lord, you will find this explanation satisfying. It should relieve you from reading the unnecessary explanations some scholars have offered in order to explain the verse, which are not worth mentioning or investigating here.
وَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ فَتَكُونَ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ ٩٥
(10:95) And do not be of those who deny the signs of Allah, then you shall be among the losers.
This verse first prohibits doubt and hesitation, then it escalates to prohibit the denial of God’s signs, which is tantamount to obstinate defiance in the face of the truth and arrogance towards God. For a sign of God, by definition, cannot be a sign (āya) unless its implications are clear and its message apparent. Denying such a sign can only result from obstinacy and stubbornness.
The phrase, ‘then you shall be among the losers’ is a consequence of denying God’s signs. It is both the result and the inevitable outcome, and thus the real thing being warned against by the verse. The meaning is really: ‘do not be among the losers.’ Loss (khasr) literally means the decrease or total loss of investment capital. Here, it refers to faith in God and His signs, which is the ultimate capital for human happiness in this life and the next, as can be inferred from the following verse which attributes their loss to their disbelief.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ حَقَّتْ عَلَيْهِمْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ ٩٦ وَلَوْ جَاءَتْهُمْ كُلُّ آيَةٍ حَتَّىٰ يَرَوُا الْعَذَابَ الْأَلِيمَ ٩٧
(10:96-97) Indeed those against whom your Lord’s judgment has become due will not have faith, even though every sign were to come to them, until they sight the painful punishment.
This verse explains the prohibition on denying God’s signs in the previous verse by highlighting the situation of those who are warned against. The original structure of the verse, based on the meaning derived from the context, should be: ‘Do not be among the deniers, because the deniers do not believe and thus they become losers, as faith is the key to happiness.’ God’s phrase, those against whom your Lord’s judgment has become due is placed where ‘the deniers’ would be, to illustrate the basis of the ruling. The deniers are losers because God’s judgment has become due against them. In any case, all matters ultimately belong to God.
The divine judgment that has become due against those who deny the signs of God is His saying on the day of the promulgation of the general law for Adam and his wife and their progeny after them: We said, ‘Get down from it, all together! Yet, should any guidance come to you from Me, those who follow My guidance shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve. But those who are faithless and deny Our signs, they shall be the inmates of the Fire and they shall remain therein forever ().
This is what He means by saying (in the context of explaining the reason for the loss of the deniers): Indeed those against whom your Lord’s judgment has become due—they are the deniers upon whom the word of punishment has become due, hence they will not have faith. Therefore, they are the losers because they have wasted the capital of their happiness, which is faith, so they have been deprived of it and its blessings in this world and the Hereafter. Since the decree has become due against them that they will not believe, there is no way for them to believe, even if every sign comes to them, even though every sign were to come to them, until they sight the painful punishment. And there is no benefit in forced belief.
God has repeated this phrase on numerous occasions in the Qurʾan and highlighted the loss and belief that results from it. For example, see the verses: The word has certainly become due against most of them, so they will not have faith (); … so that anyone who is alive may be warned, and that the word may come due against the faithless ();
This is because they deny God’s signs as a result of their disbelief, hence they suffer loss. See also, the verse: … and the word became due against them, as it did against the nations that passed away before them of jinn and humans. They were indeed losers ().
And there are other verses besides these with the same meaning.
From the above verses, it is clear that:
1) Obstinacy towards the truth and the denial of God’s signs makes the divine verdict of eternal punishment become due against a person.
2) The capital of life’s happiness for a person is faith.
3) Every person is ultimately a believer, whether by accepted, voluntary belief, which leads him to the happiness of this life and the Hereafter, or by unacceptable, forced belief, when he sights the painful punishment.
فَلَوْلَا كَانَتْ قَرْيَةٌ آمَنَتْ فَنَفَعَهَا إِيمَانُهَا إِلَّا قَوْمَ يُونُسَ لَمَّا آمَنُوا كَشَفْنَا عَنْهُمْ عَذَابَ الْخِزْيِ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَمَتَّعْنَاهُمْ إِلَىٰ حِينٍ ٩٨
(10:98) Why has there not been any town that might believe, so that its belief might benefit it, except the people of Jonah? When they believed, We removed from them the punishment of disgrace in the life of this world, and We provided for them for a while.
The apparent context suggests that the phrase ‘why has there not…’ is meant as encouragement, and that what is meant by belief here is the correct, voluntary faith, as suggested by His saying after it, so that its belief might benefit it. Because the encouragement relates to a past matter that did not occur, the sentence conveys a sense of despair about people believing, which is equivalent to a negation (that is, ‘No, only the people of Jonah believed’). Therefore, the exception in His saying, except the people of Jonah makes sense.
Therefore, the meaning is: Of all the towns to which our messengers came and they denied them, why was there not a town that believed voluntarily before the punishment descended on them, so that their belief might have benefitted them. No, only the people of Jonah believed, and when they believed, we relieved them of the punishment of humiliation in this world and granted them the enjoyments of this world until they reached the end of their natural, usual lifespans. From this, it is evident that the exception, except the people of Jonah, is a continuous exception (meaning that the people of Jonah are part of the category from which they are being exempted).
Some scholars have read this verse as meaning: ‘There was not a situation where the inhabitants of a town believed in their entirety, not one of them deviating from the truth, except the people of Jonah. So, why were not all towns were like them?’
However, while the meaning is not itself problematic, the wording of the verse does not corroborate its particular meanings.
Other commentators have said that the verse means it was not usual for a town to disbelieve and then believe and actually benefit from this belief, except for the people of Jonah; when they believed, We removed the punishment from them and let them enjoy life. However, the problem with this reading is similar to the previous one.
وَلَوْ شَاءَ رَبُّكَ لَآمَنَ مَنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ كُلُّهُمْ جَمِيعًا ۚ أَفَأَنْتَ تُكْرِهُ النَّاسَ حَتَّىٰ يَكُونُوا مُؤْمِنِينَ ٩٩
(10:99) And had your Lord wished, all those who are on earth would have believed. Would you then force people until they become faithful?
In other words, ‘but He did not want that, so they did not all believe, and they do not believe.’ Therefore, this was up to God’s will, but He did not will it, so you should not hope for it or strive for it, because you cannot compel them to believe by force. After all, the faith that God wants is the kind of faith that people acquire through exercising their own free will and choosing what is good, not due to compulsion and coercion.
That is why God follows this with a rhetorical question with the force of a denial, Would you then force people until they become faithful? In other words: ‘After we have made clear that the matter is dependent upon God’s will and He did not will it that all people should believe regardless of their own free will. Therefore, you have no say in the matter save to coerce people and force them to believe, but I forbid you to do this, so you cannot do that, and I do not accept the faith of anyone who believes in this matter.’
وَمَا كَانَ لِنَفْسٍ أَنْ تُؤْمِنَ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ۚ وَيَجْعَلُ الرِّجْسَ عَلَى الَّذِينَ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ ١٠٠
(10:100) No soul may have faith except by Allah’s leave, and He lays defilement on those who do not apply reason
When the previous verse made clear that the matter is up to God Almighty and that, if He had willed that all the people of the earth should believe, they would have certainly believed, but He did not will it, so there is no hope of every single person believing. In this verse, He further clarifies this, saying that dominion belongs exclusively to God, so He fundamentally controls every matter and no partner shares this power with Him except for some of the things He permits His creation to do.
Having faith in God, out of free will and being guided to Him, is a matter that requires a specific cause to occur. This cause does not exert influence or operate in the universe by creating its effect except that God grants it leave to do so. However, by imposing spiritual impurity and misguidance upon the obstinate and faithless, God refuses them permission to believe, and leaves no hope for their happiness.
If God had granted this permission to anyone, He would have granted faith to others besides these deniers. When God says, No soul may have faith except by Allah’s leave, this is a universal and essential rule that assigns the capacity of souls to believe to God granting them permission to do so. And His saying, and He lays defilement on those who do not apply reason, deprives those who lack understanding of the capacity to receive this permission, while leaving it in place for others.
In the verse, ‘defilement’ (rajs) denotes the opposite of faith (īmān) in terms of doubt (shakk) and suspicion (rayb). In other words, it is to these concepts that defilement refers to in this context because it is juxtaposed with faith. This is understood from His saying, Whomever Allah desires to guide, He opens his breast to Islam, and whomever He desires to lead astray, He makes his breast narrow and straitened as if he were climbing to a height. Thus does Allah lay defilement on those who do not have faith ().
The phrase, … those who do not apply reason, refers to those people who deny the signs of God, as they are the ones upon whom the sentence of punishment has become due, for God has set a seal upon their hearts, so they do not understand. As He said, “Allah has set a seal on their hearts, so they do not know ().
قُلِ انْظُرُوا مَاذَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ وَمَا تُغْنِي الْآيَاتُ وَالنُّذُرُ عَنْ قَوْمٍ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ ١٠١
(10:101) Say, ‘Observe what is in the heavens and the earth.’ But what signs or warnings will avail a people who have no faith?
This means: ‘Look at the diverse and scattered creations, each one of which is a sign among the signs of God the Exalted, which invites you to believe.’ And as His saying, But what signs or warnings will avail a people who have no faith?, the Arabic of this sentence reads mā tughnī al-āyāt wa al-nudhur ʿan qawmin la yuʾminūn. It appears that the particle mā is interrogative and the sentence is a rhetorical question conveying the meaning of denial and despair, akin to a physician saying, ‘what medicine can cure the affliction of death?’ In other words, God says to the Prophet: ‘We have commanded you to warn them, by telling them to ‘observe what is in the heavens and the earth.’ However, what effect will these warnings or signs have on them when they have no faith?’ In other words, when they are determined and resolved not to believe, because their hearts have been sealed. However, one could also read this mā as a negation (that is, ‘But neither signs nor warnings avail a people who have no faith.’).
فَهَلْ يَنْتَظِرُونَ إِلَّا مِثْلَ أَيَّامِ الَّذِينَ خَلَوْا مِنْ قَبْلِهِمْ ۚ قُلْ فَانْتَظِرُوا إِنِّي مَعَكُمْ مِنَ الْمُنْتَظِرِينَ ١٠٢
(10:102) Do they await anything except the like of the days of those who passed away before them? Say, ‘Then wait! I too am waiting along with you.’
This follows on from what God said in the previous verse, But what signs or warnings will avail a people who have no faith? That is to say, if the signs and warnings do not benefit them at all, as they completely disbelieve, they are merely awaiting the likes of the days of those who passed before them. They are holding themselves back for divine punishment, which is the sign that will distinguish between you and them and destroy them, for the sentence of punishment has indeed become due against them.
Hence, the Prophet was commanded to relay this to them, by saying, ‘Then wait! I too am waiting along with you.’ This refers to ‘the days of those who passed away before them’, meaning ‘Wait for the Day of Punishment that will separate between me and you, making you believe. Yet your belief will not benefit you then, and I too am waiting along with you.’
As we have already explained, the question posed in this verse is rhetorical with the force of a denial.
ثُمَّ نُنَجِّي رُسُلَنَا وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ حَقًّا عَلَيْنَا نُنْجِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ١٠٣
(10:103) Then We shall deliver Our messengers and those who have faith. Thus it is a must for Us to deliver the faithful.
This verse completes the beginning of the previous verse (Do they await anything except the like of the days …) and His statement, Say, ‘Then wait! I too am waiting along with you’, is an intervening clause. Therefore, the original arrangement according to the meaning of the verses is: Do they—your people—await anything except the like of the days of those—nations—who passed away before them—against whom the verdict of punishment became due and upon whom we sent the sign of divine punishment—Then We shall deliver Our messengers and those who have faith.
The intervening clause, Say, ‘Then wait! I too am waiting along with you’, is inserted here because it relates to the question that precedes it in the discourse, which also spoke of awaiting (Do they await…?). It was appropriate for this statement to be placed alongside it as a response, to clarify that the Messenger of God is also waiting like you disbelievers, and then mention the issue of salvation, which is not exclusive to the Messenger of God but includes the believers as well. Put simply: the expectation of judgment was specific to the Messenger of God between himself and them. But the expectation that God will save the Messenger and the believers after the execution of the judgment was not specific to the Messenger himself. Another reason is that the expectation of the Messenger of God was not the separation and differentiation between the people of truth and falsehood, but rather the expectation of saving the believers from punishment, and this was not the main purpose of the speech, because the main aim of the speech is to warn and frighten the polytheists, not to bring good news of salvation to the Messenger of God and the believers
When God says, Thus it is a must for Us (ḥaqqan ʿalaynā) to deliver the faithful, this means that just as We saved the messengers and those who believed from previous nations when the punishment descended, so too We save the believers among you from this nation. It is incumbent upon Us to do that, indeed. His saying, ḥaqqan ʿalaynā, is an absolute object that stands for an omitted verb, and the use of the definite article for ‘the faithful’ is to show that this word is referring to something already known, namely the believers of the Prophet’s nation. This is a divine promise to the Prophet and the believers of his nation that God will save them.
It is not far-fetched to infer from His saying, to deliver the faithful, that there is a subtle indication that the Prophet, will not witness this divine judgment. Instead, it will transpire after he has passed away. This is suggested by the fact that God mentions the believers without including the Prophet, even though God mentions His messengers alongside the believers in previous instances. This might also be inferred from the repetition of God’s saying, Whether We show you a part of what We promise them, or take you away, they will be brought back to Us () or other similar verses (example, , ).
Examining Narrations
- In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is reported from Muḥammad b. Saʿīd al-Asadī that Mūsā b. Muḥammad b. al-Riḍā informed him that Yaḥyā b. Aktham wrote to him asking about certain issues: ‘Tell me about God’s saying, So if you are in doubt about what We have sent down to you, ask those who read the Book before you … (), who is addressed in this verse? If the addressee is the Prophet, then he has doubted what God has revealed. And if the addressee is someone else, then this implies that the book was sent down to someone else.’
Mūsā said, ‘So I asked my brother about that.’ He said, ‘As for His saying, So if you are in doubt about what We have sent down to you, ask those who read the Book before you …, the addressee is the Messenger of God, and he was not in doubt about what God had revealed. However, the ignorant ones said, “Why wasn’t a messenger from among the angels sent to us?” He did not distinguish himself from others in terms of abstaining of food, drink, or frequenting the marketplace. So, God revealed to His Prophet: “Ask those who read the Book before you in the presence of the ignorant, whether God had sent a messenger before you who did not eat food, drink, and walk in the markets? Therein is an example for them.”
He only said, if you are in doubt, even though the Prophet was not, in order to engage them. This is akin to the verse, say, ‘Come! Let us call our sons and your sons, our women and your women, our souls and your souls, then let us pray earnestly and call down Allah’s curse upon the liars’ (). If He had said, ‘Come, let us submit to mutual imprecation and bring the curse of God down upon you,’ they would not have come for the mutual imprecation. After all, it is known that His Prophet faithfully carries out His message and he is not one of the liars. Similarly, the Prophet, knew that he was truthful in what he said, but he preferred to be impartial.’
Author’s comment: al-Ṣadūq narrates this in Maʿānī, via his chain of narrators from Mūsā b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, and this confirms what we have said in our commentary on the verse. It has come down in some narrations that this verse was revealed on the eve of the Prophet’s Night Journey, and God instructed the Prophet to ask the spirits of those prophets who came before him. They are the ones who He meant when He said, ask those who read the Book before you. This meaning has also been narrated from al-Zuhrī, but it is not clear how this coheres with the wording of the verse.
- In al-Durr al-manthūr, ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Ibn Jarīr narrate from Qatāda concerning the same verse: ‘It was mentioned to us that the Messenger of God said, “I do not doubt, nor do I ask.”’
- In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from al-Muʿammar that Imām al-Riḍā said, ‘Surely God gave Jonah His commands, and he informed his people. Then, the punishment loomed over them, so they separated themselves from their children, and between their beasts and their offspring, then they cried out to God, so God lifted the punishment from them.’
Author’s comment: We will discuss the story of Jonah in our commentary on some of the verses that detail this.
- In al-Durr al-manthūr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim and al-Lālkāʾī in his Sunna narrate from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib: ‘Precaution does not avert destiny (al-qadr) but supplication does avert it, that is the meaning of the verse, except the people of Jonah? When they believed, We removed from them the punishment of disgrace ().
Author’s comment: A tradition with the same meaning is narrated from Ibn al-Najjār, from ʿĀʾisha, from the Prophet.
- In al-Kāfī and Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, it is narrated via a complete chain from Abū Baṣīr, from Imām al-Ṣādiq: ‘Defilnement () is doubt, and we never entertain doubts about our religion.’
See al-Mīzān Eng. v. 33 under Ch. 37 (Ed.) ↩︎