Appearance
The Verse of Delivery (Tablīgh)
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلرَّسُولُ بَلِّغْ مَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِن رَّبِّكَ ۖ وَإِن لَّمْ تَفْعَلْ فَمَا بَلَّغْتَ رِسَالَتَهُۥ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ يَعْصِمُكَ مِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَهْدِى ٱلْقَوْمَ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ
(5:67) O Apostle! Communicate that which has been sent down to you from your Lord, and if you do not, you will not have communicated His message, and Allah shall protect you from the people. Indeed Allah does not guide the faithless lot.
The question
What was the Prophet ordered to deliver, so important that failing to deliver it would mean he had not delivered God's message at all?
Views answered: Tafsīr al-Manār (Rashīd Riḍā), exegetes who place the verse early in the mission
Al-Mizan's argument
Al-Mizan shows that this verse stands apart from the verses about the People of the Book around it, that it cannot belong to the early days of the mission, and that “what has been revealed to you” cannot be the whole religion. It must be one particular command, on which the whole message depended and whose delivery the Prophet feared people would misunderstand — the guardianship of ʿAlī, as the narrations of both schools report. In the narrations it answers point by point Tafsīr al-Manār's claim that the report about al-Ḥārith b. al-Nuʿmān is forged, and examines the reports that place the verse earlier.
Reading guide
Each part opens the commentary at that point.
- A verse apart from its surroundings
- What the Prophet feared
- “What has been revealed to you”: not the whole religion
- A command on which the whole message depended
- Revealed about the guardianship of ʿAlī
- Al-Manār's claim of forgery, answered point by point
- The Ghadīr narrations and their narrators
- Al-Manār's reports placing the verse earlier, examined