Surah Faatir (35): Read Online and Download - English Translation

Commentary

The word: غَرُ‌ورُ‌ (gharur) is an emphatic form of an adjective that means one who is very deceiving (hence, rendered here as 'big deceiver' ). It refers to the Shaitan (Satan) whose sole job is to deceive people and throw them into disbelief and sin. And the expression لَا يَغُرَّ‌نَّكُم بِاللَّـهِ الْغَرُ‌ورُ‌ (5) means 'nor should you be deceived about Allah'. To explain this deception, it can be said that the Shaitan may not, by showing your evil deeds as good, cause you to become so involved with these that you reach the stage when you go on committing a sin and, at the same time, keep thinking that you are of those accepted in the sight of Allah, and that you will not have to undergo any punishment.' (Qurtubi)

Imam al-Baghawi has reported on the authority of Sayyidna ` Abdullah Ibn ` Abbas ؓ that the verse: فَإِنَّ اللَّـهَ يُضِلُّ مَن يَشَاءُ وَيَهْدِي مَن يَشَاءُ (The fact, therefore, is that Allah lets go astray whomsoever He wills , and leads to the right path whomsoever He wills.- 8) was revealed at a time when the Holy Prophet ﷺ had made the prayer: '0 Allah, bless Islam with prestige and power, through ` Umar Ibn al-Khattab, or Abu Jahl.' Out of the two, Allah Ta’ ala showed the right path to Sayyidna 'Umar ؓ and made him the cause of Islam's prestige and power, while Abu Jahl remained as astray as he was. (Mazhari)

Commentary

In verse 10, it was said: إِلَيْهِ يَصْعَدُ الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ وَالْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ يَرْ‌فَعُهُ (Towards Him, ascends the pure word, and the righteous deed uplifts it). Immediately earlier to this, it was declared that the person seeking honor and power should understand that these matters are not controlled by anyone other than Allah. As for those who have taken certain things as objects of worship or have taken some people as friends in the hope of being honored by them, they cannot give honor to anyone. Given in the present verse, there is a method of acquiring the gifts of grace and honor from Allah Ta’ ala. It has two parts: (1) Good word (that is, the kalimah of tauhid: la ilaha il-lal-lah) and the knowledge of the being and attributes of Allah. (2) Good deed, that is, to believe by heart and then act in accordance with its dictates under the Shari` ah. Shah ` Abdul Qadir (رح) has said in Mudih-ul-Qur'an that this prescription of becoming a recipient of honor is perfectly true and tested, however, the condition is that one remains constant in remembering Allah and doing good deeds. When this constancy reaches an appointed limit, Allah Ta’ ala blesses the doer of these with an everlasting and unparalleled honor both in this world and in the world to come.

These two parts have been expressed in the cited verse by saying that good word ascends towards Allah and reaches Him while good deed uplifts it and makes it reach Him. In the grammatical arrangement of: الْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ يَرْ‌فَعُهُ the good deed uplifts it) there are certain probabilities. The meanings of the sentence change in terms of each such probability. Authorities in Tafsir have explained it in line with the respective probabilities that they have deemed to be appropriate by them. According to the first probability, the subjective pronoun in: يَرْ‌فَعُهُ (uplifts) should be taken as reverting to: ... (the good deed) and the objective pronoun (it) to: ... (good word) meaning: 'good words ascend to Allah, but the thing through which they are made to ascend are good deeds (as in the khulasa-e-Tafsir of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanavi (رح)). The majority of Tafsir authorities - Sayyidna Ibn ` Abbas, Ibn Jubayr, Hasan al-Basri, Mujahid, Dahhak, Shahr Ibn Hawshab and others - have opted for this very approach. And the sense of ascending to and being helped to ascend is being accepted in the sight of Allah, therefore, the gist of the sentence would be that good word, be it the kalimah of tauhid or others words of the remembrance and glorification of Allah, nothing of it gets to be acceptable with Allah without good deed. Here, the confirmation by heart is an integral part of good deed the most important part of which is the belief by heart in His Oneness. This belief by heart is a necessary condition for the acceptance of deeds in the absolute sense. Without it, neither the Kalimah: لا إله إلا اللہ (la ilaha il-lal-lah) nor any other Dhikr of Allah is acceptable.

Then, there are the other parts of good deed, such as, prayers and fasting and abstinence from forbidden and reprehensible things. Though, the acceptability of the 'good word’, that is, the kalimah of tauhid does not depend on such good deeds, yet these deeds too are conditions to a perfect acceptability of the 'good words'. If a person simply does not have faith, and its confirmation, in his heart, then, no matter how many times he repeats the words of the cardinal statement of one's Islam (Kalimah Tauhid: la ilaha il-lal-lah) and remains engaged with dhikr and Tasbih of Allah, he will not deserve the least of acceptability in the sight of Allah. In contrast, there is the case of the other person who does have faith and its confirmation, but fails to do other good deeds or falls short in them, then, his saying of the kalimah of tauhid and the doing of the dhikr of Allah will, though, not go to waste totally, however, its benefit will be restricted to delivering him from the everlasting punishment. The consequence will be that he will go through a certain punishment for some time that will be in proportion to his abandonment of duty and the shortcoming.

In a Hadith, the Holy Prophet ﷺ has said, 'Allah Ta’ ala does not accept any word without deed, and any word and deed without the intention, and any word, deed and intention without compatibility with sunnah (as said and done by him).' (Qurtubi)

This tells us that correspondence with sunnah is the condition of perfect acceptability. Even if the word, the deed and the intention, all these, are also correct but the mode and method of conduct is not in accordance with sunnah, then, one cannot become a recipient of perfect acceptability with Allah.

Some commentators suggest another syntactical arrangement in respect of this sentence. According to them, the subjective pronoun in: يَرْ‌فَعُهُ (uplifts) reverts to: ضَمِر فَاعِل good word) and the objective pronoun (i.e.'it' ) to: کلم طیّب ( good deed). Thus, the meaning of the sentence become totally different from that of the earlier, that is, 'good word' which is the dhikr of Allah, makes 'good deed' ascend and makes it rise higher up, that is, makes it worthy of being accepted. The outcome would then be that a person who does good deeds, and along with it, also does his dhikr of Allah abundantly, then, this dhikr of Allah embellishes his deed and makes it acceptable.

The sense of the verse: وَمَا يُعَمَّرُ‌ مِن مُّعَمَّرٍ‌ وَلَا يُنقَصُ مِنْ عُمُرِ‌هِ إِلَّا فِي كِتَابٍ (And no aged person is made to advance in age, nor a part is curtailed from his age, but all this is (recorded) in a book - 35:11), according to the majority of the commentators is that if Allah Ta’ ala blesses a person with a long age, it is a fact already on record in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfuz). Similarly, when the age of a certain person is kept at a lower mark in terms of the number of years, that too already stands recorded in al-lawh al-mahfuz. The outcome of it all is that the text, at this place, is not referring to one individual person's age being long or short, instead, the statement relates to humankind as a whole, in the sense that some individuals from it are given long ages and others, a comparatively shorter ones. The explanation has been reported by Ibn Kathir from Sayyidna ` Abdullah Ibn ` Abbas ؓ . Abu Bakr al-Jassas (رح) reports the same saying from Hasan al-Basri and Dahhak رحمۃ اللہ علیہما . Therefore, in general books of Tafsir, such as, Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir, Rah ul-Ma’ ani and others, this very explanation has been declared as the view of the majority of commentators. However, some early commentators have said: Should the length of age concerns one single person, then, decrease in age would mean that the age of every person as already written by Allah Ta’ ala is certain, and every day that passes decreases one day from this pre-fixed age. If two days pass, two days decrease. In the same way, every day, in fact, every single breath keeps decreasing one's age. This Tafsir or explanation has been reported from Sha'bi, Ibn Jubayr, Abu Malik, Ibn ` Atiyyah and Suddiyy. (Ruh ul Ma’ ani)

This subject has been succinctly expressed in an Arabic couplet as:

حِیَاتُک اَنفَاسُ تُعَدُّ فَکُلَّمَا مَضٰی نَفَسُ مِّنھَا انتقَصَتُ بِہٖ جُزء،

Your life is (the name of) counted breaths. So, whenever passes away a breath from it, a part of it decreases.

In his explanation of this verse, Imam an-Nasa` i (رح) has reported from Sayyidna Anas Ibn Malik ؓ that he heard the Holy Prophet ﷺ saying,” مَن سَرَّہ، اَن یُبسَطَ لَہ، فِی رِزقِہٖ وَ یُنسَأ فِی اَثَرہٖ فَلیَصِلَ رَحمَۃ،”. This Hadith has also been reported by al-Bukhari, Muslim and Abu Dawud on the authority of a narration from Yunus Ibn Yazid Ayli. The Hadith means: 'He who wishes that his sustenance and age is increased should treat his close relatives well (Silatu-r-rahim).' This obviously suggests that these deeds increase one's age. But, another Hadith given below has itself clarified its sense:

Ibn Abi Hatim (رح) reports from Sayyidna Abu-d-Darda' ؓ . He says, 'when we mentioned this (subject) before the Holy Prophet ﷺ ، he said, " (Age as such is already fixed and determined by Allah), when the fixed term is over, no one is given the least respite. In fact, increase in age means (in the Hadith cited above) that Allah Ta` a1a blesses one with good children who keep praying for him. This person is not there anymore, but he keeps receiving their prayers in his grave (that is, he keeps on receiving the benefits one would have received if one were alive. Thus, in a way, his age has increased" ). (Both narrations appearing above have been reported by Ibn Kathir). In short, Ahadith that say that some deeds cause age to increase mean increase in the barakah or bliss of age.