Surah At-Taghabun 64:1-10 - Quran Translation Commentary

(64:4) He knows whatever is in the heavens and the earth and knows what you conceal and what you publish; and Allah is knowing of what is in the breasts.⁴

(64:5) Has there not come to you the tidings of those of old who disbelieved, they tasted the grievousness of their conduct, and yet there awaits them a painful chastisement?

(64:6) That because there would come to them their Messengers with clear signs, but they would say, ‘Will human beings guide us?’⁵ So they disbelieved, and turned away; and Allah was in no need of them; Allah is All-sufficient, All-laudable.

(64:7) The unbelievers claim that they will never be raised up. Say, ‘Yes indeed, by my Lord, you shall certainly be raised up and then shall be informed of what you did; and that is easy for Allah.’

(64:8) Believe then, in Allah and His Messenger, and in the Light that We have sent down;⁶ and Allah is Aware of what you do.

(64:9) The day he will gather you together: on the day of gathering, that will be a day of mutual loss.⁷ But he who believed in Allah and did righteous deeds, He will remove from him his evil deeds and admit him into gardens underneath which rivers flow, abiding therein forever;⁸ that is the supreme triumph.

(64:10) As for those who disbelieved and laid the lie against Our signs, they are the companions of the Fire, abiding therein - an evil destination.

Commentary

2. Following the commentary of Ibn `Abbas that the allusion is to the creation of some people as believers while others as unbelievers, Qurtubi quotes the well-known ahadith of Qadr and then offers the opinion of a group of scholars who explained the verse with a “yet” as in the rendering above. He then quotes the hadith which says that every newborn takes birth on fitrah. It is its parents who Christianize him, Judaize him, or Zoroastrize him and then quotes the opinion of Zajjaj, who spoke for the great majority of scholars when he said:

“Indeed Allah created the Unbeliever, while his disbelief is his own earning and his own doing, not forgetting that disbelief itself is a creation of Allah. Similarly He created the Believer, while his faith is his own earning and his own doing, not forgetting that faith is a creation of Allah. The Unbeliever disbelieves, and chooses disbelief after Allah has created him because Allah has so determined for him and has known about him. It is not possible for either of the two to be found existing but in the state which was determined for him and known about him. For, existence of anything other than that which has been determined is a weakness, and existence of anything other than that which has been known is ignorance, which both do not befit Allah.”

And a Bedouin said, when asked about Qadr,

“It is an affair over which guessworks worked exaggerations, in which the differing ones differed. The obligation on us is to return that commandment of Allah which we are unable to resolve, to that knowledge of Allah which has preceded.”

Yusuf Ali handles the difficulty quite adeptly: “It is not that He does not see Rebellion and Evil, nor that He cannot punish them. He created all things pure and good, and if evil crept in by the grant of a limited free-will by Him, it is not unforeseen: it is in His wise and universal Plan, for giving man a chance of rising higher and ever higher.”

3. How do we know that the form and shape given by Allah is, objectively, a good one? The answer is, says Zamakhshari, humans do not want their shapes to be altered. However, variations within a given form, to one or the other extreme, making one attractive while another not, does not mean absence of beauty in the form and shape generally, in one and all.

With regard to alteration, if we were to ask a man whether he would like his nose to be shifted to his forehead, or eyes placed on the sides, so that he can have a fish’s eye-view, or that his arms should be one foot longer to increase his outreach, he will say, “Thank you. Not me.” And, although there have been millions of artists in the world, none has ever been able to create on paper a form and shape more beautiful than that of Man (Au.).

4. One may note: Allah warned of His knowledge of all that there is in the heavens and the earth, then He warned of His knowledge of what the people say out loudly or secretly, and, finally, He warned of His knowledge of what is hidden in the hearts. Thus, His knowledge covers all and everything (Razi).

Yusuf Ali comments: “Not only does He create and develop and sustain all things; but all thoughts, motives, feelings, ideas, and events are known to Him. Therefore, we must not imagine that, if some evil seems to go unpunished, it is not known to Him or has escaped His notice. His Plan is wise and good in its fullest compass: sometimes we do not see its wisdom and goodness because we see only a broken fragment of it, as our own intelligence is narrow.”

5. Zamakhshari has a pointed remark here, but is it pointed enough for the idol-worshippers?:

“They refused that a Messenger should be a human, but would not refuse that God should be a stone.”

6. That is, the Qur’an.

7. Mutual loss: It has been said that Yawm al-taghabun is one of the names of the Day of Judgment.

This refers to the gain of one thing at the loss of another on that Day. The fortunate ones will see themselves escaping the places of the wretched ones that they would have inherited, had they been wretched ones; and the wretched ones will see the places of the fortunate ones escape them that they would have inherited, had they been the fortunate ones. Thus, it will be a mutual loss. There are ahadith to this effect (Zamakhshari).

Perhaps in plain terms, since everyone will lose something or the other of his good deeds to others, as penalty for wrongs done, it will be a day of mutual loss for all - since, anything they lose, of the good deeds, will be a loss. So, every human will bewail the loss of good deeds (Au.).

8. At the most basic level, to expect to be rewarded is unreasonable. A father offers money to his son to go and buy a shirt for himself. Having purchased it, the son cannot ask for a reward. The shirt is his reward (Au.).