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Reading Tafsir al-Kashani by 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashani
Ayahs 111–120 of 123
وَإِنَّ كُلًّۭا لَّمَّا لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ رَبُّكَ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌۭ
And indeed, each [of the believers and disbelievers] - your Lord will fully compensate them for their deeds. Indeed, He is Acquainted with what they do.
Explained together with ayah 108
فَٱسْتَقِمْ كَمَآ أُمِرْتَ وَمَن تَابَ مَعَكَ وَلَا تَطْغَوْا۟ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌۭ
So remain on a right course as you have been commanded, [you] and those who have turned back with you [to Allah], and do not transgress. Indeed, He is Seeing of what you do.
So remain upright as you have been commanded, by fulfilling the dues of God through God. For he, blessings and peace be upon him, was commanded to safeguard God's dues and to magnify His command and to direct His creatures by enforcing the judgements of the self-disclosures of the [divine] attributes after his return to creatures together with his presential vision of the [inclusive] unity of the Essence in such a way that he does not move, be still, speak or reflect except through Him, without the manifestation of any variegation from the remnants of his attributes or essence and [such] that no incoming thought occurs to him from without Him without violating one of the conditions of [his] magnification [of God], as he himself said: 'Should I not then be a grateful servantḍ', when, after his feet became swollen from [standing in lengthy] night vigils, he was asked, 'Did not God [already] give you the good tidings with His words that God may forgive you what is past of your sin and what is to come [Q. 48:2]ḍ'; and without [violating] any substation (daqīqa) pertaining to the forbidding of indecency and the enjoining of decency and to [his prophetic] warning and call, which is an incredibly difficult thing. That is why he [the Prophet] said, 'Sūrat Hūd has made my hair turn grey'. It is reported that when the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, saw a certain knower in his dream who asked him about that saying: 'Why, O Messenger of Godḍ Is it because of the stories of the prophets [mentioned therein] and the chastisement that befell their denying communities and the hardship they [the prophets] had to endure because of their communitiesḍ', to which he [the Prophet] said, 'No! It is because of His words So remain upright as you have been commanded'; and he who repents, from his ego and the sin of his existence, with you, from among the affirmers of Oneness who have arrived at the presential vision of the multiplicity at the source of [the inclusive] unity and the station of subsistence after annihilation. And do not transgress, by veiling yourselves with the veil of I-ness and ascribing the non-delimited divine perfections to your individuated I-ness which are confined to seeing [only] you and which necessarily result in veiledness by virtue of being confined to [something] other than non-delimitation. For the Divine ipseity cannot be confined by haecceity (hādhiyya) or I-ness (anāÌiyya). Truly He sees what you do, [and] whether you do it through Me or through your souls.
وَلَا تَرْكَنُوٓا۟ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا۟ فَتَمَسَّكُمُ ٱلنَّارُ وَمَا لَكُم مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ مِنْ أَوْلِيَآءَ ثُمَّ لَا تُنصَرُونَ
And do not incline toward those who do wrong, lest you be touched by the Fire, and you would not have other than Allah any protectors; then you would not be helped.
And do not incline toward the evildoers, that is, [those] who are guilty of associating [God] with a latent vain desire produced by the existence of some elusive remnant or some subtle shift towards the affirmation of another [besides God], for that is indeed the swerving that is comparable to [evil] transgression [alluded to] in His saying: The eye did not swerve, nor did it transgress [its bounds] [Q. 53:17]; lest the Fire, of [divine] wrath and privation, touch you, by way of [your] becoming veiled and chastisement by [your] separation, of the fires of the Beloved's jealousy, as in where He said to His beloved [Muḥammad]: 'Give good tidings to sinners that I am the Forgiver and warn the truthful that I am the Jealous One'; it is because of this idea that he [the Prophet] said that the sincere are in tremendous danger. For the substations (daqāÌiq) of the sins of their states are too fine to be perceived by the intellect and their punishment too severe to be estimated by illusion; and you will have, then, besides God, no protectors, to guard you from His punishment, govern your affairs or nurture you, and then you will not be helped, against His might: this is a threat for His friends. How [much worse] then [would it be] for His enemiesḍ
وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ طَرَفَىِ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَزُلَفًۭا مِّنَ ٱلَّيْلِ ۚ إِنَّ ٱلْحَسَنَٰتِ يُذْهِبْنَ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ ذِكْرَىٰ لِلذَّٰكِرِينَ
And establish prayer at the two ends of the day and at the approach of the night. Indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds. That is a reminder for those who remember.
And establish prayer at the two ends of the day: since the five senses are sources of distraction that distract the heart with corporeal configurations that rush in on it and attract it away from the Presence of the Compassionate One, veiling it from the light and from being present by turning [it] away from the Holy Side and orienting [it] to the substance of abomination, substituting its intimacy with loneliness and purity with sulliedness, five prayers were prescribed in which the servant can devote himself without distraction to being present and close the doors of the senses, lest there should rush in on the heart any distraction, and [in which] the door of the heart is opened up to God, exalted be He, by orienting [to Him] and by means of the intention for [the reception of] the arrival of the reinforcement of light, and [in which] that person can gather his scattered thoughts and enjoy the intimacy of his Lord away from loneliness alongside a united orientation and an actualised concentration. Thus these prayers come to constitute five doors for the heart that open out to the Side of the Lord through which light enters onto him - in contrast to the five that open up to the side of Deluder and the abode of the Accursed Deluder through which darkness enters - so that the incoming light might dissipate the vestiges of its darknesses and sweep away the dust of its sulliedness. That is the meaning of His words: Indeed good deeds annul misdeeds. It is also related in ḥadīth that [the period] from one prayer to the next expunges what [sins] are between them, so long as the grave sins are avoided. He has commanded that it be observed at the two ends of the day so that its provisions, for the subsisting of concentration and the mastery of the luminous configuration, might be extended from the first [end] to [include] all the times [of the day], so that maybe that person might be of those who regularly observe their prayers [cf. Q. 70:23] by the regular occurrence of that presence and the subsistence of that light, and that perhaps he might sweep away and remove at the end [of the day] the separation and the sulliedness that were actualised in all of the other moments.
وَٱصْبِرْ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ
And be patient, for indeed, Allah does not allow to be lost the reward of those who do good.
And be patient, through God as you [endeavour to] remain upright and with God through being present during prayers and not relying on the other; for indeed God does not waste the wage of those who are virtuous, those who witness Him while they fulfill the dues of uprightness, maintain justice and satisfy the preconditions for the magnification [of God] in acts of worship.
فَلَوْلَا كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْقُرُونِ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ أُو۟لُوا۟ بَقِيَّةٍۢ يَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْفَسَادِ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًۭا مِّمَّنْ أَنجَيْنَا مِنْهُمْ ۗ وَٱتَّبَعَ ٱلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا۟ مَآ أُتْرِفُوا۟ فِيهِ وَكَانُوا۟ مُجْرِمِينَ
So why were there not among the generations before you those of enduring discrimination forbidding corruption on earth - except a few of those We saved from among them? But those who wronged pursued what luxury they were given therein, and they were criminals.
Explained together with ayah 115
وَمَا كَانَ رَبُّكَ لِيُهْلِكَ ٱلْقُرَىٰ بِظُلْمٍۢ وَأَهْلُهَا مُصْلِحُونَ
And your Lord would not have destroyed the cities unjustly while their people were reformers.
Explained together with ayah 115
وَلَوْ شَآءَ رَبُّكَ لَجَعَلَ ٱلنَّاسَ أُمَّةًۭ وَٰحِدَةًۭ ۖ وَلَا يَزَالُونَ مُخْتَلِفِينَ
And if your Lord had willed, He could have made mankind one community; but they will not cease to differ.
Had your Lord willed, He would have made mankind one community, of equal [levels of] preparedness and in accord on the religion of Oneness and the requirements of primordial nature; but they continue to differ, in orientation and preparedness,
إِلَّا مَن رَّحِمَ رَبُّكَ ۚ وَلِذَٰلِكَ خَلَقَهُمْ ۗ وَتَمَّتْ كَلِمَةُ رَبِّكَ لَأَمْلَأَنَّ جَهَنَّمَ مِنَ ٱلْجِنَّةِ وَٱلنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ
Except whom your Lord has given mercy, and for that He created them. But the word of your Lord is to be fulfilled that, "I will surely fill Hell with jinn and men all together."
except those on whom your Lord has mercy, by guiding them to the affirmation of Oneness and granting them success for perfection: these are in agreement with regard to beliefs and goals and in harmony with regard to their conduct and their [spiritual] path, their prayer-direction being the Truth and their religion, the affirmation of [His] Oneness and love; and for that, difference, He created them, so that each one of them might prepare for some task and some activity and select by his nature a pursuit and a vocation, and that the arrangement of the world might thereby become ordered and that the means to livelihood might be established. They [mankind] are thus bearers of the command of God, made to bear the baggage of causes and provisions, and that by which mankind can sustain themselves. By them He has regulated the proper order of the life of this world. The group who are the recipients of mercy are loci for the manifestation of His perfection, by whom He manifests His attributes and His acts, making them a repository for His wisdoms, His gnoses and His mysteries. And the Word of your Lord has been fulfilled, that is to say, It has been consolidated, concluded and confirmed, and It is the following: 'I will surely fill Hell with jinn and mankind together', because Hell is one of the levels of existence and, from the point of view of [divine] wisdom, cannot be suspended and concealed indefinitely in non-existence while it is a possibility.
وَكُلًّۭا نَّقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ مِنْ أَنۢبَآءِ ٱلرُّسُلِ مَا نُثَبِّتُ بِهِۦ فُؤَادَكَ ۚ وَجَآءَكَ فِى هَٰذِهِ ٱلْحَقُّ وَمَوْعِظَةٌۭ وَذِكْرَىٰ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
And each [story] We relate to you from the news of the messengers is that by which We make firm your heart. And there has come to you, in this, the truth and an instruction and a reminder for the believers.
And all that We relate to you of the accounts of the messengers, that with which We might strengthen your heart: since We have apprised you of how they suffered hardships at the hands of their communities but remained firm at the station of uprightness without slipping therefrom, and [apprised you] of how We reprimanded them for their variegations and for the manifestation of some remnant of theirs, as in the story of Noah when he asks for the deliverance of his son; and [apprised you] of the strength of their steadfastness and courage in their certainty and trust [in God], as in the story of Hūd where he says: Lo! I call God to bear witness and you, bear witness also, that I am innocent of what you associate [Q. 11:54] to where he says [Surely my Lord is] on a straight path [Q. 11:56]; and [apprised you] of the perfectedness of their generosity and virtue in the face of insolence, as in the story of Lot where the daughters are offered up in exchange for the safeguarding of guests from evil, [since We have apprised you of all of that], your heart has been made firm by all of that and your uprightness has been stabilised and your fixity has been strengthened by the dissipation of the vestiges of variegations from you, and your trust, your satisfaction, your certainty and your courage have been fortified and your character and your generosity have been perfected. And in this, sūra, there has come to you the truth, that is, that by which the convictions of the believers are verified, and an admonition, for them with which they might guard against that for which He destroyed [former] communities, and a reminder, of what they should follow as [their] religion and adopt as their path and conduct. But God knows best.
Commentary: Tafsir al-Kashani by 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashani. Qur'an text and translation via AlQuran Cloud.
