Tafsir of Hud 11:15

(Whoever desires)—that is, by their outwardly righteous deeds—(the life of the world)

(and its adornment)—that is, what beautifies and embellishes it, such as health, security, an abundance of wealth, children, leadership, and the like. The inclusion of the word kāna (was/has been) denotes continuity; meaning, whoever desires this to the extent that they hardly desire the Hereafter at all.

(We will repay them for their deeds therein in full)—that is, We shall cause the rewards of their deeds to reach them in the world, complete and whole. The statement implies the omission of a genitive (i.e., rewards of their deeds). It is said that "deeds" is used metaphorically for "rewards," a view alluded to by the Sheikh al-Islam, though the former is preferable. Nuwaffi (We repay) encompasses the meaning of "We cause to reach," which is why it is followed by the preposition ilā (to); otherwise, the verb is transitive by itself. It is also said that it is a metaphor for that.

Talhah ibn Maymun read yūffa with a ya (prefix), attributing the action to Allah the Exalted. Zayd ibn Ali (may Allah be pleased with them both) read yūffi with a ya, in the light form, as the present tense of awfā. Another reading is tuwaffa with a ta (prefix), in the passive voice, with a‘māluhum (their deeds) being in the nominative case. In all these, the verb is jussive as it is the apodosis (response) of the conditional clause, just as it is made jussive in His saying, the Exalted: "Whoever desires the harvest of the Hereafter, We shall increase for him in his harvest."

Al-Farra’ narrated that kāna is redundant, and that is why the response is jussive. Abu Hayyan countered this by stating that if it were redundant, the conditional verb yurīd (desires) would also have been jussive. It has been answered that he may have intended by its "redundancy" that it is not essential to the meaning. Al-Hasan read nuwaffi with a light ending and an explicit ya. This is either according to the dialect of those who make the defective verb jussive by deleting the implied vowel—as in the line: "Did not the news reach me, and the stories grow?"—or according to what has been heard in the speech of the Arabs when the conditional clause is in the past tense without the response being jussive. Or, it may be because since the particle did not affect the near conditional clause, it became too weak to affect the wording of the distant response, so it affected its position. It is reported from Abd al-Qahir that it does not affect it at all due to its weakness.

The well-known views among the grammarians are two: that the response is considered as if it were placed at the beginning, or that it is based on the assumption of an implicit fa (particle) and a subject. It is possible to reduce both of these to the same concept. This is not specific to cases where the conditional is kāna, according to the correct view, as it occurs frequently elsewhere; an example is: "And if a friend comes to him on a day of famine, he says: 'No wealth is absent, nor is anything forbidden'."

(And they therein)—that is, they shall not be wronged. The apparent meaning is that the pronoun refers back to the "life of the world." It is also said—and this is more apparent—that it refers to the "deeds," so that it is not a repetition without benefit. This was refuted by saying that its benefit is to clarify from the outset that the lack of injustice is only in the world; had it not been mentioned, it might have been imagined to be absolute. Moreover, it is not impermissible for it to be for emphasis, as there is no harm in that.

He expressed this as bakhs (wronging/diminishing), which is the deprivation of a right. For this reason, al-Raghib said: It is the diminishing of a thing by way of injustice, even though they have no trace of a right to what they were given. Just as he expressed the giving of it as tawfiyah (paying in full), which is the granting of rights, even though their deeds are far from being deserving of that—as some researchers have stated—this is based on the appearance of the situation, the preservation of the forms of the deeds, and an exaggeration in negating any deficiency, as if such a deficiency were a slight against their rights, so it does not fall under what occurs and emanates from the Generous One at all. However, it should be known that this is not absolute; rather, the matter revolves around the Will that proceeds according to the dictates of Wisdom, as expressed by His saying, the Exalted: "Whoever desires the immediate—We hasten for him therein what We will to whom We intend."

Al-Nahhas reported in his Nasikh (Abrogating and Abrogated) from Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them) that this verse has abrogated the verse we are currently discussing. You know that there is no abrogation in reports; perhaps, if this is authentic, it is to be understood as being said loosely.