ﱁ ﱂ ﱃ ﱄ ﱅ ﱆ ﱇ ﱈ ﱉ ﱊ ﱋ ﱌ ﱍ ﱎ ﱏ ﱐ ﱑ ﱒ ﱓ ﱔ ﱕ ﱖ
Inclining [only] to Allah, not associating [anything] with Him. And he who associates with Allah - it is as though he had fallen from the sky and was snatched by the birds or the wind carried him down into a remote place.
Tafsir
Verse range: 22:31
This is an initial sentence (jumla mubtada’a) emphasizing the avoidance of association mentioned previously. The Glorious Name is mentioned to manifest the utter ugliness of shirk (association). Faith is likened to the sky due to its loftiness, and shirk to falling from it; thus, the polytheist falls from the heights of faith to the depths of disbelief. This fall, if it pertains to an apostate, is evident. Regarding others, it is considered in terms of their primordial nature (fiṭra), treating the potential and capability as if it were an act, as is said concerning His saying: "And those who disbelieved—their allies are Ṭāghūt. They take them out of the light into the darkness."
Nāfi‘ read fatakhṭafuhu with a fatḥa on the kha’ and a shadda on the ṭā’. Al-Ḥasan, Abū Rajā’, and al-A‘mash read fatakhṭafuhu with a kasra on the tā’, a fatḥa on the kha’, and a shadda on the ṭā’. From al-Ḥasan, it is the same, except he read it with a fatḥa on the ṭā’ (while maintaining the shadda). Al-A‘mash also read takhṭafuhu without the fā’, with a quiescent kha’ and a fatḥa on the ṭā’ (without shadda); in this reading, the sentence is in the position of a state (ḥāl). According to the first readings, the fā’ is for conjunction, and what follows is conjoined to kharra (fell). The choice of the imperfect tense (muḍāri‘) conveys the presence of that strange state in the spectator’s vision, intended to fill him with wonder. Abū al-Baqā’ permitted that the speech could imply fahuwa yakhtaṭifuhu (so it snatches him), making the sentence conjoined to the previous sentence.
The similitude in the verse is distributed. It appears that tahwī is conjoined to takhtaṭif with the waw indicating division, meaning: his destruction is either by a precipice that scatters him into the paths of loss, or by a devil who casts him into the wasteland of ruin. There is a distinction between the impulses of the self and Satan, so the objection of Ibn al-Munīr—that thoughts are the results of Satan’s whispers and that the verse was introduced to treat them as two distinct things—is refuted.
In the Tafsīr al-Qāḍī, it is suggested that it is for choice (takhyīr), meaning: you are given the choice between likening the polytheist to one who fell from the sky and was snatched by birds, or to one who fell from the sky and was cast by the wind into a distant place. Or, it is for categorization (tanwī‘), meaning the thing likened has two types: the first type, whose flesh is distributed in the bellies of predatory birds, is the polytheist who has no escape from shirk and no salvation at all; the second type, whom the wind cast into the depths, is the polytheist for whom salvation is hoped for, albeit remotely.
Ibn al-Munīr said: The disbeliever is of two types only: one who is wavering, persisting in shirk without commitment to a single error—this is likened to the one snatched by birds and distributed; no bird gets a piece of him without another snatching it away. Such is the state of the wavering one; no imagination appears to him but he follows it, abandoning what he was upon. The other is a polytheist committed to a false creed—if he were sawn with saws, he would not turn back; there is no way to make him doubt, and no hope of moving him from what he is upon, for he is joyful and boastful in his error. This one is likened, in his stability upon disbelief, to the one who was cast by the wind into a low valley, the farthest of all places from the sky, where he settled.
It is not hidden that what we have mentioned is more in accordance with the apparent meaning. Many others have permitted that this belongs to the compound similitudes (al-tashbīhāt al-murakkaba); as if He, the Exalted, said: Whoever associates with Allah has destroyed himself with a destruction beyond which there is no other, by depicting his state in the form of one who fell from the sky and was snatched by birds, so he was torn into pieces in their crops, or was buffeted by the wind until it cast him into distant places. It is stated in al-Kashshāf that this is for choice, but it is not definitive, as it appears. On both perspectives, the distribution and compounding of the similitude in the verse result in two similitudes. Al-Ṭībī mentioned that on the compounding view, there are two similitudes, and tahwī is conjoined to kharra; and on the distributive view, there is one similitude, and tahwī is conjoined to takhtaṭif. He claimed that the wording of al-Kashshāf implies this, but this is not accepted.
