Tafsir of As-Sajdah 32:14

The fa in His saying (Exalted is He): "So taste" (fa-dhūqū) is for ordering the command to taste based on what is implied by the preceding text regarding the negation of a return to the worldly life, or based on His saying: "But the word from Me will come into effect," and so on. Perhaps the latter is more quickly understood. Some have considered it to be occurring in the answer to an implied conditional clause—that is, "If you despair of returning," or "If the word has come into effect, then taste." It is also permissible to consider it explanatory (tafṣīliyyah). The imperative is for the purpose of threatening and rebuking.

The bā' in His saying (Glorified is He): "because of your forgetting the meeting of this Day of yours" (bi-mā nasītum liqā'a yawmikum hādhā) is for causation (sababiyyah), and "mā" is for turning the verb into an infinitive (maṣdariyyah). "This" (hādhā) is an adjective for "Day," brought forth to emphasize its terror. It is also permissible to consider it the object of "taste," referring to the state they are in of hanging their heads, ignominy, and distress. According to the first interpretation, the object of "taste" is omitted. The adjectival interpretation is more apparent: that is, "Taste, because of your forgetting the meeting of this terrifying Day, and your total abandonment of reflecting upon it and preparing for it." This is an explicit statement regarding the cause of the torment from their side, so it does not contradict it having another cause, whether real or otherwise. The rebuke through this specific cause, among others, is due to its obviousness and the fact that it issued from them, which they cannot deny.

What is meant by their "forgetting" is their abandonment of reflecting upon it and preparing for it, as we have indicated. In this sense, it is voluntary, for which one is rebuked. It is hardly correct to intend the literal meaning of forgetting, even if the rebuke for it were sound based on the intentionality of its cause—namely, immersion in following desires. Similar to this in its metaphorical nature is the forgetting in His saying: "We have forgotten you"—that is, We have abandoned you in the torment just as one abandons the forgotten entirely.

Some have considered this a case of stylistic matching (mushākalat), and did not consider the metaphorical nature of the first instance as a barrier to it. It has been said that the proof for intending mushākalat here is that the intent was to recompense them with something of the same nature as their deed; thus, it is along the lines of, "And the recompense of a bad deed is a bad deed the like thereof."

His saying (Exalted is He): "And taste the torment of eternity for what you used to do" is a repetition for emphasis and intensification, to define the object of "tasting" which was previously indefinite, and to indicate that its cause is not merely what was mentioned of "forgetting," but that there are other causes from the varieties of disbelief and disobedience which they persisted in while in the world. Since there is an addition in this to the first, its difference from it is established, thus deserving the conjunction (wa). The entirety was not organized into a single thread to alert to the independence of each—both the "forgetting" and what was mentioned later—in necessitating the torment. In the vagueness of the tasted object at first, followed by its clarification through the repetition of the command and the insertion of a new clause that signals complete wrath between them, there lies a demonstration of the extreme severity of vengeance against them that is not hidden.