ﲐ ﲑ ﲒ ﲓ ﲔ ﲕ ﲖ ﲗ ﲘ ﲙ ﲚ ﲛ ﲜ ﲝ ﲞ ﲟ ﲠ ﲡ ﲢ ﲣ ﲤ ﲥ
But those who believe and do righteous deeds - We will admit them to gardens beneath which rivers flow, wherein they abide forever. For them therein are purified spouses, and We will admit them to deepening shade.
Tafsir
Verse range: 4:57
(And those who believe and do righteous deeds). Following the explanation of the wretched state of the disbelievers, He provides the explanation of the excellent state of the believers, to complete the contrast between the misery and the joy. The state of the former was presented first because the discourse concerned them. The "those who" (al-mawsul) refers either to those who believe in our Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), or it is general, encompassing them and all others who believed from the nations of the prophets (peace be upon them). That is: those who believe in what must be believed and perform good deeds, We will cause them to enter gardens beneath which rivers flow.
(Abdullah recited sayudkhiluhum [We will cause them to enter] with the ya [third person], and the pronoun refers to the Majestic Name of Allah; the sin [s] provides emphasis for the promise. There is a clear significance in its choice here versus the choice of sawfa [will] in the verse regarding the disbelievers.)
Abiding therein forever, as an exaltation of the favor. This is a state (hal) determined from the accusative pronoun in "We will cause them to enter." And His saying, the Almighty: "And they will have therein purified spouses"—meaning purified from menstruation, postpartum bleeding, and all other defects, impurities, vile morals, and foul temperaments. They do not do anything that would disturb their spouses, nor is there anything in them that would cause aversion. This phrase is in the accusative position as a state from "gardens," or as a second state from the accusative pronoun, or as an adjective for "gardens" after another adjective, or in the nominative position as a predicate for the "those who" after another predicate.
And the intention is many spouses, as indicated by the narrations. "And We will cause them to enter a shady shade" (57)—meaning a shade that has no heat, a permanent shade that the sun does not replace, and a moderate temperature that has neither heat nor cold. May Allah the Almighty make us enter into it by His mercy; He is the Most Merciful of the merciful. The intention behind this is either its literal meaning—and the absence of the sun does not prevent that—or it is an indication of the complete, everlasting bliss. Zalil (shady) is an adjective derived from the word zill (shade) for emphasis, as is their habit in phrases like yawm ayyam (a long day) and layl alayl (a long night). Imam al-Marzuqi said: "It is merely a word following that from which it is derived, and it has no conventional meaning; rather, it is like basan in your saying hasan basan (very good)." It has been recited as yudkhiluhum (He will cause them to enter) with the ya, as a conjunction to sayudkhiluhum, not implying that this is a different entrance in essence, but rather in categorization, as in His saying, the Almighty: "And when Our command came, We saved Hud and those who believed with him by mercy from Us, and We saved them from a harsh punishment."
"O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying." This is an address to those of "scholarly faith" (al-iman al-ilmi), forbidding them from communing with their Lord or approaching the station of presence and private discourse with Allah, the Glorified and Exalted, while they are intoxicated with the wine of desire and love for the world, or the slumber of heedlessness, until they are sober and do not occupy themselves with anything other than their Master. The intention is the prohibition of occupying the heart with anything other than the Lord.
It is also said: It is an address to the people of love and passion who have been intoxicated by the drink of Layla and the wine of Mayya, such that they remain bewildered and stunned, unable to distinguish the living from the dead, unaware of times, and unable to fulfill the conditions of prayer. It is as if it were said to them: "O you who know Me and My attributes and My Names, you who are intoxicated by the wine of My love, the Salsabil of My companionship, the Tasnim of My antiquity, the ginger of My nearness, the wine of My passion, and the pure drink of My witnessing: when I reveal My beauty to you and grant you intimacy in the station of My Lordship, do not burden your souls with the performance of outward rites, for you are in the gardens of My witnessing, and there is no constraint in the gardens. And when you settle from your intoxication and become sober through the grace of firmness (tamkin), then perform what I have obligated upon you: 'And stand for Allah, devoutly obedient.'"
The essence of this is the lifting of obligation from those who are majdhub (attracted to God), drowned in the oceans of witnessing, until they regain their senses and become sober. On this interpretation, "faith" is understood as "the faith of direct vision" (al-iman al-ayni). However, the first meaning is more appropriate for allusion.
"Nor in a state of janaba"—meaning: do not approach the prayer while you are distant from the Truth due to intense inclination toward the self and its pleasures—"except as travelers passing through," meaning those who traverse one of the paths of its enjoyments only to the extent of necessity, such as crossing a road to obtain food and drink to sustain life, or to acquire clothing to repel the necessity of heat and cold and to cover the private parts, or to have intercourse to preserve offspring. "Until you have washed" and purified yourselves with the waters of repentance, seeking forgiveness, and sincere disavowal and apology.
"And if you are ill"—with the diseases of base qualities—"or on a journey"—in the wilderness of ignorance and bewilderment in pursuit of desires—"or one of you comes from the place of relieving himself"—meaning: preoccupation with the pollution of wealth, stained by the love of it—"or you have touched women"—meaning: you have kept company with the souls and consorted with them in fulfilling their desires—"and you find no water"—knowledge that guides you to be rid of that—"then seek clean earth"—meaning: seek the soil of your preparedness, or return to the guides who are masters of preparedness—"and wipe your faces and your hands"—meaning: wipe your inner selves and your attributes with the light that ascends from their preparedness, adopt their morals, and tread their paths until those destructive states are erased from you and your souls remain pure. "Indeed, Allah is ever Pardoning"—He pardons what emanates from you according to those states—"Forgiving"—He covers the ugliness with beauty.
"Have you not seen those who were given a portion of the Book?"—a part—"who recognize the Truth, yet are veiled by the sight of creation"—"buying error"—and abandoning true oneness—"and they wish"—along with that—"that you would lose the way"—the true way, which is pure Oneness and the non-seeing of others—so that you become like them. "And Allah is most knowing" of your enemies. He meant by them those described by what was mentioned, and the cause of their enmity toward them is the difference in the manifest names within them; that is why they wished for their disbelief. "And sufficient is Allah as an ally"—who manages your affairs by granting success toward the path of Oneness—"and sufficient is Allah as a helper"—who helps you against your enemies so they cannot harm you or turn you away from the Truth you are upon.
"Among those who are Jews"—who returned from the requirement of preparedness—the denial of all other than Him—to what their souls adorned for them, their thoughts concluded, their perspectives supported, and their formal knowledge called to—"they distort words from their meanings." It is possible that "words" refers to their manifest meanings; that is, they interpret everything that suggests Unity according to their desires, claiming it is impossible for anything else to be intended by Allah, not by intent, nor by consequence, not by expression, nor by allusion. It is also possible that it refers to these possible existents, for they are the words of Allah, the Almighty, in the sense of being indicators of Him, or "word" in the sense of the traces of the word—meaning the many "Be!" (Kun) in accordance with the multiplicity of the attachments of the Will.
The meaning of distorting them from their positions is turning them away from that in which Allah the Almighty placed them—namely, being manifestations of His names—so they establish for them an existence other than the existence of Allah. "And they say, 'We hear'"—what suggests Unity, or we hear what is said about these possible existents—"and we disobey"—so we will not say what you say, nor do we believe what you believe. "And they say" also, while addressing the Knower, mocking and ridiculing him, "Hear, may you not be made to hear"—meaning: may Allah not let you hear—"and 'Ra'ina'" (look at us), intending by it to accuse him of stupidity (ru'una), which is foolishness, twisting their tongues and attacking the religion that the Knower of his Lord is upon.
"O you who were given the Book"—meaning they understood the apparent therein but did not understand what it alluded to of the science of the inner self—"believe in what We have sent down"—upon the hearts of My saints of the divinely inspired knowledge—"confirming what is with you"—of the science of the outer, for every inner that contradicts the outer is false—"before We obliterate faces"—the faces of the hearts, with blindness—"and turn them toward their backs"—looking toward the world and its adornments, after they were, in their original nature, turned toward what was in the First Covenant—"or curse them as We cursed the violators of the Sabbath"—so We transform their spiritual forms just as We transformed the physical forms of the Jews. It is also possible that this is an address to those who were given the Book of Preparedness, commanding them to have true faith and threatening them with the removal of their preparedness, casting them into the lowest of the low, and distancing them through transformation.
"Indeed, Allah does not forgive associating others with Him"—except through repentance from it, due to the intensity of His jealousy; no one is more jealous than Allah—"but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills"—whether they have repented or not. They have mentioned that association (shirk) is of three levels, and for each level there is a repentance:
"And he who associates others with Allah"—whatever kind of shirk it may be from those levels—"has certainly fabricated"—and committed, according to his level—"a tremendous sin"—the magnitude of which cannot be measured.
"Have you not seen those who claim themselves to be pure?"—like the evil scholars among the people of the exterior who gained nothing from their knowledge but vanity, pride, envy, malice, and all other base qualities. "Rather, Allah purifies whom He wills"—such as those who know Him, who do not see any action for themselves. It is also possible that this is an expression of astonishment at those who purify themselves by themselves, following the paths of the people [of the Way] according to their own opinions, not relying on a mentor or a guide, or a trace of divine knowledge, like some philosophers among the people of ascetic exercises. "Look how they fabricate a lie about Allah"—by claiming their souls are pure from base qualities when they are not, or by attributing the attributes of Allah, the Almighty, to themselves while they possess them (only in semblance). "And sufficient is that as a manifest sin"—clear, with no obscurity in it.
"Have you not seen those who were given a portion of the Book"—the comprehensive—and it refers to the science of the exterior—"who believe in Jibt and Taghut?"—meaning the Jibt of the self and the Taghut of desire, so they incline toward their selves and their desires. "And they say about those who disbelieve"—meaning for the sake of those who covered the Truth—"These are better guided in way than those who believe"—with the true faith. "Those are the ones whom Allah has cursed"—meaning He has distanced them from His knowledge and His nearness—"and he whom Allah curses"—meaning distances from that—"you will never find for him a helper"—who guides him to the Truth.
"Or do they have a portion of the dominion? If so, they would not give the people even a speck"—a condemnation of their stinginess, which is the greatest stigma among the people of Allah. "Or do they envy the people for what Allah has given them of His bounty?"—of knowledge, their honor among His creation, and their guidance of those who seek it from them. "But We had already given the family of Abraham"—those who follow him on his path, the people of love and intimate friendship—"the Book"—the science of the exterior or that which combines it with the science of the interior—"and wisdom"—the science of the interior or the interior of the interior—"and We gave them a great kingdom"—which is the attainment of the Essence and not stopping at the trace.
"Indeed, those who disbelieve in Our verses"—meaning those who are veiled from the manifestations of Our attributes and actions, or those who deny Our saints who are the manifestations of the verses—"We will drive them into a fire"—a great one, which is the fire of subjugation and the veil, or the fire of envy. "Every time their skins are roasted"—and torn apart, meaning their commanding souls and the requirements of their desires—"We will replace them with other skins"—by the renewal of another kind of manifestation of subjugation, or by the renewal of other blessings that appear upon Our saints whom they envied and denied—"so they may taste the punishment"—as long as they are immersed in the mire of vices.
"Indeed, those who believe and do righteous deeds"—meaning the deeds through which they become fit to receive the manifestations—"We will cause them to enter gardens beneath which rivers flow"—of the water of wisdom, the milk of natural disposition, the wine of witnessing, and the honey of unveiling. "Abiding therein forever"—because of the permanence of their spirits upon which that which gives them repose is bestowed. "They will have therein spouses"—from the manifestations in which they take delight—"purified"—from the pollution of deficiency. "And We will cause them to enter a shady shade"—which is the shade of existence and the Divine attributes, and that is through the erasing of humanity from them. We ask Allah, the Almighty, for His bounty, for there is no bounty except His bounty.
