ﲻ ﲼ ﲽ ﲾ ﲿ ﳀ ﳁ ﳂ ﳃ ﳄ ﳅ ﳆ ﳇ ﳈ ﳉ ﳊ ﳋ ﳌ ﳍ ﳎ ﳏ ﳐ ﳑ ﳒ ﳓ ﳔ ﳕ ﳖ ﳗ ﳘ ﳙ ﳚ ﳛ ﳜ ﳝ ﳞ ﳟ ﳠ ﳡ ﳢ
And who is more unjust than one who invents about Allah a lie or denies His verses? Those will attain their portion of the decree until when Our messengers come to them to take them in death, they will say, "Where are those you used to invoke besides Allah?" They will say, "They have departed from us," and will bear witness against themselves that they were disbelievers.
Tafsir
Verse range: 7:37
"Who is more unjust than he who invents a lie against Allah" — meaning, he who deliberately fabricates falsehood against Him, Glorified be He, and attributes to Him that which He did not say.
"Or denies His verses" — or denies that which His Majesty has spoken. The interrogation is for the purpose of negation (denial), and the verification of this has already passed.
"Those" — this is a reference to the aforementioned relative pronoun. The plural form is used in consideration of the meaning, just as the singular form in the hidden pronouns within the two verbs is in consideration of the wording. The distance indicated by the demonstrative (the "that" in "those") serves to signal their persistence in an evil state. That is, those described by what was mentioned regarding fabrication and denial:
"Will attain them" — meaning, will reach them.
"Their portion from the Book" — meaning, that which has been written for them and decreed regarding their provisions and their lifespans, despite their injustice and their fabrication. They are not deprived of what was decreed for them of these things until their appointed time ends. Thus, "the Book" (al-kitāb) is in the sense of "the written" (al-maktūb). Its specification to what was mentioned is narrated from a group of exegetes. It is reported from Ibn Abbas that the intent is what was decreed for them of good or evil; something similar is reported from Mujahid. From Abu Salih, it is reported to mean what was decreed of punishment, and the same from al-Hasan. Some have interpreted "the Book" as that which is written within it, which is the Preserved Tablet (al-Lawh al-Mahfūz). The preposition "from" (min) denotes the beginning of the reach (origin), though it has been permitted that it denotes clarification or partitivity. The prepositional phrase is connected to a suppressed predicate serving as a state (hāl) for their "portion," meaning: "existing from the Book."
"Until, when Our messengers come to them" — meaning the Angel of Death and his assistants.
"To take them in death" — meaning, while they are taking their souls. "Until" (hattā) is the limit of their attainment, and it is a particle of initiation, not a preposition, but rather entering upon the sentences, as in His saying. There is no contradiction between what is in this verse and the saying of the Exalted: "By Allah, our Lord, we were not idolaters," because the groups are different, the stations are numerous, or the circumstances are varied.
