Al-An'am (The Cattle): Verse 137

Issues in the Verse

Issue 1: This verse addresses the second category of their corrupt rulings and false doctrines. The phrase "And thus" (وكذلك) is connected to the preceding statement: "And they assigned to Allah a portion of what He has created of crops and cattle" (6:136). The meaning is: Just as they did that (assigning shares to others), so too did their partners make it seem attractive (زين) to many of them to kill their own children. This juxtaposition highlights that their act of assigning shares to deities—the height of ignorance regarding the Creator and Benefactor—is paralleled by their act of killing their children—the height of ignorance and misguidance. This shows that their rulings and conditions resemble one another in their weakness and baseness.

Issue 2: The people of Jahiliyyah (ignorance) used to bury their daughters alive for fear of poverty or marriage. This is what the verse refers to.

There is a difference of opinion regarding the meaning of "their partners" (شركاؤهم):

1. Mujahid said: Their partners are their devils (شياطينهم), who commanded them to practice infanticide for fear of destitution. The devils are called partners because they obeyed them in disobeying Allah, and the partners are attributed to them as in the verse: "Where are your partners whom you used to claim?" (6:176).
2. Al-Kalbi said: They had custodians and servants for their idols. These were the ones who embellished the killing of children for the disbelievers. A man in Jahiliyyah would swear by Allah that if he were blessed with a certain number of sons, he would sacrifice one of them, like what 'Abd al-Muttalib did regarding his son 'Abdullah. In this view, the partners are the custodians, named partners just as the devils were named partners in Mujahid's view.

Issue 3: There are different readings (Qira'at) for this verse:

• Ibn 'Amir's reading: He reads زُيِّن (with damma on the zay and kasra on the ya), قَتْلُ (with damma on the lam), أَوْلَادَهُمْ (with nasb on the dal), and شُرَكَاؤُهُمْ (with khafd [genitive case]).
  • The structure implied is: "Thus, the killing of their partners' children was made attractive to many of the polytheists." However, this separates the mudaf (possessor, partners) from the mudaf ilayh (possessed, children) by the object (أولادهم), which is disliked in prose, similar to how it is disliked in poetry (e.g., the line cited). If it is disliked in poetry, how much more so in the Quran, which is inimitable in its eloquence?
  • It is suggested that Ibn 'Amir was led to this reading because some manuscripts showed شركائهم written with a ya. If he had read أولادهم and شركاؤهم both in the genitive case, it would imply that the children were partners in their wealth, which would have provided an escape from this awkward construction.

• The famous reading (Majority): زُيِّنَ (with fath on the zay and ya), قَتْلَ (with fath on the lam), أَوْلَادِهِمْ (with jarr [genitive case]), and شُرَكَاؤُهُمْ (with raf' [nominative case]).
  • This structure involves the object (قتل أولادهم) being presented before the subject (شركاؤهم). This is similar to: "The faith of a soul will not benefit it" (6:158) and "And when his Lord tested Abraham" (2:124).
  • The reason for fronting the object is that they prioritize what is most important, what is most concerning, and what is most astonishing here: their act of killing their children. Hence, this word order is adopted.

Continuation of the Verse:

"to ruin them" (ليردوهم):

• Linguistically, irda' means destruction. In the Quran: "You almost destroyed me" (37:56).
• Ibn 'Abbas explained: "To ruin them into the Fire."
• The lam here is the lam al-'aqibah (the lam of consequence), as in: "So Pharaoh's people picked him up, [intending] to make him an enemy and a source of grief" (28:8).

"and to confuse their religion for them" (وليُلبسوا عليهم دينهم):

• Meaning: to mix or obscure it. They were previously upon the religion of Ishmael. Whoever brought them these corrupt customs intended to divert them from that true religion.

"And had your Lord willed, they would not have done it." (ولو شاء ربك ما فعلوه):

• Our scholars (Ahl al-Sunnah) state that this indicates that everything the polytheists did was by the Will of Allah.
• The Mu'tazila argue that it refers to the Will of Compulsion (coercion), which has been mentioned repeatedly.
• "So leave them to what they fabricate." (فذرهم وما يفترون): This follows the principle of "Do whatever you will" (a warning). The phrase "what they fabricate" indicates that they were lying when they claimed Allah commanded them to kill their children.

Verse 138

"And they say, 'These are grazing animals and crops under restriction, and none may eat them except those whom we allow,' according to their claim, and [there are] animals whose backs are forbidden [to ride or load], and [other] animals over which they do not mention the name of Allah—[all] an invention against Him. He will recompense them for what they used to invent."

This verse details further fabrications regarding their rulings on livestock and crops:

1. "These are grazing animals and crops under restriction, and none may eat them except those whom we allow," (وقالوا هاذه أنعام وحرث حجر لا يطعمهآ إلا من نشآء بزعمهم): They designated certain cattle and crops as ḥimā (protected/forbidden territory or use), restricting consumption to those they permitted, based purely on their own claims.
2. "and [there are] animals whose backs are forbidden [to ride or load]," (وأنعام حرمت ظهورها): Animals whose backs were declared forbidden for riding or carrying burdens.
3. "and [other] animals over which they do not mention the name of Allah," (وأنعام لا يذكرون اسم الله عليها): Animals designated for their idols, over which they omitted the name of Allah during slaughter.
4. "an invention against Him." (افتراء عليه): All these restrictions and designations were fabrications attributed falsely to Allah.
5. "He will recompense them for what they used to invent." (سيجزيهم بما كانوا يفترون): Allah will punish them for these lies.