ﲎ ﲏ ﲐ ﲑ ﲒ ﲓ ﲔ ﲕ ﲖ ﲗ ﲘ ﲙ ﲚ ﲛ ﲜ ﲝ ﲞ ﲟ ﲠ ﲡ ﲢ ﲣ ﲤ ﲥ ﲦ ﲧ
And they say, "If we were to follow the guidance with you, we would be swept from our land." Have we not established for them a safe sanctuary to which are brought the fruits of all things as provision from Us? But most of them do not know.
Tafsir
Verse range: 28:57
"And they said, 'If we follow...'"
Quraysh said—and it is said that the speaker was al-Harith ibn ‘Uthman ibn Nawfal ibn ‘Abd Manaf: "We know that you are upon the truth, but we fear that if we follow you, the Arabs will oppose us. We are but a small group (akalat ra’s), and we fear being snatched away from our land."
God silenced them with the truth: He established them in the Sanctuary (al-Haram), which He made secure through the sanctity of the House, and He made its inhabitants secure through its sanctity. In the Pre-Islamic era, the Arabs around them would raid and slaughter one another, while they remained secure in their Sanctuary, fearing nothing.
By the sanctity of the House, they were established in a valley without cultivation, yet fruits and provisions were gathered to them from every direction. If God granted them such security and provision solely by the sanctity of the House—while they were disbelievers and idolaters—how could it be consistent that He would expose them to fear and abduction, or strip them of security, if they were to add the sanctity of Islam to the sanctity of the House?
Attributing security to the people of the Sanctuary is literal, while attributing it to the Sanctuary itself is metaphorical.
"Gathered to it" (yujba ilayhi): Brought and collected. It is read with both ya and ta. It is also read as tajni (with a nun), from al-jany (harvesting/gathering). Its construction with ila is like the saying: "It is gathered to me in it."
"Fruits" (thamarāt): Read with two dammahs, or with a dammah and a sukun. The meaning of "everything" (kull shay’) is abundance, as in: "And she has been given of everything" (27:23).
"But most of them do not know": This relates to the phrase "from Us." That is, few of them acknowledge that this is a provision from God; most of them are ignorant, neither knowing this nor perceiving it. Had they known it was from God, they would have known that fear and security are also from Him. They feared being snatched away only because they believed in Him and cast off their idols.
If you ask: In what capacity is rizqan (provision) in the accusative case? I say: If you consider it an infinitive (masdar), it may be in the accusative because of the meaning of what precedes it, for the meaning of "fruits of everything are gathered to it" and "it is provided with the fruits of everything" is the same. It may also be a maf’ul lahu (causative object). If you consider it to mean "provided" (marzuq), it is a state (hal) of the "fruits," made possible because it is specified by the genitive construction (idafa), just as it is in the accusative when coming from an indefinite noun specified by an adjective.
"And how many a city have We destroyed that was insolent in its livelihood! And those are their dwellings, not inhabited after them except a little. And it is We who were the inheritors."
