Tafsir of Ar-Rum 30:28

"He sets forth for you a parable..."

If you ask: What is the difference between the first, second, and third "min" (from/of) in His saying: “from among yourselves” (min anfusikum), “from among what your right hands possess” (mimma malakat aymanukum), and “from among partners” (min shuraka’)?

I say:

• The first is for initiation (li-l-ibtida’). It is as if He said: He took a parable and extracted it from the closest thing to you, which is your own selves, without looking far afield.
• The second is for partitive (li-t-tab’id).
• The third is extra/emphatic (mazidah) to reinforce the interrogation, which functions as a negation.

Its meaning is: Do you accept for yourselves and your slaves—who are humans like you and slaves like you—that some of them should be partners with you in “what We have provided for you” of wealth and other things, such that you and they are equal in it, without any distinction between a free man and a slave? [Do you accept that] you would fear acting independently in its disposal without them, or taking initiative in managing it over them, just as you fear one another among free men?

If you do not accept this for yourselves, then how do you accept for the Lord of Lords, the Owner of free men and slaves, that you should make some of His slaves partners to Him?

“Thus”—meaning, like this detailed explanation—“do We detail the verses”—meaning, We clarify them. This is because the use of parables reveals meanings and clarifies them, as it serves to depict and shape them. Do you not see how He depicted polytheism in this distorted image?

“Nay, those who do wrong follow their own desires without knowledge. So who can guide whom Allah has sent astray? And they will have no helpers.”