Al-Ma'idah: 36
"To ransom themselves with it"
To make it a ransom for their own souls. This is a metaphor for the inevitability of the punishment for them, and that there is no way for them to escape it by any means.
From the Prophet (ﷺ):
"It will be said to the disbeliever on the Day of Resurrection: 'Do you see, if you had the earth full of gold, would you ransom yourself with it?' He will say: 'Yes.' It will be said to him: 'You were asked for something easier than that.'" (Authentic).
Grammatical Note:
- "If" (law) and its clause serve as the predicate of "Indeed" (inna).
- If you ask: "Why is the pronoun in 'to ransom themselves with it' (bihi) singular, when two things were mentioned [the earth's contents and its like]?"
- I say: It is like the poet’s saying: "For I and Qiyar are strangers in it." Or, it is treated as a demonstrative pronoun, as if it were said: "to ransom themselves with that."
- It is also permissible that the "and" (waw) in "and its like" (wa-mithlahu) carries the meaning of "with," so the referent remains singular.
Grammatical Note on the Accusative:
- If you ask: "What governs the accusative of the 'comitative' (ma'ahu)?"
- I say: It is governed by the verb implied by "if" (law), for the estimation is: "If it were established that they possessed what is in the earth."
Readings:
- Abu Waqid read: "That they might be brought out" (an yukhraju) with a damma on the ya (passive voice).
- The reading of the majority, "They shall not be coming out" (bi-kharijina), supports the standard interpretation.
Refutation of the Kharijites:
- It is narrated that Nafi' ibn al-Azraq said to Ibn Abbas: "O blind of sight, blind of heart! You claim that a people will come out of the Fire, yet Allah says: 'And they shall not be coming out of it.'"
- Ibn Abbas replied: "Woe to you! Read what is above it; this refers to the disbelievers."
- This is what the Mujbira (determinists) have fabricated, and it is not the first of their lies and slanders.
- It is sufficient proof of the fabrication of this hadith—beyond any doubt—that Nafi' ibn al-Azraq would dare to address the cousin of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ)—who was among the elite of Quraysh and the Banu Abd al-Muttalib, the scholar of the Ummah, its ocean of knowledge, and its interpreter—with such language that no one in the world would dare use, and that he would attribute it to Ikrimah.
