33. Al-Ahzab (The Confederates)[73 verses]
Medina Period 90 [3-7 Hijrah]
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
إِنَّا
عَرَضْنَا
الْأَمَانَةَ
...
33:72. We did indeed offer the Trust
C3777. The Trust is something given to a person, over which he has a power of disposition; he is expected to use it as directed or expected, but he has the power to use it otherwise.
There is no trust if the trustee has no power, and the trust implies that the giver of the trust believes and expects that the trustee would use it according to the wish of the creator of the trust, and not otherwise.
... عَلَى السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَالْجِبَالِ...
to the Heavens and the Earth and the Mountains:
C3778. What is the meaning of the offer of the Trust to the Heaven, the Earth, and the Mountains?
Cf. 59:21, where the hypothetical sending down of the Quran to the Mountains is mentioned, and it is mentioned that such Parables are put forth in order to aid men to reflection.
...فَأَبَيْنَ ...
but they refused
C3779. The Heavens, the Earth, and the Mountains, i.e. other creatures of Allah, besides man, refused to undertake a Trust or a responsibility, and may be imagined as happy without a choice of good or evil being given through their will.
In saying that they refused, we imply a will, but we limit it by the statement that they did not undertake to be given a choice between good and evil.
They preferred to submit their will entirely to Allah's Will, which is All-Wise and Perfect, and which would give them far more happiness than a faculty of choice, with their imperfect knowledge.
Man was too audacious and ignorant to realise this, and the result has been that man as a race has been disrupted: the evil ones have betrayed the Trust and brought Punishment on themselves, though the good have been able to rise far above other Creation, to be the muqarrabin, the nearest ones to Allah: 56:11 and 56:88.
What can be higher than this for any creature?
It follows incidentally from this that the Heavens and the Earth were created before man was created and this is in accordance with what we know of the physical world in science: man came on the scene at a comparatively late stage.
... أَن يَحْمِلْنَهَا وَأَشْفَقْنَ مِنْهَا ...
to undertake it, being afraid thereof:
C3780. Hamala: to undertake, bear, carry (the Trust or responsibility), to be equal to it.
This is the ordinary meaning, and the majority of Commentators construe so.
But some understand it to mean -
"to carry away, run away with, to embezzle (the thing entrusted); hence to be false to the Trust, to betray the Trust."
In that case the sense of verses 72-73 would be: -
"Allah offered the Trust to other creatures, but they refused, lest they should betray it, being afraid from that point of view: but man was less fair to himself: in his ignorance he accepted and betrayed the Trust, with the result that some of his race became Hypocrites and Unbelievers and were punished, though others were faithful to the Trust and received Allah's Mercy".
The resulting conclusion is the same under both interpretations.
... وَحَمَلَهَا الْإِنسَانُ...
but man undertook it --
C3781. See 2:30-34 and n.47, nn.48-49.
Allah intended a very high destiny for man, and placed him in his uncorrupted state even above the angels, but in his corruption he made himself even lower than the beasts.
What was it that made man so high and noble?
The differentiating quality which Allah gave man was that Allah breathed something of His own spirit into man (32:9; 15:29 and n. 1968; and other passages).
This meant that man was given a limited choice of good and evil, and that he was made capable of Forbearance, Love, and Mercy. And in himself man summed up Allah's great world: man is in himself a microcosm.
...إِنَّهُ كَانَ ظَلُومًا جَهُولًا ﴿٧٢﴾
he was indeed unjust and foolish --
C3782. That man should undertake the God-like attributes (in however small a degree) of Will. Forbearance, Love and Mercy, brought him nearer to Allah than was possible for any other creature of Allah.
This was part of Allah's Will and Plan, but little did man realize then what a tremendous task he was undertaking or question himself whether he would be equal to it.
Zalum (translated -unjust-) and Jahul (ignorant) are both in the Arabic intensive form; as much as to say, 'man signally failed to measure his own powers or his own knowledge. But Allah's Grace came to his assistance. Where man did his best, he won through by Allah's Grace, even though man's Best was but a poor Good.
How did man generically undertake this great Responsibility, which made him Vicegerent on earth (2:30)?
Here comes in the doctrine of a Covenant, express or implied, between Allah and Humanity. See 7:172,173 and notes 1146-48 also 5:1 and n. 682.
A Covenant (Mithaq) necessarily implies Trust, and its breach necessarily implies Punishment.
لِيُعَذِّبَ
اللَّهُ الْمُنَافِقِينَ
وَالْمُنَافِقَاتِ
وَالْمُشْرِكِينَ
وَالْمُشْرِكَاتِ...
33:73 (With the result) that Allah has to punish the Hypocrites, men and women, and the Unbelievers, men and women,
C3783. Man's generic Covenant, which flowed from his exercising the option given him, choosing Will, Forbearance, Love, and Mercy, made it necessary that breach of it should carry its own punishment.
Breach of it is here classed under two heads:
those who betray their Trust act either as Hypocrites or as Unbelievers.
- Hypocrites are those who profess Faith but bring not forth the fruits of Faith.
- Unbelievers are those who openly defy Faith, and from whom therefore no fruits of Faith are to be expected.
...وَيَتُوبَ اللَّهُ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتِ...
and Allah turns in Mercy to the Believers, men and women:
C3784. Those who remain firm to their Faith and their Covenant (see notes 3781-82) will receive the aid of Allah's Grace; their faults and weaknesses will be cured; and they will be made worthy of their exalted Destiny. For Allah is Oft-Forgiving and Most Merciful.
So ends a Surah which deals with the greatest complications and misunderstandings in our throbbing life here below, and points upwards to the Great Achievement, the highest Salvation.
...وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا ﴿٧٣﴾
for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
33:72 Verily, We did offer the trust [of reason and volition] to the heavens, and the earth, and the mountains: 87 but they refused to bear it because they were afraid of it. Yet man took it up 88 - for, verily, he has always been prone to be most wicked, most foolish.
33:73 [Asad] [And so it is] that God imposes suffering on the hypocrites, both men and women, as well as on the men and women who ascribe divinity to aught beside Him. 89 And [so, too, it is] that God turns in His mercy unto the believing men and believing women: for God is indeed much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace !
[[Asad’s notes -
87 The classical commentators give all kinds of laborious explanations to the term amanah ("trust") occurring in this parable, but the most convincing of them (mentioned in Lane 1, 102, with reference to the above verse) are "reason", or "intellect", and "the faculty of volition" - i.e., the ability to choose between two or more possible courses of action or modes of behaviour, and thus between good and evil.
88 Sc, "and then failed to measure up to the moral responsibility arising from the reason and the comparative free will with which he has been endowed" (Zamakhshari). This obviously applies to the human race as such, and not necessarily to all of its individuals.
89 In other words, on those who offend against what their own reason and conscience would have them
do. This suffering, whether in this world or in the hereafter, is but a causal consequence - as the lam al-'aqibah at the beginning of this sentence shows - of maris moral failure, and not an arbitrary act of God. (Cf in this connection note 7 on 2:7, which speaks of God's "sealing" the hearts of those who are bent on denying the truth.) ]]