57 . Surah Al-Hadid (Iron)

Medina Period [94]

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

مَا أَصَابَ مِن مُّصِيبَةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَلَا فِي أَنفُسِكُمْ ...

57: 22.   No misfortune can happen on earth or in your souls,

C5308. External disasters or misfortunes may strike people's eye or imagination, but there are worse crisis and misfortunes in the spiritual world, which are of equal or greater importance to man's future. All this happens according to the Will and Plan of Allah. Even where we are allowed the exercise of our own wills, the consequences that follow are in accordance with the laws and Plan decreed by Allah beforehand.

... إِلَّا فِي كِتَابٍ مِّن قَبْلِ أَن نَّبْرَأَهَا...

but is recorded in a decree before We bring it into existence:

C5309. For bara'a, 'to bring into existence', and other words denoting Allah's creative energy, see n. 120 to 2:117; n. 916 to 6:94; and n. 923 to 6:98.

إِنَّ ذَلِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ يَسِيرٌ ﴿٢٢﴾

that is truly easy for Allah:

لِكَيْلَا تَأْسَوْا عَلَى مَا فَاتَكُمْ وَلَا تَفْرَحُوا بِمَا آتَاكُمْ...  

57: 23.   In order that ye may not despair over matters that pass you by, nor exult over favors bestowed upon you.

...وَاللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ مُخْتَالٍ فَخُورٍ ﴿٢٣﴾

For Allah loveth not any vainglorious boaster --

C5310. In the external world, what people may consider misfortune or good fortune may both turn out to be illusory,-in Kipling's words, "both imposters just the same". The righteous man does not grumble if some one else has possessions, nor exult if he has them. He does not covet and he does not boast. If he has any advantages, he shares them with other people, as he considers them not due to his own merits, but as gifts of Allah. (R).

Asad’s Version:

57:22 NO CALAMITY can ever befall the earth, and neither your own selves, 35 unless it be [laid down] in Our decree before We bring it into being: verily, all this 36 is easy for God.

(57:23) [Know this,] so that you may not despair over whatever [good] has escaped you nor exult [unduly] over whatever [good] has come to you: 37 for, God does not love any of those who, out of self-conceit, act in a boastful manner 38 –

Yuksel’s Version

The Key of Happiness: Stoic Submission to God

57:22 No misfortune can happen on earth, or in yourselves, except it is decreed in a record, before We bring it about. This is easy for God to do.*

57:23 In order that you do not despair over anything that has passed you by, nor be exultant of anything He has bestowed upon you. God does not like those who are boastful, proud.

[[Asad’s notes - 35 I.e., "the earth or mankind as a whole, or any of you individually": an allusion to natural as well as man-made catastrophes, and to individual suffering through illness, moral or material deprivation, etc.

36 I.e., God's decreeing an event and bringing it into being.

37 Thus, the knowledge that whatever has happened had to happen - and could not have not happened - because, obviously, it had been willed by God in accordance with His unfathomable plan, ought to enable a true believer to react with conscious equanimity to whatever good or ill conies to him.

38 I.e., attributing their good fortune to their own merit or "luck". ]]

[[Yuksel’s notes on free will

057:022-23 Proving the existence of free will is philosophically and scientifically impossible. Considering Gödel's incompleteness theorem, it is impossible to eliminate axioms in axiomatic deductions. The assertion, "I have freedom of will" is not only nonfalsifiable, but also contradicts the deterministic laws governing matter and energy. As Nietzsche argued, it might be impossible to predict the interactive motion of hundreds of billiard balls, yet the motion of each ball depends on the mass and velocity of the ball colliding it. The motion of all balls depends on the motion of the first ball, and its motion depends on the angle and kinetic energy of the cue, which passes it to the balls during the impact. Sartre and other atheistic existentialists assumed the existence of freedom of will by asserting that "existence preceded essence" yet they never explained why one egg ended up with a snake while another with a bird; they ignored the fact that there could not be existence without essence.

Nevertheless, if there is freedom of will, it cannot be possible without an omnipotent, the greatest paradox-solver God. Without God, there is no justification for believing in one's freedom in a world where every atom and molecule works in a deterministic way. Does the human brain function according to the laws governing quarks? So far, there is no scientific evidence showing such a relationship. Muslims cannot be accused of being fatalistic; to the contrary, freedom of will is only possible with the existence of God, and muslims can only be accused of believing in freedom of will. See 6:110; 7:15,30; 13:11; 18:29; 42:13,48; 46:15; 57:22.

However, acceptance of freedom of will based on divine communication creates other logical problems or paradoxes. Leaving aside the uncertainty principle and speculations related to quantum physics, it seems impossible to assert the freedom of an agent who did not even choose his or her genetic makeup, the time, the space, and the conditions where he or she would be born. Obviously, this is a paradox, since it is impossible to choose existence or the qualities of existence without having an existence or the qualities for choosing qualities! In other words, the paradox of freedom of will is triggered at the moment of creation. Did God ask us whether to give us freedom of will and subject us to a test? If yes, then how could we have the freedom to choose or reject freedom, if we did not have it in the first place? If no, then, how can we have freedom of will, while we were forced to have it in the first place?

Though believing that we humans have freedom of will is one of the paradoxes most difficult to digest, I acknowledge it because of the proven book (18:29; 57:22).

God, as a demonstration of His creative powers, chose to test the results of creating a being with the ability to freely choose its own destiny (18:29; 6:110; 13:11). God downloaded His revelation/information/logic (rooh) to the prototypical human that would provide him with innate rules of reasoning to distinguish falsehood from truth, bad from good (15:29; 32:9; 38:72;). Messengers and books containing rooh were only a bonus mercy, mere reminders of the facts that could be discovered by reason (2:37-38; 10:57; 11:17; 16:89; 21:107; 29:51; 16:2; 36:69; 37:87; 39:21; 42:52; 58:22). After the two human prototypes failed the first test (2:11-27), God created life and death on this planet to give another chance, to reform ourselves, this time subjecting billions of individuals inheriting and operating the same basic program to the same test (67:2). After letting the program run for a period, an individual is deemed accountable to God (46:15). God decided to punish those who freely choose a path contradictory to its original program as they corrupt it through false ideas and actions (2:57; 4:107; 6:12,20,26,110; 7:9,30,53,177; 59:19).  The programs that are infected with viruses will experience a regretful stage in a quarantine called Hell (Hell and Paradise are allegories: 13:35; 17:60; 37:62-64; 7:44-50). In this stage the corrupt programs and their chief infector (Satan) will be penalized (7:11-27; 38:71-88), and then they will altogether be annihilated there (87:13). The only virus that will not be healed on the day of Judgment is the virus that creates a schizophrenic personality, a personality that submits itself to others besides God, a personality that does not free itself from false gods thereby alienating itself from its origin, that is God (4:48,116).