یَغۡفِرَ

3:91; 63:4.

Commentary:

The verse incidentally refutes the allegation that apostasy in Islam is punishable with death. If such had been the law of Islam, apostates would have had no opportunity of apostatizing from Islam again and again, as appears from this verse. For an exposition of the teachings of Islam about apostasy see "Islam and the Law relating to Apostasy" (published from Qadian).

The verse does not signify that after so many successive acts of apostasy the repentance of an apostate is not accepted. Rather it is intended to point out that even after repeated acts of apostasy the door of repentance remains open. That door is closed only when, after apostatizing, an apostate goes on "increasing in disbelief" as the verse clearly puts it.

4:138.

Commentary:

The expression, Allah is not going to forgive them nor will He show them any way, means, that it does not stand to reason that Allah should forgive or lead to Himself such people as reject His Prophets and His Signs and act unjustly. See also 4:138.

6:15; 12:102; 35:2; 39:47.

11:28; 23:25.

Important Words:

فاطر (Maker) is the active participle from فطر. They say فطرہ i.e. he clove, split, rent or cracked it; He (God) created it, or produced it or brought it into existence, namely, for the first time, it not having existed before; originated it; commenced or began it. فاطرالسموات means, the Originator or Creator of the heavens. Ibn ‘Abbas says, "I did not know what was the meaning of فاطرالسموات until two Arabs of the desert came to me, disputing together respecting a well, and one of them said, انا افطرتھا i.e. 'It was I who originated or began it.' " فطرالعجین; means, he made the dough into bread, or baked it, without leavening it, he kneaded the dough and made it into bread or baked it immediately (Lane & Aqrab). From the Quran it appears that there are four stages of creation: (a) the stage when nothing existed and the process of creation began for thefirst time, nothing having existed before; (b) the stage when matter had come into existence but had not yet taken a definite material form; (c) the stage when, as the result of combination, matter began to acquire diverse properties, the consummation of this process being known by the name of the law of nature; and (d) the last stage when, in accordance with the law of nature, the process of procreation or repetition in creation began, viz. man was born out of man and grain out of grain, etc. The attribute of فاطر (Maker) points to the second stage.

Commentary:

The verse gives the creation of the heavens and the earth as an argument to prove the Divine origin of the teaching given to the Prophets. The Prophets are here represented as saying to their opponents: "It is by the command of Allah that we preach. We say nothing of our own accord. How can you entertain doubt about the fact that God can send down revealed guidance? He is the Creator of heaven and earth, and it is unreasonable to think that, after having created man, He should have left him without guidance. Equally, it is inconsistent with reason to think that, whereas God has made ample provision for the material welfare and advancement of man by creating heaven and earth, He should have neglected to provide for his spiritual welfare."

The words, He calls you that He may forgive you your sins, and grant you respite till an appointed term, refute an objection of disbelievers that God was too dignified and exalted to invite humble beings like themselves to Him. They are told that it is indeed inconsistent with the dignity of God to call humble beings to His aid, but it is not at all below His dignity to come to their help. Nay, such an act is quite in keeping with His supreme dignity. God had therefore sent His Messengers that, through them, He might satisfy the moral and spiritual needs of man and grant him a new and higher life.

The expression, you are but men like ourselves;…Bring us then some clear proof, contains another objection of disbelievers that, if God at all was to have raised Messengers, they should have been beings befitting His dignity and not weak and humble men like themselves. The answer is given in the succeeding verse.

7:127; 26:52.

Important Words:

لیغفر (that He may cover up). They say غفر المتاع i.e. he put the goods into the bag and covered and protected them. غفرانand مغفرة both infinitive nouns mean, protection and preservation. مغفر means, helmet and غفارة means, cloth worn beneath the veil to keep it clean (Lane, Mufradat & Aqrab). See also 2:59; 14:42 & 40:56.

ذنبک (thy shortcomings).ذنبه means, he followed his trail, not quitting his track. ذنب therefore, signifies such natural failings or frailties as adhere to human nature. أذنب means, he committed a sin, a crime, a misdemeanour, fault, etc. According to Imam Raghib ذنب means, such errors and mistakes as bring about a harmful result. It differs from اثم in being either intentional or committed through inadvertence while اثم is peculiarly intentional (Lane). See also 3:17.

Commentary:

The verse has been deliberately misrepresented, or, through lack of knowledge of Arabic idiom and phrase, misinterpreted, by Christian missionaries as signifying that the Holy Prophet was guilty of some moral lapses. But it bears no such construction. It is an article of faith with Muslims, as enjoined by the Quran that God’s Prophets are born sinless and they remain sinless throughout their lives. They are incapable of saying or doing anything contrary to Divine commandments (21:28). As they are commissioned by God to purge men of sins, they cannot themselves commit sins. And of Divine Messengers the Holy Prophet was the noblest and the purest. The Quran abounds in verses which speak in glowing terms of the purity and spotlessness of his life. Here are a few of them:

(a) Say, if you love Allah, follow me; then will Allah love you (3:32). (b) Verily, Allah has conferred a favour on the believers by raising among them a Messenger from among themselves, who recites to them His signs, and purifies them and teaches them the Book and wisdom (3:165). (c) Say, my Prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are all for Allah, the Lord of all the worlds (6:163). (d) Those who follow the Messenger, the Prophet, the Immaculate (sinless) One…(7:158). (e) O ye who believe! respond to Allah, and the Messenger when he (the Messenger) calls you that he may give you life (8:25). (f) Verily, you have in the Prophet of Allah an excellent model (33:22). (g) Verily, those who swear allegiance to thee, indeed, swear allegiance to Allah (48:11). (h) Your Companion has neither erred, nor has he gone astray, nor does he speak out of his own desire (53:3-4). (i) And thou dost surely possess very high moral excellences (68:5). (j) A noble Messenger, possessor of power, established in the presence of the Lord of the Throne, one who should be obeyed and who is faithful to his trust (81:20-22).

A man of such high moral stature, as the Holy Prophet, who raised a whole people sunk into the lowest depths of moral turpitude to the highest pinnacles of spiritual eminence, could not possibly be guilty of such moral lapses as his detractors seek to impute to him.

A quite simple and harmless word— ذنب —is taken advantage of to malign him. The word, among other things, signifies such frailties as adhere to human nature, and errors as are calculated to bring about harmful results. In this sense of the word the verse signifies that God would protect the Holy Prophet from the harmful results that would follow in the wake of the promised victory referred to in the preceding verse, inasmuch as, large masses of people would enter the fold of Islam, and naturally their moral and spiritual training and upbringing would not be of the desired standard. That is why wherever in the Quran success and victories are promised to the Holy Prophet, he is enjoined to seek protection of God from his ذنب i.e. human weakness which might stand in the way of the realization of his great mission which is the spread and expansion of Islam and the creation of a disciplined community of high morals. The fact that of the four words جناح and جرم and اثم and ذنب, which possess almost similar connotations, the first three have not been used in the Quran with regard to Prophets of God, shows that ذنب does not possess the sinister meaning which the other three words possess. Besides, according to the Quranic idiom, the expression ذنبک, if at all ذنبbe taken to signify a sin or crime, would mean "the sins attributed to thee or alleged to have been committed by thee or the sins committed against thee." Elsewhere in the Quran (5:30) a similar expression اثمی (my sin) means, the sin committed against me. Thus the verse under comment means that as a result of the great victory, i.e. the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah, all the sins and crimes and faults which his enemies imputed to the Holy Prophet, viz. that he was a cheat, an impostor or forger of lies against God and man, etc., would prove to be false, inasmuch as all sorts of people by coming into contact with Muslims would find out the truth about him. Moreover, the context also supports this meaning because grant of a clear victory and the completion of Divine favour upon the Holy Prophet, referred to in this and the preceding verse do not seem to possess any relevance to the forgiveness of sins, if ذنب be taken to mean a sin. And theexpression لک may also mean "for thy sake".

The words "past and present" signify that the charges that have been levelled against the Holy Prophet in the past by the Quraish and those that will be levelled against him in future by his enemies, will all be dispelled and he will stand completely vindicated. The words seem to embody a great prophecy that in some future time the Holy Prophet will be misrepresented and misunderstood but that all misunderstandings will eventually be dissipated and Islam will shine forth in full glory, and its superiority will be established over all rival Faiths.