Commentary
﴿And fear a Day when no soul will suffice for another﴾ meaning: will not compensate, meaning: in which ﴿no soul will avail another anything﴾ meaning: of recompense.
And when the previous verse was concluded with the restriction of loss to them, it was appropriate to precede the negation of acceptance. So He said: ﴿And no compensation will be accepted from it﴾ that is offered for its redemption without good deeds. ﴿And no intercession will benefit it﴾ that is not permitted. ﴿And they will not be aided﴾ even if their multitude is great. Al-Harali said: He, the Most High, has conducted this repetition in accordance with its limit in the first, except for what differs between the two mentions in His saying ﴿And fear a Day﴾ to its end, to gather the news in each of the intercession and compensation between the total of the two rejections of taking and acceptance. Thus, its intercession will be neither accepted nor beneficial, and its compensation will be neither taken nor accepted. This is because what is presented for acceptance is first taken according to its taking from hearing or sight. Then it is looked at with a view of verification in the heard and a consideration in the seen. If verification and consideration confirm it, it is accepted; and if they do not confirm it, it is rejected. This only applies to one whose state has a clear chance of correctness that does not stand with experience. So the Most High informed of the meaning of the two verses, the opening and the concluding, that these people do not have in their state any chance of correctness whatsoever, neither in intercession nor in compensation, so it will not be accepted nor taken. This is an announcement about their state that is apparent in its correctness, which necessitates its being taken in some way. Thus, there is a declaration of innocence from one whose state is like that which was informed about them, as previously indicated in the meaning of the verse. With this aim, the address was directed away from them regarding the specifics of what they were given from the Book that was supposed to obligate them to adhere to accepting what came confirming what was with them. They took for themselves a religion that their whims fabricated. So the Most High organized with that the mention of the owner of the religion that He is pleased with and began with the initiation of His matter in testing them, so that the two previous proofs might converge according to the Abrahamic monotheistic religion and the subsequent one according to the Muhammadan religion. He, blessings and peace be upon him, would say in the morning: "We have entered upon the natural disposition of Islam and the word of sincerity and upon the religion of our Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, and upon the religion of our father Abraham, peace be upon him." Thus, he specified the Muhammadan religion with religion and the Abrahamic with the religion to organize the initiation of the Abrahamic fatherhood with the sects of the people of the Book, both preceding and subsequent, with the news of the initiation of human fatherhood in His earlier statement: ﴿And when your Lord said to the angels, 'Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successor'﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 30] the verses, so that the heads of the addresses might be organized with one another and their details with one another. And to manifest that (p-147) in the surah of the essence of the Qur'an as a foundation for what is in the rest of it from that. And He mentioned before that the religion is what the guidance of reason calls to, conveyed from Allah, His Oneness from the monotheists, and that the religion is Islam, and Islam is to submit what is in the hand, outwardly and inwardly. And that is only from the initial unseen of the Oneness. The end.
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