Commentary
And when it is known that a person may be forgiven and honored, and within him are traits that may lead him to some deficient actions, they called upon them for perfection, saying: ﴿And protect them from the evils﴾ meaning by making a barrier between them and it by purifying them from the traits that lead to it by cleansing the hearts of every disliked thing from it or by forgiving them and not punishing them for it. They greatly emphasized this purification to encourage the soul in this world to adhere to it by suppressing the souls and extinguishing the desires by their saying: ﴿And whoever protects himself from the evils﴾ meaning its entire recompense ﴿that Day﴾ meaning the day when a group is admitted to Paradise and a group is admitted to the Fire, which is caused by the evils, or when Paradise is brought near to the righteous and Hell is displayed to the deviators: ﴿Then indeed, He has mercy on him﴾ meaning the complete mercy that no one else deserves to be called mercy with it, for the completion of bliss cannot be except with it due to the removal of envy and hatred and salvation from the Fire by avoiding the evils. For this reason, they said: ﴿And that﴾ meaning that great matter ﴿is﴾ meaning alone ﴿the great success﴾. Thus, the verse is from the interweaving: it mentioned the admission to the gardens first as evidence for the omission of salvation from the Fire second, and the protection from the evils second as evidence for the success of the righteous first. The secret of this is the encouragement towards the beloved - which is the gardens - by the action of the beloved - which is the righteous - and the repulsion from the fires by avoiding the hated actions, which are the evils. So it mentioned the cause first and omitted the reason because there is no true reason except mercy, and it mentioned the reason second in the admission to the Fire and omitted the cause.
Explore Other Scholars on This Verse
Compare different scholarly perspectives on Surah Ghafir verse 9