Surah Al-Takfeer

Its purpose is to explain another aspect of the separation, that there must be a reckoning for the servants on the Day of Calling, by which the righteous, the people of guidance, will be settled in the abode of bliss, and the wretched, the people of misguidance and obstinacy, will be settled in the abode of hellfire. This is indicated by the fact that He is their Lord and the Benefactor to them with the general blessings. No rational person can imagine that someone raises another without asking about what he has carried to him and what he has tasked him with, nor that he does not do justice between some of those he raises and others. Its name, Al-Takfeer, is the clearest indication of this. 'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,' who has the profound wisdom and complete power, the Most Gracious, who has encompassed with the blessing of existence and the comprehensive statement, the Most Merciful, who has honored His party with success in good conduct.

When He concluded the chapter of Al-Infitar with the severance of causes and the dissolution of lineages [on the Day of Judgment], and He emphasized the threat of the Day of Religion and that there is no matter for anyone with Him, and He mentioned the wretched and the happy. The greatest matter that circulates among the servants are the decrees. The sin of cheating in it is among the basest and least of sins. He warned against betrayal in it and reminded what He has prepared for its people, gathering to them all who possess their description. His forbearance described them as a type of sin. All of this is a warning for the heedless wretched about what they are in of the poisonous, deadly toxins. And He alerted to the cure for whoever desires it [He said]: "Woe!" meaning a fixed, great destruction in every state of the worldly life and the Hereafter [for] the cheaters, meaning those who diminish the measure and the scale and deprive the rights of the people. In this is a warning that the root of calamities is bad character, which is the love of this world that leads to the gathering of wealth from its improper sources, even through the basest of means: cheating, which is not acceptable to anyone of honor. They are those who approach filling the measure and just weighing, yet they do not fill nor do they weigh justly. It is as if it is from removal, meaning he removed what was above the measure. From the gentlest, which is what was above the land of the Arabs over the countryside of Iraq. And from it is what is in the narration of Ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: I was a knight and I surpassed the people until my horse leaped to the mosque of Banu Zuraiq - meaning that the horse jumped until it nearly equaled the mosque. It is said: A man "tuffed" the wall - when he elevated it, or from near, from their saying: I took from my belongings what was light and "tuffed" - meaning it came near to me. And everything I brought near to something, I have "tuffed" it. And "tuffing" from the vessel and others is what approaches being filled, yet does not complete its filling. And in the hadith: "All of you are the children of Adam, 'tuff' the measure." Or from "tuff" which is to be stingy, it is said: He "tuffed" upon him with stinginess - if he was miserly towards him. Or from "tuff" which is from the cheap, lowly, and little things. It is as if the diminishing is for removal in the first meaning as previously mentioned, and for the great approximation in the second meaning, meaning that he approaches filling the measure with a great deception and trickery until the owner of the right thinks that he has fulfilled, while he does not fulfill. It is said: So-and-so "tuffed" so-and-so - if he intended to deceive him. And when he forbade this, he forbade what diminishes more by the meaning of agreement. And in the third meaning, it is in the sense of stinginess and being exacting in the measure. And in the fourth meaning, it is in the sense of diminishing and reducing in it. It is as if this term was chosen because he hardly steals in the scale and measure except for a very little thing. This is its root in the language, and Allah, glorified and exalted is He, explained it.