'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful'

Tafsir of Surah Al-Furqan

This surah is Makki according to the majority, and Al-Dahhak said: it is Madani, and in it are Makki verses, His saying: ﴿And those who do not invoke with Allah another deity﴾ [Al-Furqan: 68] are among the verses.

His saying, exalted and glorious is He:

﴿Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion upon His Servant that he may be to the worlds a warner﴾ ﴿He to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and who has not taken a son and has not had a partner in the dominion and has created everything and has decreed it a decree﴾ ﴿And they have taken besides Him deities that create not a thing while they are created and possess not for themselves harm or benefit and possess not death or life or resurrection﴾

"Blessed" is a verb in the form of Tafa'ala, and it is a present tense verb. "Blessed" comes from barakah, and "blessed" is an active participle from one, meaning: increased. "Blessed" is a verb specific to Allah, glorified and exalted is He, and it has not been used for anyone else. Therefore, there is no future tense or active participle derived from it, and it is a description of an action, meaning: His blessings have increased, among which is the sending down of His Book, which is the Criterion between truth and falsehood. The beginning of this verse is a response to the statements made by Quraysh, among which is their saying: "Indeed, the Quran was fabricated by Muhammad, and it is not from Allah." So it is a response to these statements.

The majority read: "upon His Servant," and Abdullah ibn Al-Zubair read: "upon His servants." The pronoun in His saying: "that he may be" is possible to refer to Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, who is His mentioned servant. This is the interpretation of Ibn Zayd. It is also possible that it refers to the Quran. As for the reading of Ibn Al-Zubair, it refers to the Quran, and it does not accept anything else except with difficulty. And His saying, exalted and glorious is He: ﴿to the worlds﴾ is general for every human and jinn, whether they were contemporaneous or came after, and it is supported by various sources of the authentic narrations and the apparent verses. And "the warner" is the one who warns of evil, and the messenger from Allah is a warner, and there may be a warner who is not a messenger, as has been narrated regarding Dhul-Qarnayn, and as has been mentioned regarding the messengers of the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, to the jinn, for they are warners and not messengers.

And His saying, exalted and glorious is He: ﴿He to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth﴾, this verse is a response to Quraysh in their saying: "Indeed, Allah has a partner," and in their saying: "He has taken daughters," and in their saying in the Talbiyah: "except a partner who is Yours." And His saying, exalted and glorious is He: ﴿And He created everything﴾ is general for every created thing, and the decree of things is their limitation by places, times, amounts, benefits, and perfection.

Then He followed the mention of these attributes that are for divinity with a refutation against Quraysh for taking deities that do not have these attributes. The intellect indicates that they are not deities. And His saying, exalted and glorious is He: ﴿while they are created﴾ it is possible that He means: Allah creates them by invention and existence, and it is possible that He means: humans create them by carving and woodworking. This interpretation emphasizes the baseness of the idols, and the creation of humans is permissible, but the Arabs use it, and among them is the saying of Zuhayr:

And you create what you have created, and some of the people create, then they do not create. This is from: I created the skin when I worked on it with designs that are cut upon it. So, creating is to cut according to the designs. And His saying, the Exalted, 'death and no life' means: causing death and not giving life. And 'the resurrection' is the raising of the people from the graves.