Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, Verses 13 to 14

1. The Questions This Verse Raises

Q1. What تِلْكَ points to, and what a ḥadd is

The pair opens with a pointing word and a noun, تِلْكَ حُدُودُ اللَّهِ (tilka ḥudūd Allāh), "these are the limits of Allah". The sentence itself is simple: تِلْكَ is the mubtadaʾ, the subject the sentence opens with, حُدُودُ اللَّهِ is its khabar, what is said of that subject, and the whole is a new statement after the shares, an istiʾnāf, which says of the legislation before it that it is Allah's limits, to be acted on and not crossed.^[68] Three questions follow from it:

1. The word: what a ḥadd is.
2. The kind: which kind of bound this verse names.
3. The referent: what تِلْكَ points back to, the shares of the two verses before or every ruling the sūra has laid down since its opening.

The first two have one answer, and the positions concern the third. What turns on it is where the promise and the threat that follow attach first; Question 2 considers which acts of obedience and disobedience the two verbs include.

Al-Wāḥidī attributes the wider interpretation to Ibn Kaysān and al-Zajjāj. Al-Zajjāj’s own commentary here defines the limits without specifying which earlier rulings are intended.^[71] And some commentators hold neither position, because they say only that تِلْكَ points to these rulings of Allah, set out so that they are known and acted on, and not which earlier rulings the words refer to (al-Qurṭubī, al-Qāsimī, al-Ṣābūnī).^[72]

The sense of the word. A ḥadd is what separates a thing from what is not it. That is why the boundary of a house or of a field is called its ḥadd, and why a definition is called one: it keeps everything else out. So the limits of Allah are the lines between what He allows and what He forbids, and here, after the shares, they are first of all the lines between obeying Him and disobeying Him in dividing the estates. Of the ways the word has been explained, this is the soundest statement of it (al-Ṭabarī, who rules so).^[73] The proof is the two clauses that follow: "whoever obeys" and "whoever disobeys" show what the lines divide, so the limits are lines a person stops at, and by them the obedient are told from the disobedient (al-Ṭabarī).^[74]

The early Muslims explained the words as Allah's conditions, His obedience, His way and His command in the division, and His ordinances. These are one sense, because each names something Allah fixed in the division, and whatever He fixed there is a line between obeying Him and disobeying Him; they are one meaning in different words (Abū Ḥayyān, Ibn ʿAṭiyya).^[75] The commentators after al-Ṭabarī derive the word from the same separation, whatever picture they use for it: an edge that sets a thing apart, a place that may not be crossed, a barrier that keeps one thing from entering on another.^[76] The lexicons give the same barrier, and with it the sense the barrier has when it is Allah's: His commands and His prohibitions, what He made clear of the forbidden and the permitted, with the command that none of it be crossed.^[77] So the sense is settled without a dissenting voice, and one question about the word remains: which kind of bound this verse names.

Which kind of bound. Commands set limits that must not be transgressed; prohibitions set limits that must not be approached. Marriage, divorce, the care of orphans and inheritance illustrate the first category; wine, gambling and idols illustrate the second (al-Hilāl).^[78] On that line the limits of Allah divide into limits of obligations and limits of prohibitions, and this verse stands among the commands (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[79] The shares are things to be done, which is why they are limits of the first kind. The fixed penalties are the word's other use: they too are called ḥudūd, because they restrain (al-Azharī, al-Zuḥaylī).^[80] This verse follows shares that are commanded, not penalties, so the limits here are the commanded shares, and a list of the limits that are not to be crossed puts the fixed inheritances first (Ibn al-Athīr).^[81]

The nearest thing named. The first position has three reasons, from the grammar, from the context and from the reports. The first is a rule of the language: a pointing word, like a pronoun, returns to the nearest thing named, and the nearest thing named here is the division in the verse before (Ibn ʿĀdil, who argues from the rule alone).^[82] The rule has a limit. Applied strictly, it would refer only to the preceding verse, 4:12, the one that opens "and to you belongs half of what your wives leave", and would leave out the shares of 4:11; so the shares are named as what the words point to and the wider referent is allowed, because the Qurʾān, though its verses are set apart, is one speech in meaning and context, each part built on the last (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[83]

The second reason is the context. The two verses close the passage that set out the shares, and the obedience and the disobedience its two clauses name are, in the first place, obedience and disobedience in what that passage commanded, so the proof for the sense is also the proof for the referent (al-Ṭabarī).^[84]

The third reason is the early explanations collected here: they concern the inheritance rulings, including the report of Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما whose two asanid are assessed in the table’s source note.^[85] The narrowest form is the bequest. In ʿIkrima's report, Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما said that harm in the bequest is among the major sins, then recited the pair and said of each of its two clauses that it is of the bequest.^[86] Al-Jaṣṣāṣ finds support for Abū Hurayra’s hadith in Ibn ʿAbbās’s application of these verses to harm in a bequest, and the promise of 4:13 is understood of whoever acts by Allah's ruling in the bequests (Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ, who cites the verse in a chapter on another verse).^[87] The bequest is the last thing 4:12 rules on, so the narrowest form of the report points where the rule of the nearest antecedent points, to the shares just set out, and no early report points anywhere else.

Where the verse is applied, its limits are the shares themselves. Those who refuse radd, the return of an estate’s surplus to the fixed-share heirs, argue from 4:14 that adding to a share fixed by text crosses the limit. Al-Sarakhsī reports this objection and then gives his school’s answer: the prescribed share is established by one text, while kinship establishes a further right to the residue. On that account, returning the surplus fulfils a separate entitlement rather than changing the prescribed share.^[88] And since the shares are limits to be kept, neither exceeded nor fallen short of, the bequest to an heir is abrogated by Allah's fixing of the heirs' shares (al-Saʿdī).^[89] In both, the bound the verse speaks of is the fixed share, which is the first position's referent put to use.

The words can refer to earlier rulings. The second position rests on one proof: when the nearest thing named does not bar the pointing from returning to the farther, it must return to all (al-Aṣamm, as al-Rāzī and Ibn ʿĀdil report him).^[90] The proof does not deny the rule of the nearest antecedent; it denies that the rule applies where nothing excludes an earlier referent, so the two positions meet on the same rule and part on whether anything stops the pointing here.

Its second support is generality. A wider referent includes the nearer one while also taking in the earlier legislation; that inclusiveness is itself a reason to prefer it (al-Jazāʾirī). Abū Ḥayyān also prefers the wider reference to the earlier rulings concerning orphans, wives, bequests and inheritances.^[91] The wider interpretation itself has different extents. One includes the preceding rules about orphans, bequests and inheritances (al-Zamakhsharī; al-Tafsīr al-Maẓharī).^[92] Another includes the legislation from the sūra’s opening (ʿAbduh). Al-Biqāʿī allows an even wider reference, extending to the Qurʾān from its beginning.^[93] The difference changes how much earlier legislation is included; it never removes the shares immediately before the verse. The wider interpretation therefore preserves the inheritance application on which the narrower one rests (al-Ālūsī, ʿAbduh, Bayān al-Naẓm).^[94]

The wider interpretation includes the inheritance rulings, and Abū Ḥayyān prefers it. Yet its breadth does not by itself establish the primary reference here. The placement of these verses immediately after the inheritance rulings, together with the early explanations of that passage, gives the narrower interpretation its particular strength.^[95]

Conclusion: The primary reference is to the inheritance rulings immediately before these verses, as al-Ṭabarī and Ibn ʿĀdil explain. Ibn ʿUthaymīn allows the wider reference as well. This tafsīr follows the immediate context while recognising that wider possibility.^[96]

And Allah knows best.

Q2. Who obeys and who disobeys here: the inheritances alone, or every command

The inheritance rules have just been stated. The promise and warning now speak of whoever obeys or disobeys Allah and His Messenger. Do they concern only the duties just discussed, or does their wording embrace the rest of His commands as well?

The distinction is between limiting the words and applying them to the case immediately before us. A commentator may explain how these verses govern inheritance without saying that they govern nothing else.

The general wording. The clause names no one and no single command. مَنْ (man), "whoever", is a word of ʿumūm, generality: it does not name a particular person and therefore applies to everyone, one, two or many. And what the clause asks of him is obedience to Allah and His Messenger, with no command named to limit what is obeyed, so the obedience is in whatever they command, the division of the inheritances and the other rulings of the Law alike. This is the first position's ground: because the wording is general, it covers all (al-Rāzī, presenting the verifying scholars’ argument, with al-Shawkānī and al-Hilāl).^[100]

What the two verbs leave open. To obey is to do what was commanded and to keep to what was laid down, and to disobey is to go against the command; the lexicons give the two verbs so, and al-Rāghib cites this very verse under his entry for disobedience.^[101] Neither verb is tied here to one command, so the obedience and the crossing are in all the commands and prohibitions, and the shares, just commanded, enter first among them without closing the door; the terms were made general so that keeping His limits in the shares, or leaving them, should fall under the general statement (Abū al-Suʿūd, al-Saʿdī).^[102] The next verse ties the obedience to the limits: يُطِعِ answers to وَيَتَعَدَّ حُدُودَهُ, "and transgresses His limits", so to obey is to keep within His limits (Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Zajjāj). Which commands must be obeyed therefore depends on what is meant by the limits, which Question 1 found to be the shares first, with every ruling of the sūra before them; on the widest account the limits are the whole Sharīʿa, and the recompense is joined to obedience and disobedience without restriction (Rashīd Riḍā).^[103] The general threat keeps the shares in view: those who contravene the preceding verses are among those to whom it applies (the Majmaʿ's Wasīṭ).^[104] Question 3 distinguishes the offenders, the duration of punishment, and the added descriptions of transgression and humiliation.

The argument from context. The restricted interpretation draws its force from the place of the pair. The two verses come straight after the shares, and a promise and a threat set after a ruling speak of that ruling: after setting out the shares, Allah mentioned the promise and the threat to draw to obedience and to warn from disobedience (al-Rāzī), and the threat was needed there because the Arabs had rejected this division, and the Prophet ﷺ had to speak of it to ʿUyayna b. Ḥiṣn and others (Ibn ʿAṭiyya).^[105] Al-Rāzī and Ibn ʿĀdil report the restricted view as concerning “these obligations mentioned in this sūra.” That is a claim about the extent of the wording, beyond the agreed observation that inheritance is its immediate setting.^[106] Two early reports take the disobedience further still, to not believing in the shares at all; that is a question of who is subject to the threat of everlasting punishment, and it is Question 3's (Ibn Jurayj, in the report Ibn Thawr gives; al-Kalbī).^[107]

The inheritance application also has transmitted support. The reports on the division are passed on by the commentators and collected in the books of hadith, and the two chains of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭalḥa from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما are graded ḥasan (Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn).^[108] These reports establish an application of the verses; they do not by themselves establish an exclusive limit.

The early applications to bequests, given in Historical Context, establish that the inheritance rules are included in the warning.^[109] They do not establish that its general wording is confined to those rules. The explanations of the clauses by Ibn Kathīr and al-Qurṭubī likewise apply them to carrying out the shares without devices that deprive an heir, and to changing the division out of discontent with Allah’s ruling.^[110]

The answer: a general word stays general. The answer concedes that the shares are the case the verses follow and denies that the wording stops there. A general statement that comes after particular duties is not narrowed by them: a father who turns to his son, rebukes him over one matter, then says "beware of opposing and disobeying me", means to keep him from disobedience in everything (al-Rāzī); and مَنْ is general, and its coming after these particular duties does not restrict it (al-Aṣbahānī, as al-Biqāʿī quotes him).^[111] The verses’ position therefore identifies their immediate application without limiting their meaning to that case. Both recitations are at the bequest, and a Companion who recites the pair at the bequest applies it to the case before him, the first case to which the general wording applies; these early explanations focus on the specific scenario, but neither claims the verse is strictly confined to it. The broader interpretation thus preserves the inheritance application while extending beyond it. Other explanations allow either interpretation: obedience may concern the commanded rulings or prescribed obligations, and the preceding limits may be intended specifically or in a general sense. Those alternatives describe scope without denying the duty to keep the shares (al-Ālūsī, Bayān al-Naẓm).^[112]

Which interpretation is stronger? The general interpretation is stronger because it accounts for both the unrestricted wording and the inheritance setting. Restriction would require a further reason to exclude other commands; the preceding subject alone does not provide it. The promise and warning therefore include inheritance and the other commands and prohibitions. This is the interpretation adopted here, following the argument developed by al-Rāzī and stated explicitly by al-Shawkānī, Abū al-Suʿūd and al-Saʿdī.^[113]

Why the Messenger is named beside Allah. He is named because obedience to the Messenger is obedience to Allah, as the sūra says at 4:80 (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[114] The explicit command answers the claim that reason makes revelation unnecessary, a claim made in different ages. The Messenger commands what Allah reveals for our welfare (ʿAbduh, abridged by al-Marāghī).^[115] The duty of obedience also applies to the Messenger's own ijtihād: when he is decisive and no proof shows a command to be for guidance or recommendation, or a prohibition to express dislike or disapproval rather than forbiddance, obeying him is obligatory, in worship and in the matters of rule and judgement, because he is the imām of the umma and its ruler (Rashīd Riḍā).^[116] So Allah and His Messenger are obeyed as one obedience, and what the Messenger commands binds as what Allah has revealed binds; the shares, which came by revelation against the custom of the Arabs, are its first test.

Conclusion: The promise and the threat are general to every command and prohibition of Allah and His Messenger, and the inheritance rulings just stated are their immediate application.

And Allah knows best.

Q3. Who is threatened with abiding in the Fire, and what do transgression and humiliation add?

The promise speaks of people abiding in the Garden; the threat speaks of a person abiding in the Fire. It uses the same word: خَالِدًا (khālidan). Muslims agree that the Garden's bliss never ends.^[117] Does the threat therefore mean that anyone who sins must remain in the Fire forever?

That is the force of the objection made by the Muʿtazila and the Khawārij. A Muslim who wrongfully changes an inheritance share has crossed Allah's limits. Whether those limits mean the inheritance rules alone or include other commands, his offence falls within them. If the threat gives everyone who crosses them an endless punishment, a Muslim who commits a major sin can never leave the Fire (al-Rāzī, reporting the argument).^[118]

The Sunni answers below reject that outcome, but they do not all read the threat in the same way. One limits the person described by its everlasting punishment to someone whose disobedience amounts to unbelief. The other keeps the sinning Muslim within the warning, then reads it alongside the evidence for pardon and release from the Fire. Some commentators allow both answers: the abiding may retain its literal sense if unbelief is meant, or describe a long stay if the major sins are meant (al-Qurṭubī, Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[119]

The threat gives the offence a second description. “And transgresses His limits” is added on the warning's side. The verse does not leave the offender described by disobedience alone; it reinforces that description with the crossing of Allah's limits (Abū Ḥayyān).^[122] The corresponding obedience can therefore be understood as keeping within those limits (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[123] The relation matters: the two clauses concern the same commanded limits, approached through keeping them or crossing them.

The two descriptions can identify different kinds of violation. Disobedience here means doing what is forbidden; crossing the limits means leaving an obligation unfulfilled or going beyond it. On this explanation, each part of the clause contributes something distinct (Ibn ʿUthaymīn). A different distinction concerns his attitude to the violation: he may hold it lawful, treat the command with contempt, or disobey by leaving it unfulfilled (the Majmaʿ's Wasīṭ).^[124] These distinctions describe conduct and attitude respectively; they are not interchangeable classifications. The next interpretation asks whether the added description identifies a form of unbelief.

Does crossing the limits identify rejection? On another explanation, if the verse meant only that a person had sinned, “whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger” would already say it. The further words, “and transgresses His limits”, must add something. On one interpretation, they take the offence to its extreme: rejecting the wisdom of Allah's rulings. The threat then concerns unbelief, not a sin committed while acknowledging the ruling (al-Rāzī, followed by Ibn ʿĀdil).^[125]

A related argument distinguishes belief from action. If crossing the limits names the violation in deeds, the preceding disobedience can name the violation in belief. On that interpretation, the corresponding obedience in 4:13 is obedience in belief, and the promised entry into the Garden is not made conditional on deeds (Ibn Kamāl). A more limited point is that the threat does not mention disobedience without qualification: it joins disobedience to crossing the limits. That qualification matters before one applies the verse to every sinner (Ibn Taymiyya).^[126] These are distinct arguments: the first assigns the two clauses to belief and deeds; the second interprets the two descriptions together.

The believer who sins still obeys Allah in his faith. He has therefore stopped at the boundary of tawḥīd, even while crossing another bound. If “His limits” here means all His limits, that believer is not the person described. The unbeliever is (al-Nasafī). The grammatical argument offered for that comprehensive sense is that an exception can properly be made from “His limits”; this is a test of the expression's generality, not an exception actually stated in the verse (al-Ālūsī).^[127]

The inheritance dispute shows what rejection means. Some early explanations concern people who refused to believe in the division itself. Women and small children, they thought, should receive nothing. The explanation transmitted from Saʿīd b. Jubayr calls these people hypocrites and connects their abiding in the Fire to disbelief in Allah's division.^[128] This is more than failing to hand over a share: it is refusing the authority by which the share was fixed.

Other reports describe the offence as shirk, discontent with the division, or crossing the limits while holding the violation lawful. In his editorial note to al-Basīṭ, Muḥammad al-Muḥaymīd rejects al-Ḍaḥḥāk's restriction to shirk because the verse is general. He prefers ʿIkrima's report from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما about discontent with the division because it fits the context.^[129] His preference concerns the explanation of disobedience; it does not establish that every Muslim who wrongs an heir has become an unbeliever.

The decisive distinction is between disobeying the division and rejecting it. Asked whether a person who violates the inheritance rules must remain in the Fire, al-Ṭabarī answers yes when the offence is joined to doubt that Allah ordained those shares, or to knowing opposition to Allah and His Messenger. He recalls the objection to giving wealth to someone who neither rides a horse nor fights the enemy. To reject Allah's division in that way is to leave Islam. It is of that person that he explains the abiding as remaining forever, never dying and never leaving.^[130] The brief explanations in al-Ṭabarī, al-Ṣābūnī and al-Wasīṭ likewise describe abiding as permanent.^[131] Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār identifies the revelation account and early explanations behind this answer. The revelation account concerns the shares in 4:11; it is not a separate occasion of revelation for 4:13–14.^[132]

Discontent also explains the fitness of the punishment: the person has changed what Allah ruled because he will not accept it (Ibn Kathīr). Where that refusal is rejection of Allah's ruling, it is unbelief; the everlasting punishment follows if he does not repent before death (al-Khāzin).^[133] A further interpretation relates the warning to the first recipients of the legislation. Having entered Islam, they were eager to act on its counsels; a rejection of this kind exposed faith that had not become firm, unless the person repented. This is one of Ibn ʿĀshūr's alternatives, alongside his interpretation of abiding as a long stay.^[134]

Humiliation strengthens this interpretation, with a qualification. Pain and disgrace are not identical. A person held in honour may be punished without being humiliated. Across the Qurʾān, the preparation of a humiliating punishment is associated with unbelievers, whereas even believers can be threatened with a “great punishment”, عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ, as at 8:68. This distinction supports interpreting the present warning as directed at someone who denies the shares and treats them lightly (Ibn Taymiyya). His argument remains qualified: 4:14 itself does not say that the punishment was “prepared”, and he presents his interpretation with “and Allah knows best”.^[135]

Abiding can describe long duration. The other answer keeps the sinning Muslim within the warning. Arabic can use khulūd for long endurance, as in the description of mountains that last through many generations but are not eternal. Al-Qurṭubī therefore allows long duration when major sins are meant and permanence when unbelief is meant.^[136]

The lexical possibility alone does not decide the sinner’s fate. Ibn ʿUthaymīn takes permanence as the default unless evidence establishes a limited stay. The full lexical evidence, including the poems and al-Samīn’s argument about adding أَبَدًا, “forever,” appears in Ṣarf under “Remaining: a long time or without end?”^[137] The interpretation of this threat still depends on the other texts about punishment and forgiveness.

A threat must be read with its conditions. Repentance already establishes one agreed condition: a person who repents is not condemned by the warning as though no repentance had occurred. If proof can establish that condition, proof of divine pardon can also establish that the threat is conditional on not being pardoned. This is al-Rāzī’s first answer. He then gives two arguments for understanding the everlasting punishment as applying to unbelief, without explicitly ranking his answers. Al-Ālūsī also preserves the condition of pardon as an alternative.^[138]

The wider body of revelation establishes the further limit. Disobedience includes unbelief and sins below it, but a Muslim who sins retains the obedience of tawḥīd. The mutawātir texts establish that the people of tawḥīd do not remain in the Fire forever; their faith therefore prevents the threat from having that outcome (al-Saʿdī).^[139] If a believing sinner is punished, his punishment is in proportion to his sins, followed by release to the Garden, even after a long time (al-Zuḥaylī, Ibn Taymiyya).^[140]

An unqualified interpretation would also apply the warning far more broadly than its proponents intend. “Whoever” is general, and here it stands in a condition. Taken as a sentence of unavoidable, endless punishment for disobedience, it would cover every sin and contradict forgiveness. The setting is one of deterrence; the threat cannot be detached from the evidence about forgiveness (al-Zarkashī).^[141]

A cause of punishment need not produce it in every person. Sin is a cause of entering the Fire, but a cause can be prevented from taking effect. Allah's pardon is such an impediment for sins below shirk (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[142] With that qualification in place, the two verses distinguish the causes found in different people: prevailing obedience brings entry to the Garden without the Fire; disobedience with no obedience brings the Fire; for a person who combines obedience and disobedience, Ibn ʿUthaymīn distinguishes which predominates. If obedience predominates, the person does not enter the Fire. If disobedience predominates, the punishment corresponds to the sin, after which the person leaves. This account must be read with his preceding qualification: Allah’s pardon can prevent punishment.^[143] Nor does it remove inheritance from the warning: those who violate the preceding rules remain among the people addressed (the Majmaʿ's Wasīṭ).^[144]

Persistence needs to be distinguished from rejection. Different conclusions can follow when one group makes the texts of warning its starting point and another begins with the texts of pardon. That is Riḍā’s diagnosis of the disagreement.^[145] One proposed reconciliation instead asks what the sinner’s persistence reveals about his faith.

A person overcome by desire or anger may lose sight of the command, then remember it, regret the act and repent. His self-reproach is itself a kind of punishment. This is the person who does not knowingly persist, described in 3:135. Another person knowingly prefers sin to obedience and remains unmoved by the warning: evil has come to encompass him, as in 2:81. These are the two states distinguished in ʿAbduh’s explanation; the first is worthy of salvation, while the second raises a question about belief in the warning itself.^[146]

But the second person may still hope for pardon. Does that hope not show the faith by which he can be saved? The answer turns on the absence of fear and regret: knowingly persisting in that state contradicts belief in Allah’s warning and submission to His law. On ʿAbduh’s account it amounts to mockery, rather than the sound faith the objection invokes. He therefore treats the disagreement as verbal when the two sides are speaking about that same bold persister.^[147]

A related explanation considers how the state develops: sins may so affect the soul that faith no longer governs it. This is Riḍā’s own account, developed with ʿAbduh’s approval.^[148] Al-Marāghī develops the distinction between the two states and connects the second with evil encompassing its doer.^[149]

Repeated sin alone, however, does not establish rejection. Makkī attaches the threat to someone who leaves the shares unexecuted and dies persisting, without there classifying his faith. Al-Zuḥaylī describes punishable disobedience as deliberate and persistent, yet also says that sinful believers are punished in measure and then leave. The claim that every persistent sinner is an unbeliever would erase those distinctions.^[150]

Applying the warning is not pronouncing an eternal sentence. The early applications to harm in a bequest, given in Historical Context, show the warning applied to a major sin.^[151] They do not remove the distinction between sin and rejection, or the conditions of repentance and pardon.

Does humiliation mean a different punishment for a different offender? Ibn ʿĀshūr tentatively proposes a division: some disobedience brings abiding in the Fire, while another kind brings humiliating punishment. Otherwise, he reasons, the added clause might appear merely to reinforce what preceded it. He also gives another explanation: the addition concerns the description “humiliating” itself.^[152]

The latter explanation is stronger here. The Fire has already named the bodily suffering; humiliation adds disgrace. It therefore contributes a distinct meaning without requiring a different recipient. Abū al-Suʿūd and al-Ālūsī explain the punishment as combining bodily suffering with inward disgrace; Ibn ʿUthaymīn likewise identifies humiliation as an added punishment.^[153] Ibn ʿĀshūr’s division remains a qualified alternative, rather than the necessary meaning of the conjunction.

Conclusion: This tafsīr follows Ibn ʿUthaymīn in applying the warning to sinful believers as well as unbelievers, while reading it alongside the texts concerning pardon and release from the Fire. Sin gives cause for punishment; it does not make punishment inevitable or everlasting for a believer. The interpretation that confines the everlasting warning to unbelief reaches the same conclusion about the believer. “Humiliating” adds disgrace to the punishment already described; it need not introduce a different offender.^[154]

And Allah knows best.

2. How the Commentators Read This Verse

The following accounts develop the relationship between a limit and obedience, distinguish a sinful bequest from an ineffective one, and explain the duty to deliver each heir’s right.

3. Iʿrāb: Grammatical Analysis

The verses first name Allah’s limits, then set out two matching conditions: whoever obeys is promised the Gardens; whoever disobeys and crosses those limits is threatened with the Fire. The word and clause tables use Dār al-Ṣaḥābah’s Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm as their baseline, with additions identified where used.^[163] The explanations afterward show the alternatives and what they do, or do not, change in English.

Word / Grammar / What it does

4:13

4:14

Clause / Position

A clause can function as a subject’s predicate, describe a noun, or stand independently. The table distinguishes those relationships from the endings of individual words.

Where the grammar changes the meaning

What completes “whoever”?

In both verses, مَنْ (man), “whoever,” occupies the subject position. Grammarians then ask which clause is its خَبَر (khabar), the predicate that completes the statement about it.

Dār al-Ṣaḥābah takes the first account.^[184] Ṣāfī also gives it, while allowing the two clauses together;^[185] Darwīsh takes the two together.^[186] Al-Durra records all three and reports that contemporary grammarians prefer the combined account.^[187]

Effect on English. None separates the promised result from its condition. The accounts identify the grammatical predicate differently, but all preserve “whoever obeys … He will admit him.”

The destination and the rivers.

In the baseline construction, يُدْخِلْهُ (yudkhilhu), “He will admit him,” has two objects: the person admitted and the place entered, جَنَّاتٍ (jannātin), “Gardens,” or نَارًا (nāran), “a Fire.”^[188] The other accounts explain how a word naming the destination receives naṣb. Darwīsh allows an omitted preposition, giving the sense “into Gardens,” or a second object by extension.^[189] Al-Samīn relates the wider grammatical question to the verb “enter”: most grammarians treat its destination as a place expression, while al-Akhfash treats it as an object. Abū al-Suʿūd reports the same distinction. The table follows the second-object account, as Dār al-Ṣaḥābah does.^[190]

These constructions do not give different destinations. English still says “admit him to Gardens” and “admit him to a Fire.” Likewise, attaching مِنْ تَحْتِهَا (min taḥtihā), “beneath them,” to an understood description of the rivers or directly to “flow” presents the same scene: rivers flowing beneath the Gardens. Ṣāfī allows both connections.^[191]

Who is described as abiding?

On the first account, خَالِدِينَ (khālidīna) and خَالِدًا (khālidan) are each a حَال (ḥāl): they describe the person or people admitted. The plural in 4:13 follows the meaning of “whoever,” which can include many people; the singular in 4:14 follows its wording. Within 4:13, the singular يُدْخِلْهُ (yudkhilhu) first follows the wording of “whoever,” and the plural خَالِدِينَ (khālidīna) then follows its meaning. Al-Samīn calls this ordering the better sequence. He also permits the reverse where its grammatical conditions are met, contrary to Ibn ʿAṭiyya’s prohibition.^[192]

Verse 65:11 follows the singular wording of “whoever,” then its plural meaning, then its singular wording again: “He admits him,” “abiding,” and “for him.” Ibn ʿUthaymīn uses that return to the singular to show that agreement can move back from meaning to wording. The example therefore answers the prohibition mentioned above.^[193]

For خَالِدِينَ (khālidīna), al-Samīn calls the ḥāl the more evident account. He describes it as a حَال مُقَدَّرَة (ḥāl muqaddara), a condition envisaged for what follows, since entering comes before remaining.^[194] Al-Zajjāj illustrates the same relationship with meeting someone who has a hawk and will hunt with it tomorrow: the sentence describes him by an activity that is still ahead.^[195]

The second account makes the words adjectives of the Gardens and the Fire, while the people are still the ones who abide. Arabic can attach a description to one noun even when it concerns someone connected with that noun: “a man whose mother is standing,” for example. Al-Samīn reports this account from al-Zajjāj and al-Tibrīzī.^[196] The distinction in attribution matters: al-Zajjāj’s own commentary gives the future ḥāl for خَالِدِينَ;^[197] at خَالِدًا it gives the adjective first and also allows the ḥāl.^[198] Al-Wāḥidī illustrates the reported adjectival construction with a house in which someone dwells.^[199]

Why the grammatical schools differ. If the adjective grammatically describes an abode but its action belongs to a person, must that person’s pronoun appear? The rule of the Basra school requires it even when the meaning is clear. On that rule, the constructions would need خالدين هم فيها، وخالداً هو فيها, “abiding, they, in them” and “abiding, he, in it.” Al-Zamakhsharī therefore rejects the adjective at both words.^[200] Al-ʿUkbarī applies that objection to خَالِدًا while reporting the Kūfan alternative;^[201] al-Samīn observes that the same issue applies to خَالِدِينَ.^[202]

The Kufa school requires the expressed pronoun when leaving it out would cause ambiguity, but allow it to remain unexpressed when the relationship is clear. Al-Samīn judges this a sound grammatical view.^[203] He gives two kinds of usage in support. One is a transmitted form at 33:53, غَيْرِ نَاظِرِينَ إِنَاهُ, “not waiting for its readiness,” with غَيْرِ in jarr and no expressed “you” after “waiting.” It is cited here as grammatical evidence, without assigning it canonical status.^[204] The other is this poetic witness:

The words “its builders” stand beside “glory’s heights,” but the builders are the people. No separate “they” is expressed. That is the point of comparison with the Gardens and those abiding in them. A different explanation understands an omitted subject: “they are its builders.” On that account, the words form a new statement, so the line would not prove that an adjective may omit its pronoun.^[206]

The grammatical issue is whether the pronoun must be expressed. Where its referent is clear, the Kūfan construction permits omission; Abū Ḥayyān explains the Baṣran restriction and accepts that alternative.^[207] Al-Ālūsī records the same objection and answer.^[208] The adjective is consequently possible on the Kūfan account (Ibn Kamāl),^[209] which Ibn ʿĀdil discusses favourably after al-Samīn.^[210] Dār al-Ṣaḥābah also allows the adjective at خَالِدًا.^[211]

Effect on English. The ḥāl gives “He admits them to Gardens, abiding in them.” The adjectival connection gives “Gardens in which they abide.” Both concern the same people in the same abode. The table follows the baseline’s ḥāl for both forms; al-Samīn identifies it as more evident at خَالِدِينَ (khālidīna).^[212] The choice between these constructions does not decide whether a particular threat denotes an endless or limited stay. That is the interpretive question developed in Question 3.

Whose limits are crossed?

The adopted referent of the hāʾ in حُدُودَهُ (ḥudūdahu), “His limits,” is Allah, whose limits the preceding verse expressly names. Al-Ṭabarī explains the transgression as crossing the limits of Allah’s obedience,^[213] and al-Ālūsī as crossing the limits brought by His Messenger ﷺ.^[214]

Makkī instead returns the pronoun to the Messenger, because he conveys Allah’s limits.^[215] The referent changes, but the authority of those limits does not: they are Allah’s limits in either explanation. English can preserve the ordinary “His limits” with Allah as the referent; Makkī’s explanation would make it “his limits,” referring to the Messenger who conveys them.

How the closing statements attach.

The baseline treats “and that is the great success” as a fresh sentence. Darwīsh also permits it as a حَال (ḥāl), accompanying the promised outcome;^[216] Abū al-Suʿūd and al-Ālūsī describe it as اعتراض (iʿtirāḍ), an intervening statement between the promise and the warning.^[217] Each account identifies the promised outcome as the great success. The ordinary English “and that is the great success” can convey all three relationships.

For “and for him is a humiliating punishment,” the baseline permits a clause joined to the answer or a fresh statement.^[218] Al-Durra instead makes it a ḥāl of the person admitted, with the wāw and the pronoun linking the clause to him.^[219] The alternatives place the clause differently within the sentence; all associate the humiliating punishment with that person. They do not by themselves settle Question 3’s explanation of the relationship between the punishments.

4. Ṣarf: Roots and Morphology

The table follows the twenty root-bearing word occurrences in verse order, including repeated words. They represent sixteen roots. Particles, demonstratives, pronouns and the divine name are treated in the grammatical table rather than assigned speculative roots here. The endings show each word’s function: rafʿ, naṣb and jarr are the noun’s grammatical states; jazm is the verb form governed by the condition.

A “hollow” root has a weak letter in its middle; a “defective” root has one at its end. The explanations identify the actual letter affected instead of leaving the label to do all the work.

Remaining: a long time or without end?

The shared root of خَالِدِينَ (khālidīna) and خَالِدًا (khālidan) expresses remaining, but the examples show why context matters when deciding its duration. Firmness and attachment are the central meaning in Ibn Fāris’s account: خَلَدَ (khalada) and أَخْلَدَ (akhlada) can mean “he remained.”^[248] His poetic witness is Ibn Aḥmar’s line:

The witness concerns what remains while those around it disappear. The same idea explains describing a man as مُخْلَد (mukhlad) or مُخْلِد (mukhlid) when grey hair is slow to reach him: youth has stayed with him. Ibn Fāris gives both forms; ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn notes that the first vocalization is not recorded in the dictionaries he consulted, while the author’s explanation supports its presence here.^[250]

Remaining is also expressed by a stone that outlasts a camp. Lisān al-ʿArab cites Zuhayr:

The adjective المُخْلِد (al-mukhlid) describes the lasting stone. Related usage describes a man who grows old without going grey,^[252] and calls mountains, rocks and hearthstones خَوَالِد (khawālid) because they remain long after the camp’s traces have faded.^[253] These examples establish prolonged remaining; they do not claim that stones can never perish.

That is the distinction al-Rāghib makes: Arabic can describe what changes or decays only slowly with the language of khulūd. Hearthstones are called khawālid for their long stay, not because their existence has no end.^[254] He explains mukhallad first as something that remains a long time, then as a word extended to what is preserved forever.^[255] Al-Samīn takes that sequence to identify long remaining as the original sense.^[256] Jabal likewise emphasizes something staying fixed in its place or condition while comparable things pass away.^[257]

The permanent use is equally explicit. Lisān al-ʿArab defines khuld as lasting residence in an abode one does not leave and describes the people of the Garden as remaining forever.^[258] Al-Rāghib explains the Garden’s khulūd as remaining without corruption overtaking what is there.^[259] Al-Zamakhsharī records both “stayed a long time in a place” and “remained forever in prison or bliss.”^[260]

Al-Qurṭubī illustrates long endurance with Zuhayr’s line:

The mountains exemplify long endurance, not endless existence. Al-Qurṭubī quotes the second half; the editors of this edition, Aḥmad al-Bardūnī and Ibrāhīm Aṭfīsh, give the first.^[261]

The addition of أَبَدًا, “forever”, then becomes part of the argument. If khulūd necessarily expressed endlessness, why would the Qurʾān add that word? The answer given by defenders of that sense is emphasis; the reply is that an additional meaning is normally preferred to unnecessary emphasis. Al-Samīn makes the objection and answers the appeal to emphasis himself. He gives both definitions and observes that the endless sense supports the Muʿtazilī argument about major sinners.^[262] He also cites Imruʾ al-Qays:

Here مخلد describes long life; يعمن concerns ease and well-being.^[263] Al-Samīn also gives the verb خلد يخلد خلودًا for remaining, followed by an unnamed poet’s line:

This line uses بخالد for immortality: glory cannot save a living person from death. It illustrates the permanent sense, rather than proving a limited stay.^[264] Al-Samīn links this usage to al-Rāghib's account of the extension from long duration to endless preservation.^[265] What the form establishes. خَالِد (khālid) names the one who remains; its plural and singular endings identify the people described. The lexical uses include prolonged remaining and permanence. Which use applies to the warning is the question already examined, with the commentators’ reasons and qualifications, in Question 3.

Divine Limits: Preventing Transgression

The plural حُدُود (ḥudūd) comes from حَدّ (ḥadd), a boundary. The two lexical centers are prevention and an edge (Ibn Fāris);^[266] the verb can mean preventing someone (al-Zamakhsharī),^[267] and Jabal connects the root with stopping extension or overstepping.^[268] Question 1 develops how that meaning includes commands and prohibitions, with legal penalties as one application. The further distinction here concerns the different ways a prescribed limit can operate.

A limit need not regulate every quantity in the same way. Al-Samīn sets out four possibilities:

The inheritance shares belong to the fixed category: they are prescribed entitlements, not amounts a person may privately increase or reduce (al-Saʿdī).^[269] This is distinct from the separate argument for radd explained in Question 1.

Al-Samīn notes that al-Rāghib announced four kinds but gave only three and illustrated only the first.^[270] Those three are a fixed limit, a minimum that may be exceeded, and a maximum below which one may remain; his example of the fixed limit is the prescribed number of rakʿahs in an obligatory prayer.^[271]

The edition edited by Ṣafwān Dāwūdī includes the fourth category as well.^[272]

Success: escape together with gain

الْفَوْزُ (al-fawzu) is a مصدر (maṣdar), a noun naming the action or result. Its pattern فَعْل (faʿl) is established by usage from فَازَ يَفُوزُ (fāza yafūzu).^[273] The form names the attainment itself, rather than a person who attains it.

The dictionaries record a wider history of the root than the favorable meaning required here. Ibn Fāris gives salvation and an opposite use, perishing; in the favorable use, a person escapes and wins what is sought.^[274] Lisān al-ʿArab connects the verb with attaining what others might envy and with distance from the disliked thing.^[275] Jabal develops the image of crossing a desert safely, then relates the Qurʾānic use to deliverance and the Garden’s blessings.^[276] The combination of escape and gain in this verse is explained in Simple Explanation; these lexical details show the breadth of usage behind it.

Humiliating: what the punishment does

مُهِينٌ (muhīnun) is an اسم فاعل (ism fāʿil), an active participle: it describes something that causes humiliation. The punishment is the cause; the person who undergoes it is humiliated. It comes from أَهَانَ (ahāna), root ه و ن, with an added mīm.

The similar-looking مَهِين (mahīn), with a after the mīm, can mean “weak” or “lowly.” Lisān al-ʿArab treats that form under م ه ن, with the mīm belonging to the root. Ibn Barrī further distinguishes two explanations of mahāna: from hawān, it has the pattern mafʿala and an added mīm; as the action noun of مَهُنَ (mahuna), expressing lowliness, it has the pattern faʿāla and a root mīm. The verse uses the first word, muhīn: the punishment humiliates; it is not itself weak or lowly.^[277]

The root also has uses involving calmness and lowliness (Ibn Fāris).^[278] Here the relevant sense is the opposite of honor: being held in contempt, as the verbs and nouns collected in Lisān al-ʿArab show.^[279]

Al-Rāghib distinguishes freely lowering oneself in a way that is praiseworthy from humiliation imposed by someone who exercises power over another. He places “a humiliating punishment” in the second category.^[280] Al-Samīn preserves the same distinction between praised humility and imposed abasement.^[281] The verse thus describes both punishment and disgrace; the full relationship of this clause to the Fire is examined in Question 3.

5. Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

The promise and warning follow the inheritance rulings, encouraging obedience and warning against disobedience.^[282] Following commands with encouragement and warning is a recurring Qurʾānic manner of teaching, as Muftī Muḥammad Shafīʿ explains.^[283] Their corresponding clauses draw attention to what changes: the response to Allah’s command, the destination, the number of those described as abiding, and the final description of their outcome. Opposing verbs, repeated names and a change of grammatical person all contribute to this comparison.^[284]

Comparing two sides, then distinguishing them (جمع المختلفة والمؤتلفة, jamʿ al-mukhtalifa wa-l-muʾtalifa)

Where it is. The paired conditions, وَمَنْ يُطِعِ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ, “whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger,” and وَمَنْ يَعْصِ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَيَتَعَدَّ حُدُودَهُ, “whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger and transgresses His limits,” lead to corresponding descriptions of admission and abiding.

The plain way. “Obedience brings reward; disobedience brings punishment” states the contrast without developing the matching descriptions of the two outcomes.

What it does. The device first establishes a shared basis of comparison, then gives one side an advantage through a different consideration. Darwīsh’s definition allows two praised things, two blamed things, or one praised and one blamed. The further distinction must leave the other side’s stated qualities intact.^[285] Both sides name a condition, admission to an abode, and abiding there. Those corresponding elements establish the comparison. The differing descriptions then distinguish the reward from the punishment.

The change from plural خَالِدِينَ (khālidīna), “abiding,” to singular خَالِدًا (khālidan), gives Darwīsh his particular application. All who enter the Garden remain, whereas the Fire contains both permanent inhabitants and sinful believers who eventually leave. Those who remain in the Fire form one group; the Garden’s permanent inhabitants occupy different ranks. He connects these distinctions to the plural on the promise’s side and the singular on the warning’s. On this account, the Garden’s reward is distinguished without weakening the description of the Fire.^[286] The following discussion compares this explanation with the other accounts of the change in number.

The poetic definition begins with two objects of praise. The poet praises both on a common ground, then introduces a different ground for preferring one (Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ).^[287] Al-Khansāʾ’s comparison of her brother Ṣakhr with their father makes that movement visible. Both are excellent; honoring the father need not belittle the son. Darwīsh quotes the complete passage:^[288]

The opening establishes equality in courage, battle and speed. The two falcons reinforce that likeness; the close-running horses and the spectators’ uncertainty keep it before us. Then the father’s face emerges first from the dust, marking his lead. The final line explains how the son’s ability and the father’s precedence can stand together: the son could match him, but restrains himself out of respect for his father. On Darwīsh’s explanation, the father receives precedence while the son retains both his excellence and his filial regard.^[289]

The effect. Corresponding clauses make the two outcomes comparable, while their differences give each its character. The poem helps explain the device’s movement from a shared ground to a distinction; Darwīsh applies that movement through the differing descriptions of those who abide.

Choosing the plural or the singular (الإفراد والجمع, al-ifrād wa-l-jamʿ)

Where it is. خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا (khālidīna fīhā), “abiding therein,” is plural in 4:13; خَالِدًا فِيهَا (khālidan fīhā) is singular in 4:14.

The plain way. Arabic permits agreement with the singular wording of “whoever” or with its potentially plural meaning. The grammar therefore allows a choice; the expressive question is why these two verses make different choices.

What it does. Companionship adds to the delight of reward, while isolation adds to the desolation of punishment (Abū al-Suʿūd).^[290] This does not mean that only one person inhabits the Fire. The suffering can prevent fellowship even where others are present. Ibn ʿUthaymīn also invokes a report of each person confined in a coffer, unseen and unable to see others except in rebuke, ending his explanation with “the knowledge is with Allah”. His explanation thus combines the contrast in number with a report he invokes, while leaving its knowledge with Allah.^[291]

The contrast concerns inward experience as well as outward number: companionship is a spiritual pleasure, and desolation a spiritual pain (Ibn Kamāl).^[292]

Companionship adds a further delight to lasting life. In explaining ʿAbduh's choice of this interpretation, Rashīd Riḍā brings al-Maʿarrī's line:^[293]

The line illustrates the pleasure of companionship. Both sides of the contrast belong to ʿAbduh: companionship adds to the joy of the Garden, while suffering prevents fellowship in the Fire. Riḍā supports his teacher’s explanation with 43:39, where sharing the punishment brings no relief.^[294]

Other explanations connect the number to intercession, rank or wording. Intercession gives another reason for showing the obedient together: the person who intercedes for another enters with him, whereas the disobedient person does not bring a companion into the Fire by interceding for him. Abū Ḥayyān, Ibn ʿĀdil and al-Samīn report this explanation; al-Ālūsī offers it as an alternative alongside company and solitude.^[295]

A distinction of ranks can also motivate the plural, but the accounts differ. Al-Jadwal contrasts the differing ranks of the Garden's inhabitants with a common punishment in the Fire, considers both that explanation and company against solitude sound, and leaves the reader a choice between them. Darwīsh instead contrasts the Garden, whose entrants all remain forever, with the Fire, whose inhabitants include both those who remain and sinful believers who do not. Those who remain permanently in the Fire then form one group, whereas the Garden's permanent inhabitants occupy different ranks; that is how his explanation connects their states to the singular and plural. His distinction between permanent and temporary inhabitants differs from al-Jadwal's claim about punishment.^[296]

The arrangement of the nouns suggests a further possibility. “He admits him” is singular, but it is followed by “gardens”; the plural “abiding” then makes the many admitted people explicit and fits the plural gardens. In the threat, “a Fire” and the singular “abiding” correspond. This explanation begins from the apparent difficulty of picturing one person in several gardens at once; it is offered as an account of the wording, not a limit imposed on Paradise. Al-Sāmarrāʾī reports it after the company explanation, and the commentary of Yāsīn is among its cited sources.^[297] These alternatives approach the contrast differently. The company-and-solitude explanation, given by Abū al-Suʿūd and chosen by ʿAbduh, best explains what the two forms suggest about the experience of reward and punishment.

Al-Sāmarrāʾī also cites Yāsīn al-ʿUlaymī’s commentary on al-Taṣrīḥ, which credits the company explanation to Abū al-Suʿūd.^[298]

A related contrast concerns the life of each company. The people of the Garden enjoy lasting bliss and fellowship, whereas those in the Fire endure severe punishment amid estrangement. Sharing the punishment brings no relief, as 43:39 makes clear. Al-Zuḥaylī develops this contrast between their experiences; his grammatical explanation separately relates the plural to the meaning of “whoever” and the singular to its wording.^[299]

The effect. On this explanation of Abū al-Suʿūd and ʿAbduh, the number of “abiding” adds a dimension to each destination: fellowship within the promise, desolation within the warning. The grammar permits the contrast; the commentators explain its significance.

Setting obedience against disobedience (الطِّبَاق, al-ṭibāq)

Where it is. وَمَنْ يُطِعِ (wa-man yuṭiʿi), “whoever obeys,” stands against وَمَنْ يَعْصِ (wa-man yaʿṣi), “whoever disobeys.”

The plain way. An explanatory contrast could say “whoever obeys” and “whoever does not obey.” The verse names both responses positively, through verbs of opposite meaning.

What it does. The two verbs create ṭibāq, the pairing of opposite meanings. Obedience and disobedience are set against the same authority, Allah and His Messenger; the corresponding clauses then show the outcome of each response. Abū Ḥayyān names the device here, as do al-Zuḥaylī and al-Ṣābūnī.^[300]

The warning then adds وَيَتَعَدَّ حُدُودَهُ, “and transgresses His limits.” This reinforces the description of the offence. Its closing reference to humiliation answers the boldness of crossing those limits: a person may endure hardship yet recoil from disgrace (Abū Ḥayyān).^[301] The legal and theological scope of that warning is developed in Questions 3 and 4.

The effect. The opposing verbs make the contrast immediate, while the added transgression and humiliation give the warning further weight.

Repeating the Name where a pronoun could stand (الإظهار في موقع الإضمار, al-iẓhār fī mawqiʿ al-iḍmār)

Where it is. In 4:14, وَمَنْ يَعْصِ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ, “whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger,” names Allah and His Messenger again after they have already been named in the condition of 4:13.

The plain way. After they have been named, an English explanation could refer back to them with “whoever disobeys them.”

What it does. Repeating the divine Name gives the warning greater force: it magnifies the matter and instills awe. Abū al-Suʿūd describes the purpose as

Abū Ḥayyān also counts the repeated references to Allah’s limits and to Allah and His Messenger among the passage’s rhetorical features.^[303]

The effect. The repeated Name keeps the authority being disobeyed explicit. The warning recalls whose command has been crossed instead of relying entirely on the reader to carry that reference forward.

Wording proportionate to the meaning (الْمُسَاوَاة, al-musāwāt)

Where it is. The promise in 4:13, from وَمَنْ يُطِعِ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ, “whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger,” through وَذَلِكَ الْفَوْزُ الْعَظِيمُ, “and that is the great attainment.”

The plain way. An explanation may leave words understood for brevity, or expand a meaning through added detail. Musāwāt describes the middle relation: the wording expresses the intended meaning without either of those features.

What it does. Al-Maydānī tentatively calls the verse an example of musāwāt: its wording appears proportionate to its meaning, without concision or expansion.^[304] His question is whether “beneath them” leaves “their palaces” or “their trees” understood. He answers that “Gardens” may itself name the covering trees and palaces, so no additional noun is required.^[305]

That answer concerns the noun after “beneath.” Darwīsh allows a different understood element: a preposition before “Gardens,” as explained in Iʿrāb, though he also allows the second-object construction. The grammatical alternatives therefore matter to the proposed classification.^[306]

The effect. On an analysis requiring neither omitted element, the wording states the promise directly. Al-Maydānī’s proposal remains qualified; it is not a classification shared by every grammatical account.

From “He admits” to “We admit” (الِالْتِفَات, al-iltifāt)

Where it is. In the reading نُدْخِلْهُ (nudkhilhu), “We will admit him,” the sentence turns to the first person after naming Allah in the third person. The same form occurs in both verses for the readers identified in the following section.

The plain way. The other received reading, يُدْخِلْهُ (yudkhilhu), “He will admit him,” continues the third person.

What it does. The nūn introduces a change of grammatical person, iltifāt. Al-Rāzī compares it with بَلِ اللَّهُ مَوْلاكُمْ, “rather, Allah is your protector,” followed by سَنُلْقِي, “We will cast,” at 3:150–151.^[307] Abū Ḥayyān likewise identifies the change in the reading with nūn.^[308] In the verb’s grammar, “We” is its understood subject (al-Durra).^[309]

The effect. The first-person form presents Allah as speaking the promise and warning; the third-person form refers back to His explicit Name. The referent and act remain the same. The change concerns how the undertaking is expressed.

Emphasis at the promise’s close and the answering warning

Where it is. وَذَلِكَ الْفَوْزُ الْعَظِيمُ, “and that is the great attainment,” closes the promise; وَلَهُ عَذَابٌ مُهِينٌ, “and he will have a humiliating punishment,” closes the warning.

The plain way. “That is attainment” and “he will be punished” would name the outcomes without describing the attainment as great or the punishment as humiliating.

What it does. The two adjectives characterize the outcomes differently. Al-Hilāl calls “the great attainment” صيغة مبالغة (ṣīghat mubālagha), an emphatic expression, and takes the wāw of “and that” as adding emphasis. He also distinguishes al-ʿaẓīm, “great,” from the still stronger al-aʿẓam, “greater” or “greatest”; the verse uses the former.^[310] The wāw joins this assessment to the promised admission and abiding: that outcome is declared the great attainment. Al-Hilāl takes this connection as emphatic. The morphological classification of ʿaẓīm remains in Ṣarf.

The descriptions complete the contrast. “Great” honours the attainment promised, while “humiliating” describes a punishment that abases and disgraces its recipient.^[311] Simple Explanation has already explained how fawz combines escape with gain; here the two adjectives make the contrast between the outcomes explicit.

The greatness belongs first to what is attained: so great a good makes its attainment great. It also appears by comparison. The world's fortunes are brief and imperfect beside it, and the Qurʾān calls worldly enjoyment little, مَتاعُ الدُّنْيا قَلِيلٌ (Abū al-Suʿūd, Rashīd Riḍā, and al-Rāghib as quoted by Abū Ḥayyān).^[312] “And that is the great attainment” stands between the promise and the warning as a parenthetical declaration. The hearer is allowed to take in the promised good before hearing the threat. Placed after the inheritance rules, the pair gives those rules weight and calls for care and freedom from wrongdoing in carrying them out (Abū al-Suʿūd, al-Ālūsī).^[313]

Humiliation adds a suffering that pain alone does not name. Fire names bodily torment. “Humiliating” brings disgrace into view. A person can endure pain yet retain a sense of honour; humiliation attacks that honour too. On this interpretation, the close adds punishment of the spirit to punishment of the body. The accounts develop this through rebuke, reproach and exposure of wrongdoing before others; Abū al-Suʿūd leaves the further punishment's precise nature unspecified.^[314]

A different explanation distinguishes an immediate punishment from a deferred one, with abasement accompanying both (al-Qushayrī).^[315] This distinction concerns the time of punishment; the bodily-and-spiritual explanation concerns the ways it is suffered.

The force of the addition is especially clear where disgrace is feared more than injury. The Arabic saying النَّارُ وَلَا الْعَارُ means “the Fire, but not disgrace”.^[316] Ibn ʿĀshūr also cites this half-line from an unnamed poet, through Kitāb al-Ādāb:

The witness explains why adding humiliation is weighty even after the Fire has been named.^[317] Humiliation also answers the offender’s attitude. Someone bold enough to defy the limits may think lightly of hardship; disgrace confronts that pride. Hence the other saying, الْمَنِيَّةُ وَلَا الدَّنِيَّة, “death, and not baseness” (Abū Ḥayyān). In the inheritance setting, contempt for women and children is answered by abasement (al-Biqāʿī); refusal to accept Allah's division receives a fitting humiliation (Ibn Kathīr, al-Qāsimī).^[318]

The humiliation here is imposed contempt, distinct from a person's freely humbling himself. That is the lexical distinction behind مُهِين, from ihāna; أَهَانَهُ means “he held him in contempt”.^[319] It also helps explain Ibn Taymiyya's argument, discussed in Question 3, about punishment “prepared” for unbelievers. His qualification still applies: this verse names a humiliating punishment but does not itself say “prepared”.^[320]

Ibn ʿĀshūr also considers whether the two punishments concern different kinds of disobedience. Question 3 explains that alternative and the reason for retaining humiliation as an added suffering for the same offender.^[321]

The effect. The endings tell us more than which destination follows each response. They characterize what is gained and suffered: great attainment on one side, punishment with disgrace on the other.

6. Qirāʾāt: The Readings

The verb of admission has two received forms in these verses: يُدْخِلْهُ (yudkhilhu), “He will admit him,” and نُدْخِلْهُ (nudkhilhu), “We will admit him.” Ibn al-Jazarī registers both among the ten accepted readings, with the same distribution in 4:13 and 4:14.

Attributing the Canonical Readings

Ibn al-Jazarī records these two occurrences together with five others:

The two Madinan readers are Nāfiʿ and Abū Jaʿfar. Al-Budūr al-Zāhirah and Itḥāf Fuḍalāʾ al-Bashar give the same division of the ten for both verses.^[325] Ibn al-Jazarī’s “seven places” means seven occurrences of the verbs he has just listed, not seven readers.

Within the earlier seven-reader collection, Ibn Mujāhid assigns nūn to Nāfiʿ and Ibn ʿĀmir, and yāʾ to Ibn Kathīr, ʿĀṣim, Abū ʿAmr, Ḥamzah and al-Kisāʾī. Abū Jaʿfar belongs to the three readers who complete the ten; his absence from that seven-reader list is therefore expected.^[326]

Beyond the ten, al-Itḥāf also reports al-Ḥasan with the nūn form in these two verses. He has the same form, but is listed separately from the canonical ten.^[327]

Pronunciation when joining the words. At نَارًا خَالِدًا (nāran khālidan), Abū Jaʿfar conceals the tanwīn before the khāʾ: the nasal sound is retained without a fully pronounced n. This is ikhfāʾ, a manner of pronunciation, rather than a different word. It applies when the words are joined. If the reciter stops on نَارًا, its tanwīn is not pronounced, so the ikhfāʾ does not arise.^[328]

Ibn Kathīr also lengthens the vowel of the pronoun hāʾ in يُدْخِلْهُ when joining it to the next word in either verse. The hāʾ follows a still lām and precedes a pronounced consonant with a vowel; his connected recitation gives it a linking wāw sound, yudkhilhū. The other readers do not make that link here. This is a pronunciation of the pronoun “him,” not a different meaning. The linking sound is absent when stopping on the word.^[329]

What changes in meaning?

In the yāʾ reading, Allah is named and then referred to as “He.” In the nūn reading, Allah speaks as “We,” the plural of majesty. Both identify Him as the One who admits the person to the stated destination. Al-ʿUkbarī expressly says that the two readings have one meaning.^[330] Al-Durra records the first-person form without naming its reader: he explains it through iltifāt, with an understood “We” as its subject and the attached pronoun “him” as its object.^[331]

In the “He” reading, the singular verb identifies Allah as the One who admits; it does not make Allah and His Messenger joint subjects of that verb (al-Durra).^[332] In the “We” reading, Allah speaks in the plural of majesty. Both readings describe His admission of the person to the Garden or the Fire.^[333]

The Saheeh International translation follows the yāʾ form, using “will be admitted by Him” in 4:13 and “He will put him” in 4:14. The change to nūn changes the grammatical person, while preserving the person admitted, the destination and the promised or threatened outcome.

And Allah knows best.