Al-Ahzab · Madani · ayah 71 of 73

Al-Ahzab 33:71

يُصْلِحْ لَكُمْ أَعْمَـٰلَكُمْ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ ۗ وَمَن يُطِعِ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ فَقَدْ فَازَ فَوْزًا عَظِيمًا

“He will [then] amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allāh and His Messenger has certainly attained a great attainment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Guard your heart and your tongue, and Allah Himself repairs what you do and covers what you did; obedience is the real crossing to safety.

A reflection

You have heard this as a reward list

Heard at the close of the sermon's opening formula, this ayah sounds like a list of prizes. Good deeds, forgiven sins, a great victory. The natural reading is a trade: do more, and receive these.

Read the grammar and the picture shifts. The ayah does not open a new thought. Its first two verbs are in a mood that answers a command, as a result answers a condition. The command was the ayah before: be mindful of Allah, and speak a word that is straight. If you do that, this follows.

And look at what follows. Not do more good deeds. Yuṣliḥ lakum aʿmālakum: He will set right your deeds for you. The subject is Allah. The work being repaired is yours, but the repairing is His.

The early commentators explained it in several ways. He will accept your good deeds, said one. He will purify them, said another. He will grant you success in doing them, said a third. He will forgive past sins, added a later scholar, and inspire repentance for those still to come.

Every one of those readings has Allah doing the work. The believer's part was named in the previous ayah, and it was small: mindfulness, and a guarded tongue.

That is the assumption to set aside. This is not a sales pitch for more effort. It is a promise about what happens to ordinary effort, flawed and incomplete, once the heart and the tongue are pointed the right way. You bring the deeds you have. He makes them sound.

The second promise has the same shape. Wa-yaghfir lakum dhunūbakum: and He will forgive your sins for you. Twice the ayah says lakum, for you. The gift is personal, and it comes from the same hand.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.