Al-Fath · Madani · ayah 6 of 29

Al-Fath 48:6

وَيُعَذِّبَ ٱلْمُنَـٰفِقِينَ وَٱلْمُنَـٰفِقَـٰتِ وَٱلْمُشْرِكِينَ وَٱلْمُشْرِكَـٰتِ ٱلظَّآنِّينَ بِٱللَّهِ ظَنَّ ٱلسَّوْءِ ۚ عَلَيْهِمْ دَآئِرَةُ ٱلسَّوْءِ ۖ وَغَضِبَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَعَنَهُمْ وَأَعَدَّ لَهُمْ جَهَنَّمَ ۖ وَسَآءَتْ مَصِيرًا

“And [that] He may punish the hypocrite men and hypocrite women, and the polytheist men and polytheist women - those who assume about Allāh an assumption of evil nature. Upon them is a misfortune of evil nature; and Allāh has become angry with them and has cursed them and prepared for them Hell, and evil it is as a destination.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The offence singled out here is an opinion, thinking the worst of Allah, and the turn its holders awaited for the believers closes on them.

A reflection

Every false god begins as a low opinion of the true one

Read the list of what falls on these people: a turn of evil, anger, curse, a prepared Hell. Then look for their offence. The ayah does not name a deed. It names an opinion. They were al-ẓānnīna bi-llāhi ẓanna al-sawʾ: those who think the worst of Allah.

Ẓann has a desert picture behind it. The lexicons call a well ẓanūn when you cannot be sure it holds water. You lower the bucket and guess. Ẓann spans the whole range, from doubt to a certainty reached by thinking.

The commentaries say what their opinion was. They thought Allah would not help His Messenger and the believers. But one commentary widens it. The definite article in al-sawʾ may gather in every corrupt opinion they held about Him. That He does not know much of what they do (41:22). That creation is pointless (38:27). That He will not raise the dead.

One classical writer on the heart traced idolatry itself to this root. He observed that no threat quite like this one is attached to anything except thinking evil of Allah. Shirk, in his reading, is a low opinion of the Lord of the worlds. Had they thought well of Him, they would have worshipped Him alone.

That is worth sitting with. Every false god begins as a quiet insult to the real one. The idol is a claim that He needs helpers, or does not hear, or cannot be reached directly. The intermediary implies that His door is shut.

So the question for any reader is not only what I worship. It is what I assume about the One I worship. When I lower my bucket into the unseen, what do I expect to draw up?

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.