Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 54 of 165

Al-An'am 6:54

وَإِذَا جَآءَكَ ٱلَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِـَٔايَـٰتِنَا فَقُلْ سَلَـٰمٌ عَلَيْكُمْ ۖ كَتَبَ رَبُّكُمْ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِهِ ٱلرَّحْمَةَ ۖ أَنَّهُۥ مَنْ عَمِلَ مِنكُمْ سُوٓءًۢا بِجَهَـٰلَةٍ ثُمَّ تَابَ مِنۢ بَعْدِهِۦ وَأَصْلَحَ فَأَنَّهُۥ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ

“And when those come to you who believe in Our verses, say, "Peace be upon you. Your Lord has decreed upon Himself mercy: that any of you who does wrong out of ignorance and then repents after that and corrects himself - indeed, He is Forgiving and Merciful."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those who come carrying their sins are greeted with peace first, then told what their Lord has written: mercy for whoever turns back.

A reflection

'In ignorance' does not mean you did not know

In a Ramadan evening class, the translation of this ayah goes up on the screen. A woman near the back reads 'whoever does wrong out of ignorance' and feels a door close. That leaves me out, she thinks. I knew exactly what I was doing.

It is one of the most common misreadings of this ayah, and the commentaries close it firmly. One early authority said that everyone who disobeys Allah is, in that act, ignorant. Another said that whoever does a wrong is ignorant in doing it, until he turns back. A classical commentator pressed the logic further. A genuine slip needs no repentance at all. So an ayah about repentance must mean someone who sinned knowingly, pulled by desire.

Why call that ignorance? Because it is acting the way a fool acts, whatever one knows. An old Arabic line has a woman telling a visitor, 'You played the fool on purpose, and you were no fool'. The commentaries add that every sinner trades a large good later for a small pleasure now. Whoever does that is called ignorant in the ordinary usage of the language.

The root sharpens the picture. One lexicon gives jahl two origins. One is open country with no landmark to steer by. The other is the stick used to stir embers, or a branch the wind sets shaking. So jahāla is not an empty head. It is a stirred one, with nothing to steer by in that moment.

That describes almost every sin anyone has committed with their eyes open. The woman at the back of the class is not excluded. She is exactly the person the ayah was sent for.

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.