Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi — Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

If you do the beautiful, you will have done the beautiful for your own souls, and if you do the ugly, it will be against them. If you do the beautiful, you will earn your reward, and if you do the ugly, you will attract your punishment. The Real is more exalted than that ornament or stain should go back to Him from the acts of the servant. The exalted majesty of the Unity and the perfection of the Self-Sufficiency is more exalted and purer than that it should be adorned by the obedience of the obedient or stained by the disobedience of the disobedient. If you come as a good man, you yourself will profit, and if you come as a bad man, you will bring harm upon yourself. He is saying, “For the majesty of Our Unity, the beauty of Our Self-Sufficiency is enough.” Her own face had itself as a moon, her own eye had itself as collyrium. If you do the beautiful, you will have done the beautiful for your own souls. This is the degree of the generality of the faithful in their deeds. As for the degree of the elect in their deeds and states, it is as was said by Abū Yazīd concerning the allusion of this verse: “He who acts for his own soul does not act for God, and he who acts for God does not act for his own soul, nor does he see it.” Abū Sulaymān Dārānī said, “In this world the doers act in various ways, each of them seeking his own share in his deeds. Thus an ignorant person acts in heedlessness, a doer acts out of habit, a fearful man acts in fear, a trusting person acts while detached, a renunciant acts in seclusion, and a sincerely truthful man acts with love. Those who act in God are fewer than the few.”

Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi — Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

Perhaps your Lord will have mercy upon you. And if you return, We will return. This verse is a strong handhold and a beautiful caress for the hopeful. In other words, “Perhaps He who nurtures you and feeds you with His bounty will have mercy upon you. There is hope that the Lord who created you gratis out of His bounty, who nourished you with His blessings, who kept you in His guarding and solicitude with His gentleness, and who preserved you from blights and disliked things will have mercy on you in the end and finish the work that He Himself began with bounty.” And if you return, We will return. Sahl ibn ʿAbdallāh said, “If you return to fleeing from Us, We will return to taking the path against you so that you will return to Us.” This is just like what MuṣṬafā said, recounting from God: “When I know that occupation with Me has overpowered My servant's heart, I put My servant's appetite into asking from Me and whispering to Me. When My servant is like that and he desires to be negligent of Me, I come between him and his negligence of Me.”