Tafseer of Hud · Hud · 11:111
And indeed, each [of the believers and disbelievers] - your Lord will fully compensate them for their deeds. Indeed, He is Acquainted with what they do.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The explanation of the words of Allah the Exalted: وَإِنَّ كُلا لَمَّا لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ رَبُّكَ أَعْمَالَهُمْ إِنَّهُ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ (And indeed, to each [of them] your Lord will fully repay their deeds; He is truly aware of what they do.) (11:111)
Abū Jaʿfar says: The Qurʾān reciters differed over the reading of this verse.
A group of reciters from the people of Medina and Kūfa read: وَإِنَّ with tashdīd (doubling) on the nūn, and كُلا لَمَّا with tashdīd on the mīm.
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The linguists differed over its meaning:
Some grammarians of Kūfa said: the meaning of this, when it is read thus, is: "and indeed, to each your Lord will fully repay their deeds" — its original form being لِمِمَّا , but when the mīm letters came together one was dropped, leaving two, and the one was incorporated into the other (idghām performed), as the poet said:
وَإِنِّي لَمِمَّا أُصْدِرُ الأَمْرَ وَجْهَهُ إِذَا هُوَ أَعْيى بِالسَّبِيلِ مَصَادِرُهُ
(And indeed I direct the affair toward its proper course, when its outlets confound it upon the path.)
Then it is softened, as some reciters read وَالْبَغْيِ يَعِظُكُمْ [Sūrat al-Naḥl: 90], where the yāʾ is softened beside the yāʾ. And he mentioned that al-Kisāʾī recited to him the following verses:
وَأَشْمَتَّ الْعُدَاةَ بِنَا فَأَضْحَوْا لَدَيْ يَتَبَاشَرُونَ بِمَا لَقِينَا
(You have made the enemies gloat over us, and they came in the morning rejoicing before me over what befell us.)
And he said: the poet means "لَدَيَّ يَتَبَاشَرُونَ" (before me they rejoiced), where one yāʾ was dropped on account of their movement and coming together. And he said: a comparable case is:
كَأَنَّ مِنْ آخِرِهَا الْقَادِمِ مَخْرِمُ نَجْدٍ فَارِعُ الْمَخَارِمِ
And he said: the poet means "إِلَى الْقَادِمِ" (toward the one approaching), where the lām was dropped beside the lām.
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Others said: the meaning of this, when it is read thus, is: "and indeed, all of them, heavily and surely, your Lord will fully repay their deeds." He said: the intent of the one who reads it thus is: وَإِنَّ كُلا لَمَّا with tashdīd and tanwīn — but the one who reads it thus dropped the tanwīn and brought it into the verbal pronunciation form of لَمَّا , just as he did with ثُمَّ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلَنَا تَتْرَى [Sūrat al-Muʾminūn: 44], where some read تَتْرَى with tanwīn — like those who read لَمَّا with tanwīn — and others without tanwīn — like those who read لَمَّا without tanwīn. They said: its origin is from "al-lamm" (the gathering together), as in the words of Allah the Exalted: وَتَأْكُلُونَ التُّرَاثَ أَكْلا لَمًّا (and you devour the inheritance, a greedy devouring), that is: a heavy, forceful gulping.
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Others said: the meaning of this, when it is read thus, is: "and indeed, to each your Lord will surely fully repay their deeds" — where لَمَّا has the meaning of "unless not" or "nothing other than," as one says: "By Allah, unless you depart from us" and "By Allah, nothing but that you depart from us."
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Abū Jaʿfar says: I found that the majority of the linguistic scholars rejected this position, and they refused to accept that it would be permissible to give لَمَّا the meaning of إِلَّا — exclusively in the oath. They said: if it were permissible for this to have the meaning of "unless," then it would also be permissible to say: "the people stood up, unless your brother" — in the meaning of "except your brother" — and to use it in every position where "unless" would be valid.
Abū Jaʿfar says: And I see that this is erroneous for a reason even clearer than what the linguists whom we cited said about its error, namely that إِنَّ is an affirmation of something and a confirmation of it, and إِلَّا is also a confirmation — but it occurs only as a refutation of a negation that preceded it. If that is its meaning, then it is necessary, according to the one who interprets it thus, that إِنَّ in his view has the meaning of a negation, so that إِلَّا can be a refutation of it. And whoever says that, it is a statement whose speaker's ignorance does not remain hidden — unless a reciter softens إِنْ and gives it the meaning of the إِنْ that has the meaning of negation. And if he does that, then his reading is also erroneous from another side, namely that then كُلا would be in the accusative by his utterance لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ , and there is in the Arabic language no such thing as the verb that comes after إِلَّا putting the noun that comes before it in the accusative. The Arabs do not say: "مَا زَيْدًا إِلَّا ضَرَبْتُ" (not Zayd, unless I struck). So that reading is also erroneous from this side — unless one puts كُلّ in the nominative, but then he departs with his reading from the reading of the Qurʾān reciters and the text of the muṣḥafs of the Muslims, and even then he still does not escape the deficiency, for he departs from the known speech of the Arabs.
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Some Kūfan reciters read this as: وَإِنْ كُلا with the softening of إِنْ , and كُلا لَمَّا with tashdīd in the accusative.
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Some linguists claimed that those who read it thus intended the heavy إِنَّ but softened it. And it was related from Abū Zayd al-Baṣrī that he heard: "كَأَنْ ثَدْيَيْهِ حُقَّانِ" — where the accusative was used with كَأَنْ while the nūn was softened from كَأَنَّ . And of this is the saying of the poet:
وَوَجْهٌ مُشْرِقُ النَّحْرِ كَأَنْ ثَدْيَيْهِ حُقَّانِ
(And a face whose bosom shines, as though her two breasts were the shape of two little boxes.)
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Some Medinese reciters read this with the softening of إِنْ and the accusative of كُلا , and the softening of لَمَا .
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It is possible that those who read it thus intended the meaning that we mentioned regarding the Kūfan reciter who softened the nūn of إِنْ while intending the heavy pronunciation, and that by the مَا in لَمَا they intended the مَا that occurs as a filler in the sentence, and that they intended to load the sentence with the meaning: "and indeed, to each your Lord will fully repay their deeds."
And it is possible that their intent in their reading was: "and indeed, to each your Lord will repay" — that is: each of them He will repay — so that their intent in putting كُلّ in the accusative was by means of the verb لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ . If that was what they intended, then this contains the ugliness I have mentioned: it departs from the known speech of the Arabs. For they do not put in the accusative, by a verb that comes after the lām of the oath, a noun that comes before it.
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Some reciters of Ḥijāz and Baṣra read this as: وَإِنَّ with tashdīd, كُلا لَمَا with softening, لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ . And this reading has two possible meanings:
The first: that the reciter intended "and indeed, all are surely among those whom their Lord will fully repay their deeds" — where he gives the مَا in لَمَا the meaning of مَنْ , as Allah the Exalted said: فَانْكِحُوا مَا طَابَ لَكُمْ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ [Sūrat al-Nisāʾ: 3] — although the Arabs use it more frequently for other than the sons of Adam — and where he considers the lām in لَمَا to be the lām that serves as the answer to إِنَّ , and the lām in لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ as the oath-lām inserted between the relative pronoun and its clause, as Allah the Exalted said: وَإِنَّ مِنْكُمْ لَمَنْ لَيُبَطِّئَنَّ [Sūrat al-Nisāʾ: 72], and as one says: "this is that of which surely the other is better."
The second possible meaning: that he considers the مَا in لَمَا to be the مَا that occurs as a filler in the sentence, and the lām within it is the lām that serves as the answer, and the lām in لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ is also the lām that serves as the answer to إِنَّ — repeated and returned, because that is its proper position — while the first lām is placed by the Arabs outside its position and then repeated again in its proper position, as the poet said:
فَلَوْ أَنَّ قَوْمِي لَمْ يَكُونُوا أَعِزَّةً لَبَعْدُ لَقَدْ لاقَيْتُ لَا بُدَّ مَصْرَعَا
(For had my people not been mighty, then I would surely have met an inescapable downfall.)
Al-Zuhrī read, it is said: وَإِنَّ كُلا with tashdīd on إِنَّ , and لَمَّا with tanwīn — with the meaning of: heavy, surely, and all of them.
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Abū Jaʿfar says: The most correct of these readings in its pronunciation, in accordance with the widespread speech of the Arabs, is the reading of the one who reads: وَإِنَّ with tashdīd on its nūn, كُلا لَمَا with softening of مَا , لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ رَبُّكَ — with the meaning of: and indeed, all of those whose histories We have related to you in this sūra, O Muḥammad, are surely among those whom your Lord will fully repay their deeds — the good of them with an abundant reward, and the evil of them with a severe punishment — so that مَا has the meaning of مَنْ , and the lām within it serves as the answer to إِنَّ , and the lām in لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ is the lām of the oath.
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His words إِنَّهُ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ — Allah the Exalted says: indeed your Lord, O Muḥammad, regarding what these polytheists (mushrikīn) of your people do, is "aware" (khabīr) — nothing of their deeds remains hidden from Him, rather He is aware of all of that, knows it, and encompasses it — so that He will repay them for all that [conduct] with their requital.
