Tafseer of Abraham · Ibrahim · 14:13
And those who disbelieved said to their messengers, "We will surely drive you out of our land, or you must return to our religion." So their Lord inspired to them, "We will surely destroy the wrongdoers.
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.
Abū Jaʿfar said: the Almighty, exalted be His mention, says: the unbelievers (kāfirīn) said to their messengers who had been sent to them, when they called them to the oneness of Allah and to pure worship of Him alone, and to abandoning the worship of idols and images: لَنُخْرِجَنَّكُم مِّنْ أَرْضِنَا (We will surely drive you out of our land) — they mean: out of our towns and lands, we will surely expel you; أَوْ لَتَعُودُنَّ فِي مِلَّتِنَا (or you shall return to our religion) — they mean: unless you return to our religion which we follow, namely the worship of the idols.
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In the word لَتَعُودُنَّ (you shall surely return) the "lām" has been included, while it carries the meaning of a conditional clause, as though it were the answer to an oath. The actual meaning of the statement, however, is: we will surely drive you out of our land, or you shall return to our religion.
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The meaning of "or" (aw) here is that of "unless" (illā) or "until" (ḥattā), as one says in Arabic: "I will surely strike you, or you yield to me." Some of the Arabs treat what comes after "or" in such a position as a coordination with what precedes it — if what precedes it is in the jussive, they put it in the jussive; if it is in the accusative, then in the accusative; and if there is a "lām" in it, they likewise insert a "lām," because "or" is a coordinating particle. Others always put what comes after "or" in the accusative, in order to make clear by the accusative that it stands apart from what preceded it — as the poet Imruʾ al-Qays said:
"My companion wept when he saw the mountain pass before him, and was certain that we would reach the Caesar. I said to him: let not your eye weep — we strive only for a kingdom, or we die and are excused."
— he put "we die and are excused" in the accusative while "we strive" is in the nominative, because he meant "unless we die" or "until we die." In that same sense is also the word of another poet:
"I cannot free myself from my love for her, unless love does to me something other than what she has done to me."
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His word فَأَوْحَىٰ إِلَيْهِمْ رَبُّهُمْ لَنُهْلِكَنَّ الظَّالِمِينَ (Then their Lord revealed to them: We will surely destroy the wrongdoers) — those who wronged themselves and thereby brought down upon themselves Allah's punishment through their unbelief. It is also possible that they were called "the wrongdoers" (al-ẓālimūn) because they worshipped those who may not be worshipped, namely the idols and images — and because they put worship in a wrong place, while that was wrongdoing (ẓulm), they were so named.
