Tafseer of The Cave · Al-Kahf · 18:30
Indeed, those who have believed and done righteous deeds - indeed, We will not allow to be lost the reward of any who did well in deeds.
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 exposition of the explanation of the words of the Exalted: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ إِنَّا لا نُضِيعُ أَجْرَ مَنْ أَحْسَنَ عَمَلا (18:30)
Allah, exalted is His praise, says: Truly, those who gave faith to Allah and His Messenger, and acted in obedience to Allah, and observed the limits of His command and His prohibition — We do not let the reward be lost of him who has done his deed well and has obeyed Allah and followed His commands and prohibitions; rather, We shall reward him for his obedience and his good deed with the Gardens of Eden, beneath which rivers flow.
If someone were to ask: Where is the predicate (khabar) of the first "inna"? Then we answer: It is permissible that its predicate is: إِنَّا لا نُضِيعُ أَجْرَ مَنْ أَحْسَنَ عَمَلا , in which case the meaning of the text would be: We do not let the reward be lost of him who acts well. Then one drops the first formulation and relies upon the second in the sense of repetition (takrīr), as it is said: يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الشَّهْرِ الْحَرَامِ قِتَالٍ فِيهِ — with the meaning: "about fighting therein" by means of repetition; and as the poet said:
"إنَّ الخَلِيفَـةَ إنَّ اللـهَ سَـرْبَلَهُ / سِـرْبالَ مُلْـكٍ بِـهِ تُرْجَـى الخَـواتِيمُ"
(There is also a variant reading: "تُرْخَى".) It is also permissible that إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا is a conditional construction, so that the meaning of the text would be: Whoever acts well, We do not let his reward be lost, with the connecting particle "fa-" being implicit in "innā". And it is also permissible that its predicate is: "ūlāʾika lahum jannātu ʿadn", so that the meaning would be: Those who gave faith and did good deeds — for them are the Gardens of Eden.
Footnotes:
(8) In (al-Lisān: sarbala) it reads: al-sirbāl is the shirt and the coat of mail. In the report of ʿUthmān: "I will not take off a sirbāl that Allah has clothed me with" — by which he means the caliphate. The author cited this as evidence that the repetition in the Qurʾānic verse إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا ... إِنَّا لا نُضِيعُ has a parallel in the poem. Al-Farrāʾ treated this in (Maʿānī al-Qurʾān): "The predicate of those who believed is in His words: innā lā nuḍīʿu, and this resembles the poem of the poet ... in which he indicated two modes of grammatical explanation."
