Tafseer of The Family of Imraan · Aal-i-Imraan · 3:118
O you who have believed, do not take as intimates those other than yourselves, for they will not spare you [any] ruin. They wish you would have hardship. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater. We have certainly made clear to you the signs, if you will use reason.
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 discourse on the explanation of His statement: مَثَلُ مَا يُنْفِقُونَ فِي هَذِهِ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا كَمَثَلِ رِيحٍ فِيهَا صِرٌّ أَصَابَتْ حَرْثَ قَوْمٍ ظَلَمُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ فَأَهْلَكَتْهُ ("The likeness of what they spend in this worldly life is as the likeness of a wind in which there is bitter cold, which strikes the tillage of a people who have wronged themselves, and destroys it.")
Abū Jaʿfar said: He — exalted is His praise — means by this: the likeness of what those who disbelieve spend, that is to say: the likeness of what the unbeliever (kāfir) gives of his wealth as alms, and which he gives to whomever he gives it by way of seeking nearness to his Lord, while he denies the oneness of Allah and brands the Prophet ﷺ a liar — that this does not benefit him along with his unbelief, that it slips away from him at the moment he is in need of it, and that it vanishes after the benefit he hoped to reap from it — that likeness is as the likeness of a wind in which there is severe cold, and this wind with the severe cold in it strikes "the tillage of a people" (ḥarth qawm), that is to say: the crop of a people who hoped for its harvest and counted on its yield and benefit — "who have wronged themselves," that is to say: the owners of the crop, who disobeyed Allah and transgressed His limits — "and destroys it," that is to say: the wind with the bitter cold in it destroys that crop of theirs, after the hope and the expectation of benefit which they cherished from it.
He — exalted is His mention — says: Thus did Allah deal with the spending of the unbeliever and with his alms during his life, when he meets Him: He renders its reward void and disappoints his hope in it. The likeness has been pronounced concerning the spending, but by "the likeness" is intended: Allah's dealing with the spending. That is clarified by His statement: "as the likeness of a wind in which there is bitter cold," as we have already expounded regarding the like of His statement: مَثَلُهُمْ كَمَثَلِ الَّذِي اسْتَوْقَدَ نَارًا ("Their likeness is as the likeness of one who kindled a fire") [Surah Al-Baqarah (2:17)] and what resembles it.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: The explanation of the words is thus: the likeness of Allah's rendering void the reward of what they spend in this worldly life is as the likeness of a wind in which there is bitter cold. It was permissible to omit the mention of "Allah's rendering void the reward thereof," because of the indication of it in the conclusion of the statement, namely His words "as the likeness of a wind in which there is bitter cold," and because the listener knows that meaning thereof.
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The exegetes differed concerning the meaning of "the spending" (al-nafaqa) that is mentioned in this verse.
Some of them said: it is the spending as it is known among people.
* Mention of who said that:
7667 — Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, on the authority of ʿĪsā, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning Allah's — mighty and exalted is He — statement: "the likeness of what they spend in this worldly life," he said: the spending of the unbeliever in this worldly life.
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Others said: it is rather the statement which he utters with his tongue, without holding it to be true in his heart.
* Mention of who said that:
7668 — Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to me, saying: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to me, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: "the likeness of what they spend in this worldly life is as the likeness of a wind in which there is bitter cold, which strikes the tillage of a people who have wronged themselves, and destroys it," he says: the likeness of what he says and what is therefore not accepted from him, is as the likeness of this crop when the wrongdoing people sow it, and there strikes them a wind with bitter cold in it which strikes it and destroys it. Thus did they spend, and their shirk (the ascribing of partners to Allah) rendered it void.
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And we have already previously demonstrated which of these is the most correct.
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And we have already given our explanation of "the worldly life," in a manner that is sufficient, so that its repetition in this place is not necessary.
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As for "al-ṣirr" (the bitter cold): that is the severity of the cold, and that occurs through the blowing of the north wind at the rising of dew and moisture, on a dark morning after a clear night, as:
7669 — Ḥumayd ibn Masʿada related to us, saying: Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ related to us, on the authority of ʿUthmān ibn Ghiyāth, saying: I heard ʿIkrima say: "a wind in which there is bitter cold," he said: severe cold.
7670 — Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: Al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, saying: Ibn Jurayj said: Ibn ʿAbbās said: "a wind in which there is bitter cold," he said: severe cold and frost.
7671 — ʿAlī ibn Dāwūd related to us, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiya related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning his statement: "a wind in which there is bitter cold," he says: cold.
7672 — Ibn Wakīʿ related to us, saying: my father related to us, on the authority of Sufyān, on the authority of Hārūn ibn ʿAntara, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "al-ṣirr," the cold.
7673 — Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning his statement: "as the likeness of a wind in which there is bitter cold," that is to say: severe cold.
7674 — It was related to me on the authority of ʿAmmār, on the authority of Ibn Abī Jaʿfar, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ, the like of it.
7675 — Muḥammad related to us, saying: Aḥmad related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī concerning "al-ṣirr": the severe cold.
7676 — Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to us, saying: my father related to me, saying: my uncle related to us, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "as the likeness of a wind in which there is bitter cold," he says: a wind in which there is cold.
7677 — Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said: "a wind in which there is bitter cold," he said: "ṣirr" is a cold wind that destroyed their crop. He said: and the Arabs call it "al-ḍarīb"; the wind comes cold and becomes ḍarīb in the morning, having scorched the crop. One says: "it was struck (ḍuriba) tonight," it was hit by the ḍarīb of that bitter cold which struck it.
7678 — Yaḥyā ibn Abī Ṭālib related to me, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Juwaybir related to us, on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk: "a wind in which there is bitter cold," he said: a wind in which there is cold.
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The discourse on the explanation of His statement: وَمَا ظَلَمَهُمُ اللَّهُ وَلَكِنْ أَنْفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ (117) ("And Allah did not wrong them, but they wrong themselves.")
Abū Jaʿfar said: He — exalted is His praise — means by this: and Allah did not do with these unbelievers what He did with them — the rendering void of the reward of their deeds and the nullifying of their recompense — out of any injustice on His part toward them; that is to say: not out of His placing what He did with them thereof in a wrong place and with one to whom it was not due. Rather, He placed that act of His in its proper place, and did with them what was due to them. For the deed which they performed was not for Allah, while they would serve Him in His oneness, follow His command, and hold His messengers to be truthful; rather, that proceeded from them while they were ascribing partners to Him (mushrikūn), contradicting His command, and branding His messengers as liars — and that after He had already beforehand made known to them that He does not accept any deed of any doer, except with the pure profession of His oneness, the acknowledgment of the prophethood of His prophets, and the holding to be true of what they brought them, and after He had established the proofs concerning that against them. He was therefore — by doing what He did with whoever was an unbeliever in Him and contradicted His command therein, after the warning to him, namely the rendering void of the abundance of his deed — no wrongdoer toward him; rather, the unbeliever is the one who wrongs himself, in that he earned for himself, through disobedience to Allah and contradiction of His command, that by which he caused himself to land in the fire of Hell (jahannam) and by which he let himself burn in the blaze of Saqar.
