Tafseer of The Family of Imraan · Aal-i-Imraan · 3:16
Those who say, "Our Lord, indeed we have believed, so forgive us our sins and protect us from the punishment of the Fire,"
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 word concerning the explanation of His statement: الَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا إِنَّنَا آمَنَّا فَاغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ (16) (Those who say: "Our Lord, we truly believe, so forgive us our sins and protect us from the punishment of the Fire." (3:16))
Abū Jaʿfar said: The meaning of that is: Say: shall I inform you of something better than that for those who are God-fearing (al-ladhīna ittaqaw), [those] who say: "Our Lord, we truly believe, so forgive us our sins and protect us from the punishment of the Fire."
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It may be that "al-ladhīna yaqūlūna" ("those who say") has two possible declensions (iʿrāb): the genitive (khafḍ), as a back-reference to the first "al-ladhīna," and the nominative (rafʿ), as the beginning of a new sentence (ibtidāʾ), since it stands at the beginning of a verse different from the one in which the first "al-ladhīna" occurs. In that case, the nominative is comparable to the statement of Allah, Mighty and Exalted is He: إِنَّ اللَّهَ اشْتَرَى مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَنْفُسَهُمْ وَأَمْوَالَهُمْ (Surah Al-Tawbah, 9:111) (Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth), after which He says at the beginning of the verse that follows: التَّائِبُونَ الْعَابِدُونَ (Surah Al-Tawbah, 9:112) (The repentant, the worshippers). And had it come in the genitive, that too would have been permissible.
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The meaning of His statement "those who say: Our Lord, we truly believe, so forgive us our sins" is: those who say: we have believed in You, and in Your prophet and in what he has brought from Your side = "so forgive us our sins," that is to say: cover over for us our sins, by Your forgiveness of them and by refraining from punishing us for them = "and protect us from the punishment of the Fire," that is to say: turn Your punishment away from us by the Fire, with which You would punish us. The meaning of that is, in reality: do not punish us, O our Lord, with the Fire.
They focused the supplication on the request that He protect them from the punishment of the Fire, because whoever is removed from the Fire on that Day has truly attained deliverance from Allah's punishment and a goodly place of return.
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The origin of His statement "qinā" ("protect us") comes from the saying of the speaker: "waqā Allāhu fulānan kadhā" ("Allah has protected so-and-so from such-and-such"), by which is meant: He has turned it away from him, "fa-huwa yaqīhi" ("so He protects him"). When someone asks for that, he says: "qinī kadhā" ("protect me from such-and-such").
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Footnotes:
(1) See Maʿānī al-Qurʾān of al-Farrāʾ 1:198.
(2) See the explanation of "qinā" and "waqā" in the preceding 4:206.
