Tafseer of The Family of Imraan · Aal-i-Imraan · 3:21
Those who disbelieve in the signs of Allah and kill the prophets without right and kill those who order justice from among the people - give them tidings of a painful punishment.
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: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَكْفُرُونَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ وَيَقْتُلُونَ النَّبِيِّينَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ (Indeed, those who disbelieve in the signs of Allah and kill the prophets without right)
Abū Jaʿfar said: He means by His statement, exalted is His praise: "Indeed, those who disbelieve in the signs of Allah," that is: those who deny the proofs of Allah and His signs and dismiss them as falsehood, from among the People of the two Books, the Tawrāh and the Injīl, as in:
6776 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to me, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Zubayr, who said: Then He brought together the People of the two Books all at once, and mentioned what they had introduced and invented, from among the Jews and the Christians, and said: "Indeed, those who disbelieve in the signs of Allah and kill the prophets without right," up to His statement: قُلِ اللَّهُمَّ مَالِكَ الْمُلْكِ تُؤْتِي الْمُلْكَ مَنْ تَشَاءُ (Say: O Allah, Owner of sovereignty, You give sovereignty to whom You will).
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As for His statement "and kill the prophets without right," by it He means - that they killed the messengers of Allah who were sent to them with the prohibition of the acts of disobedience to Allah which they were committing, and against committing those matters from which Allah had already restrained them in their Books, such as Zakariyyā and his son Yaḥyā, and those who resemble them among the prophets of Allah.
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The discourse on the explanation of His statement: وَيَقْتُلُونَ الَّذِينَ يَأْمُرُونَ بِالْقِسْطِ مِنَ النَّاسِ (And kill those who enjoin justice among the people)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The reciters differed over the reading of it.
The majority of the people of Medina, the Ḥijāz, Basra, Kufa, and the rest of the reciters of the cities read it: (وَيَقْتُلُونَ الَّذِينَ يَأْمُرُونَ بِالْقِسْطِ), with the meaning of killing (qatl).
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And some of the later reciters of Kufa read it: (وَيُقَاتِلُونَ), with the meaning of fighting (qitāl), relying upon the reading of ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd, and they claimed that it stands in the muṣḥaf of ʿAbdallāh as: (وَقَاتَلُوا). The one whose reading we have described read it according to that interpretation: (وَيُقَاتِلُونَ).
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And the correct reading therein according to us is the reading of the one who read it: "wa-yaqtulūna" ("and they kill"), because of the consensus of the authoritative reciters upon it, together with the coming of the interpretation of the interpreters that this is its interpretation.
Mention of who said that:
6777 - 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 Maʿqil ibn Abī Miskīn concerning the statement of Allah: "and kill the prophets without right and kill those who enjoin justice among the people," he said: The revelation came to the Banū Isrāʾīl, and they admonished [their people] - and no Book came to them - and then they were killed; thereupon men arose from among them who followed them and believed them, and admonished their people, and they were killed. They are therefore those "who enjoin justice among the people."
6778 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: ʿAbdallāh ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His statement: "and kill the prophets without right and kill those who enjoin justice among the people," he said: These are the People of the Book; the followers of the prophets restrained them and admonished them, whereupon they killed them.
6779 - Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: Al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, saying: Ibn Jurayj said concerning His statement: "Indeed, those who disbelieve in the signs of Allah and kill the prophets without right and kill those who enjoin justice among the people," he said: There were people of the Banū Isrāʾīl who did not read the Book; the revelation came to them and they admonished their people and were therefore killed. They are therefore those "who enjoin justice among the people."
6780 - Abū ʿUbayd al-Waṣṣābī Muḥammad ibn Ḥafṣ related to me, saying: Ibn Ḥimyar related to us, saying: Abū al-Ḥasan, the freedman (mawlā) of the Banū Asad, related to us, on the authority of Makḥūl, on the authority of Qabīṣa ibn Dhuʾayb al-Khuzāʿī, on the authority of Abū ʿUbayda ibn al-Jarrāḥ, who said: I said: O Messenger of Allah, which people will have the most severe punishment (ʿadhāb) on the Day of Resurrection? He said: "A man who killed a prophet, or a man who enjoined the reprehensible and forbade the good." Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ recited: "Indeed, those who disbelieve in the signs of Allah and kill the prophets without right and kill those who enjoin justice among the people," until he ended at "and they will have no helpers." Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: O Abū ʿUbayda, the Banū Isrāʾīl killed forty-three prophets at the beginning of the day, in a single hour! Then one hundred and twelve men arose of the righteous among the Banū Isrāʾīl, and they enjoined upon those who had killed them the good and forbade them the reprehensible, and they were all killed at the end of that day. And they are those whom Allah, mighty and exalted is He, has mentioned.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: The interpretation of the verse is then: Indeed, those who disbelieve in the signs of Allah, and kill the prophets without right, and kill those who enjoin upon them their justice in the command and prohibition of Allah, those who restrain them from killing the prophets of Allah and from committing [sins].
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The discourse on the explanation of His statement: فَبَشِّرْهُمْ بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ (21) (So give them tidings of a painful punishment (3:21))
Abū Jaʿfar said: He means by His statement, exalted is His praise: (فَبَشِّرْهُمْ بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ): inform them, O Muḥammad, and let them know: that there is for them with Allah a punishment that is painful for them, that is, the agonizing one.
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Footnotes:
(54) In the printed edition and the manuscript it stands: "He means by it, exalted is His praise," but the context requires what has been established.
(55) The report 6776 - Ibn Hishām 2:227, belonging to the remainder of the preceding reports, the last of which was number 6774.
(56) See the explanation of "and kill the prophets without right" in the preceding 2:140-142.
(57) Thus it stands in the manuscript and the printed edition, and it is a formulation with which I am not satisfied; I suspect that the correct reading is: "because of the consensus of the authoritative reciters upon the reading of it." See Maʿānī al-Qurʾān of al-Farrāʾ 1:202 on the exposition of this reading of al-Kisāʾī.
(58) Thus reads the text of al-Ṭabarī, and thus it is taken over in al-Durr al-Manthūr 2:13; from it I have supplied what stands between brackets. The meaning of his formulation is that the revelation came to the prophets of the Banū Isrāʾīl, as is clear in the other reports, which al-Baghawī transmitted in his tafsīr (in the margin of Ibn Kathīr) 2:117, 118, and al-Qurṭubī 4:46.
(59) The statement "there were people of the Banū Isrāʾīl... the revelation came to them," with the omission of the predicate of the first "kāna," is an eloquent, well-formed formulation in Arabic, to which I have repeatedly pointed in the foregoing.
(60) In the manuscript and the printed edition, and in al-Durr al-Manthūr 2:13, it stands "those who kill the prophets," and elsewhere it stands "and they kill"; I have established what occurs in the report of Ibn Abī Ḥātim, as Ibn Kathīr rendered it in his tafsīr 2:118, and that is the text of the recitation.
(61) The report 6780 - "Abū ʿUbayd al-Waṣṣābī: Muḥammad ibn Ḥafṣ al-Ḥimṣī," his biography has passed under number 129 (and see what comes hereafter, number 7009). There it stood in the isnād "Abū ʿUbayd al-Waṣṣābī related to me, saying: Muḥammad ibn Ḥafṣ related to us," and my brother al-Sayyid Aḥmad considered it probable that this is an error, and he was right; the best would be to delete the "saying: related to us" from that isnād. In the printed edition and the manuscript it stood here "Abū ʿUbayd al-Riṣāfī Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar," and the correct is from the tafsīr of Ibn Kathīr 2:118. "Ibn Ḥimyar" is: "Muḥammad ibn Ḥimyar ibn Anīs al-Quḍāʿī," he transmitted from Ibrāhīm on the authority of Abī ʿAbla, and Muḥammad ibn Ziyād al-Alhānī, and Muʿāwiya ibn Sallām and others. Aḥmad was asked about him and said: "I know nothing but good about him," and Ibn Maʿīn said: "Trustworthy (thiqa)," and Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: "His ḥadīth is written down but no proof is derived from it." In the printed edition it stood: "Ibn Ḥumayd" with the dāl, and that is an error, the correct is from Ibn Kathīr and al-Baghawī in his margin 2:118. He has a biography in al-Tahdhīb. Ibn Abī Ḥātim said in al-Jarḥ wa-al-taʿdīl, and he mentioned this Abū ʿUbayd al-Waṣṣābī and said: "I reached him and wished to hear from him, but some inhabitants of Ḥimṣ said to me: he is not truthful and he did not meet Muḥammad ibn Ḥimyar, so I left him." As for "Abū al-Ḥasan, the mawlā of the Banū Asad," he has been given a biography by the ḥāfiẓ in Lisān al-Mīzān 6:364; he said: "Abū al-Ḥasan al-Asadī," about him Abū Kurayb related to us; unknown (majhūl), end. But Abū Kurayb was not alone in transmitting from him; rather Muḥammad ibn Ḥimyar transmitted from him. And he said in his transmission: "the mawlā of the Banū Asad, on the authority of Makḥūl"; his ḥadīth has been rendered by al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and Abū Ḥātim mentioned him among those whose name is not known. This, and al-Baghawī transmitted it via Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn Ḥannān al-Kalbī, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Ḥimyar (in the margin of the tafsīr of Ibn Kathīr 2:118).
