Tafseer of The Women · An-Nisaa · 4:13
These are the limits [set by] Allah, and whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger will be admitted by Him to gardens [in Paradise] under which rivers flow, abiding eternally therein; and that is the great attainment.
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, the Exalted: Dat zijn de grenzen van Allah (ḥudūd). En wie Allah en Zijn Boodschapper gehoorzaamt, hem zal Hij tuinen binnenvoeren waar de rivieren onderdoor stromen, daarin eeuwig verblijvend. En dat is de geweldige zegepraal (4:13).
Abū Jaʿfar said: The exegetes differed concerning the explanation of His statement: "Those are the limits of Allah (ḥudūd)." Some of them said: By this He means: Those are the conditions of Allah.
* Mention of who said that:
8790 - Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: "Those are the limits of Allah," he says: the conditions of Allah.
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Others said: Rather, the meaning of it is: That is obedience to Allah.
* Mention of who said that:
8791 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Abū Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiya ibn Ṣāliḥ related to us, on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥa, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning his statement: "Those are the limits of Allah," that is: obedience to Allah, namely the shares of inheritance (mīrāth) which Allah has designated.
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Others said: The meaning of it is: That is the established practice of Allah (sunna) and His command.
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Others said: Rather, the meaning of it is: Those are the obligations of Allah (farāʾiḍ).
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And the correct of the statements concerning that is what we shall expound, namely that the "limit" (ḥadd) of every thing is that which separates it from something else. For this reason the limits of the house and the limits of the lands are called "limits" (ḥudūd), because of their separation between that which is demarcated by them and the rest.
So too His statement: "Those are the limits of Allah," the meaning of which is: this division which your Lord has divided for you, and the obligations which He has established for you, the living, from your dead, in this verse, in accordance with what He has imposed and clarified in these two verses – "the limits of Allah," that is: the separations between obedience to Allah and disobedience to Him in your division of the inheritances of your dead, as Ibn ʿAbbās said. He omitted "obedience to Allah" – while the intent is: the limits of obedience to Allah – because He was content with the knowledge of those to whom this is addressed concerning the meaning of the statement, so that its mention was left out. The proof of the correctness of what we have said concerning that is His statement: "And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger," and the verse that follows it: And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger.
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The explanation of the verse is then: this division which your Lord has divided among you, O people, concerning the inheritances of your dead, are separations by which He has demarcated for you between obedience to Him and disobedience to Him, and limits for you to which you must confine yourselves and which you must not transgress, so that among you the people of His obedience may be distinguished from the people of His disobedience, in that which He has commanded you concerning the division of the inheritances of your dead among you, and in that which He has forbidden you of that.
Then He informed, exalted be His praise, about what He has prepared for each of the two groups among them, and said to the group of the people of His obedience therein: "And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger" in acting according to what He has commanded him, and in adhering to what He has demarcated for him in the division of the inheritances and the rest, and abstains from what He has forbidden him therein and in the rest, "He will admit him into gardens beneath which the rivers flow."
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His statement "He will admit him into gardens" means: orchards beneath whose plantings and whose trees the rivers flow, "abiding therein eternally," He says: remaining therein forever, they do not die therein and they do not perish, and they are not driven out of it. "And that is the mighty triumph."
He says: And Allah's admitting them into the gardens which He has described, in accordance with what He described of them, is "the mighty triumph," that is: the mighty deliverance and success (al-falaḥ).
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And in accordance with what we have said concerning that, the exegetes have spoken.
* Mention of who said that:
8792 - Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to us, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, on the authority of Mujāhid: "Those are the limits of Allah, and whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger, He will admit him," the verse. He said: Concerning the matter of the inheritances that was mentioned before.
8793 - Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning his statement: "Those are the limits of Allah," which He has demarcated for His creatures, and His obligations among them concerning the inheritance and the division. So adhere to them and do not transgress them toward something else.
