Tafseer of The Women · An-Nisaa · 4:133
If He wills, He can do away with you, O people, and bring others [in your place]. And ever is Allah competent to do that.
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 explanation of His saying: If He wills, He can do away with you, O people, and bring others. And Allah is All-Powerful over that (133).
Abū Jaʿfar said: He, exalted be His praise, means by this: if Allah wills, O people, He can do away with you, that is: He can do away with you by destroying you and causing you to perish, and bring others. He says: and He can bring people other than you, in support and aid of His Prophet Muḥammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. And Allah is All-Powerful over that. He says: and Allah, over your destruction and annihilation and over replacing you with others, is All-Powerful, that is: One who has the power to do that.
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He, exalted be His praise, by these verses rebuked only the traitors who embezzled the coat of mail (dirʿ) whose affair we have described — those whom Allah mentioned in His saying: And do not be an advocate for the traitors [Surah al-Nisāʾ: 105] — and He warned the Companions of Muḥammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, against being like them, and against doing what the apostate (murtadd) among them did in his apostasy and his joining the polytheists (mushrikīn). And He informed them that whoever among them acts as he acted will only harm himself, and by his apostasy (ridda) will ruin none but himself, because he — together with all that is in the heavens and on the earth — is in need of Allah, while Allah is free of all need of them. Then He threatened them in His saying: If He wills, He can do away with you, O people, and bring others, with destruction and extermination, if they were to do what Ibn Ubayriq did, Ṭuʿma the apostate (murtadd), and with replacing them with others, in support of His Prophet Muḥammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his companionship and his aid to him in his religion, as He said in the other verse: And if you turn away, He will replace you with a people other than you; then they will not be the likes of you [Surah Muḥammad: 38].
And it has been related from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that when this verse was revealed, he struck his hand on the back of Salmān and said: "They are the people of this one," meaning by it the non-Arabs of Persia. Thus:
10676 — It was related to me, on the authority of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad, on the authority of Suhayl ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Abū Hurayra, on the authority of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.
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And Qatāda said concerning it that which:
10677 — Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying: If He wills, He can do away with you, O people, and bring others. And Allah is All-Powerful over that: All-Powerful is Allah, our Lord, over that, namely that He destroys of His creatures whom He wills and brings others after them.
