Tafseer of The Women · An-Nisaa · 4:40
Indeed, Allah does not do injustice, [even] as much as an atom's weight; while if there is a good deed, He multiplies it and gives from Himself a great reward.
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 the saying of the Exalted: إِنَّ اللَّهَ لا يَظْلِمُ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ وَإِنْ تَكُ حَسَنَةً يُضَاعِفْهَا وَيُؤْتِ مِنْ لَدُنْهُ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا (40) ("Truly, Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom (dharra), and if there is a good deed He multiplies it and gives from Himself a tremendous reward." (4:40))
Abū Jaʿfar said: He — exalted be His praise — means by this: "And what would it have harmed them had they believed in Allah and the Last Day (8-360) and spent of that with which Allah has provided them." For Allah withholds from none of His creatures who spends in His path of that with which He has provided him the reward for his spending in this life, nor the recompense for it on the Day of Resurrection — "by the weight of an atom (mithqāl dharra)," that is to say: by the value of what it weighs, according to the measure of its weight on the scale — rather He rewards him for it and recompenses it to him, as in:
9502 — Al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: Maʿmar informed us, on the authority of Qatāda: that he recited إن الله لا يظلم مثقال ذرّة وإن تَك حسنةً يضاعفها ("Truly, Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom, and if there is a good deed He multiplies it") and said: "That my good deeds should outweigh my bad deeds by the weight of an atom is dearer to me than the world and all it contains."
9503 — Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, who said: Some of the learned said: "That my good deeds should outweigh my bad deeds by the weight of an atom is dearer to me than that the whole world should belong to me."
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As for "the atom (al-dharra)": concerning it there is transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās that he said about it, as in:
9504 — Isḥāq ibn Wahb al-Wāsiṭī related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: Shabīb ibn Bishr related to us, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His saying: "by the weight of an atom," he said: The head of a red ant.
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= Abū Jaʿfar said: Isḥāq ibn Wahb said to me: Yazīd ibn Hārūn said: It is claimed that this red ant has no weight.
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And in the sense of what we have said, the reports from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ are confirmed as authentic.
9505 — Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā and Muḥammad ibn Bashshār related to us, both of them saying: Abū Dāwūd related to us, saying: ʿImrān related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, on the authority of Anas: that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: Truly, Allah does not withhold from the believer any good deed: he is rewarded for it with provision in this life, and he is recompensed for it in the Hereafter. As for the disbeliever (kāfir): he is fed with it in this life, but when the Day of Resurrection comes, he has no good deed left at all.
Mūsā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Masrūqī related to us, saying: Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn related to us, saying: Hishām ibn Saʿd related to us, saying: Zayd ibn Aslam informed us, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār: By Him in whose hand is my soul, none of you will plead more vehemently for the right which he sees to be due to him than the believers will plead for their brothers, when they see that they themselves have been saved from the Fire (al-nār). They will say: "O our Lord, our brothers, they prayed with us, and they fasted with us, and they performed the pilgrimage (ḥajj) with us, and they fought in jihād with us — the Fire has seized them!" Then Allah will say to them: "Go forth, and whomever of them you recognize by his form, take him out!" And He will forbid their forms to the Fire. Then they will find the man whom the Fire has already seized up to the middle of his shins, and up to his knees, and up to his loins, and they will bring out from it many people. Then they will return and speak again, and He says: "Go forth, and whomever of them you find in his heart the weight of a qīrāṭ of goodness, take him out!" And they will bring out from it many people. Then they will return and speak again, and He keeps saying this to them until He says: "Go forth, and whomever of them you find in his heart the weight of an atom, take him out!" And when Abū Saʿīd related this report, he said: "If you do not believe it, then read: إنّ الله لا يظلم مثقال ذَرّة وإن تك حسنة يضاعفها ويؤت من لدنه أجرًا عظيمًا ('Truly, Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom, and if there is a good deed He multiplies it and gives from Himself a tremendous reward')." Then they say: "Our Lord, we have left no goodness in it."
9507 — And Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam related to me, saying: my father and Shuʿayb ibn al-Layth related to me, on the authority of al-Layth, on the authority of Khālid ibn Yazīd, on the authority of Ibn Abī Hilāl, on the authority of Zayd ibn Aslam, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, on the authority of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, on the authority of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, something similar.
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And others said the following about this:
9508 — Al-Muthannā related it to me, saying: Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm related to us, saying: Ṣadaqa ibn Abī Sahl related to us, saying: Abū ʿAmr related to us, on the authority of Zādhān, who said: I came to Ibn Masʿūd, and he said: When the Day of Resurrection comes, Allah gathers the first and the last, and then a herald from Allah calls out: "Now then, whoever claims a wrong (mazlama), let him come to his right and take it!" He said: And by Allah, a person will rejoice that the right falls to him against his father, or his child, or his wife, and he takes it from him, even if it is small = and the confirmation of this is in the Book of Allah — blessed and exalted is He —: فَإِذَا نُفِخَ فِي الصُّورِ فَلا أَنْسَابَ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ وَلا يَتَسَاءَلُونَ [Surah Al-Muʾminūn: 101] ("And when the trumpet is blown, then there will be no kinship ties between them on that Day, nor will they ask one another" (23:101)) = Then it is said to him: "Give these their rights" = that is to say: give them their rights = Then he says: "O Lord, from where, now that the world is over?" Then Allah says to His angels: "O My angels, look into his good deeds and give them therefrom!" And if there remains the weight of an atom of good deeds, the angels say — while He knows that better than they —: "O our Lord, we have given everyone who had a right his right, and there remains for him the weight of an atom of a good deed." Then He says to the angels: "Multiply it for My servant, and let him enter the garden (janna) through My grace and mercy" = and the confirmation of this is in the Book of Allah: إن الله لا يظلم مثقال ذرة وإن تك حسنة يضاعفها ويؤت من لدنه أجرًا عظيمًا ("Truly, Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom, and if there is a good deed He multiplies it and gives from Himself a tremendous reward"), that is to say: the garden, that He gives him. And if his good deeds are exhausted and his bad deeds remain, the angels say — while He knows better —: "Our God, his good deeds are exhausted and his bad deeds remain, and there are still many claimants!" Then Allah says: "Increase them with their sins, and write for him a writ to the Fire." Ṣadaqa said: or "a deed of debt to Hell (jahannam)" — Ṣadaqa doubted which of the two he had said.
9509 — And it was related to me on the authority of Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd, on the authority of Hārūn ibn ʿAntara, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Sāʾib, who said: I heard Zādhān say: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd said: The slave (ʿabd) and the slave-woman (ama) are taken by the hand on the Day of Resurrection, and a herald calls out over the heads of the first and the last: "This is so-and-so, son of so-and-so; whoever has a right against him, let him come to his right." And the woman will rejoice that the right falls to her against her father, or against her son, or against her brother, or against her husband. Then Ibn Masʿūd recited: فَلا أَنْسَابَ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ وَلا يَتَسَاءَلُونَ [Surah Al-Muʾminūn: 101] ("Then there will be no kinship ties between them on that Day, nor will they ask one another" (23:101)). And Allah — blessed and exalted is He — forgives of His own right what He wills, but of the rights of people He forgives nothing. Then He stands him before the people and says: "Give the people their rights!" Then he says: "Lord, the world is over; from where shall I give them their rights?" Then He says: "Take of his good deeds, and give everyone who has a right his right according to the measure of the wrong done to him." And if he is a friend (walī) of Allah, and there remains for him the weight of an atom, He multiplies it for him until He admits him thereby into the garden = Then he recited to us: "Truly, Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom" = And if he is a wretched servant, the angel says: "Lord, his good deeds are exhausted, and there are still many claimants!" Then He says: "Take of their bad deeds and add them to his bad deeds, then write for him a deed of debt to the Fire."
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Abū Jaʿfar said: The explanation of the verse according to the explanation of ʿAbd Allāh is therefore this: Allah does not wrong a servant to whom there is due the weight of an atom against another servant of His, at the time of his return and the Day of his meeting with Him, or more than that, by withholding it and not taking it for the wronged from his wrongdoer; rather, He takes it from him in his favor, and He takes from every wrongdoer for every wronged person the claim (tabiʿa) which the latter has against him = "and if there is a good deed He multiplies it," He says: and if a good deed is found for him, He multiplies it, in the sense of: He multiplies for him the reward and the recompense for it = "and gives from Himself a tremendous reward," He says: and He gives him from Himself a tremendous reward, and "the tremendous reward" is the garden, according to what ʿAbd Allāh has said.
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And both explanations have an intelligible sense = I mean the explanation that Ibn Masʿūd gave and the one which Qatāda gave = Yet we have preferred the first explanation, because of its agreement with the report from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and because the outward meaning of the revelation indicates its correctness, since it stands in the context of the preceding verse, in which Allah urged spending in obedience to Him and reproached spending in obedience to the devil. He then joined to that what He promised the hypocrites (munāfiqīn) when they obey Him, with His saying: "Truly, Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom, and if there is a good deed He multiplies it and gives from Himself a tremendous reward."
And the reciters differed concerning the reading of His saying: "and if there is a good deed (wa-in taku ḥasana)." Most of the reciters of Iraq read it as (وَإِنْ تَكُ حَسَنَةً) with naṣb (accusative) on "al-ḥasana," in the meaning: and if the weight of the atom is a good deed, then He multiplies it.
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And most of the reciters of Medina read it as (وَإِنْ تَكُ حَسَنَةٌ) with rafʿ (nominative) on "al-ḥasana," in the meaning: and if a good deed is found, according to what I have mentioned from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd concerning its explanation.
As for His saying: "He multiplies it (yuḍāʿifuhā)": this came with the alif, and He did not say "yuḍaʿʿifuhā," because by it, according to the statement of some of the Arabic language scholars, is meant: He multiplies it by many multiples; and if by it were meant: He doubles that to twofold, then it would have been said "yuḍaʿʿifuhā" with tashdīd (doubling of the consonant).
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Then the exegetes differed concerning those to whom Allah promised in this verse what He promised them in it.
Some said: They are all people who believe in Allah and in Muḥammad ﷺ. And they relied for this on the following:
9510 — Al-Faḍl ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ related to us, saying: Yazīd ibn Hārūn related to us, on the authority of Mubārak ibn Faḍāla, on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Zayd, on the authority of Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī, who said: I met Abū Hurayra and said to him: "It has reached me that you say the good deed is multiplied to a thousand thousand good deeds!" He said: "And what astonishes you about that? By Allah, I heard him" = meaning the Prophet ﷺ = "say: Truly, Allah multiplies the good deed to two thousand thousand good deeds!"
And others said: No, that concerns exclusively the Emigrants (muhājirūn), and not the people of the desert and the bedouin. And they relied for this on the following:
9511 — Muḥammad ibn Hārūn Abū Nashīṭ related to me, saying: Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bukayr related to us, saying: Fuḍayl ibn Marzūq related to us, on the authority of ʿAṭiyya al-ʿAwfī, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmayr, who said: This verse was revealed concerning the bedouin: مَنْ جَاءَ بِالْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُ عَشْرُ أَمْثَالِهَا [Surah Al-Anʿām: 160] ("Whoever comes with a good deed, for him is tenfold of it" (6:160)). He said: Then a man said: "And what is there for the Emigrants?" He said: Something more tremendous than that: "Truly, Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom, and if there is a good deed He multiplies it and gives from Himself a tremendous reward." And when Allah says of something that it is "tremendous," then it is tremendous.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And the correct of the two statements herein is the statement of the one who said: "By this verse the Emigrants are meant, and not the bedouin." That is because it is not permissible that there be in the reports of Allah or the reports of His Messenger ﷺ anything part of which refutes another part. Since now the promise of Allah is authentic that whoever of His believing servants comes with a good deed receives as recompense tenfold of it, and that for whoever of them comes with a good deed He multiplies it for him = and since the two reports which we have mentioned from him ﷺ are authentic = it is only permissible that one of them be general (mujmal) and the other explanatory (mufassar), since his reports ﷺ confirm one another. And since that is so, it becomes clear that the report of Abū Hurayra has the meaning that the good deed for the Emigrants among the believers is multiplied to two thousand thousand good deeds, and for the bedouin among them tenfold of it, according to what Ibn ʿUmar transmitted from the Prophet ﷺ = and that His saying مَنْ جَاءَ بِالْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُ عَشْرُ أَمْثَالِهَا ("Whoever comes with a good deed, for him is tenfold of it") means: whoever of the believing bedouin comes with a good deed, for him is tenfold of it, and whoever of their Emigrants comes with a good deed, for him it is multiplied and Allah gives him from Himself a recompense = that is to say: He gives him from Himself = "a tremendous reward." That is to say: a tremendous compensation for his good deed, and that "tremendous compensation" is the garden, as in:
9512 — Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm related to us, saying: Ṣadaqa ibn Abī Sahl related to us, saying: Abū ʿAmr related to us, on the authority of Zādhān, on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd: "and gives from Himself a tremendous reward," that is to say: the garden, that He gives.
9513 — Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: Al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, he said: ʿAbbād ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ informed me, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, concerning His saying: "and gives from Himself a tremendous reward," he said: The tremendous reward is the garden.
9514 — Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said concerning His saying: "and gives from Himself a tremendous reward," he said: "a tremendous reward" is the garden.
