Tafseer of Muhammad · Muhammad · 47:17
And those who are guided - He increases them in guidance and gives them their righteousness.
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: وَالَّذِينَ اهْتَدَوْا زَادَهُمْ هُدًى وَآتَاهُمْ تَقْوَاهُمْ (47:17) (And those who are guided, He increases them in guidance and bestows upon them their God-fearingness.)
The Exalted, whose praise is sublime, says: and as for those to whom Allāh granted success in following the truth and whose hearts He opened to belief in Him and in His Messenger, among those who listened to you, O Muḥammad — indeed, that which you have recited to them and which they have heard from you ( زَادَهُمْ هُدًى ) — He says: Allāh thereby increased them in faith upon their faith, and in clarification of the truthfulness of that which you have brought them from Allāh, upon the clarification they already possessed. It has been narrated that when the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ had recited to them something of the Qurʾān, the hypocrites among them would say to the believers: "What did he just say?", while Allāh increased the people of guidance among them in guidance. For a part of what Allāh sent down of the Qurʾān abrogated a part of the ruling that had applied before it.
* Mention of who said that:
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me, saying: my father related to me, saying: my uncle related to me, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His saying ( وَالَّذِينَ اهْتَدَوْا زَادَهُمْ هُدًى وَآتَاهُمْ تَقْوَاهُمْ ), he said: when Allāh sent down the Qurʾān, they believed in it, and that was guidance; and when the abrogating and the abrogated (al-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh) became clear, that increased them in guidance.
And His saying ( وَآتَاهُمْ تَقْوَاهُمْ ): the Exalted, whose praise is sublime, says: and Allāh gave these guided ones their God-fearingness, and that is that He brought them to put into practice their fear of Him.
