Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:116
And if you obey most of those upon the earth, they will mislead you from the way of Allah. They follow not except assumption, and they are not but falsifying.
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: وَإِنْ تُطِعْ أَكْثَرَ مَنْ فِي الأَرْضِ يُضِلُّوكَ عَنْ سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ إِنْ يَتَّبِعُونَ إِلا الظَّنَّ وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلا يَخْرُصُونَ ("And if you obey most of those who are upon the earth, they will lead you astray from the path of Allah. They follow nothing but conjecture, and they do nothing but guess") (6:116)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose mention is exalted, says to His Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ: Do not obey these people, who ascribe equals to Allah, O Muḥammad, in that to which they summon you, namely the eating of what they have slaughtered for their gods and over which they have pronounced the name of one other than their Lord, nor [obey] their like among the people of error and misguidance. For if you obey most of those who are upon the earth, they will lead you astray from the religion of Allah and from the way of truth and rightness, and they will divert you from it.
Allah said to His Prophet only: "And if you obey most of those who are upon the earth" — of the children of Adam — because at that time they were unbelievers and astray. So He, whose praise is exalted, said to him: Do not obey them in that to which they summon you, for if you obey them, you will go astray as they go astray, and you will be like them, because they do not summon you to guidance, since they themselves have missed it. Then He, whose praise is exalted, gave information about the condition of those whose obedience in that to which they were summoning Him [His Prophet] He had forbidden His Prophet, concerning themselves, and He said: "They follow nothing but conjecture." Thus He, whose praise is exalted, gave information that in their affair they rely only upon a conjecture within themselves and upon a supposing of the correctness of an intention they have conceived — even if it is in reality an error. "And they do nothing but guess," He says: they are nothing but guessers, who conjecture and estimate by approximation, without sure knowledge.
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One says of this: "kharaṣa, yakhruṣu, kharṣan and khurūṣan," that is to say: he lied; and "takharraṣa bi-ẓann" (he guessed at conjecture), and "takharraṣa bi-kadhib" (he fabricated a lie), and "kharaṣtu al-nakhla, akhruṣuhu" (I estimated the [yield of the] date palm), and "kharaṣat ibiluka" — when your camels have been afflicted by cold and hunger.
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The footnotes:
(25) Thus in the printed edition and in the manuscript, though I doubt its correctness.
(26) See Majāz al-Qurʾān of Abū ʿUbayda, 1:206.
(27) In the printed edition it reads "kharṣan wa-kharṣan"; I have adopted what is in the manuscript. I have not found "khurūṣan" as a verbal noun of this verb in any of the linguistic works available to me, but Abū Ḥayyān likewise mentions it in his tafsīr, 4:205.
