Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:135
Say, "O my people, work according to your position; [for] indeed, I am working. And you are going to know who will have succession in the home. Indeed, the wrongdoers will not succeed.
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 statement: قُلْ يَا قَوْمِ اعْمَلُوا عَلَى مَكَانَتِكُمْ إِنِّي عَامِلٌ فَسَوْفَ تَعْلَمُونَ (Say: O my people, act according to your ability; verily, I too am acting. Soon you will know.)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose praise is exalted, says to His Prophet Muḥammad — may Allah bless him and grant him peace —: "Say" (qul), O Muḥammad, to your people of the Quraysh, who set up alongside Allah another god: "Act according to your ability" (iʿmalū ʿalā makānatikum), He says: act according to your own nature and direction. As in:
13898 — ʿAlī ibn Dāwūd related to me, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiya ibn Ṣāliḥ related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥa, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "O my people, act according to your ability", that means: according to your own direction.
Of this one says: "he acts according to his ability (makāna) and according to his position (makīna)".
Some of the Kūfans read it as: "according to your abilities" (ʿalā makānātikum), as the plural of "the ability" (al-makāna).
Abū Jaʿfar said: That which the reciters of the great cities adhere to is: "according to your ability" (ʿalā makānatikum), in the singular.
"Verily, I too am acting" (innī ʿāmil), the Exalted, whose praise is exalted, says to His Prophet: say to them: act whatever you wish to do, for I am acting whatever I shall act, according to what my Lord has charged me. "Soon you will know" (fa-sawfa taʿlamūn), He says: soon you will know, when the vengeance of Allah descends upon you, which of us in his acting was upon the truth and struck the path of right guidance: I or you.
And His statement — the Exalted, whose praise is exalted — to His Prophet: say to your people: "O my people, act according to your ability", is a command from Him to him to threaten them and to warn them, and not a permission to them to perform what they wished of the acts of disobedience toward Allah.
The explanation of His statement: مَنْ تَكُونُ لَهُ عَاقِبَةُ الدَّارِ إِنَّهُ لا يُفْلِحُ الظَّالِمُونَ (135) (Who shall have for himself the good outcome of the Abode. Verily, the wrongdoers do not succeed.) (135)
Abū Jaʿfar said: By His statement, exalted is His praise: "who shall have for himself the good outcome of the Abode" (man takūnu lahu ʿāqibatu al-dār), is meant: soon you will know, O you who disbelieve in Allah, when you behold the punishment, which of us and of you it is that shall have the good outcome of the Abode. He says: which of us it is whose worldly life leaves behind for him something that is better for him than that worldly life, or worse than it, according to what he has sent forth therein of good deeds or evil deeds.
Then He, exalted is His praise, resumed the statement anew and said: "verily, the wrongdoers do not succeed" (innahu lā yufliḥu al-ẓālimūn), He says: verily, he does not succeed nor attain his need with Allah, who acted in contradiction to what Allah had charged him to do in this world. And that is the meaning of "the wrongdoing of the wrongdoer" (ẓulm al-ẓālim) in this place.
And in the word "who" (man) in His utterance "who shall have" (man takūnu) there are two possible case-parsings:
— the nominative (rafʿ), as the subject of the sentence (ibtidāʾ);
— and the accusative (naṣb), governed by His statement "you will know" (taʿlamūn), in that the verb "to know" (ʿilm) operates upon it.
And the nominative therein is better, for its meaning is: soon you will know, which of us the good outcome of the Abode belongs to. So setting "who" (man) as the subject is more correct and more eloquent than that "the knowing" (ʿilm) should operate upon it.
