Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:149
Say, "With Allah is the far-reaching argument. If He had willed, He would have guided you all."
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 word: قُلْ فَلِلَّهِ الْحُجَّةُ الْبَالِغَةُ فَلَوْ شَاءَ لَهَدَاكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ ("Say: To Allah belongs the conclusive proof. And had He willed, He would surely have guided you all") (6:149).
Abū Jaʿfar said: He, exalted is His remembrance, says to His Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ: Say, O Muḥammad, to these who set up alongside their Lord the idols and graven images, who speak the lie against their Lord in their forbidding of what they have forbidden of crops and cattle — if they are unable to furnish the proof when you say to them: "Have you any knowledge of what you allege concerning your Lord? Then bring it forth to us," and if they are unable to bring forth the knowledge of it for you and to display it — and there is no doubt that they are incapable of that and fall short of displaying it, because it is a vain thing that has no reality — (then to Allah belongs), He who has forbidden you to assign to Him any partner and to follow the footsteps of Satan in your possessions of crops and cattle — (the conclusive proof), and not to you, O polytheists (mushrikīn).
And by "al-bālighah" (the conclusive) is meant that it attains its aim in its being established against whoever is confronted with it as proof among His creatures, and in cutting off his excuse when it has reached him in that for which it has been made a proof.
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(And had He willed, He would surely have guided you all), He says: And had your Lord willed, He would surely have brought you all to the capacity for being of one accord upon the worship belonging to Him alone, and upon freeing yourselves from the partners and the gods, and upon professing the forbidding of what Allah has forbidden and the permitting of what Allah has permitted, and upon abandoning the following of the footsteps of Satan, and in other of His acts of obedience. But He did not will that, and so He made a distinction among His creatures in that which He willed of them: thus some of them are unbelieving and some of them are believing.
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And in agreement with what we have said concerning that, a group of the exegetes spoke.
* Mention of those who said that:
14132 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas, who said: No one who disobeys Allah has any proof, but to Allah belongs the conclusive proof against His servants. And he said concerning: (And had He willed, He would surely have guided you all), he said: لا يُسْأَلُ عَمَّا يَفْعَلُ وَهُمْ يُسْأَلُونَ ("He is not questioned about what He does, but they are questioned") [Surah Al-Anbiyāʾ: 23].
