Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:17
And if Allah should touch you with adversity, there is no remover of it except Him. And if He touches you with good - then He is over all things competent.
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: وَإِنْ يَمْسَسْكَ اللَّهُ بِضُرٍّ فَلا كَاشِفَ لَهُ إِلا هُوَ وَإِنْ يَمْسَسْكَ بِخَيْرٍ فَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ (17) ("And if Allah touches you with affliction, there is none who can remove it except Him; and if He touches you with good, then He is capable of all things" (6:17)).
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose praise is proclaimed, says to His prophet Muḥammad ﷺ: O Muḥammad, if Allah touches you = "with affliction (ḍurr)," that is to say: with adversity in your worldly life, and with scarcity in your livelihood and distress therein, then none will remove that from you except Allah, who has commanded you to be the first to submit to His command and His prohibition, and who submits in obedience to Him among the people of your time — and not that to which those who ascribe partners to Him call you to worship of the idols and false deities, and not any other thing besides those from among His creation = "and if He touches you with good," that is to say: and if He touches you with the good, namely: with prosperity in livelihood, and ample provision, and abundance in wealth, so that you acknowledge that He has touched you with it = "then He is capable of all things," the Exalted, whose praise is proclaimed, says: and Allah, who has touched you with it, is capable of all things. He it is who is powerful over your benefit and your harm, and He is capable of all that He wills; nothing that He wills incapacitates Him, and nothing that He desires eludes Him. He is not like the lowly, abased deities that are unable to bring about benefit for themselves or for others, nor to ward off harm from themselves or from others. The Exalted, whose praise is proclaimed, says: How then can you worship one who is thus? Or how would you not make worship sincere, and not acknowledge the One in whose hand are harm and benefit, reward and punishment, and to whom belong the complete power and the manifest exaltedness?
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The footnotes:
(38) See the explanation of "the touching (al-mass)" in what has already preceded 10: 482, note 3, and the references there.
(39) See the explanation of "the affliction (al-ḍurr)" in what has already preceded 7: 157 / 10: 334.
(40) See the explanation of "capable of something (qadīr)" in what has already preceded in the linguistic entries (q-d-r).
