Tafseer of The Heights · Al-A'raaf · 7:18
[Allah] said, "Get out of Paradise, reproached and expelled. Whoever follows you among them - I will surely fill Hell with you, all together."
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: قَالَ اخْرُجْ مِنْهَا مَذْءُومًا مَدْحُورًا ("He said: Go out from it, disgraced and banished")
Abū Jaʿfar said: And this is a report from Allah, the Exalted whose mention is exalted, concerning the bringing down upon the corrupt one, the enemy of Allah, of that part of His vengeance and His curse with which He struck him, and concerning His driving him out of His garden (janna), when he disobeyed Him and contradicted His command, and gave Him back an answer that it was not his place to give back. He says: Allah then said to him: "Go out", that is: out of the garden, "disgraced and banished" (madhʾūman madḥūran), He says: smeared with defect.
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And "al-dhaʾm" is the defect/disgrace. One says of this: "dhaʾamahu yadhʾamuhu dhaʾman, fa-huwa madhʾūm" (he disgraced him, he disgraces him, a disgracing, and he is disgraced), and one drops the hamza and says: "dhimtuhu adhīmuhu dhayman wa-dhāman". And "al-dhaʾm" and "al-dhaym" are stronger in [expressing] defect than "al-dhamm". And some have recited this verse: (41)
"I accompanied you while there was a film upon my eye, and when it lifted, I cut myself off, while I disgrace her (adhīmuhā)." (42)
And most of the transmitters recite it as "alūmuhā" (I blame her).
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As for "al-madḥūr": that is the one driven away. One says: "daḥarahu yadḥaruhu daḥran wa-duḥūran", when he drives him away and casts him out; and to this belongs their saying: "idḥar ʿanka al-shayṭān" (drive Satan away from you). (43)
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And in accordance with what we have said concerning this, the people of interpretation have spoken.
* Mention of who said that:
14384 — Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning his statement: "Go out, disgraced and banished", he says: Go out, cursed and expelled.
14385 — Al-Muthannā related to us, saying: Abū Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiya related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "madhʾūman" — detested.
14386 — 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 statement: "He said: Go out, disgraced", he says: made lowly and expelled.
14387 — Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to me, saying: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, concerning his statement: "Go out, disgraced and banished": as for "madhʾūman", that is expelled, and as for "madḥūran", that is driven away.
14388 — Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid: "madhʾūman", he said: expelled; "madḥūran", he said: driven away.
14389 — Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ, concerning his statement: "Go out, disgraced", he said: expelled. And "al-madḥūr", he said: the one made lowly.
14390 — Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Zubayr related to us, on the authority of Ibn ʿUyayna, on the authority of Yūnus and Isrāʾīl, on the authority of Abī Isḥāq, on the authority of al-Tamīmī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "Go out, disgraced", he said: expelled.
14391 — Abū ʿAmr al-Qarqasānī ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā related to me, saying: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of Abī Isḥāq, on the authority of al-Tamīmī, who asked Ibn ʿAbbās: what does "Go out, disgraced and banished" mean? He said: detested. (44)
14392 — Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said concerning his statement: "Go out, disgraced and banished", and he said: We know "al-madhʾūm" and "al-madhmūm" only as one and the same, but there are letters that are dropped. And the poet said to ʿĀmir: "yā ʿĀm" (O ʿĀm), and to Ḥārith: "yā Ḥār" (O Ḥār); (45) and the Qurʾān indeed came down only in the speech of the Arabs.
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The discourse on the explanation of His statement: لَمَنْ تَبِعَكَ مِنْهُمْ لأَمْلأَنَّ جَهَنَّمَ مِنْكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ ("Whoever of them follows you — assuredly I shall fill Hell with you all") (7:18)
Abū Jaʿfar said: And this is an oath from Allah, whose praise is exalted. He swore that whoever of the children of Adam follows the enemy of Allah, Iblīs, and obeys him and verifies his supposition concerning him, that He will fill Hell (jahannam) with them all — that is: with the unbelievers among the children of Adam, the followers of Iblīs, and with Iblīs and his progeny. So may Allah have mercy on the man who falsified the supposition of the enemy of Allah concerning himself, and disappointed his hope and his desire concerning him, and did not give his enemy the opportunity to covet him with desire, and held him to be deceitful and accepted no counsel from him. For Allah, the Exalted whose mention is exalted, has by these signs only pointed His servants to the ancientness of the enmity of their enemy and the enemy of Allah, Iblīs, toward them, and to what has already passed of his envy toward their father and his wrongdoing against him and against them. And He has informed them of the places where His favors have descended upon them since ancient times, in themselves and in their father, so that they might reflect upon His signs, and so that the possessors of understanding might take admonition, that they might restrain themselves from obedience to their enemy and the enemy of them toward obedience to Him, and turn toward that.
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The footnotes:
(41) It is al-Ḥārith ibn Khālid al-Makhzūmī.
(42) The verse, with its explanation and source-attribution, has already passed — in a reading other than this one — previously, 1:265.
(43) See Majāz al-Qurʾān of Abū ʿUbayda, 1:212.
(44) The narration 14391 — "Abū ʿAmr al-Qarqasānī", "ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā", the teacher of al-Ṭabarī: I have not found for him a biography in the works available to me. What makes the matter still more complicated is that I find Abū Jaʿfar [al-Ṭabarī] in his historical work [using] an isnād via a teacher who is called "ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā", with the following text: "ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā related to me, on the authority of ʿUthmān al-Qarqasānī, saying: Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna related to us", whereby he thus places between "ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā" and "Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna" a man called "ʿUthmān al-Qarqasānī"! But what is in the tafsīr indicates that the transmitter from Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna is "ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā" himself. My supposition is therefore that there is an error in the isnād of the historical work, and perhaps the correct reading is: "ʿUthmān ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿUthmān al-Qarqasānī related to me, saying: Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna related to us." This is what I have found; may there gather with me what makes clear to me what is correct or incorrect therein.
(45) In the printed edition it reads: "wa-lākin yakūn muntaqaṣa, wa-qāla al-ʿarab li-ʿĀmir ..." with an open space in the text. In the manuscript it reads: "wa-lākin takūn f muntaqaṣa. wa-qad qāla al-shāʿir ..." with an open space in the text; the editor of the printed edition altered what was in the manuscript unreliably. In the manuscript there is above the open space "kadhā" (thus), and in the margin the letter (ṭ) to indicate the error. The fāʾ after the open space pointed me to [the fact] that the correct [reading] of that for which the copyist of the manuscript left an open space is "ḥurūf" (letters), whereby the text again becomes coherent.
And the example of tarkhīm (shortening in the vocative) with "ʿĀmir" is the saying of al-Ḥuṭayʾa to ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl:
"O ʿĀm, you were a man of influence and magnanimity, were it so that the endeavor of him with whom you contended lay straight before you."
And the example of tarkhīm with "al-Ḥārith" is the saying of Zuhayr:
"O Ḥār, let me not be struck by you with a calamity that no ordinary man before me has met, nor a king."
(46) In the printed edition it reads: "wa-lam yakun mimman ṭamaʿa fīhā ʿaduwwuhu", differing from what is in the manuscript, because he did not understand it, and thus he misconstrued it to the utmost and corrupted the text.
