Tafseer of The Spoils of War · Al-Anfaal · 8:29
O you who have believed, if you fear Allah, He will grant you a criterion and will remove from you your misdeeds and forgive you. And Allah is the possessor of great bounty.
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 saying: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ تَتَّقُوا اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ لَكُمْ فُرْقَانًا وَيُكَفِّرْ عَنْكُمْ سَيِّئَاتِكُمْ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ ذُو الْفَضْلِ الْعَظِيمِ (29) ("O you who believe, if you fear Allah, He will grant you a faculty of discernment (furqān) and will efface your evil deeds from you and forgive you; and Allah is the Possessor of tremendous bounty." (29))
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose mention is high, says: O you who held Allah and His Messenger to be true, if you fear Allah by obeying Him, fulfilling His obligations, avoiding acts of disobedience to Him, and forsaking treachery against Him, against His Messenger, and against the goods entrusted to you — "then He will grant you a furqān," that is to say: He will give you a separation and a distinction between your right and the falsehood of those who wish you ill among your enemies, the polytheists (mushrikīn), by helping you against them and granting you victory over them. "And He will efface your evil deeds from you," that is to say: He will efface what has passed of your sins between you and Him. "And He will forgive you," that is to say: He will cover up those sins and conceal them for you, so that He will not call you to account for them. "And Allah is the Possessor of tremendous bounty," that is to say: and Allah, who does this with you, possesses tremendous bounty toward you and toward others among His creatures by doing this and by performing such deeds. And indeed, His deed is from Him a reward to His servant for the servant's obedience to Him, for it is He who inspired His servant with the obedience that he acquired, until he merited from his Lord the reward that He had promised him for it.
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The people of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) differed concerning the wording of the explanation of His saying: "then He will grant you a furqān."
Some of them said: a way out.
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And some of them said: deliverance.
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And some of them said: a separation.
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And all of this is close to one another in meaning, even if its wordings differ, and I have already set forth its correctness earlier in a manner that dispenses me from repeating it.
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Mention of those who said that its meaning is "the way out":
15936 - Ibn Wakīʿ related to us, saying: Jarīr related to us, on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Mujāhid: "if you fear Allah, He will grant you a furqān" — he said: a way out.
15937 - ......... he said: my father related to us, on the authority of Sufyān, on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Mujāhid: "if you fear Allah, He will grant you a furqān" — he said: a way out.
15938 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Ḥakkām related to us, on the authority of ʿAnbasa, on the authority of Jābir, on the authority of Mujāhid: "a furqān" — a way out.
15939 - 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: "a furqān" — he said: a way out in this world and in the hereafter.
15940 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Abū Ḥudhayfa related to us, saying: Shibl related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, the same.
15941 - Ibn Wakīʿ related to us, saying: Hāniʾ ibn Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Ḥajjāj, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid: "a furqān" — he said: "the furqān" is the way out.
15942 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Abū Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiya related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, his saying: "a furqān" — he says: a way out.
15943 - Al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: al-Thawrī informed us, on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Mujāhid: "a furqān" — a way out.
15944 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: ʿAbdallāh ibn Rajāʾ al-Baṣrī related to us, saying: Zāʾida related to us, on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Mujāhid, the same.
15945 - Ibn Wakīʿ related to us, saying: al-Muḥāribī related to us, on the authority of Juwaybir, on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk: "a furqān" — he said: a way out.
15946 - It was related to me on the authority of al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Faraj, he said: I heard Abū Muʿādh saying: I heard ʿUbayd saying: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk saying: "a furqān" — a way out.
15947 - Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq related to us, saying: Abū Aḥmad related to us, saying: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Mujāhid, the same.
15948 - Ibn Wakīʿ related to us, saying: Ḥumayd related to us, on the authority of Zuhayr, on the authority of Jābir, on the authority of ʿIkrima, he said: "the furqān" is the way out.
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* Mention of those who said that its meaning is deliverance:
15949 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Ḥakkām related to us, on the authority of ʿAnbasa, on the authority of Jābir, on the authority of ʿIkrima: "if you fear Allah, He will grant you a furqān" — he said: deliverance.
15950 - Al-Ḥārith related to me, saying: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz related to us, saying: Isrāʾīl related to us, on the authority of a man, on the authority of ʿIkrima and Mujāhid, concerning His saying: "He will grant you a furqān" — ʿIkrima said: the way out; and Mujāhid said: deliverance.
15951 - 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: "He will grant you a furqān" — he said: deliverance.
15952 - 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: "He will grant you a furqān" — he says: He will grant you a deliverance.
15953 - Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: "He will grant you a furqān" — that is to say: deliverance.
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* Mention of those who said: a separation.
15954 - ...................................... "O you who believe, if you fear Allah, He will grant you a furqān" — he said: a furqān (discernment) that makes a separation in their hearts between the truth and falsehood, until they know it and are guided by that furqān.
15955 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq: "O you who believe, if you fear Allah, He will grant you a furqān" — that is to say: a separation between the truth and falsehood, so that thereby your truth may become manifest and thereby the falsehood of those who oppose you may become hidden.
And "the furqān" in the language of the Arabs is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of their saying: "I separated between one thing and another, I separate between those two, with a separation (farq) and a discernment (furqān)".
