بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
حم
Ha, Meem
عسق
‘Ayn, Seen, Qaf
كَذَٰلِكَ يُوحِي إِلَيْكَ وَإِلَى الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكَ اللَّهُ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ
Allah, the All-mighty and the All-wise, thus reveals to you and to those who were before you
لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۖ وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ
whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth belongs to Him, and He is the All-exalted, the All-supreme
تَكَادُ السَّمَاوَاتُ يَتَفَطَّرْنَ مِن فَوْقِهِنَّ ۚ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ يُسَبِّحُونَ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّهِمْ وَيَسْتَغْفِرُونَ لِمَن فِي الْأَرْضِ ۗ أَلَا إِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ
The heavens are about to be rent apart from above them, while the angels celebrate the praise of their Lord and plead for forgiveness for those [faithful] who are on the earth. Indeed, Allah is the All-forgiving, the All-merciful
وَالَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُوا مِن دُونِهِ أَوْلِيَاءَ اللَّهُ حَفِيظٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَمَا أَنتَ عَلَيْهِم بِوَكِيلٍ
As for those who have taken awliya besides Him, Allah is watchful over them, and you are not their keeper
وَكَذَٰلِكَ أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ قُرْآنًا عَرَبِيًّا لِّتُنذِرَ أُمَّ الْقُرَىٰ وَمَنْ حَوْلَهَا وَتُنذِرَ يَوْمَ الْجَمْعِ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ ۚ فَرِيقٌ فِي الْجَنَّةِ وَفَرِيقٌ فِي السَّعِيرِ
Thus have We revealed to you an Arabic Quran that you may warn [the people of] the Mother of the Towns and those around it, and warn [them] of the Day of Gathering, in which there is no doubt, [whereupon] a part [of mankind] will be in paradise and a part will be in the Blaze
وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَهُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَـٰكِن يُدْخِلُ مَن يَشَاءُ فِي رَحْمَتِهِ ۚ وَالظَّالِمُونَ مَا لَهُم مِّن وَلِيٍّ وَلَا نَصِيرٍ
Had Allah wished, He would have surely made them one community; but He admits whomever He wishes into His mercy, and the wrongdoers do not have any guardian or helper
أَمِ اتَّخَذُوا مِن دُونِهِ أَوْلِيَاءَ ۖ فَاللَّهُ هُوَ الْوَلِيُّ وَهُوَ يُحْيِي الْمَوْتَىٰ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
Have they taken awliya besides Him? [Say,] ‘It is Allah, who is the [true] Wali, and He revives the dead, and He has power over all things
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
The sūra opens with two sets of disjoined letters — Ḥā-Mīm (v.1) and ʿAyn-Sīn-Qāf (v.2), counted as two separate verses in the Kufan reckoning (al-Ṭūsī, al-Ṭabarsī) — then states the governing theme: "Thus does Allah, the Mighty, the Wise, reveal to you and to those before you" (v.3). It affirms God's absolute ownership and loftiness (v.4); the heavens almost rending while the angels glorify and beg forgiveness for those on earth (v.5); the futility of taking protectors besides Him (v.6); the Arabic Qurʾān warning the Mother of Towns and of the Day of Gathering, when humanity splits into "a party in the Garden and a party in the Blaze" (v.7); that God could have made one community but instead admits whom He wills into mercy (v.8); and that God alone is the true Protector (al-Walī), who revives the dead (v.9).
al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) makes waḥy the axis of the whole sūra, reading "thus" as pointing to the very act of revealing this sūra — defining revelation by a witnessed instance. He grounds God's exclusive walāya in the five Names of vv.3–4 (Mighty, Wise, Owner, Most High, Most Great) and offers his distinctive reading of v.5: the heavens nearly split because the revelation passes down through them from the One of absolute loftiness (hence "from above them"), comparing 59:21 and 73:5 — explicitly rejecting the more common "majesty of God" and "they said God took a son" (19:90) readings adopted by others. The angels' plea of forgiveness he reduces to a plea that God legislate a saving religion for earth's people.
al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī supply the philological and recitational base: Ibn Kathīr's passive yūḥā, Ibn Masʿūd's Ḥā-Mīm Sīn-Qāf without the ʿayn, and the grammar of the divine Name as agent. Both report v.5's rending as either dread of God's majesty or (per Ibn ʿAbbās/al-Ḥasan) horror at the claim that God took a son, and both read v.8 through a free-will lens: compelling humanity to faith "would nullify moral responsibility (taklīf)" — the shared Imāmī–Muʿtazilī rejection of jabr. They agree the angels' istighfār is specifically for the believers, and that God is the only Protector who "owns benefit and harm" and revives the dead.
al-Qummī and al-Burhān carry the narrational and taʾwīl layer, rendered here strictly as attributed: the disjoined letters as the Greatest Name (composed by the Prophet or Imam) and as "the reckoning of the years of the Qāʾim," with Qāf an emerald mountain encircling the world; the angels' forgiveness as "specifically for the penitent Shīʿa — the wording general, the meaning particular"; and v.9's "He revives the dead" linked to the narration of Sām b. Nūḥ raised at ʿAlī's word. Both transmit the long account of the Byzantine king who tests al-Ḥasan against Yazīd with the prophets' images, concluding that knowledge of the Unseen marks the rightful successors. al-Burhān's cluster keyed here (vv.9–18) already reaches forward to "He has ordained for you of the religion…" (v.13), glossed as the walāya of ʿAlī, and to "the Balance" = Amīr al-Muʾminīn (v.17). al-Qummī reads "the wrongdoers" of v.8 as those who denied the Family of Muḥammad their right.
Convergence: all present sources affirm tawḥīd al-rubūbiyya and God's sole walāya. Divergence: the rending of v.5 (al-Mīzān's revelation-reading vs. the majesty/shirk readings of al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and the Mīzān-reported majority), and the depth of taʾwīl — the lexical-theological focus of al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān beside the explicitly Imāmī walāya readings of al-Qummī and al-Burhān.