بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
يُسَبِّحُ لِلَّهِ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ لَهُ ٱلْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ ٱلْحَمْدُ ۖ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ قَدِيرٌ
Whatever there is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allah. To Him belongs all sovereignty and to Him belongs all praise, and He has power over all things.
هُوَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَكُمْ فَمِنكُمْ كَافِرٌۭ وَمِنكُم مُّؤْمِنٌۭ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ
It is He who created you. Then some of you are faithless and some of you are faithful, and Allah watches what you do.
خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَصَوَّرَكُمْ فَأَحْسَنَ صُوَرَكُمْ ۖ وَإِلَيْهِ ٱلْمَصِيرُ
He created the heavens and the earth with consummate wisdom, and He formed you and perfected your forms, and toward Him is your destination.
يَعْلَمُ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا تُسِرُّونَ وَمَا تُعْلِنُونَ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ عَلِيمٌۢ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ
He knows whatever there is in the heavens and the earth, and He knows whatever you hide and whatever you disclose, and Allah knows best what is in your breasts.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
The sura opens as a Medinan hymn to the God whom the whole cosmos glorifies. Every present source reads the chain 'His is the dominion... His is the praise... He has power over all things' as a ladder of unqualified divine attributes. Al-Tabarsi distinguishes the glorification of the accountable (by speech) from that of inanimate things (by the evidence they bear); al-Tusi defines tasbih as declaring God far above all that does not befit Him. Al-Mizan frames the entire opening as a deliberate preamble: because God is absolute Sovereign, All-Seeing, and creates nothing in vain, the Resurrection is a necessary consequence -- a thesis al-Tabatabai says the sura will build toward, noting its close kinship with Surah al-Hadid.
Verse 2's 'some of you are faithless and some faithful' becomes the passage's theological hinge. Al-Mizan, al-Tabarsi, and al-Tusi agree emphatically that the verse does not make God the creator of unbelief and faith: the 'fa-' marks only that the two parties emerge after creation, and unbelief and faith are ascribed to human choice. Al-Tabarsi cites the fitra verse (30:30) and 'every child is born upon the fitra,' and both he and al-Tusi ground the reading in the school of divine justice (ʿadl), rejecting compulsion (jabr). The Enlightening Commentary presses the same point polemically, reading the verse as a refutation of the Ashʿaris and determinists, since 'Allah is All-Seer of what you do' locates the reckoning in deeds, not in a decreed disbelief.
For verse 3 the sources dwell on creation 'with truth' (not in vain) and the 'perfecting of your forms.' Al-Mizan reads the beauty of form as the goodness that suits each thing to its end -- the return to God -- so that the verse completes the preludes to the Return; the Enlightening Commentary adds Imam ʿAli's image of the human being as the microcosm in whom the macrocosm is epitomized. Verse 4's threefold omniscience (the heavens and earth, the concealed and disclosed, and 'what is in the breasts') is read by al-Mizan as the pre-emptive answer to the deniers' objection that scattered creatures cannot be restored.
The two narration-sources turn the passage inward. Al-Qummi and al-Bahrani both carry al-Sahhaf's report from Imam al-Sadiq that the 'faith' and 'unbelief' of verse 2 were known to God as loyalty to, or rejection of, the Imams' walaya at the primordial covenant in the world of particles (ʿalam al-dharr) -- a distinctive Imami taʾwil presented strictly as attributed and flagged for review. Al-Bahrani further preserves a long tradition from Imam al-Baqir on those who are neither believers nor unbelievers (the mustadʿafin and the People of the Heights), a striking qualification of the verse's binary.