كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ ۗ وَلَوْ ءَامَنَ أَهْلُ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ لَكَانَ خَيْرًۭا لَّهُم ۚ مِّنْهُمُ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَأَكْثَرُهُمُ ٱلْفَٰسِقُونَ
You are the best nation [ever] brought forth for mankind: you bid what is right and forbid what is wrong, and have faith in Allah. And if the People of the Book had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them [some] are faithful, but most of them are transgressors.
لَن يَضُرُّوكُمْ إِلَّآ أَذًۭى ۖ وَإِن يُقَٰتِلُوكُمْ يُوَلُّوكُمُ ٱلْأَدْبَارَ ثُمَّ لَا يُنصَرُونَ
They will never do you any harm, except for some hurt; and if they fight you, they will turn their backs [to flee], then they will not be helped.
ضُرِبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلذِّلَّةُ أَيْنَ مَا ثُقِفُوٓا۟ إِلَّا بِحَبْلٍۢ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ وَحَبْلٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلنَّاسِ وَبَآءُو بِغَضَبٍۢ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ وَضُرِبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلْمَسْكَنَةُ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا۟ يَكْفُرُونَ بِـَٔايَٰتِ ٱللَّهِ وَيَقْتُلُونَ ٱلْأَنۢبِيَآءَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّۢ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ بِمَا عَصَوا۟ وَّكَانُوا۟ يَعْتَدُونَ
Wherever they are found, abasement is stamped upon them, except for an asylum from Allah and an asylum from the people. They have earned the wrath of Allah, and poverty has been stamped upon them. That, because they would deny the signs of Allah and kill the prophets unjustly. That, because they would disobey and commit transgression.
۞ لَيْسُوا۟ سَوَآءًۭ ۗ مِّنْ أَهْلِ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ أُمَّةٌۭ قَآئِمَةٌۭ يَتْلُونَ ءَايَٰتِ ٱللَّهِ ءَانَآءَ ٱلَّيْلِ وَهُمْ يَسْجُدُونَ
Yet they are not all alike. Among the People of the Book is an upright nation; they recite Allah’s signs in the watches of the night and prostrate.
يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ وَٱلْيَوْمِ ٱلْءَاخِرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَيُسَٰرِعُونَ فِى ٱلْخَيْرَٰتِ وَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰلِحِينَ
They have faith in Allah and the Last Day, and bid what is right and forbid what is wrong, and they are active in [performing] good deeds. Those are among the righteous.
وَمَا يَفْعَلُوا۟ مِنْ خَيْرٍۢ فَلَن يُكْفَرُوهُ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَلِيمٌۢ بِٱلْمُتَّقِينَ
Whatever good they do, they will not go unappreciated for it, and Allah knows well the Godwary.
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَن تُغْنِىَ عَنْهُمْ أَمْوَٰلُهُمْ وَلَآ أَوْلَٰدُهُم مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ شَيْـًۭٔا ۖ وَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ أَصْحَٰبُ ٱلنَّارِ ۚ هُمْ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ
As for the faithless, neither their wealth nor their children will avail them anything against Allah. They shall be the inmates of the Fire and remain in it [forever].
مَثَلُ مَا يُنفِقُونَ فِى هَٰذِهِ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا كَمَثَلِ رِيحٍۢ فِيهَا صِرٌّ أَصَابَتْ حَرْثَ قَوْمٍۢ ظَلَمُوٓا۟ أَنفُسَهُمْ فَأَهْلَكَتْهُ ۚ وَمَا ظَلَمَهُمُ ٱللَّهُ وَلَٰكِنْ أَنفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ
The parable of what they spend in the life of this world is that of a cold wind that strikes the tillage of a people who wronged themselves, destroying it. Allah does not wrong them, but they wrong themselves.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تَتَّخِذُوا۟ بِطَانَةًۭ مِّن دُونِكُمْ لَا يَأْلُونَكُمْ خَبَالًۭا وَدُّوا۟ مَا عَنِتُّمْ قَدْ بَدَتِ ٱلْبَغْضَآءُ مِنْ أَفْوَٰهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِى صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ ۚ قَدْ بَيَّنَّا لَكُمُ ٱلْءَايَٰتِ ۖ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
O you who have faith! Do not take your confidants from others than yourselves; they will spare nothing to ruin you. They are eager to see you in distress. Hatred has already shown itself from their mouths, and what their breasts hide [within] is yet worse. We have certainly made the signs clear for you, should you exercise your reason.
هَٰٓأَنتُمْ أُو۟لَآءِ تُحِبُّونَهُمْ وَلَا يُحِبُّونَكُمْ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْكِتَٰبِ كُلِّهِۦ وَإِذَا لَقُوكُمْ قَالُوٓا۟ ءَامَنَّا وَإِذَا خَلَوْا۟ عَضُّوا۟ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلْأَنَامِلَ مِنَ ٱلْغَيْظِ ۚ قُلْ مُوتُوا۟ بِغَيْظِكُمْ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌۢ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ
Ah! You are the ones who bear love towards them, while they do not love you, though you believe in all the Books. When they meet you, they say, ‘We believe,’ but when they are alone, they bite their fingertips at you out of rage. Say, ‘Die of your rage!’ Indeed Allah knows well what is in the breasts.
إِن تَمْسَسْكُمْ حَسَنَةٌۭ تَسُؤْهُمْ وَإِن تُصِبْكُمْ سَيِّئَةٌۭ يَفْرَحُوا۟ بِهَا ۖ وَإِن تَصْبِرُوا۟ وَتَتَّقُوا۟ لَا يَضُرُّكُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ شَيْـًٔا ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطٌۭ
If some good should befall you, it upsets them, but if some ill befalls you, they rejoice at it. Yet if you are patient and Godwary, their guile will not harm you in any way. Indeed Allah encompasses what they do.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Sources: Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]; Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan]; Baḥrānī, al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]; al-Qummī [qummi]; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan]; An Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary]. All six present.
The passage praises "the best community" that enjoins right (v.110), condemns the obstinate People of the Book to abasement (vv.111–112), exempts and praises their upright believing remnant who worship by night (vv.113–115), declares the disbelievers' spending fruitless (vv.116–117), and warns the believers against taking hostile intimates (vv.118–120).
1. The best community (v.110). All read it as the community that enjoins right, forbids wrong and believes; all note that the believing People of the Book (ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām and his fellows) are exempted from the "most of them are transgressors." [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
2. The abasement of the obstinate (vv.111–112). All agree they harm the believers only with words, will flee if they fight, and bear abasement and wretchedness "save by a rope from God and a rope from the people," for disbelieving in God's signs and killing the prophets. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] [bahrani_al_burhan] [qummi]
3. The upright remnant and night-worship (vv.113–115). All read the "upright community" reciting by night and prostrating as the believing People of the Book, "of the righteous," whose good "will not be denied" — Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Qummī and al-Burhān all making it a proof against "nullification" (iḥbāṭ). [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] [bahrani_al_burhan] [qummi] Ṭabarsī adds rich ḥadīth on the merit of the night-prayer. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]
4. Fruitless spending and hostile intimates (vv.116–120). All read the frost-wind simile (the disbelievers' worldly spending ruined like a frozen crop) and the warning "take not intimates outside yourselves," with the "biting of fingertips in rage" as a figure of vexation; al-Qummī and al-Burhān note v.118 was revealed about the Jews. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] [bahrani_al_burhan] [qummi]
1. "Best community" = "best leaders (aʾimma)" (v.110). al-Qummī and al-Burhān carry al-Ṣādiq's pointed objection — "the best community?! who killed the Commander of the Faithful and al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn?!" — and the reading "you were the best aʾimma (leaders)… concerning Muhammad and his legatees." [qummi] [bahrani_al_burhan] The philologists keep "best umma (community)" and debate the grammar of "kuntum" and the addressee (Emigrants / Companions / the whole community); Ṭūsī uses the verse's partial address to argue that bare consensus is not in itself binding. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
2. "The rope from the people" = ʿAlī (v.112). al-Burhān and al-Qummī continue the v.103 reading — "the rope from God is His Book, the rope from the people is ʿAlī / the Messenger's legatee." [bahrani_al_burhan] [qummi] The philologists read "a rope from the people" as a covenant of protection (dhimma). [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
3. "Killing the prophets" = divulging their secrets (v.112). al-Burhān uniquely carries al-Ṣādiq's striking gloss: "by God, they did not kill them with the sword, but heard their secrets and divulged them, so they were seized and killed" — a treachery-by-exposure reading (with an implicit warning against divulging the Imams' secrets). [bahrani_al_burhan] The philologists read the killing literally, the later generations implicated by approval or by the predominant description. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
4. "maskana" (v.112). al-Qummī and al-Burhān gloss it concretely as "hunger"; the philologists as "wretchedness / abasement / poverty." [qummi] [bahrani_al_burhan] [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]
The plain sense is shared across all six: the praiseworthy community that commands the good; the abasement of the obstinate People of the Book and the contrasting honour of their night-worshipping believing remnant; the futility of the disbelievers' spending; and the prudential warning against confiding in those who wish the believers ill. The distinctive Imāmī contributions cluster, as throughout this stretch of the sūra, in the narration-collections (al-Qummī, al-Burhān): the reading of v.110 as "the best leaders" — voiced through al-Ṣādiq's arresting objection that the historical community killed ʿAlī and his sons, so the verse must intend the infallible legatees — and the continuation of the wilāya-reading of "the rope" (v.112, "the rope from the people is ʿAlī"), capped by the memorable gloss that the prophets were "killed" by the divulging of their secrets. The philologists (Ṭūsī, Ṭabarsī) invest in the grammar of "kuntum," the covenant that lifts abasement, the merit of the night-prayer (with abundant ḥadīth), the anti-iḥbāṭ proof of v.115, and the lexicon of biṭāna and khabāl; Ṭūsī additionally draws the usūlī conclusion that the verse's partial address tells against bare consensus. al-Mīzān and the Enlightening Commentary supply the systematic and didactic frame. The most strongly cross-attested Imāmī point is the "best leaders" reading of v.110; the most distinctive single gloss is al-Burhān's "killing the prophets = divulging their secrets." A specialist should note that the philological grammar of Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī was rendered for sense, and that al-Qummī's text for this passage is brief, its narrations shared with al-Burhān.