Sūrah 85 · Āyāt 12–16

The passage (85:12-16). A burst of divine descriptions follows the recompenses: "the seizing of your Lord is severe; it is He who originates and brings back; and He is the All-Forgiving, the All-Affectionate, Lord of the Throne, the All-Glorious, Doer of what He wills."

The severe seizing. al-Tusi and Majma' al-Bayan define batsh as "taking by force/violence," its dread doubled when qualified "severe." Al-Mizan (with al-Raghib) calls it "taking with assault," and notes that annexing it to "your Lord" comforts the Prophet with the promise of support while warning that "the tyrants of his community have a share of the threat." On "originates and brings back," the sources split between two scopes: Ibn 'Abbas (in al-Tusi, Majma' al-Bayan, and Qummi's gloss) reads it of the punishment — He begins it and repeats it — while al-Hasan, al-Dahhak, and Ibn Zayd read it of creation at large. Al-Mizan makes this the linchpin of the passage: the verse explains the severity of His seizing — He originates ex nihilo "without drawing on anything other than Himself" and restores whatever was, so He can keep the punished alive to taste the punishment unceasingly (citing 35:36 and 4:56), and He alone sets and lifts the limits of things.

Forgiving and Affectionate. al-Tusi glosses al-Ghafur as "the Concealer of His creatures' sins" and al-Wadud as "loving toward them"; Tafsir al-Qummi and al-Burhan render al-Wadud by a homely image — "as one of you shows affection to his brother with glad tidings and love." Majma' al-Bayan preserves al-Azhari's subtler point: wadud may be of the form fa'ul in the sense of maf'ul — the Beloved, loved by His righteous servants for the grace they have known — so the name praises God whether He loves or is loved. Al-Mizan reads al-Ghafur al-Wadud as turned toward "the promise of the believers," balancing the threat.

Lord of the Throne; Doer of what He wills. On al-Majid the sources note its two readings (nominative, an attribute of God; genitive, of the Throne): al-Tusi and Majma' al-Bayan report Ibn 'Abbas's gloss al-Karim and the support of 23:116, while Tafsir al-Qummi and al-Burhan carry al-Baqir's narration that "Lord of the Throne, the All-Glorious" is "God, the Noble, the Glorious." Al-Mizan reads "Lord of the Throne" as a metonymy for the sovereign King and al-Majid as essential greatness. The closing "Doer of what He wills" draws the passage's sharpest theological line: al-Mizan reads it as "nothing turns Him from His will, neither inner weariness nor outward obstacle" — so His threat and promise are sure — while al-Tusi presses the 'Adliyya guard against determinism: it means God does whatever He wills of His own acts, not whatever the servants will, else command, prohibition, reward, and punishment would collapse; indeed He willed (commanded) the disbelievers to believe yet did not create their belief, "and God does not will injustice for the worlds" (40:31). The Enlightening Commentary catalogues the five rhetorical emphases the verse stacks on the threat and lists the five attributes as jointly establishing "the propriety of servitude."