Synthesis: Sūrat al-Jāthiya 14–20

Triangulating Majmaʿ al-Bayān (Ṭabarsī), al-Tibyān (Ṭūsī), al-Burhān (Baḥrānī), Tafsīr al-Qummī, al-Mīzān (Ṭabāṭabāʾī), and the Enlightening Commentary.

Human-review flags: al-Mīzān — one long bayān (vv. 14–20) condensed. al-Burhān / Qummī — the reading of ʻthe days of Godʼ (the rising of the Qāʾim, the Return, the Resurrection) and of ʻthe imams of tyrannyʼ rendered as-attributed, not endorsed. The exegesis of vv. 14–15 in Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī falls in the previous coarse unit (vv. 11–15).

What the passage says. The believers are told to ʻforgive those who hope not for the days of God, that He may requite a people for what they earnedʼ (v. 14), with the principle that good and evil each return upon their doer (v. 15). Then, as precedent for the coming Law, God recalls that He gave the Children of Israel ʻthe Book, the judgement and prophethood,ʼ favoured them, and gave them clear proofs — yet they differed only after knowledge, out of mutual envy (vv. 16–17). Muḥammad is therefore set ʻupon a clear course (sharīʿa) of the matterʼ and told to follow it, not the desires of the ignorant, who avail him nothing against God (vv. 18–19); ʻthis is insight for mankind, and guidance and mercy for a people who have certaintyʼ (v. 20).

ʻForgive … the days of Godʼ (vv. 14–15). al-Mīzān reads the command as a Meccan counsel of restraint: the believers, stung by the scoffers' abuse, are told to pardon and not provoke, since ʻthe days of Godʼ — the day of death, the barzakh, the Resurrection, the day of extermination — belong to Him alone to requite; the indefinite ʻa peopleʼ belittles the offenders. Qummī and al-Burhān carry a markedly Imāmī gloss: the ʻdays of Godʼ are ʻthe rising of the Qāʾim, the Return (al-karra), and the Resurrectionʼ; ʻforgivingʼ is that those given the knowledge of the Imams should make it known to the ignorant; and al-Burhān adds the affecting story of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn freeing a slave upon reciting the verse — all rendered as-attributed. The Enlightening Commentary and Ṭabarsī/Ṭūsī (from the adjoining unit) take yaghfirū as leaving off retaliation so that God may requite, Ṭūsī noting the debate over whether the verse was later abrogated by the permission to fight.

Israel as precedent (vv. 16–17). Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān and the Enlightening Commentary agree the Book is the Torah, ʻthe judgementʼ the discernment it confers, and prophethood a gift so abundant that ʻa thousand prophetsʼ are said to have risen among them; their being ʻfavoured over the worldsʼ is qualified to their own age, with all four insisting the community of Muḥammad surpasses them in the rank of its Prophet and the multitude of its faithful and learned. All read their ʻdifferingʼ as baghy — the scholars' envy and craving for leadership, not honest doubt.

The sharīʿa (vv. 18–20). On the key image all agree: the sharīʿa is the ʻwatering-placeʼ — the marked path to water — here the marked path of command and prohibition leading to Paradise. al-Mīzān draws two rulings from ʻfollow itʼ: the Prophet, like his community, is bound by the religion, and any practical ruling not resting on revelation is a caprice of the ignorant. On ʻthe wrongdoers are patrons of one another, but God is the patron of the Godwaryʼ (v. 19), al-Mīzān and Ṭabarsī make the ẓālimūn the followers of innovated desire and the muttaqūn the followers of God's religion. Qummī and al-Burhān gloss vv. 18–19 as a discipline (taʾdīb) addressed to the Prophet but meant for the community. All take v. 20's ʻinsightsʼ as the Qurʾān's landmarks of religion, guidance and mercy for the people of certainty.