۞ قَالَتِ ٱلْأَعْرَابُ ءَامَنَّا ۖ قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا۟ وَلَٰكِن قُولُوٓا۟ أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ ٱلْإِيمَٰنُ فِى قُلُوبِكُمْ ۖ وَإِن تُطِيعُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ لَا يَلِتْكُم مِّنْ أَعْمَٰلِكُمْ شَيْـًٔا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَفُورٌۭ رَّحِيمٌ
The Bedouins say, ‘We have faith.’ Say, ‘You do not have faith yet; rather, say, ‘‘We have embraced Islam,’’ for faith has not yet entered into your hearts. Yet if you obey Allah and His Apostle, He will not stint anything of [the reward of] your works. Indeed Allah is all-forgiving, all-merciful.’
إِنَّمَا ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَرْتَابُوا۟ وَجَٰهَدُوا۟ بِأَمْوَٰلِهِمْ وَأَنفُسِهِمْ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلصَّٰدِقُونَ
The faithful are only those who have attained faith in Allah and His Apostle and then have never doubted, and who wage jihad with their possessions and their persons in the way of Allah. It is they who are the truthful.
قُلْ أَتُعَلِّمُونَ ٱللَّهَ بِدِينِكُمْ وَٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ عَلِيمٌۭ
Say, ‘Will you inform Allah about your faith while Allah knows whatever there is in the heavens and whatever there is in the earth, and Allah has knowledge of all things?’
يَمُنُّونَ عَلَيْكَ أَنْ أَسْلَمُوا۟ ۖ قُل لَّا تَمُنُّوا۟ عَلَىَّ إِسْلَٰمَكُم ۖ بَلِ ٱللَّهُ يَمُنُّ عَلَيْكُمْ أَنْ هَدَىٰكُمْ لِلْإِيمَٰنِ إِن كُنتُمْ صَٰدِقِينَ
They count it as a favour to you that they have embraced Islam. Say, ‘Do not count your embracing of Islam as a favour to me. No, it is Allah who has done you a favour in that He has guided you to faith, if you are truthful [in your claim].
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ غَيْبَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ بَصِيرٌۢ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ
Indeed Allah knows the Unseen of the heavens and the earth, and Allah watches what you do.’
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
The sūra closes on the Bedouin who professed belief. Across these verses the sources read a single argument: outward islām is not yet heart-faith (v.14), true believers are defined by certitude and struggle (v.15), God needs no instruction in one’s religion (v.16), and the favor runs from God to the believer, never the reverse (vv.17–18).
Islām versus īmān. This is the passage’s doctrinal center, and here the sources converge. The Enlightening Commentary and al-Mīzān both read v.14 as distinguishing outward submission (by which, in al-Ṣādiq’s words cited in both, ‘blood is spared, trusts discharged, marriage made lawful’) from inward faith, which alone earns reward. Al-Mīzān frames īmān as a matter of the heart and islām of tongue and limb; al-Burhān devotes a long chain of traditions to the same theme, crowned by the ‘Silsilat al-Dhahab’ definition from al-Riḍā — ‘faith is knowledge in the heart, profession by the tongue, and work by the limbs’ — and the recurring similitude of the Kaʿba within the Sacred Mosque. Al-Qummī and Ṭūsī gloss ‘lā yalitkum’ as ‘He will not diminish’ your reward, a rendering confirmed across the sources and by the lexica.
The true believers. On v.15 Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān and the Enlightening Commentary agree that faith is proven by doubtless perseverance and by striving with wealth and life; al-Mīzān notes the force of ‘then’ (thumma) as marking doubt’s continual absence. Al-Qummī and al-Burhān add the taʾwīl — rendered here as attributed — that ‘the believers are only those who … strove’ was revealed concerning Amīr al-Muʾminīn (ʿAlī), Ibn ʿAbbās adding that ‘ʿAlī carried off its honor.’
The favor that cannot be claimed. Vv.16–18 rebuke those who would ‘teach God their religion’ and count their submission a favor to the Prophet. Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān explain that the Messenger, charged only with conveyance, is owed no favor; and that the true bounty is faith, which profits the believer, not God ‘the Absolutely Rich’ — so the favor is God’s, in guiding them. On the occasion the sources differ and are reported as attributed: Ṭūsī gives the mainstream reports (the hypocrites, or Banū Asad who came coveting alms — the account the Enlightening Commentary and al-Mīzān also relate from the Bedouin of Banū Asad), while al-Qummī and al-Burhān place ‘they count it a favor’ in the episode of ʿUthmān at the Trench and his exchange with ʿAmmār b. Yāsir. Al-Mīzān’s reading of the closing verse — ‘God knows the unseen … and sees what you do’ — as the seal grounding the whole sūra fittingly returns the passage to where it began: a community answerable, in word and heart alike, to God and His Messenger.