وَلِلَّهِ ٱلْأَسْمَآءُ ٱلْحُسْنَىٰ فَٱدْعُوهُ بِهَا ۖ وَذَرُوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ يُلْحِدُونَ فِىٓ أَسْمَٰٓئِهِۦ ۚ سَيُجْزَوْنَ مَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ
To Allah belong the Best Names, so supplicate Him by them, and abandon those who commit sacrilege in His names. Soon they shall be requited for what they used to do.
وَمِمَّنْ خَلَقْنَآ أُمَّةٌۭ يَهْدُونَ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَبِهِۦ يَعْدِلُونَ
Among those We have created are a nation who guide by the truth and do justice thereby.
وَٱلَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا۟ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا سَنَسْتَدْرِجُهُم مِّنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
As for those who deny Our signs, We will draw them imperceptibly [into ruin], whence they do not know.
وَأُمْلِى لَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّ كَيْدِى مَتِينٌ
And I will grant them respite, for My devising is indeed sure.
أَوَلَمْ يَتَفَكَّرُوا۟ ۗ مَا بِصَاحِبِهِم مِّن جِنَّةٍ ۚ إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا نَذِيرٌۭ مُّبِينٌ
Have they not reflected that there is no madness in their companion, [and that] he is just a manifest warner?
أَوَلَمْ يَنظُرُوا۟ فِى مَلَكُوتِ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا خَلَقَ ٱللَّهُ مِن شَىْءٍۢ وَأَنْ عَسَىٰٓ أَن يَكُونَ قَدِ ٱقْتَرَبَ أَجَلُهُمْ ۖ فَبِأَىِّ حَدِيثٍۭ بَعْدَهُۥ يُؤْمِنُونَ
Have they not contemplated the dominions of the heavens and the earth, and whatever things Allah has created, and that maybe their time has already drawn near? So what discourse will they believe after this?!
مَن يُضْلِلِ ٱللَّهُ فَلَا هَادِىَ لَهُۥ ۚ وَيَذَرُهُمْ فِى طُغْيَٰنِهِمْ يَعْمَهُونَ
Whomever Allah leads astray has no guide, and He leaves them bewildered in their rebellion.
يَسْـَٔلُونَكَ عَنِ ٱلسَّاعَةِ أَيَّانَ مُرْسَىٰهَا ۖ قُلْ إِنَّمَا عِلْمُهَا عِندَ رَبِّى ۖ لَا يُجَلِّيهَا لِوَقْتِهَآ إِلَّا هُوَ ۚ ثَقُلَتْ فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ لَا تَأْتِيكُمْ إِلَّا بَغْتَةًۭ ۗ يَسْـَٔلُونَكَ كَأَنَّكَ حَفِىٌّ عَنْهَا ۖ قُلْ إِنَّمَا عِلْمُهَا عِندَ ٱللَّهِ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ ٱلنَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
They question you concerning the Hour, when will it set in? Say, ‘Its knowledge is only with my Lord: none except Him shall manifest it at its time. It will weigh heavy on the heavens and the earth. It will not overtake you but suddenly.’ They ask you as if you were in the know of it. Say, ‘Its knowledge is only with Allah, but most people do not know.’
قُل لَّآ أَمْلِكُ لِنَفْسِى نَفْعًۭا وَلَا ضَرًّا إِلَّا مَا شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ ۚ وَلَوْ كُنتُ أَعْلَمُ ٱلْغَيْبَ لَٱسْتَكْثَرْتُ مِنَ ٱلْخَيْرِ وَمَا مَسَّنِىَ ٱلسُّوٓءُ ۚ إِنْ أَنَا۠ إِلَّا نَذِيرٌۭ وَبَشِيرٌۭ لِّقَوْمٍۢ يُؤْمِنُونَ
Say, ‘I have no control over any benefit for myself, nor [over] any harm except what Allah may wish. Had I known the Unseen, I would have acquired much good, and no ill would have befallen me. I am only a warner and bearer of good news to a people who have faith.’
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
The sūra turns toward its close with the command of right worship: "To God belong the Most Beautiful Names (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā); call upon Him by them, and leave those who profane (yulḥidūn) His names" (180). al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī classify the names — of the Essence, of the act, of transcendence — and read the 'profaners' as the polytheists who derived their idols' names from God's (al-Lāt from Allāh, al-ʿUzzā from al-ʿAzīz), drawing the rule that "God may be named only by what He named Himself." Upon this al-Burhān lays its boldest reading: al-Ṣādiq's "We, by God, are the Most Beautiful Names, by which God accepts no deed from His servants except through knowing us," and the Prophet's counsel to Jābir to "call God by their names, for they are the dearest of names to God." The "community who guide by the truth" (181) — repeating 159 — the same source, with al-Qummī, makes "the Imams" and "Āl Muḥammad and their followers," and gathers ʿAlī's famous saying of the seventy-three sects: "all in the Fire save one… and they are I and my Shīʿa."
Against the guided stand "those who belied Our signs — We shall draw them on (nastadrijuhum) whence they know not" (182). Both al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī guard the verse against the determinists: it cannot mean God leads them to disbelief ("God does not do the base"); it is requital, the leading-on to punishment unawares. al-Burhān and al-Qummī give istidrāj its memorable definition from al-Ṣādiq: "when God wills ill for a servant who sins, He follows it with a blessing, to make him forget to seek forgiveness, and so to persist" — "how many a man is deluded by the favour shown him." The same passage rebukes those who called the Prophet mad — "there is no madness in their companion" (184), set, al-Ṭabarsī notes, against his calling Quraysh "clan by clan" on al-Ṣafā — and summons all to reflection on "the dominion (malakūt) of the heavens and the earth" (185), "the obligation of thought and the falsity of blind imitation."
The unit's last movement is the Hour (187). al-Burhān and al-Qummī supply the occasion — Quraysh sent envoys to learn from the Jewish scholars the question "when is the Hour? — if he claims its knowledge he lies, for God revealed it to no angel or prophet" — and the answer humbles even the Prophet: "its knowledge is only with my Lord." al-Ṭabarsī uses the verse to parry al-Jubbāʾī's objection against the designation of the Imams (that the last Imam would then know the Hour follows him), answering that "he may know there is no Imam after him without knowing the Hour's time." And the sūra's portrait of the Prophet ends in radical servanthood (188): "I have no power over benefit or harm to myself, except as God wills; had I known the unseen I would have multiplied the good" — which al-Burhān glosses, on al-Bāqir's authority, as "no harm — meaning poverty — would have touched me," while al-Ṭabarsī draws from the very wording "except as God wills" the refutation of the determinists and the proof "that power precedes the act."