Sūrah 72 · Āyāt 20–28

Verses 20–28 — the Prophet's disavowal of power, and God alone as Knower of the unseen. The closing passage turns wholly to the Messenger's own standing. He is made to say, in a sequence of declarations, exactly what he is and is not: "I only call upon my Lord… I have no power to harm you or to guide you… none can protect me from God… [I have] only a conveyance from God and His messages." The sūra then seals its argument with the doctrine of the unseen: "He discloses His unseen to none, except a messenger He has approved."

What the passage says. The Prophet disclaims all autonomous power — he neither harms nor benefits, finds no refuge from God but in obeying Him, and merely conveys. Disobedience to God and His Messenger earns abiding Fire; the deniers who count the believers "few" will learn "who is weaker in helpers" when they see what is promised; the timing of that promise the Prophet does not know — only God does, the Knower of the unseen, who discloses it to none save an approved messenger, around whom He sets a guard "that He may know they have conveyed the messages of their Lord," having "counted everything in number."

How the present sources read it. On the disavowal (vv. 21–23), al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān agree it is an avowal of pure servitude: the Prophet controls neither harm nor guidance, has no sanctuary from God except faithful conveyance (balāgh) of the tawḥīd and the ordinances; al-Ṭūsī adds that "none can protect me" is voiced for the Prophet but instructs the community. On v. 23's threat of eternal Fire, al-Mīzān enters an important qualification — the "disobedience" meant is unbelief in the root call, so the verse cannot be used to consign every sinner to eternity. On v. 24, all three read the deniers' boast of numbers being reversed upon them when they face the promised punishment.

The passage's theological heart is vv. 26–28, and here al-Mīzān is fullest: knowledge of the unseen is God's by essence, and the messengers' only by His teaching (read alongside Q 6:59 and the parallel of the soul-taking verses); the "guard" (raṣad) before and behind the Messenger are angels protecting the revelation from the devils, so that the message arrives uncorrupted — from which Ṭabāṭabāʾī derives the Prophet's ʿiṣma (infallibility) in receiving, preserving and conveying revelation, in word and deed alike. al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī give the same raṣad in more than one form — a path to the knowledge of earlier prophets, or guardian angels shielding the revelation from the jinn's eavesdropping (al-Ṭabarsī also recalling Gabriel's honor-guard, "Sūrat al-Anʿām came down with seventy thousand angels") — and both close on God's all-comprehending knowledge, distinguishing iḥṣāʾ (enumeration of existents) from ʿilm (which spans even the infinite).

al-Qummī supplies the Imāmī register that al-Burhān had gathered under the previous unit: the disavowal and conveyance are referred to the walāya of ʿAlī, "whoever disobeys… in the walāya of ʿAlī" earns the Fire (with the Prophet's "O ʿAlī, you are qasīm al-nār"), "what they are promised" is read of death and the Resurrection and of the Return (rajʿa), "a messenger He has approved" is applied to ʿAlī "the approved one (al-Murtaḍā)," and "He encompasses what is with them" to ʿAlī's inherited, all-encompassing knowledge. al-Mīzān, having flagged such applications earlier as jary rather than tafsīr, here grounds the same exception scripturally — extending "except a messenger He has approved" to the Imams as the Prophet's heirs (citing al-Riḍā: "we are the heirs of that Messenger whom God acquainted with His unseen"). al-Baḥrānī is silent for this range as a distinct block — its vv. 20–28 narrations are recorded with the 14–28 unit above — so it is honestly marked silent here rather than duplicated.