وَإِذَآ أَذَقْنَا ٱلنَّاسَ رَحْمَةًۭ مِّنۢ بَعْدِ ضَرَّآءَ مَسَّتْهُمْ إِذَا لَهُم مَّكْرٌۭ فِىٓ ءَايَاتِنَا ۚ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ أَسْرَعُ مَكْرًا ۚ إِنَّ رُسُلَنَا يَكْتُبُونَ مَا تَمْكُرُونَ
When We let people taste [Our] mercy after a distress that has befallen them, behold, they scheme against Our signs! Say, ‘Allah is more swift at devising.’ Indeed Our messengers write down what you scheme.
هُوَ ٱلَّذِى يُسَيِّرُكُمْ فِى ٱلْبَرِّ وَٱلْبَحْرِ ۖ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا كُنتُمْ فِى ٱلْفُلْكِ وَجَرَيْنَ بِهِم بِرِيحٍۢ طَيِّبَةٍۢ وَفَرِحُوا۟ بِهَا جَآءَتْهَا رِيحٌ عَاصِفٌۭ وَجَآءَهُمُ ٱلْمَوْجُ مِن كُلِّ مَكَانٍۢ وَظَنُّوٓا۟ أَنَّهُمْ أُحِيطَ بِهِمْ ۙ دَعَوُا۟ ٱللَّهَ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ ٱلدِّينَ لَئِنْ أَنجَيْتَنَا مِنْ هَٰذِهِۦ لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلشَّٰكِرِينَ
It is He who carries you across land and sea. When you are in the ships, and they sail along with them with a favourable wind, exulting in it, there comes upon them a tempestuous wind and waves assail them from every side, and they think that they are besieged, they invoke Allah putting exclusive faith in Him, ‘If You deliver us from this, we will surely be among the grateful.’
فَلَمَّآ أَنجَىٰهُمْ إِذَا هُمْ يَبْغُونَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ بِغَيْرِ ٱلْحَقِّ ۗ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّمَا بَغْيُكُمْ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِكُم ۖ مَّتَٰعَ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَيْنَا مَرْجِعُكُمْ فَنُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
But when He delivers them, behold, they commit violations on the earth unduly! O mankind! Your violations are only to your own detriment. [These are] the wares of the life of this world; then to Us will be your return, whereat We will inform you concerning what you used to do.
إِنَّمَا مَثَلُ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا كَمَآءٍ أَنزَلْنَٰهُ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ فَٱخْتَلَطَ بِهِۦ نَبَاتُ ٱلْأَرْضِ مِمَّا يَأْكُلُ ٱلنَّاسُ وَٱلْأَنْعَٰمُ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَخَذَتِ ٱلْأَرْضُ زُخْرُفَهَا وَٱزَّيَّنَتْ وَظَنَّ أَهْلُهَآ أَنَّهُمْ قَٰدِرُونَ عَلَيْهَآ أَتَىٰهَآ أَمْرُنَا لَيْلًا أَوْ نَهَارًۭا فَجَعَلْنَٰهَا حَصِيدًۭا كَأَن لَّمْ تَغْنَ بِٱلْأَمْسِ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نُفَصِّلُ ٱلْءَايَٰتِ لِقَوْمٍۢ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
The parable of the life of this world is that of water which We send down from the sky. It mingles with the earth’s vegetation from which humans and cattle eat. When the earth puts on its luster and is adorned, and its inhabitants think they have power over it, Our edict comes to it, by night or day, whereat We turn it into a mown field, as if it did not flourish the day before. Thus do We elaborate the signs for a people who reflect.
وَٱللَّهُ يَدْعُوٓا۟ إِلَىٰ دَارِ ٱلسَّلَٰمِ وَيَهْدِى مَن يَشَآءُ إِلَىٰ صِرَٰطٍۢ مُّسْتَقِيمٍۢ
Allah invites to the abode of peace, and He guides whomever He wishes to a straight path.
۞ لِّلَّذِينَ أَحْسَنُوا۟ ٱلْحُسْنَىٰ وَزِيَادَةٌۭ ۖ وَلَا يَرْهَقُ وُجُوهَهُمْ قَتَرٌۭ وَلَا ذِلَّةٌ ۚ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ أَصْحَٰبُ ٱلْجَنَّةِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ
Those who are virtuous shall receive the best reward and an enhancement. Neither dust nor abasement shall overcast their faces. They shall be the inhabitants of paradise, and they shall remain in it [forever].
وَٱلَّذِينَ كَسَبُوا۟ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِ جَزَآءُ سَيِّئَةٍۭ بِمِثْلِهَا وَتَرْهَقُهُمْ ذِلَّةٌۭ ۖ مَّا لَهُم مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ مِنْ عَاصِمٍۢ ۖ كَأَنَّمَآ أُغْشِيَتْ وُجُوهُهُمْ قِطَعًۭا مِّنَ ٱلَّيْلِ مُظْلِمًا ۚ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ أَصْحَٰبُ ٱلنَّارِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ
For those who have committed misdeeds, the requital of a misdeed shall be its like, and they shall be overcast by abasement. They shall have no one to protect [them] from Allah. [They will be] as if their faces were covered with dark patches of the night. They shall be the inmates of the Fire, and they shall remain in it [forever].
وَيَوْمَ نَحْشُرُهُمْ جَمِيعًۭا ثُمَّ نَقُولُ لِلَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوا۟ مَكَانَكُمْ أَنتُمْ وَشُرَكَآؤُكُمْ ۚ فَزَيَّلْنَا بَيْنَهُمْ ۖ وَقَالَ شُرَكَآؤُهُم مَّا كُنتُمْ إِيَّانَا تَعْبُدُونَ
On the day when We gather them all together, We shall say to those who ascribe partners [to Allah], ‘Stay where you are—you and your partners!’ Then We shall set them apart from one another, and their partners will say, ‘It was not us that you worshipped.
فَكَفَىٰ بِٱللَّهِ شَهِيدًۢا بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمْ إِن كُنَّا عَنْ عِبَادَتِكُمْ لَغَٰفِلِينَ
Allah suffices as a witness between you and us. We were indeed unaware of your worship.’
هُنَالِكَ تَبْلُوا۟ كُلُّ نَفْسٍۢ مَّآ أَسْلَفَتْ ۚ وَرُدُّوٓا۟ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ مَوْلَىٰهُمُ ٱلْحَقِّ ۖ وَضَلَّ عَنْهُم مَّا كَانُوا۟ يَفْتَرُونَ
There every soul will examine what it has sent in advance, and they will be returned to Allah, their real master, and what they used to fabricate will forsake them.
قُلْ مَن يَرْزُقُكُم مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ أَمَّن يَمْلِكُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَٰرَ وَمَن يُخْرِجُ ٱلْحَىَّ مِنَ ٱلْمَيِّتِ وَيُخْرِجُ ٱلْمَيِّتَ مِنَ ٱلْحَىِّ وَمَن يُدَبِّرُ ٱلْأَمْرَ ۚ فَسَيَقُولُونَ ٱللَّهُ ۚ فَقُلْ أَفَلَا تَتَّقُونَ
Say, ‘Who provides for you out of the sky and the earth? Who controls [your] hearing and sight, and who brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living, and who directs the command?’ They will say, ‘Allah.’ Say, ‘Will you not then be wary [of Him]?’
فَذَٰلِكُمُ ٱللَّهُ رَبُّكُمُ ٱلْحَقُّ ۖ فَمَاذَا بَعْدَ ٱلْحَقِّ إِلَّا ٱلضَّلَٰلُ ۖ فَأَنَّىٰ تُصْرَفُونَ
That, then, is Allah, your true Lord. So what is there after the truth except error? Then where are you being led away?
كَذَٰلِكَ حَقَّتْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ فَسَقُوٓا۟ أَنَّهُمْ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ
Thus the word of your Lord became due against those who transgress, that they shall not have faith.
قُلْ هَلْ مِن شُرَكَآئِكُم مَّن يَبْدَؤُا۟ ٱلْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُۥ ۚ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ يَبْدَؤُا۟ ٱلْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُۥ ۖ فَأَنَّىٰ تُؤْفَكُونَ
Say, ‘Is there anyone among your partners who originates the creation and then brings it back?’ Say, ‘Allah originates the creation, then He will bring it back.’ Then where do you stray?
قُلْ هَلْ مِن شُرَكَآئِكُم مَّن يَهْدِىٓ إِلَى ٱلْحَقِّ ۚ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ يَهْدِى لِلْحَقِّ ۗ أَفَمَن يَهْدِىٓ إِلَى ٱلْحَقِّ أَحَقُّ أَن يُتَّبَعَ أَمَّن لَّا يَهِدِّىٓ إِلَّآ أَن يُهْدَىٰ ۖ فَمَا لَكُمْ كَيْفَ تَحْكُمُونَ
Say, ‘Is there anyone among your partners who may guide to the truth?’ Say, ‘Allah guides to the truth. Is He who guides to the truth worthier to be followed, or he who is not guided unless shown the way? What is the matter with you? How do you judge?’
وَمَا يَتَّبِعُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ إِلَّا ظَنًّا ۚ إِنَّ ٱلظَّنَّ لَا يُغْنِى مِنَ ٱلْحَقِّ شَيْـًٔا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌۢ بِمَا يَفْعَلُونَ
Most of them just follow conjecture; indeed conjecture is no substitute for the truth. Indeed Allah knows best what they do.
وَمَا كَانَ هَٰذَا ٱلْقُرْءَانُ أَن يُفْتَرَىٰ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَٰكِن تَصْدِيقَ ٱلَّذِى بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ وَتَفْصِيلَ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ مِن رَّبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
This Quran could not have been fabricated by anyone besides Allah; rather, it is a confirmation of what was [revealed] before it, and an elaboration of the Book, there is no doubt in it, from the Lord of all the worlds.
أَمْ يَقُولُونَ ٱفْتَرَىٰهُ ۖ قُلْ فَأْتُوا۟ بِسُورَةٍۢ مِّثْلِهِۦ وَٱدْعُوا۟ مَنِ ٱسْتَطَعْتُم مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ إِن كُنتُمْ صَٰدِقِينَ
Do they say, ‘He has fabricated it?’ Say, ‘Then bring a surah like it, and invoke whomever you can, besides Allah, should you be truthful.’
بَلْ كَذَّبُوا۟ بِمَا لَمْ يُحِيطُوا۟ بِعِلْمِهِۦ وَلَمَّا يَأْتِهِمْ تَأْوِيلُهُۥ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ كَذَّبَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ ۖ فَٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
Indeed, they deny something whose knowledge they do not comprehend, and whose explanation has not yet come to them. Those who were before them denied likewise. So observe how was the fate of the wrongdoers!
وَمِنْهُم مَّن يُؤْمِنُ بِهِۦ وَمِنْهُم مَّن لَّا يُؤْمِنُ بِهِۦ ۚ وَرَبُّكَ أَعْلَمُ بِٱلْمُفْسِدِينَ
Some of them believe in it, and some of them do not believe in it, and your Lord best knows the agents of corruption.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Sources triangulated: Ṭabarsī, Majmaʿ al-Bayān [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]; Ṭūsī, al-Tibyān [tusi_al_tibyan]; Baḥrānī, al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]; al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī [qummi]; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan]; An Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary]. All six are present for this passage; al-Qummī and al-Burhān are silent on v.21 alone. The four Arabic renderings are my own translations of the fetched Arabic.
The passage moves from human fickleness to the proofs of lordship. Men "plot against Our signs" when mercy follows adversity, yet God is "swifter in plotting" and His angels record it (v.21); the sea-storm shows sincere prayer abandoned once safety returns, and transgression that "is only against yourselves" (vv.22–23). The parable of the withered garden (v.24) frames this world's vanity against "the Abode of Peace" (v.25). Then come the two ends: "the best and more" for the good-doers whose faces bear no darkness, and "the like thereof" with abasement for the evil-earners, faces "as pieces of the dark night" (vv.26–27); the Gathering, where partners disown their worshippers and "every soul is tried by what it sent ahead" (vv.28–30). Three arguments for tawḥīd follow — Who provides, controls sense, brings the living from the dead, directs the affair? (vv.31–33); who among your "partners" originates, restores, or guides to truth? (vv.34–36) — closing with the Qurʾān's self-authentication against the charge of forgery (vv.37–40).
On the sea-storm and transgression (vv.21–23) Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī agree that "God is swifter in plotting" means He is mightier and quicker in requital — the punishment outrunning the plot — and both dwell on the grammatical iltifāt (turn from address to third person) at "they run with them." Ṭabāṭabāʾī makes this iltifāt a theme: God "surprises them with His self-disclosure" mid-address (at "Our messengers write what you plot" and again at "your transgression is only against yourselves"), dramatising His nearness; and he reads the sea-passage as a concrete "witness and example" for the general rule of v.21. Baḥrānī alone anchors "your transgression is only against yourselves" in a Ṣādiq-tradition: "three recoil upon their author — breaking pledges, transgression, plotting" — a saying al-Mīzān independently cites in its own ḥadīth section.
On the withered-garden parable (v.24) the plain-sense readers (Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, the Enlightening Commentary) expound it as the vanity of worldly ornament, Ṭūsī listing three views on what is likened to what (the plant, the water, or an ordained life). Here the Imāmī narration-tradition diverges sharply: both al-Qummī and al-Burhān carry the same Bāqir-tradition applying "when the earth takes on its adornment… Our command comes to it" to the fall of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty and the awaited relief — a taʾwīl entirely absent from the discursive commentaries. Al-Burhān reinforces it with Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn's Friday sermon on detachment, which cites this very verse.
On "the best and more" (v.26) the sources fan out across a striking spectrum, which al-Mīzān explicitly systematises: either al-ḥusnā is the deserved reward and ziyāda the bounty beyond desert (the multiplication of al-Anʿām 160), or al-ḥusnā is the goodly End and ziyāda is "the increase beyond what man can conceive." The narration sources fill in the concrete glosses: al-Qummī and a report in al-Burhān give ziyāda = "the gaze upon the Face of God"; ʿAlī's letter to Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr (in al-Burhān, from al-Ṭūsī's Amālī) gives ziyāda = "this world"; the Bāqir-report (in all three Imāmī sources) gives it = "what God gave them in the world, not reckoned against them." On the parallel v.27, al-Qummī and al-Burhān identify the black-faced evil-earners as "the people of innovations, doubts and lusts," and both quote the Ṣādiq's homely image: a house is blacker within at night than without.
On the Gathering and the partners' disavowal (vv.28–30) Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī and al-Jubbāʾī debate whether the partners' "you did not worship us" is disgrace, stupefaction, or "not by our command." Ṭabāṭabāʾī rejects all three and argues, at length, that the disavowal is literally true: worship requires the worshipped's awareness, so the idols were never truly worshipped — "to your place… then We separate them" being God's disclosure that day of the reality the imaginations had veiled. Al-Qummī and al-Burhān gloss "then We separate them" concretely: "God sends a fire that parts between the disbelievers and the believers."
On the three tawḥīd-arguments (vv.31–36) al-Mīzān gives the passage its architecture, identifying the three proofs as pitched, in ascending subtlety, to the idolaters' own logic, to the common believers (Origin/Return), and to the elect (following the guide-to-truth). On the crux "he who does not guide unless he be guided" (v.35), Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī explain that the idols are spoken of as rational beings only because their worshippers took them as gods, and Ṭabāṭabāʾī builds from the verse his doctrine that true "guidance to the truth" — delivering to the heart of the real — belongs only to God and to those He guides without intermediary, i.e. the Prophet and his household. The Imāmī narrations converge on the same point from the other end: al-Qummī and al-Burhān read "he who guides to the truth" as Muḥammad and his House and "he who does not guide unless he be guided" as their opponents from Quraysh; al-Burhān adds ʿAlī's famous first post-Prophetic judgement (the new convert who drank wine unknowingly) as a living enactment of the verse, and a cluster of traditions applying it to distinguishing the true summoner at the eschatological "two Cries."
On the Qurʾān's inimitability (vv.37–40) all the discursive sources read "bring a sūra like it" as the challenge (taḥaddī), Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī glossing "like it" as "in eloquence." Ṭabāṭabāʾī notably widens the claim: the challenge is not by eloquence alone but by the Qurʾān's total perfection of knowledge, law, ethics and unseen tidings, and he criticises the early scholars for confining inimitability to rhetoric. On "they belied that whose interpretation had not yet come to them," al-Mīzān develops his technical sense of taʾwīl as the reality on which meaning rests, pointing to the Day of Resurrection — while al-Qummī and al-Burhān report a narrower Imāmī reading: it "was revealed concerning the Return (al-rajʿa)," which they belied, and both attach the Ṣādiq's principle that this community was charged "not to say what they do not know, nor reject what they do not know."