إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يَكْفُرُونَ بِـَٔايَٰتِ ٱللَّهِ وَيَقْتُلُونَ ٱلنَّبِيِّۦنَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّۢ وَيَقْتُلُونَ ٱلَّذِينَ يَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْقِسْطِ مِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ فَبَشِّرْهُم بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ
Those who deny Allah’s signs and kill the prophets unjustly and kill those who call for justice from among the people, inform them of a painful punishment.
أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ حَبِطَتْ أَعْمَٰلُهُمْ فِى ٱلدُّنْيَا وَٱلْءَاخِرَةِ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن نَّٰصِرِينَ
They are the ones whose works have failed in this world and the Hereafter, and they will have no helpers.
أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا۟ نَصِيبًۭا مِّنَ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ يُدْعَوْنَ إِلَىٰ كِتَٰبِ ٱللَّهِ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَهُمْ ثُمَّ يَتَوَلَّىٰ فَرِيقٌۭ مِّنْهُمْ وَهُم مُّعْرِضُونَ
Have you not regarded those who were given a share of the Book, who are summoned to the Book of Allah in order that it may judge between them, whereat a part of them refuse to comply and they are disregardful?
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قَالُوا۟ لَن تَمَسَّنَا ٱلنَّارُ إِلَّآ أَيَّامًۭا مَّعْدُودَٰتٍۢ ۖ وَغَرَّهُمْ فِى دِينِهِم مَّا كَانُوا۟ يَفْتَرُونَ
That is because they say, ‘The Fire shall not touch us except for a number of days,’ and they have been misled in their religion by what they used to fabricate.
فَكَيْفَ إِذَا جَمَعْنَٰهُمْ لِيَوْمٍۢ لَّا رَيْبَ فِيهِ وَوُفِّيَتْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍۢ مَّا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ
But how will it be [with them] when We gather them on a day in which there is no doubt, and every soul shall be recompensed fully for what it has earned, and they will not be wronged?
قُلِ ٱللَّهُمَّ مَٰلِكَ ٱلْمُلْكِ تُؤْتِى ٱلْمُلْكَ مَن تَشَآءُ وَتَنزِعُ ٱلْمُلْكَ مِمَّن تَشَآءُ وَتُعِزُّ مَن تَشَآءُ وَتُذِلُّ مَن تَشَآءُ ۖ بِيَدِكَ ٱلْخَيْرُ ۖ إِنَّكَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ قَدِيرٌۭ
Say, ‘O Allah, Master of all sovereignty! You give sovereignty to whomever You wish, and strip of sovereignty whomever You wish; You make mighty whomever You wish, and You degrade whomever You wish; all choice is in Your hand. Indeed You have power over all things.’
تُولِجُ ٱلَّيْلَ فِى ٱلنَّهَارِ وَتُولِجُ ٱلنَّهَارَ فِى ٱلَّيْلِ ۖ وَتُخْرِجُ ٱلْحَىَّ مِنَ ٱلْمَيِّتِ وَتُخْرِجُ ٱلْمَيِّتَ مِنَ ٱلْحَىِّ ۖ وَتَرْزُقُ مَن تَشَآءُ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍۢ
‘You make the night pass into the day and You make the day pass into the night. You bring forth the living from the dead and You bring forth the dead from the living, and You provide for whomever You wish without any reckoning.’
لَّا يَتَّخِذِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ أَوْلِيَآءَ مِن دُونِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ ۖ وَمَن يَفْعَلْ ذَٰلِكَ فَلَيْسَ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ فِى شَىْءٍ إِلَّآ أَن تَتَّقُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ تُقَىٰةًۭ ۗ وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسَهُۥ ۗ وَإِلَى ٱللَّهِ ٱلْمَصِيرُ
The faithful should not take the faithless for allies instead of the faithful, and Allah will have nothing to do with those who do that, except when you are wary of them, out of caution. Allah warns you to beware of [disobeying] Him, and toward Allah is the return.
قُلْ إِن تُخْفُوا۟ مَا فِى صُدُورِكُمْ أَوْ تُبْدُوهُ يَعْلَمْهُ ٱللَّهُ ۗ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ قَدِيرٌۭ
Say, ‘Whether you hide what is in your hearts or disclose it, Allah knows it, and He knows whatever there is in the heavens and whatever there is in the earth; and Allah has power over all things.’
يَوْمَ تَجِدُ كُلُّ نَفْسٍۢ مَّا عَمِلَتْ مِنْ خَيْرٍۢ مُّحْضَرًۭا وَمَا عَمِلَتْ مِن سُوٓءٍۢ تَوَدُّ لَوْ أَنَّ بَيْنَهَا وَبَيْنَهُۥٓ أَمَدًۢا بَعِيدًۭا ۗ وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسَهُۥ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ رَءُوفٌۢ بِٱلْعِبَادِ
The day when every soul will find present whatever good it has done; and as for the evil, it has done, it will wish there were a far distance between it and itself. Allah warns you to beware of [disobeying] Him, and Allah is most kind to [His] servants.
قُلْ إِن كُنتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ ٱللَّهَ فَٱتَّبِعُونِى يُحْبِبْكُمُ ٱللَّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ غَفُورٌۭ رَّحِيمٌۭ
Say, ‘If you love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins, and Allah is all-forgiving, all-merciful.’
قُلْ أَطِيعُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَٱلرَّسُولَ ۖ فَإِن تَوَلَّوْا۟ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
Say, ‘Obey Allah and the Apostle.’ But if they turn away, indeed Allah does not like the faithless.
۞ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ٱصْطَفَىٰٓ ءَادَمَ وَنُوحًۭا وَءَالَ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ وَءَالَ عِمْرَٰنَ عَلَى ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Indeed Allah chose Adam and Noah, and the progeny of Abraham and the progeny of Imran above all the nations;
ذُرِّيَّةًۢ بَعْضُهَا مِنۢ بَعْضٍۢ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
some of them are descendants of the others, and Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Sources: Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]; Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan]; Baḥrānī, al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]; al-Qummī [qummi]; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan]; An Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary]. All six present.
The passage condemns those who disbelieve in God's signs and slay the prophets and the enjoiners of justice (vv.21–22), exposes the People of the Book who turn from their own scripture and presume "the Fire will not touch us but counted days" (vv.23–25), enthrones God as sole Owner of all dominion, honour and provision (vv.26–27), permits taqiyya while forbidding alliance with the disbelievers (v.28), warns that God knows the concealed (vv.29–30), makes love of God the following of His Messenger (vv.31–32), and declares God's election of Adam, Noah, and the families of Abraham and ʿImrān (vv.33–34).
1. The slaying of the prophets (v.21). Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī and al-Burhān all transmit the Abū ʿUbayda ḥadīth — the Children of Israel killed forty-three prophets and a hundred-and-twelve enjoiners of justice in a single day. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] [bahrani_al_burhan] All read "unjustly" (bi-ghayr ḥaqq) as marking that prophet-slaying is never anything but unjust. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] [enlightening_commentary]
2. Taqiyya is permitted (v.28) — the central convergence. All four Imāmī sources and al-Mīzān affirm it. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī both carry the Musaylima narrative (the two companions: the slain one "went forward upon his truth," the dissembler "accepted God's dispensation, no blame on him"), concluding taqiyya is a dispensation and candour a virtue. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] al-Burhān adds "there is no faith for one who has no taqiyya" (al-Ṣādiq) and ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm's gloss that the verse is a rukhṣa. [bahrani_al_burhan] al-Mīzān independently argues taqiyya "is only a show of love, not its reality," grounding it in Qurʾān (16:106, the ʿAmmār verse), Sunnah and reason. [tabatabai_al_mizan]
3. God's absolute sovereignty (vv.26–27). All sources read the supplication as God's exclusive ownership of dominion, honour, abasement and provision; and the philological pair plus al-Burhān/al-Ṣādiq agree "you bring the living from the dead" bears both the literal (sperm/egg) and the spiritual (believer-from-unbeliever) senses. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] [bahrani_al_burhan] [enlightening_commentary]
4. Love of God = following the Messenger (v.31). Universal: the verse makes obedience the proof of love. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] [tabatabai_al_mizan] [enlightening_commentary] al-Burhān's dense cluster supplies the refrain "Is religion anything but love?" [bahrani_al_burhan]
5. The election of the chosen (v.33). All agree God chose Adam, Noah and the lineages of Abraham and ʿImrān; Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī both stress that the chosen are necessarily infallible (maʿṣūm), the election extending to "whoever was infallible, whether prophet or imam." [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
1. The Imāmī overlay on "dominion" (v.26). al-Burhān and al-Qummī uniquely read the verse politically: al-Ṣādiq — "God gave US the dominion and the Umayyads seized it, like a stolen garment." [bahrani_al_burhan] The philologists instead canvass "dominion = prophethood" (Mujāhid), or worldly power given to Muhammad's community (al-Kalbī), or al-Balkhī/al-Jubbāʾī's theological argument that God gives no kingship to a transgressor — which Ṭūsī turns into a proof that the imam must be infallible (else infinite regress). [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan] The Enlightening Commentary reads it ethically (true honour is God's gift, sought from none else). [enlightening_commentary]
2. The Imāmī reading of the love-verse (v.31). al-Burhān reads "follow me" as entailing following the ahl al-bayt — "no servant obeys God but that following us enters his obedience" — capping it with ʿAlī's pairing of obedience to the Prophet with obedience to God. [bahrani_al_burhan] The philologists and al-Mīzān keep it at "follow the Prophet's religion / obedience proves love." [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
3. The "Āl Muḥammad" variant (v.33). al-Burhān and al-Qummī transmit al-Ṣādiq reciting "…and the family of Muhammad over the worlds," holding that "the family of Muhammad" was dropped from the text. [bahrani_al_burhan] [qummi] The philological tafsīrs note only an "ahl al-bayt reading" alongside their identifications of the families of Abraham and ʿImrān (Moses/Aaron, or Mary/Jesus). [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
4. Taqiyya: obligatory or dispensation? Ṭūsī foregrounds the juristic question — al-Mufīd's graded ruling (sometimes obligatory, sometimes optional, sometimes better forgone) versus the apparent reports making it obligatory when life is feared. [tusi_al_tibyan] al-Mīzān, by contrast, frames alliance with disbelievers as a "dry-rot" worse than open unbelief, and reads taqiyya narrowly as an outward show under genuine fear. [tabatabai_al_mizan]
5. Forbidding wrong though death follow (v.21). al-Rummānī and ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā use the verse and the "best jihād is a word of truth before a tyrant" ḥadīth to license it; Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī qualify — only where no greater corruption is likely, probable opinion sufficing. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] [tusi_al_tibyan]
The narrative-doctrinal spine is shared by all six: the People of the Book's rejection of their own scripture and their delusive "counted days"; God's sole ownership of dominion, honour and life-and-death; the test that love of God is obedience to His Messenger; and the election of a purified prophetic lineage. The cleavage is the now-familiar one. The narration-collections (al-Qummī, al-Burhān) lay a thoroughgoing Imāmī taʾwīl over the passage — the "dominion" is the Imams' usurped right, "follow me" is loyalty to the ahl al-bayt, and the chosen lineage culminates in "the family of Muhammad" (held dropped from the text) — anchored in ʿAlī's words to Muʿāwiya and Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn's grave-sermon (which names "the imam whose wilāya you held" among the grave's questions). The philological tafsīrs (Ṭūsī, Ṭabarsī) treat the same verses through qirāʾāt, the ḥadīth of the slain prophets, the rajm/Ibn Ṣūriyā occasion, the jurisprudence of taqiyya and of forbidding wrong, and a theological argument from God's withholding kingship from transgressors to the necessity of an infallible imam. al-Mīzān supplies the systematic case for taqiyya (Qurʾān + Sunnah + reason) and the warning against befriending the enemies of religion, while the Enlightening Commentary gives the didactic frame (true honour is God's alone; mere claim is not faith). The single most consequential point of convergence is taqiyya, affirmed by every source; the sharpest divergences are textual-confessional (the "Āl Muḥammad" variant) and juristic (whether taqiyya is obligatory or a dispensation). A specialist should note that al-Burhān's large love-verse cluster and the grave-sermon were rendered representatively, and the dense qirāʾāt/grammar of Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī (the Allāhumma analysis, the morphology of dhurriyya) for sense.