Sūrat al-Kahf · Āyāt 27–44

What the passage says

God turns the Prophet back to his real work: recite the Book revealed to you, for no one can alter God's words, and there is no refuge to be found apart from Him (v.27). Then a command about company — keep yourself with the poor believers who call on their Lord morning and evening, wanting nothing but His Face; do not let your gaze slide past them toward the glitter of worldly people, and do not obey the man whose heart has been left heedless of God's remembrance, who chases his own cravings and whose whole affair runs to excess (v.28). The choice is then thrown open: say, "This is the truth from your Lord — let whoever wishes believe, and whoever wishes disbelieve" — followed at once by the warning that for the wrongdoers a Fire waits, its curtains closing around them, its only drink a molten-metal water that scalds the face (v.29).

Against that, the believers who act well lose nothing of their reward (v.30): theirs are the Gardens of Eden with rivers beneath them, gold bracelets, green silk and brocade, resting on couches — a fine reward and a good resting-place (v.31).

Then the parable. Picture two men; to one of them We gave two vineyards hedged with date-palms, with crops planted between (v.32). Both gardens yielded their fruit in full, shorting nothing, and a stream ran gushing through them (v.33). With such abundance the owner boasted to his companion, "I have more wealth than you, and a mightier following" (v.34). He walked into his garden wronging his own soul and said, "I do not think this will ever perish" (v.35), "nor do I think the Hour will ever come — and even if I am sent back to my Lord, I will surely find something better than this" (v.36).

His companion answered: "Do you disbelieve in the One who created you from dust, then from a drop, then shaped you into a man?" (v.37) "But for my part — He is God, my Lord, and I associate no one with my Lord" (v.38). "Why, when you entered your garden, did you not say, 'As God wills; there is no power except by God'? If you see me as the lesser in wealth and children" (v.39) — "yet my Lord may well give me better than your garden, and loose upon yours a reckoning from the sky so it turns to bare, slippery ground" (v.40), "or its water sinks away so you can never reach it again" (v.41).

And so it came. Ruin closed in on his fruit, and he was left wringing his hands over all he had spent, the garden fallen in on its own trellises, saying, "If only I had never associated anyone with my Lord" (v.42). He had no party to defend him against God, and he could not even help himself (v.43). There — at that moment — all true authority belongs to God alone; He is the best to reward and the best in the end one comes to (v.44).

Convergence — where the six agree

• On v.28, the four classical commentators agree on the occasion: it came down when proud, well-off Arabs — the "reconciled hearts," named as ʿUyayna b. al-Ḥiṣn (and al-Aqraʿ b. Ḥābis) — asked the Prophet to send away poor Companions such as Salmān, Abū Dharr and ʿAmmār so the notables could sit with him. Ṭabarsī gives the fullest version, including the Prophet's reply, "with you is life and with you is death"; the Enlightening Commentary, al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī report the same scene.
• That "calling on their Lord morning and evening" means the ritual prayer is reported by al-Baḥrānī and the Enlightening Commentary from Imams al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq, and noted as a view by Ṭabarsī.
• All six treat v.29's "let whoever wishes believe or disbelieve" not as real permission but as a threat clothed as a choice — Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī and Ṭabaṭāʾī say so explicitly, and the Fire that follows proves it.
• On the parable, the commentators agree the rich man's sin is not mere arrogance but a denial rooted in forgetting God: his doubt about the Hour and his "if I am returned I will find better" are read by Ṭūsī, Ṭabarsī and Ṭabaṭāʾī as themselves a form of unbelief.
• All take v.44's lesson as the collapse of the man's self-reliance: when ruin comes and no helper appears, real power and protection are shown to belong to God alone. The Enlightening Commentary frames the whole section around its plain ethics — honoring the sincere poor over the worldly mighty, and the danger of arrogant attachment to wealth.

Divergence — where they differ

• On who the "two men" are, Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī preserve two readings: Ibn ʿAbbās's two Israelite heirs (one spends his share in God's cause, the other buys these estates), or ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm's rich man and poor neighbor — which both note is "more fitting to the plain sense." Al-Qummī gives only the rich-man-and-poor-neighbor version.
• The deepest split is between literal and esoteric reading. Ṭabaṭāʾī (al-Mīzān) drives furthest into the meaning, arguing the man's shirk is precisely his claim of independence — leaning on visible causes and forgetting that God is the true Owner — likening him to Qārūn, and reading v.44's walāya as God's permanent ownership of all disposal, not a momentary "rescue." By contrast, al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) carries the passage into Imāmī taʾwīl that al-Mīzān does not assert: he transmits reports that "the truth from your Lord" (v.29) means the guardianship (wilāya) of ʿAlī, that the "two men" are "ʿAlī and another," and that v.44 likewise points to ʿAlī's guardianship — including narrations of a hand emerging from the Prophet's grave inscribed with v.37. Al-Qummī shares the v.29 reading about ʿAlī's wilāya; the Enlightening Commentary notes the v.29 tradition as transmitted, without making it the verse's only sense.
• A few points are unique to one source. Ṭabaṭāʾī alone insists v.28's "made his heart heedless" is a recompense for obstinacy, not compulsion, so the verse lends no support to determinism (jabr). Al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī close the parable with the terse verdict, "this is the punishment of insolence (baghy)." And al-Baḥrānī and Ṭabarsī both record al-Ṣādiq's saying — "I marvel at one who desires the world; why does he not flee to 'as God wills, no power but by God'?" — tying it to v.40.

Each scholar's full text is in the source panels below.