Synthesis: Sūrat Muhammad 29–38

Triangulating Majmaʿ al-Bayān, al-Tibyān, al-Burhān, Tafsīr al-Qummī, al-Mīzān, and the Enlightening Commentary.

Human-review flags: al-Burhān reads vv. 29–38 heavily through the walāya of ʿAlī (laḥn al-qawl = hatred of ʿAlī; the "other people" = the mawālī), and Sharaf al-Dīn's long report (9881) inserts "concerning ʿAlī" into several verses and reads the rivers of v. 15 esoterically as men — rendered strictly as-attributed, not endorsed.

What the passage says. God will expose the "spite" (aḍghān) of the sick-hearted (v. 29); though the Prophet could know them by a mark, he will surely know them "by their tone of speech" (laḥn al-qawl, v. 30). God will test the community "until We ascertain those of you who wage jihad and those who are steadfast" (v. 31). Those who bar from God's way and defy the Apostle harm only themselves (v. 32); the believers must obey God and the Apostle and not void their works (v. 33); the disbelievers who die in unbelief are unforgiven (v. 34). The peroration (vv. 35–38) forbids weakness and calling for peace "when you have the upper hand," declares the world "play and diversion," and summons to spending in God's way — warning that the niggardly harm only themselves, for "Allah is the All-sufficient, and you are all-needy," and "if you turn away He will replace you with another people, and they will not be like you."

How the present sources read it. On laḥn al-qawl (v. 30) the sources split by genre. Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān read it as the undertone of speech that betrays the heart — al-Mīzān quoting al-Rāghib on speech "turned to allusion" — while Ṭabarsī also transmits, and Baḥrānī multiplies, the reports (Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, Jābir, ʿUbāda, and via al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq) that "the tenor of speech" is the hatred of ʿAlī, by which the Companions recognised the hypocrites; Baḥrānī roots the occasion in Ghadīr Khumm ("what ails him, raising his cousin's arm?"). On v. 31's "until We ascertain," Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān agree the divine "knowing" cannot be a coming-to-know but the bringing-forth of the servants' states by trial — Baḥrānī citing al-Hādī's epistle that every such verse means examination (ikhtibār). On v. 32 Qummī and Baḥrānī gloss "barred from God's way" as barring from ʿAlī and "defied the Messenger" as cutting him off "in the matter of his Household," while al-Mīzān keeps the plain reference to the Meccan chiefs, reading "He will make their works vain" as the frustration of their effort to quench God's light.

The closing exhortation is read in common. Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān and Qummī all gloss "He will not stint (yatirakum) your works" as "will not diminish your reward," al-Mīzān pairing "do not weaken and call for peace" with its twin Āl ʿImrān 139 and noting (with Qummī) that it abrogates the peace-clause of Anfāl 61. On the niggardliness of vv. 36–38, Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī explain that God asks not all one's wealth — indeed asks "His own wealth" — and that pressing insistence would "bring out the rancours"; Ṭabarsī preserves the Prophet's joy at v. 38 ("it is dearer to me than the world"). On "He will replace you with another people," the sources famously converge: Ṭūsī names Salmān and "the sons of Persia," al-Mīzān transmits the ḥadīth of the Prophet striking Salmān's shoulder — "were faith hung at the Pleiades, men from Persia would attain it" — and Qummī, Baḥrānī and al-Mīzān all report from the Imams that the replacements are "the mawālī." The Enlightening Commentary frames the whole as a summons against complacency toward the enemy and toward wealth, closing the sūra on the self-sufficiency of God and the neediness of His servants.