Sūrah 31 · Āyāt 31–34

Luqmān 31–34 — Ships, sincerity in the storm, and the five keys of the unseen

The sūra ends where argument becomes appeal. God points to the ships that "run in the sea by His blessing" as a sign for "every one much-patient, much-thankful" (v31); to the storm in which idolaters, waves towering "like canopies" over them, call on God "making religion sincerely His," only for few to keep faith once safe on land (v32); to a universal summons to God-wariness before a Day when "no father avails his child" (v33); and finally to the five things reserved to God's knowledge — the Hour, the rain, the wombs, tomorrow's earning, and the land of one's death (v34).

The ships and the sign (v31). Al-Mīzān parses "by God's blessing" as causal (the winds, the water's buoyancy) and reads ṣabbār shakūr as a figure for the believer — much-patient in adversity, much-thankful in ease. Al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī add the evidential force: God drives the ships by winds toward the destinations men intend, and all creation together could not drive a ship against the wind — the greatest proof of the Power "whom nothing incapacitates." Both, with al-Mīzān, cite the ḥadīth "faith is two halves: half patience, half thankfulness," so the sign is "for every believer." Al-Qummī and al-Burhān give the terse gloss "the ships run by God's power" and the same reading of ṣabbār shakūr.

Sincerity in the storm (v32). The Enlightening Commentary makes this its centerpiece, expounding ikhlāṣ (sincerity) at length and telling — as do al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī — the story of ʿIkrima b. Abī Jahl: proscribed at the conquest of Mecca, he fled by sea, was caught in a storm, and when the crew cried "be sincere, your gods avail nothing here," reasoned "if only sincerity saves at sea, only it will save on land," vowed to submit, and came to accept Islam. (The cross-check confirms ʿIkrima's conversion and later martyrdom, the sources themselves noting uncertainty between Ajnadayn and Yarmūk.) Al-Mīzān reads muqtaṣid as the one who keeps the straight middle path of the tawḥīd his innate nature disclosed under threat, and khattār as the intensely treacherous; the Enlightening Commentary pairs khattār/kafūr as the exact opposites of the previous verse's ṣabbār/shakūr.

The warning and the five keys (vv33–34). On v33 al-Mīzān, al-Ṭabarsī, and al-Ṭūsī gather the survey of proofs into one call to taqwā before the Day when no intimate — not even father and child — avails another, and read al-gharūr variously as Satan specifically or, more comprehensively (Abū ʿUbayda), "everything that deceives you until you disobey God." For v34, all present sources treat the five as knowledge God has reserved: al-Qummī and al-Burhān cite al-Ṣādiq — "these five no nearest angel or sent prophet was apprised of; they are of God's attributes" — while al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī connect them to the Prophetic ḥadīth of the "keys of the unseen." Al-Mīzān qualifies the "reserved knowledge" with the many reports of the Imams foretelling the time and place of their deaths — such foreknowledge being by divine taʿlīm — and records the occasion (al-Warrāth's five questions) with the caveat that the verse does not neatly match the questions, closing with ʿAlī's word that nothing was hidden from the Prophet "but the five secrets of the unseen — this verse to the end of the sūra." Al-Burhān preserves ʿAlī's rebuke of the astrologer as the same verse's living application: "whoever believes you belies the Qurʾān."